John Mulaney is our Billy Crystal
Oscars Host, RomCom lead... even City Slicker
While watching the Oscars I was struck first by how bad I am at doing Oscar pools because I’m completely incapable of picking with my head and also maybe just not good at gambling, and then I was struck second by how good of an Oscars host John Mulaney would be. He’s got a self-aware sort of anti-charm that’s both charming and disarming, he has the unique ability to feel like an outsider who somehow snuck inside, and he’s got a martini dry delivery by which I mean dry in concept but also sorta wet. Watching him ramble through a comedic breakdown of the entire plot and all the holes in the plot of Field of Dreams in this clip I realized he reminded me not just of the qualities of the ideal host, but of one of the greatest hosts in Oscars history, our greatest RomCom actor (sorry Tom Hanks), and perhaps our greatest comedic rambler: Billy Crystal.
John Mulaney’s insightful, critical and (obviously) funny mini-monologue felt like something Harry would have said during the iconic opening road trip in When Harry Met Sally. Harry would have somehow found a way to make it a little flirty “You think ghosts can have sex? I mean if they can one might be having sex with you right now and you’d never know it.” Like all great rants, Mulaney’s rant led us to a place that felt obvious even though we’ve never been there. It is an art form poorly imitated on podcasts pretty much all day long, but much like Billy Crystal stumbling uphill in countless roles, Mulaney absolutely nailed this very specific art form at the Oscars. The ability to share something you’ve been thinking about that clearly isn’t obvious as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world and therefore ends up feeling obvious isn’t simply a Billy Crystal / John Mulaney nexus, it’s a key ingredient in any great RomCom.
RomComs are perhaps our most conversational genre of films. I’m basing this on absolutely no data or actual research so I might be wrong but it definitely feels like RomComs are the talkiest movies we have. Most of the RomComs I’ve seen, which is a significant number of RomComs, are based around conversations. Even the dramatic and comedic set pieces often exist to motivate some getting to really know you dialogue. Some of the conversations are directly addressing relationship stuff, but a lot of them are about random pop culture stuff that leads into bigger life stuff. This stuff generally functions to bring the characters together or push them apart or a little bit of both. And it also makes the characters relatable, allows them to share a context not just with each other, but with all of us. Billy Crystal was the greatest talking about random stuff male lead of a generation. John Mulaney might the best in his, if he gets the chance.
You can never capture the lighting in a bottle that was When Harry Met Sally, but forget that movie and think about Forget Paris. I’m not a remake guy but a remake of a movie where John Mulaney plays an NBA ref telling the story of an up and down romance to a table full of dinner guests with a romantic little twist at the end? Brother I am ALL the way in. Mulaney is not only the perfect Billy Crystal analog for oncoming RomCom resurgence, but like Billy Crystal his potential as a leading man goes far beyond the RomCom. Like Crystal, Mulaney has a bridge-like quality to him. A waypoint between weird and quirky, and whatever “normal” is. Remember City Slickers? Billy Crystal didn’t carry that movie, he existed in the negative space of the movie. He moved it forward and kept it on the tracks without changing its momentum. I can’t imagine anyone else in the movie except maybe John Mulaney. Am I talking myself and possibly you into a City Slickers remake with John Mulaney and Nick Kroll and Pete Davidson? Maybe!
Regardless of whether it’s hosting the Oscars, starring in a series of RomComs, or even anchoring a few unexpected remakes, John Mulaney IS our Billy Crystal, we just have to let him be.