In this episode, we continue our look at Oscar-nominated films. In this episode, I explore four films so bizarre that they left me asking, “What the hell was that?” Apologies for some poor-quality audio and other technical glitches in this podcast.

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to Episode 111 of Contemplating Life – Oscar Edition.

In this episode, we continue our look at Oscar-nominated films. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get this out before the awards were presented on March 15.

In 1979, Steve Martin and Bill Murray performed a sketch on Saturday Night Live that has since become a classic. They stared off into the distance beyond the camera, pointed, and repeatedly asked, “What the hell is that?” Here’s a clip.

[Clip from Season 15, episode 1, October 13, 1997]

I don’t want to include the entire sketch to avoid a copyright violation, but I have provided a YouTube link. I highly recommend you watch it.

The reason I mention it is that it very nearly expresses what I felt after watching the four nominated films we will cover in this episode.

Let’s start with the worst. “The Secret Agent” has been nominated for Best Picture, Best Foreign Film, Best Casting, and Best Lead Actor, with Wagner Moura portraying the film’s protagonist, Armando.

It is set in Brazil in 1977 during a period of military dictatorship that lasted from 1964 until 1985. The film is entirely in Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles.

It was nearly an hour into the film before I had any inkling of what it was really about. Initially, it’s just a guy driving through Brazil, eventually taking a room from the landlady, who is part of an underground resistance movement that provides shelter. They describe it as a private witness protection program for people who have somehow come under fire from the brutal government.

Armando is a widower whose young son is being raised by his late wife’s parents. He reunites with his son and, with the help of the underground, is attempting to take the boy and leave the country to escape persecution. In a series of flashbacks, we learn that he was a professor who held a patent on an advanced lithium battery. When he refuses to negotiate a license with a powerful oligarch, he becomes a target of the government.

I was never sure if the bad guys killed his wife or if she died of some illness. He told his son she died of an illness, but I got the feeling that was just the story.

Suddenly, in the middle of the film, we see an iPhone. This scene was a flash-forward showing a college girl researching Armando’s story as she transcribes audio cassette testimony he gave to members of the underground.

The film is peppered with extraneous subplots that I presume were included to give you a feel for what life was like in Brazil in the 70s. To demonstrate how ridiculous these subplots are, there is a story about a group of marine biologists at the University who are doing an autopsy on a large shark. They find a severed human leg inside. The story blows up in the newspapers and spawns a ridiculous urban legend about a big, hairy leg that goes around kicking people.

In other words, “What the hell is that?”

This slow-moving bazaar story eventually builds to a climax as hired killers close in on Armando. The result is a highly unsatisfying ending, with an epilogue that returns to the college researcher and at least wraps up her storyline satisfactorily.

By the way, Google searches provided a variety of explanations of why the film is titled “The Secret Agent” when our protagonist is not involved in espionage. None of these explanations was satisfactory for me. It’s something symbolic, but I didn’t get it.

In addition to the Oscar nominations, it won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and Best Actor in a Drama. IMDb lists 159 nominations and 85 wins.

IMDb shows an estimated budget of 27 million Brazilian Real, or about $5 million US. Its worldwide gross is listed as $16.4 million.

Its runtime of two hours, 41 minutes only adds to the reasons this one is not worth your time. However, if you are curious and want to try to figure out what the critics saw in it that I did not, it is available for streaming on Hulu.

Next, we explore another film about an underground movement of revolutionaries. Paul Thomas Anderson directs and writes the dark comedy action film “One Battle After Another.” It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Pat Calhoun, who goes by the nickname “Rocketman.” He is the bomb maker for an American far-left revolutionary group called French 75. The film is sort of an alternate history or takes place in the near future. It’s not quite the world we live in, but it’s close.

Teyana Taylor plays his lover, a black woman named Perfidia Beverly Hills. Together, they raid immigrant detention camps, freeing prisoners. While liberating one such camp, she sexually humiliates the camp’s commanding officer, Colonel Stephen J. Lockjaw, brilliantly played by Sean Penn. Later, he catches her attempting to plant bombs in a building. He agrees to let her go if she will agree to have sex with him.

She becomes pregnant with his daughter, yet Pat believes it is his. Pat tries to get Perfidia to give up her revolutionary ways and settle down to raise her daughter. She refuses and continues her terrorist activities until she is caught for the murder of a security guard. Lockjaw arranges for her to enter witness protection if she gives up information about other members of the revolutionary group. She does rat out some of her people, but then flees witness protection and is never seen again.

Pat and his infant daughter flee to a sanctuary city in California, where he takes on a new identity as Bob Ferguson. We skip 16 years and find Bob living in a small, rural house off the grid. His daughter Willa is a high school student.

And now we come to the “What the hell is that?” moment.

Lockjaw is invited to join a white supremacist group called the “Christmas Adventurers.” This group of rich white businessmen and politicians worship Santa Claus and greet each other with a salute and “Heil Santa.”

Lockjaw is concerned that if they ever discover that he has a mixed-race child, he won’t be eligible for this secret organization. So, using all his resources as a federal agent, he tries to track down Pat, a.k.a. Bob, and his daughter. When he discovers their location, he comes up with an excuse to lead a massive operation on this small sanctuary town that is harboring large numbers of undocumented immigrants.

Surviving members of the underground movement get wind of the raid and rescue Willa, who is at a high school dance with her friends, just as the troops move in. They attack Bob’s cabin, but he escapes through a tunnel and rushes into town to try to meet his daughter. He is assisted by Willa’s karate sensei, who is a community leader, played by Benicio del Toro.

Bob is told that the underground has taken his daughter to safety, and he can meet her at the rendezvous point. When he calls the network to try to find out where that rendezvous point is, the person on the other end of the line insists that Bob answer a codeword. Bob has done too many drugs over the years and can’t remember the organization’s protocols.

What follows is a comedic chase involving Bob, Willa, Lockjaw, and an assassin that the white supremacy group hired to kill Lockjaw when they discovered he had a biracial child.

I would have titled the film, “One Ridiculous Thing After Another.”

Again, we have a two-hour-41-minute runtime that seems a bit excessive, but the climax moves along quickly to a poignant and satisfying ending.

I hate to admit it, but I sort of enjoyed it, and I don’t believe it is worthy of all the hype it’s been getting. The performances are top-notch, and I think Penn’s portrayal of Colonel Lockjaw was memorable. He won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role. I certainly would not have nominated it as a Best Picture. Unfortunately, the Academy didn’t agree with me.

It is nominated for 13 Oscars and won six. It won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Paul Thomas Anderson, inspired by the novel “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon. It also won for Best Supporting Actor for Sean Penn, Best Casting, and Best Editing. By the way, Penn did not show up to claim his award. I don’t know whether he was committed elsewhere or just didn’t want to come.

Other Oscar nominations were DiCaprio for Lead Actor, Benicio del Toro for Supporting Actor, Teyana Taylor for Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Sound, Original Score, and Production Design.

It was nominated for 13 BAFTA awards and won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Supporting Actor (Sean Penn).

It received 13 Critics’ Choice nominations and won Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay.

From its 9 Golden Group nominations, it won Best Picture Comedy, Director, Screenplay, and Supporting Actress for Taylor.

Nominated for 7 SAG Actor Awards, Penn won Supporting Actor.

Overall, IMDb lists 493 nominations and 280 wins.

Its estimated budget was $130 million. It grossed $72 million in the US and Canada with a worldwide total of $209 million.

You can expect it to win multiple Oscars.

It is available on HBO Max and can be purchased or rented digitally on Prime Video and other platforms.

While we are discussing films about fighting fascism and evil, I want to call your attention to “Nürnberg”. I fully expected it to be an awards favorite, but it earned only 17 nominations and 4 wins from minor awards organizations. Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA all ignored it. I was shocked.

It stars Rami Malek as Dr. Douglas Kelley, a psychiatrist who is tasked with evaluating Nazi war criminals during the Nürnberg war crime trials. Russell Crowe plays Hitler’s second-in-command, Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring. Michael Shannon plays US Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson, who presides over the war crime trials.

In my opinion, all three gave memorable performances worthy of award nominations, yet the film was overlooked. There were numerous other supporting roles that I thought were excellent as well.

With an estimated budget of $12 million, it earned $14.5 million in the US and Canada and $43 million globally.

It will be available for streaming on Netflix on March 7.

I highly recommend this film.

Let’s move on to our next pair of bizarre films, which will leave you asking, “What the hell is that?”

Our next film is yet another with a title that seems to have no relationship to the subject matter whatsoever. We’re talking about “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” Rose Byrne stars as a psychiatrist named Linda who is in worse mental shape than her patients. She is under treatment from another psychiatrist, played by Conan O’Brien in his first dramatic role. While not a mental case himself, he certainly is incompetent as a therapist.

Linda has a young daughter who has some sort of eating disorder and requires overnight feedings through a G-tube to supplement what little she eats by mouth during the day. Linda is in a constant battle with the girl’s doctors and insists that the G-tube be removed, but the doctors say she is not ready.

Early in the film, their apartment floods due to a water leak from the upstairs apartment. It leaves a giant hole in the ceiling of Linda’s bedroom. They are forced to live in a nearby motel until the repairs are completed. However, the repairs are taking weeks.

Somehow, the hole in the apartment is symbolic of the hole in Linda’s life. She suffers from hallucinations about the hole. These hallucinations will leave you asking, “What the hell is that?” Throughout most of the film, I began to wonder whether the apartment was really damaged or if she had just imagined it. There was also a strong possibility that supernatural forces were involved. Ultimately, I was forced to conclude that it was just depicting Linda’s mental illness. The hole was real. She may have been exaggerating its significance.

Throughout the film, the camera never shows the daughter’s face. It’s as if Linda never works her daughter in the eyes until the end of the movie.

The ending is as ambiguous as the rest of the film, so don’t expect any resolution.

Rose Byrne gives a powerful performance that is definitely worth the nomination. Unfortunately, to see that performance, you have to watch a very bizarre and confusing film, which earned no other nominations.

In addition to the Best Lead Actress Oscar nomination, she also earned nominations for the BAFTA and Golden Globes. The Golden Globes split their awards between dramas and comedies/musicals for both films and performances, and they listed this one as a comedy. Certainly, it is surreal and bizarre, but it is in no way humorous or satirical. If anything, it is a dramatic exploration of mental illness as well as the stress of having a special needs child.

IMDb lists 78 nominations and 35 wins. With an estimated budget of only $1.5 million, it only made $1.6 million worldwide. It is currently available for streaming on HBO Max.

The performance was great, but I can’t recommend the film.

Our final bizarre journey reunites director Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone. I greatly enjoy their most recent collaboration on another bizarre film, “Poor Things,” which received multiple Oscar nominations two years ago.

In their new collaboration “Bugonia, “ Stone plays Michelle Fuller, the CEO of the pharmaceutical conglomerate Auxolith, who is abducted by conspiracy theorist Teddy Gatz and his autistic cousin Don. Teddy’s mother, Sandy, previously participated in a clinical trial for an Auxolith drug that rendered her comatose. Teddy has come to believe Michelle is a member of a malignant alien species known as the “Andromedans” who are killing Earth’s honeybees, destroying communities, and forcing humans into subservience.

Believe it or not, we are not at the “What the hell is that?” aspect of the film yet. That doesn’t come until the ending.

Teddy is brilliantly played by Jesse Plemons. Aidan Delbis, in his first feature film, is also memorable as the autistic cousin. The director chose to cast a neurodivergent actor with no prior acting experience, and it paid off.

The duo holds the CEO hostage in their basement. They shave her head and slather her with antihistamine cream to prevent her from communicating with her fellow aliens. You know, like you do. They plan to hold her hostage until an upcoming lunar eclipse, in which the mothership will arrive. They then expect her to take them to their Emperor to negotiate the aliens’ withdrawal from Earth.

They torture her with an electrical device, and when she is able to tolerate high levels of current, Teddy concludes she must be part of the alien royalty.

We are treated to an amazing battle of wits between Teddy and his hostage, who tries to negotiate her own release. The film appears to be a deep exploration of corporate greed and the mental illness of an out-of-control conspiracy theorist who manipulates his autistic cousin to support his bizarre activities. The story takes unexpected twists and turns along the way, making for quite compelling drama.

Emma Stone has earned a Best Leading Actress Oscar nomination. As I said, Jesse Plemons should have been nominated as well. He did receive a BAFTA nomination as Lead Actor. Both gave amazing performances.

The film is nominated for Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, and Score. Overall, IMDb lists 133 nominations and ten wins. On the estimated budget of about $50 million, it earned only Pentagon$47 million globally.

It is currently available for streaming on Peacock TV.

I would highly recommend this film for its brilliant performances and thought-provoking themes; however, there is a problem.

Fans of this podcast might recall that last year I reviewed the 2022 Mel Gibson film “On the Line.” I thought it was a great film up until the ending, and reported that the ending would make you extremely angry at the writer and/or director. The ending ruined what was otherwise a pretty good psychological thriller.

Well, the anger and disappointment I felt about the ending of that film is nothing compared to my anger, hatred, and disappointment about this film.

I’m going to wrap up this episode, but if you are curious, after my usual closing, I will spoil the ending and explain why it ruined an otherwise brilliant film.

In our final installment of this series, I will cover the remaining four Best Picture nominations. One of which was a nice film, but it didn’t really appeal to me. The other three were amazing, including my choice for Best Future and Lead Actress Oscars.

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All of my back episodes are available, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast. Let me know what you thought of these films.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Okay, spoiler time for Bugona. Do not proceed unless you want to know how the film ends.

It was all true.

The woman really was an alien. Cutting her hair and covering her with cream really did prevent her from communicating with the mother ship. The mother ship arrived during the lunar eclipse. When she tried to beam Teddy up to the mother ship, the bomb vest he was wearing exploded.

In the final scene, the alien leadership is discussing what to do about Earth. They conclude it isn’t worth saving, and they destroy all human beings on the planet, leaving only the peaceful flora and fauna alive.

Not only did I feel betrayed as an audience member, but it also completely undermined the significance of the film as a whole. I suppose the aliens’ arrogance is not dissimilar to the corporate greed the film appears to be about. However, as an exploration of mental illness or the ridiculousness of conspiracy theorists, it completely falls apart because Teddy wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t a made-up conspiracy. He was right. He was pretty much sane. It was not really about the mental breakdown of a man whose mother was put into a coma after participating in a trial of an experimental drug.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a good plot twist or a surprise ending. However, this was just totally ridiculous. It’s like the filmmaker is saying to the audience, “fuck you.”

My recommendation is that you watch the film for the amazing performances and for what you think it explores, and then just ignore the ending as a bad joke that didn’t land.

Meanwhile, fly safe, everyone.