Conan O’Brien Is Struggling To Think of Jokes for This One Oscar Movie

Not to brag, but I’ve seen six of the ten films nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. Six! And I have two kids and two jobs! This is the most I’ve been committed to the Oscars in years, and it has been fun but challenging. There has been a lot of joy in watching so many movies, but they have also been really long, and I haven’t really connected with about half of the ones I have seen. I would think the most disappointing would have been feeling so-so about Frankenstein (and so-so is honestly being generous). The one that bummed me out was Train Dreams.

It’s not just the sullen nature of the film; it’s that I didn’t feel moved by it at all. That happens. Not every film is going to work for every person. But I had seen so many people whom I admire and respect wax poetic about it, and I kind of expected it to knock my socks off. Instead, it ended without so much as a tear from my eye (which is unusual). It was visually stunning, incredibly well-crafted, and exquisitely acted, but it didn’t hit me the same way that, say, Hamnet did (though I only compare them in my reaction, as they are two very different films).

Luckily, I’m not the only one who had a “hard time” with the movie (though my stakes are much lower). Conan O’Brien, who is set to return as host of the Oscars this Sunday, revealed to Jimmy Kimmel that he and his writing staff have had a hard time making fun of the film. “There are certain areas we cannot crack. One of them is the movie Train Dreams,” he explained. “Can’t get a good joke for Train Dreams, which maybe means there is no good joke for Train Dreams.” He then asks the audience who has seen the film, and there are polite cheers, which Conan and Jimmy don’t buy.

Their skepticism does ring true. There was a time when more artful films that were nominated for Oscars would have to be seen at that arthouse that’s a forty-minute drive away (or hope they got a special run at your local cineplex). Now, they’re available to stream, but you run into the Netflix problem. There is constantly so much on that service that my parents didn’t even know that there was a fourth Beverly Hills Cop film, and when I told them last night, they watched it immediately. Even more poppy stuff disappears there, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Train Dreams, which requires much more from the viewer than a romp with Axel Foley, isn’t burning up the charts.

“5000 jokes on Train Dreams, not one of them is any good,” O’Brien lamented. “And these are very good writers. So I blame train dreams, I think it’s the fault of the movie,” he joked, later punctuating it with a smile to the camera and saying, “Skip Train Dreams. Who’s gonna care?” I’m honestly now even more excited to see what joke he does do. Aside from a few quips, I’ve got money on an older Conan being loaded into a single-engine plane during the opening montage and either screaming or farting. Gonna be one of the two.