Pop Culture Confidential

Episode 13: Spotlight on Boston with Black Mass & The Oscar Race Continues

Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp and directed by Scott Cooper, tells the terrifying story of real-life Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger who kept Boston in his grip for decades. After 16 years on the run he was finally arrested in 2011 and found guilty of federal racketeering, extortion, conspiracy and involvement in 11 murders. Former Boston Globe reporter Dick Lehr was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting. He spent decades reporting on Whitey Bulger and his unholy alliance with the FBI. Together with Gerard O'Neill, Lehr wrote the critically acclaimed, NY Times bestselling book Black Mass, which the film is based on, as well as the book, Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss. We also follow up with Awards Daily Sasha Stone, arguably the best Oscar tracker in the industry, who we last spoke to after the Cannes Film Festival. We get all the buzz from the Telluride Film Festival – a hotbed for Best Picture winners. One film getting buzz is Spotlight about The Boston Globe’s investigative reporting unit, or "Spotlight" team, and their coverage of the Massachusetts Catholic sex abuse scandal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Duration:: 45m
Broadcast on:: 28 Sep 2015
Audio Format:: other

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With Lululemon, the real gift happens when they're living in it. When you give them the softest loungewear set, the real gift is this. And this. And this. This holiday, Lululemon makes it easy to give a gift that goes beyond. Open the moment, shop now at lululemon.com. Coming up, former Boston Globe reporter Dick Lair, the author of the book Black Mass, now a new movie starring Oscar front-runner Johnny Depp. And I check back with awards expert Sasha Stone as Oscar season is thundering in. This is Pop Culture Confidential. Hi, I'm Kristina Yerling-Biro, thank you for listening. Six to the last seven, Best Picture Oscar winners had their North American or World premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. And as promised, we check back with the formidable Oscar tracker, Sasha Stone of Awards Daily. She just got back from Telluride and is going to give us an update to see how the Oscar race is shaping up. First. The city of Boston plays a huge role in several important movies shown at Telluride and on the festival circuit that are coming out this fall. For example, Spotlight, about the Boston Globe's investigative reporting unit, the so-called spotlight team and their coverage of the Massachusetts Catholic sex abuse scandal. And then there's Johnny Depp's portrayal of the terrifying, real-life Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger in the new movie Black Mass. I'm honored to talk to Dick Lairr, who spent decades reporting on Whitey Bulger and his unholy alliance with the FBI. And together with Gerard O'Neill, Dick Lairr has co-authored several books about Bulger, among them the critically acclaimed New York Times best-selling book Black Mass, now adapted into a movie directed by Scott Cooper. Mr. Lairr is a professor of journalism at Boston University. From 1985 to 2003, he was a reporter at the Boston Globe, and a longtime member of the newspapers investigative reporting unit, the Spotlight Team. He consulted on the Black Mass screenplay and on the set of the movie that was filmed on location in Boston. I need to know everything you know about the Winter Hill gang, and specifically what you know about your former boss and now fugitive, James Whitey Bulger. Well, it's time. In the beginning, Jim was a small-town player. He's a very smart, disciplined man. Take your shot, but make it your best, because I get up, I eat you. In the next scene, you know he's a damn kingpin. You know why? Because the FBI let it happen. I grew up with Jimmy and his brother Billy, Mr. Senator, and that is a bond that doesn't get broken. Your brother is waiting in this very dark waters. Jimmy's business is Jimmy's business. We all need friends. Even Jimmy. Even you. Now we'll be talking about true life events and reporting and writing of his books. Of course, there's going to be some true life spoilers coming up. James Whitey Bulger was born to Irish American parents and grew up in a public housing project in South Boston. While his brother grew up to become one of Boston's most powerful politicians, William Bulger, former Massachusetts Senate president, Whitey would become undoubtedly one of the most terrifying criminals in American history, and he kept Boston in that terrifying grip for decades. After his arrest in 2011, he had been on the run for 16 years by then, he was found guilty of federal racketeering, extortion, conspiracy, and involvement in 11 murders. Mr. Lair's book Black Mass Centers on Bulger's FBI Informat Years, an agent John Connolly, a rising star in the Boston FBI office. He offered Bulger protection in return for helping the feds eliminate Boston's Italian mafia. Whitey's deal with Connolly's FBI spiraled out of control, a corrupt relationship leading to the FBI essentially allowing one of the most notorious criminals in US history to grow even stronger. I asked Dick Lair, through the years of covering the Bulger and FBI corrupt alliance, how has he come to feel about the relationship between law enforcement and informant? How close should they get? Gosh, journalists are trained to be skeptical, but this has the tendency to make you feel just cynical about government and law enforcement because the horror here goes beyond this so much bigger than, say, corruption or compromise or a failure of a single investigation that may have been involving one crime and one year or something. So shocking and mind-boggling is that this one offered two decades or more and it was a culture of corruption that was part of the FBI, the institution and the top law enforcement agency in the United States. It just becomes mind-boggling to think that it could get so bad and be in play for so long and cause so much damage to justice, to people, murders and all that kind of stuff. How could that happen? How does that happen? We tried to get at that and answer some of those questions in our report, in our journalism. And I think we have come up with some of them, but they're still deeply disturbing that something could have gotten started the way it did and then gone on for so long without any kind of corrective measures. So you've reported and written three books on James Whitey Bulger. How did this journey begin with him for you? Well, the journey began as a reporter for the Boston Globe in the late 1980s when we set out to write, essentially, it wasn't really an investigative piece. It was more of a human interest story about Whitey Bulger and his younger brother, Bill, who was a very powerful politician in Massachusetts, arguably the most powerful and they'd grown up in the neighborhood of South Boston and a housing project and shared a bedroom as boys. It just seemed to be a fascinating untold tale of two brothers, who, by the late 1980s, were at the top of their respective fields. I mean, Whitey was this gangster killer, the most powerful underworld figure, and his brother Bill was a very powerful politician. So that's where the journey began, and in the course of that, focusing on Whitey, who, like I say, was a legendary criminal figure, we began to peel the onion, so to speak, and discover and uncover this unholy alliance with the Boston FBI. I understand that you have some unique research and sources and materials. Can you talk a little bit about what you found while you were writing this? Well, the writing and the reporting now spans a couple of decades. It was a mixture of interviews, personal interviews with underworld figures, with law enforcement sources inside the FBI and in other police agencies, getting access to all kinds of government investigatory documents over time as criminals were debriefed or some of the figures were questioned and getting those transcripts, all that stuff you put into a big stew, and that becomes the stuff of narrative nonfiction. This fall, there's several big movies that are really capturing the critics about the spotlight team, the investigative unit at the Boston Globe that you were a part of. Tell me why this is such an incredible journalistic institution. Well, first of all, I mean, the odds of two movies coming out at the same time that involve journalism done by the Boston Globe's ballet team, who would have thunk, you know? Amazing. I have no explanation, and that's just a strange oddity, because both of these stories, I mean, the Globe stuff goes back to the '80s, and the church, this reporting goes back eight or nine years, ten years at this point, so it just seems that just a very odd coincidence that they would both come out as they are this fall. But it does, you know, what they both speak to, and the movie spotlight more so than black math, because movie spotlight is actually about the journalism. Yeah, I mean, the Globe made a commitment back in the '70s to investigative journalism, and to do so, they created a team that would specialize in that, and reporters have gone in and out of that team all through the years, and even as print journalism has suffered, the Globe has never wavered in its commitment to the importance of watchdog journalism, and that's what the spotlight team is all about. They still keep that going. Yeah, the spotlight is still there, and, you know, again, and it's a testament to the Globe's commitment to public service, which is what journalism, I think, is all about, because other sections and bureaus have closed and stuff, but the spotlight is seen as an essential component of serving the community. In the biography, you argue that Whitey is the most significant crime figure in the late century. Why would you say that? A couple of things came into focus. The first is his longevity. He's 85, 86 now. He's outlasted everybody and has lived a long life in a profession that doesn't have a long shelf life, frankly. So there's that aspect. You know, when you measure him against or think of him against some of the household name American crime figures, whether it's Al Capone or John Dillinger or more recently the mafia's John Gotti, you know, they all have killed and they all have made millions of dollars illegally, but the one thing that put Whitey at the front of the line is this thing he had with a corrupt FBI. He managed to dominate a ban, a group of agents in Boston, who in effect became part of the gang. First of all, no other crime boss, no other crime figure has accomplished that, and not just for a few months or a few years, we're talking about for a couple of decades where FBI's were in effect members of the gang. I think that's his sort of claim to infamy that puts him at the front of the line. Describe his personality. He's a mixture of charisma because I think he was trying to charm you and you were in the room with him. I think he could make you believe the world is upside down, is flat, he's that good, but in an instant he could turn and slice your throat. He's a truly scary figure. I mean he's a psychopath, I mean he's really been... Oh yeah, we worked in doing the biography trying to, one of the challenges or responsibilities I felt we had as biographers was to try to get at the Y of Whitey and I consulted with a forensic psychiatrist here at Boston who's pretty well known and has worked on some pretty major criminal cases and assessed and diagnosed murderers and whatnot. And I would get information, she was just helping me out and bouncing stuff off and she helped come up with an insight into the Whitey ball journey. No question in my mind that he's a psychopath and that's someone who's just a supreme narcissist and doesn't think twice about in his instance killing anybody when it serves him. Everything in the world, people, places, events have to serve him and that's the history of Whitey Balljour. And to understand his story you sort of have to know about the Boston that he came to rule over, tell me a little bit about the cultural aspects of that Boston. Sure, it's a city of neighborhoods and especially in the 60's and late 50's when he came home from prison in the 70's and 80's, it was much more so than it is today and he's from the largely Irish, Catholic, South Boston neighborhood which even geographically sticks out from Boston, a kind of peninsula that isolates at some and there's just a bridge that connects it to the heart of Boston and there's always been a kind of a Southy pride in us against them, culture in South Boston and that's where he grew up and he actually I would say manipulated that culture to his ends, again his narcissism, his psychopathic goals where he exploited the US against them and got everyone to be loyal to him and to what he was up to and be wary of outsiders. And you were talking before about the Bulger Brothers, the one that rose to big political power and James who became this powerful criminal, what do you know about their relationship? How much did his brother know? Well I think they're very close and very loyal to one another to this day, in fact that's one of the great debates and controversies is that Bill Bulger did not do more for the greater social good in bringing his brother to justice once it became clear that with the FBI watching Bulger had basically a license to kill. It's a brother's story but it's also one that it's tough to judge but at a certain point you have to think that Bill Bulger knew as much as the public did and maybe could have done more to bring his brother to justice. But their history is otherwise, I mean completely very close. We and other journalists have documented as best we could the interactions between the two during the heyday, meaning the 80s when they were both at the top of their game. There's no question that Bill knew something about Whitey and the FBI but it would make totally understandable if he didn't want to know too much but that there was a connection. There's no question in my mind that Bill knew about it. Do you think that Bill knew where he was the 16 years that he was a fugitive? Well again what's been documented in the first month that Whitey Bulger went on the run as a fugitive in 1995, a phone call was arranged between the fugitive and criminal Whitey and his brother Bill and Bill when asked about this years later, he did not turn his brother in, did not tell the authorities about the phone call because he didn't feel he had a responsibility to do so. Obviously other people have thought otherwise but to your question that he knew that Whitey was in Santa Monica for about 14 years of the 16 years he was on the run. There's no evidence that surfaced to say that he did and in fact the story as we know it, the evidence as we know it, is that Whitey fled in the January '95 and he pulled into Santa Monica at the end of '96 almost two years later. The indications are that he really did cut ties Whitey did with some of his loyal gang members and also his family, by speculating for a second you kind of have to think that one way or another over the years there might have been a message back and forth just doing okay, hope everyone's okay or whatever but there's no evidence of that and from the record it does seem as if Whitey did what any fugitive is supposed to do which is rule one is to cut all ties because the government was after while watching Bill Bulger and other family members to see if there was some sort of connection. And what about John Connolly, tell me a little bit about him. Well John Connolly, I mean he's the third leg of the stool here. John Connolly is the FBI agent who in the fall of 1975 approached Whitey under the auspices of the FBI's Eshelon, you know, informing program and said and asked Whitey to join the team so to speak in their mutual interest in getting the Italian mafia, that was the FBI's number one priority and on paper there was nothing wrong with Connolly because he'd grown up in South Boston, he knew the Bulgers, he knew Whitey he actually adored the Bulger family. From a law enforcement perspective, if he's a true and honest agent, he's just exploring his contacts, his connections and trying to get another criminal to help them against the mafia which is what the FBI was mainly after. So on paper maybe it made some sense but very quickly the whole thing went awry and went way off track and resulted in enormous harm and mayhem because Connolly became Whitey's informant as well as Whitey, Connolly's informant. And what effect did this have on Connolly to sort of be under his power? Well, you know, he's in jail today as a result of it but over the years, again, started mid seventies and through the eighties, you know, that was there on Holy Alliance as we've described it in Black Mass and it was a secret among a handful of agents who were corrupted and protecting Whitey that there was this horrific, you know, corruption going on. And publicly, John Connolly was a man about town who was getting promotions and awards because he had good informant information and was making a difference in the war on the mafia. Yeah, I mean, he was a high profile, a successful and ambitious agent, but underneath it was all this toxicity. How come no one is near Whitey, Belgium? He seems to be involved in every crime in the city and yet the bureau keeps saying it's clean. Well, what's Belgian done? What's he done? Everything. Have things changed post after this case? I sure hope so. But you're not really sure. It does go to the hazards of cops working with informants within criminals and the criminals are always going to try to turn the tables and get the edge as a result of the relationship. I think it's incredibly challenging. But with the benefit of 2020 hindsight, obviously, putting John Connolly in a position to, and he's 10 years younger than Whitey, of a psychopath like Whitey, I mean, Connolly was no match for Whitey. And that was, again, with the benefit of hindsight, it was doomed from day one. And it just shows you never should have happened that relationship and just the hazards of it all. It's a very, very difficult game. I know the FBI and the Justice Department have overhauled their so-called informant guidelines, and they do seem stronger in terms of checks and balances, but they seem pretty strong back then, too, because it's about people who execute the checks and balances. And when you start corrupting people up to chain of that ladder, of the steps of that ladder, then no amount of paperwork and guidelines do any good on the ground. mob bosses tend to hate rats. I'm thinking that Whitey Bulger, being sort of a rat himself, he denies this that he ever did it. And after his capture and at his trial two years ago, he seemed to accept his guilt on all the crimes, the murder, the drug trafficking, and all that stuff. But the one thing he seemed to be message he was trying to channel through his attorneys was this denial that he was ever in rat or informant. And it's almost laugh out loud. I mean, you want to cover that, and it's interesting that he makes that claim. But it does go against a mountain of evidence to the contrary. I mean, I think he truly believes he wasn't a rat, even though he was, because the record says shows he was, because that's so unacceptable to himself and his culture. He loathed in formers, and he himself, as a crime boss, was quick to kill anyone suspected of being a rat to his organization. So I think it's all kind of a spin in mental gymnastics that he had to go through in order to become comfortable with this, what was a business deal? I mean, he was given to the FBI and getting a lot more back. I mean, he thinks he's like playing the system or something. Yeah, yeah. So he's given them something and he's getting a bigger return, which is the FBI protection. So that's good business to him, but he was an informant. He can come up with his word play and his mental gymnastics, because, and this does, there is record to this as well, because calmly when introducing, why do you do some of the other agents? He would also, he would warn them. He said, don't ever call him an informant, call him a liaison or a consultant. That's what I mean about that. So he came up with his word play so that perhaps you could sleep at night, but you know, an informant is an informant. If you're, if you're telling the government about the activities of other underworld figures, including members of your own gang, you're an informant. So he was caught in 2011 after being a total of 16 years. And he's still alive? Yes. Does he know about the movie? Does he know about your books? Well, I know only no secondhand that he certainly knows about the books and the movie, and he likely hates it all. And what do you think of Johnny Depp's portrayal? It's chilling. Yeah. How did you feel when you saw him as him the first time? Well, I, when I saw him on the set and met him and he's, you know, between shots, between scenes, and he walked up to introduce and we're talking it, it was a sort of surreal, disorienting experience because here's Depp has, has the Whitey swagger down, has the mannerisms, has the look, and Depp is Johnny's acting. He's in some place between himself and Whitey from a strange place. So that was very unnerving, but his performance, I think he just knocked it out of the park. What's the thing? What's the family's secret recipe? It's grown garlic, a little bit of soy. That's it? Yeah, that's it. That's me. I felt it was a family secret. It's a recipe? No. You said to me this is a family secret and you gave it up to me, boom, just like that. You spoke the secret family recipe today, maybe you spoke a little some about me tomorrow. Hmm? I was just saying that. You were just saying, just saying gets people sent away, just saying got me a nine year stretch in Alcatraz, you understand? So just saying can get you buried real quick. Talking about sort of Boston, this was a long time. This was decades of being ruled by Whitey and all this. What are the scars for Boston? Well, I think it's in a big sense in terms of hopefully law enforcement, which was deeply divided over this scandal has moved on and gotten past it. I'm talking about law enforcement generally, like Boston Police State Police, the FBI, relations between the different police agencies were horrible during this period as a result of this scandal. Hopefully that's improved. The FBI, I wonder if there's any lessons learned because there's no question based on, again, in the history of this, that there was an institutional corruption and problem, and yet even now they try to spin it that it was really a couple of bad apples, a handful of rogue agents off the reservation, so to speak. That's troubling because that's the FBI, again, trying to minimize what was an outrageous and historic scandal, and they have to face up and confront the scope of it. I think to win the public's trust again, there's concern there. It is history now. Whitey's done, and he's been done for a long time, and his organization has been wiped out, but there are the families of the victims who I think that's where it stays an open wound and it stays raw. The victims of all the Whitey murders and the gang's murders. How do you think they're awaiting the movie? Well, I think it's difficult for them. They worry, as I did as a journalist, that somehow Hollywood would glamorize Whitey and make him seem some kind of Robin Hood figure, which was the old myth of Whitey, thankfully. That's not happened. Director Scott Cooper's rendering of Whitey Bulger is spot on. He's a scary, cold-blooded killer, and it's dark, and so that's good. Thank you so much, Dick, for taking your time to talk about this. It's really interesting, and congratulations on the book and then all the books and the movie. We're looking forward to that. Thank you, Kristina. We said we would check back with her, so here we go. I'm super happy to be joined again, as promised by arguably the best Oscar tracker in the industry, Sasha Stone. She's the founder editor of the Film Awards site Awards Daily and has written for Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. Last time, it was post-Con, now it's post Telluride, and things are heating up in the Oscar race. So many good movies. Thank you so much for joining me again, Sasha. Oh, thank you for having me, and thank you for that very, very nice introduction. Oh, you're welcome. So like you said last time, other festivals, for example, Venice is at the same time here as Telluride. They're good indicators of the Oscars, but Telluride has become a particularly powerful indicator. Six of the last seven best-picture winners had their North American or World premiere at Telluride. Why? What's the thing about Telluride? A film, it doesn't reach its height at Telluride, it is kind of not overlooked but underestimated and so that it has an easier chance of winning. If you come out of the race in September as the front runner, it's much, much harder to win best-picture unless you're a movie like Schindler's List, or that's just such a big movie that there's no way anyone's going to vote against it. But like with Argo, for instance, nobody thought Argo was good enough to win, and the same with Birdman. When it played Telluride, people thought that's not good and the Academy voters are going to be put off by it, and they couldn't have been more wrong in their assessment. But the other thing about Telluride, so in one way it doesn't kill expectations for a movie, the way a bigger festival like Toronto or the New York Film Festival can, because it has less people coming to it. And the reason for that is it's expensive to go. It costs like around $700, $800 just to buy a pass, and that includes press people. I have to buy my pass every year. And then there's lodging. My lodging was around $1700 for the weekend, and that's really, really pricey. So you can't just, and can, there's wiggle room with Airbnb and various other ways to stay there. And your credential is free. And the same with Toronto, the same with, I think the same with Venice, although Venice could be comparable in that it's expensive to stay. So it's an expensive, exclusive little festival. Telluride is a soft landing. It's a good way, and the key with Telluride, the key, is that the people who attend that festival are in the exact same demographic as Academy voters. They're kind of, you know, baby boomer liberals with a lot of money and kind of free time on their hands. Most Academy voters are retirees, you know, who are living a decent life and just want to be good people. And they're very similar to attendees at Telluride. So you kind of get a, it's a great way to test how your movie is going to play with that particular type of person. And so what is your crystal ball? Say, last time we talked, we talked a lot about Carol, which I noticed there, but what is it now? What are the big ones? Well, the one that really popped at Telluride was Spotlight, and that's directed by Tom McCarthy, stars Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams. And it's about the Boston Globe, finally uncovering the church scandal, the Catholic church, the archdiocese of Boston, covering up the child molestations. How do you say no to God? Spotlight. This is the tip one. You think you've got something? I want to keep doing it. We need to focus on the institution. Show me that it came from the top. Down. He'll try to silence anyone who speaks out. You leave me alone. You hear me? God damn it? Oh, 6% act. Oh, sexually. 6% is 90. 90 priests. If there were 90 of these bastards, people would know. Maybe they do. Basically, the church was buying off the victims. And there were a couple of lawyers, Stanley Tucci's, one of them, who were fighting against this, but they couldn't get press because the Boston Globe was helping, not maliciously, but just because that town, they stand behind the church. They just didn't want to confront it. And so this is about the Boston Globe finally atoning for their own culpability and keeping that a secret. And it's mostly about these journalists who do such a good job and are so dedicated to the story. And it really takes you back to a time when journalism was just a sort of a different profession than it is now. We love a good journalism movie. There's been a few good Oscar winners, of course, in that category. What do you think for writing and best-picture and acting? Well, the thing about Spotlight that people are going to say, and it's true, it's not a splashy movie. It doesn't have any sort of big, redemptive moments or really extreme emotional scenes. Like a lot of best-picture movies have to have. Winners. I mean, I think it's a nominee for sure. But it's just that one movie that nobody had anything negative to say about it. And that's usually your biggest threat, Kamaskar time, because that's what people are voting on. They're really voting on the movie that offends them the least when they pick their best-picture winner or a movie that they really love. So Spotlight is not going to really get the "I really loved it" vote as much as it's going to get the "Yeah, that was a good movie. It didn't do anything wrong." So we get to tell you right, and it's Carol, it's Spotlight, it's Beasts of No Nations. You liked that movie. I loved it. That's Carrie Fukunaga, who was the director of True Detective, season one. Yeah. I think he's a genius, and I think that it's a scandal that the movie was passed up by every studio, and that it finally had to be picked up by Netflix, and it almost just went to Netflix. And then they put out the money to give it a proper release and are kind of backing it publicity-wise. But it's going to be hard to break through to the Oscars because they're weird about the studios. They tend to, this is their bread and butter, and their history, and their friends. Also, they skew towards the studio movie. Absolutely. It's going to come with a lot of baggage that it's Netflix. But it's such a good movie that I think it can ever come. Well, what's the main story? It's about a boy soldier in Africa. The book very deliberately says, "They don't mention a township, or a place, or a rebel army name, or anything. It's just kind of a, you know, somewhere in war-torn Africa, this young boy is abandoned by his family when they have to leave this village because they can't survive. They're just too poor, and there's no room for him in the car. They leave him behind in this horrible heart-wrenching scene." And then he's kind of forced to become a child soldier, and he's taken in by charismatic leader, who's Idris Alba, he plays the Commandant, and he's sort of bossing around and ordering around these little kids. And this is sort of about how this boy is dehumanized, you know, along the way. Everything that he loves and holds a deer and makes him human is taken away from him. I saved your life, I saved your life, I saved your life, go! All of you that has seen your family killed. You now have something that stands for you. It has put the weapons of this war back in your hands of you, the young, the powerful. I'm a good follower, sir. I will always protect you because you're my son, and his son always protects him, father. It just has such a powerful ending, and it's a hard sit as he's being taught to kill people in a very brutal, violent fashion. It's hard to watch, but that's a genius. I mean, this is like on the level of Apocalypse Now, I think. It's just a really good movie. And so important right now, thinking in the state of the world. Yes, and Americans, especially Oscar voters, are just so cut off from that. You know, they're so insular with their experience, and I just really admire that he took on this subject, and that no studio would pick it up is just embarrassing, I think, for Hollywood, that they're really that shallow, that they wouldn't even think that people might want to see this movie. The other big movie there to pay attention to is Steve Jobs, which is the Aaron Sorkin written and Danny Boyle directed. You have to say it in that order because it's very much an Aaron Sorkin movie, more than it is a Danny Boyle movie. He's there, and he's interpreting the screenplay, but he's really giving it over to Sorkin, and it's almost as though Sorkin directed it. So I'm interpreting. There's a lot of good dialogue. It's a hundred percent dialogue. Yeah. That's what makes it unique. I mean, I think the only other movie I can compare it to is Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. I don't know if you ever saw that. So it's like that. It kind of takes place in one area with a lot of brilliant dialogue throughout and great speeches. In '31, the planet's going to shift on its axis nine forever, two most significant events of the 20th century. Allies win the war, and this, "You can't write code. You are not an engineer. What do you do?" The musicians play the instruments. I play the orchestra. I sat in a garage and invented the future because artists lead and hacks ask for a show of hands. I love this. You don't care how much money a person makes. You care what they make, but what you make isn't supposed to be the best part of you. You're the only one who sees the world the same way I do. No one sees the world the same way you do. What did you think of Fussbender as Steve Jobs? Oh, he's great. He's just great. If you're not an Aaron Sorkin fan and you're not into the dialogue, you should see it for his performance alone. It's really good. Is he Oscar, you think? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. He'll be nominated for sure. It'll probably get a best picture, best director, best screenplay. These guys are just so well-liked in the industry that I figure it's going to get all the top nominations. I don't know if it's the winner. I just don't know that yet. Anyone come out of Telluride that you see best actress? Well, it's always so frustrating because I saw Safra Jett with Carrie Mulligan. I loved it and I loved her and the part. Then I just started hearing the rumblings of people. A few people liked it, but it was coming out of this kind of, "It's not good enough vibe." I was thinking, "Okay, well, there's one movie starring women that's not going to get in the race." Now we have to just count on Carol as being the other big movie. There's another one that you should pay attention to called Room, which starts Brie Larson as a mother who was abducted as a teenager and been held in this shed and raped repeatedly by her captor. She has a baby and this is sort of about her raising her son under these extreme circumstances. I guess I still can't hear us. Do you remember how Alice wasn't always in Wonderland? She fell down, down, down deep in a hole. Right, well, I wasn't always in room. I'm like Alice. Now I've got a chance. I'm scared. I know. Truck. Truck. Wiggle out. Wiggle out. Jump. Jump. Run. It's a really uplifting, really interesting movie. It's not just like I thought it was just going to be about her in this shed. Yeah, I didn't think you would use the word uplifting, but that's interesting. Yeah. It is. It is because they're trying to keep this sort of down on the down low, but the movie's really more about her relationship with her son once they get out of there than it is about her being held in that room. Can I just go back, ask real quick about suffragette? Do you think these rumblings you were saying, are they unfair? Is it because it's such a female dominated movie? I mean, are they seeing it in the wrong light? You know, it's interesting because we just have sexist perceptions because if you looked at suffragette and you thought that, let's say Robert Altman directed it, everybody would say it's a genius work because it's so subtle because he doesn't give you all the emotions and stuff, they would cut him a huge break because he's Robert Altman. But a woman doing the exact same movie is treated differently and yes, there are a couple of moments that are seem a little implausible and it's so subtle. I mean, the movie feels like a first act of a three act story. This is how they got to the place before they actually earned the vote, but that doesn't make it a bad movie at all. I mean, to me, that made it a great movie. I was really impressed with this director. I think if Hollywood would treat her right, she could be a very strong directing force, I think. Fifty years we have labored peacefully to secure the vote for women. We've been ridiculed, battered and ignored. Polish those responsible, whatever way you can. No, no! I'm an ex-mama! All my life has done what men told me. Well, I can't have that anymore. What did you think of black mass and what are the chances? Yeah, I'm kind of in the minority on black masses, it turns out. But black masses is really good to me because I love... I love first of all mob movies. I just love them. But I really love Johnny Depp in this. I love watching him play this mean, horrible monster. He's so good. He's so vicious. He's so cruel. I mean, I came out of it thinking he's going to win the Oscar for it. I mean, I thought it's between him and Fosbender. I think if I would mark it down as the number one to win right now, waiting for Leonardo DiCaprio and the Revenant as his main challenger. But I think Depp's got it, you know. Well, so the takeaway is it's between him and Fosbender. We don't really know... We're still at Carol since Cannes for women, and we don't really know our best picture yet. So when is the next sort of Oscar predictor? From Toronto, the big movie was "Truth" with Kate Blanchett and our brand is "Crisis" with Sandra Bullock. Both of those... Also a journalism movie, the Kate Blanchett movie "Truth" about the 60 minutes. Yeah, journalism and politics, and then our brand is "Crisis" is about politics influencing. But according to everybody who saw it, "Truth" is supposed to be a really, really strong, really good movie. So that's one to watch out for. And Sandra Bullock, maybe, yeah. That movie is getting kind of mixed responses, but her performance is being celebrated. It is kind of a comedic performance, so that might take it out. The best actress is filling up really quickly, and nobody really knows how Carol is going to go, because at first it was going to be Kate Blanchett, lead, and Rooney Mara supporting. But it looks like Kate Blanchett is probably going to get nominated for "Truth" and not for this one. So where are they going to still keep Rooney Mara in supporting? Nobody knows. So it's hard to say, but certainly Brie Larson for a room will be a strong contender and Blanchett. We don't have a front runner for actress right now, I don't think. Johnny Depp is a front runner for actor, but we don't have a comparable in the best actress category. Well, when do you think when is the next time you can show us your crystal ball? I think around the end of November would be a really good time to call Best Picture. That marks the end of festival season, so it's Bridge of Spies, which will play the New York Film Festival, and then we have The Revenant, Spielberg, and we have Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, and we have Star Wars coming up. So there's a lot of big movies, and I think then you'd know what the movies are going to be. So can we check back with you again sometime? Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you so much, Sasha. This was great. Thank you so much. Have a good day. Thank you so much, Sasha. So we'll check back with you in November then to see how the Oscar race is going. And thank you, Professor Dick Lair. The movie "Black Mass" is about to premiere in the U.S. and all over Europe very soon. And thank you for listening. Please follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or the home page popcultureconfidential.com. Let us know what you think of the shows. This show was edited by Tom Hanson, music by Carl Bohr, and produced by René Vittéstadt and myself. I'm Cristina Yarlingbyro. Thank you very much for listening. ♪♪ Hello, podcast fans. It is I, Bruce Volanche. For over 25 years, I worked on the Academy Awards, so you didn't have to. In that time, I've seen and heard things that should not be seen or heard or certainly built. And now, for the first time, I'm sharing all my behind the scenes stories and firsthand knowledge about the Oscars. The blood, the sweat, the tears, the slap, all the things you didn't see. So join me as I use humor and insight to break down the Oscar Awards of the past to explain how and why your favorite movie didn't win. Why some actors and some directors had to fire their agents and how the whole process works or sometimes doesn't work. This is the Oscars. What were they thinking? Available wherever you get podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]