January 2020 – This Had Oscar Buzz

078 – One Hour Photo (with Matt Jacobs)

After Robin Williams finally won his Academy Award for Good Will Hunting, unfortunately the next few years were a series of less-than-well-received projects after another. But after a quick break, Williams transitioned from more sentimental films into a run of dark and creepy material – including this week’s film, the stalking psychodrama One Hour Photo.

This week, HuffPost movie reporter Matt Jacobs joins us to talk about Robin Williams’ pivoted into creepiness, including Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia and the completely reviled Death to Smoochy. Despite the independent thriller was a small scale success at the box office, One Hour Photo was ultimately buried in a year of December heavyweights. Though Williams received raves at the Sundance Film Festival and a Critics’ Choice award nomination (not to mention an AARP Movies for Grown-ups nomination for… Best Breakaway Performance?), the Academy did not embrace this new territory for the screen legend.

We also talk about director Mark Romanek and the generation of directors that started in music videos, movies we first watched in high school classrooms, and undiscovered Celine Dion classics.

(Apologies and thank you for your patience on this week’s audio! We had unfortunate technical difficulties that arose after the recording.)

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Class of 2019

With last week’s announcement of this year’s Academy Award nominees, we can now discuss the episode a year in the making (or, in the case of The Current War, several years): the This Had Oscar Buzz Class of 2019.

In keeping with last year’s tradition, we’ve broken the films up into several categories: The Cake Memorial Prize for happiest miss, The Justice for “Slaughter Race” Prize for saddest miss, The Dr. Louise Banks Award for most surprising shutout, the Unfinished Life Prize for most forgettable, the Angela’s Ashes technicality prize, and the Welcome to Marwen Prize for most anticipated episode.

We naturally rage against the snub of Jennifer Lopez for Hustlers, make promises of an eventual Cats episode, and highlight what makes this year’s Independent Spirit Awards so special. Apologies for the delay in the arrival of the episode!!

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077 – Seven Years in Tibet

As Brad Pitt cements his status as a frontrunner in this year’s Oscar race for his performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, we decided to take another look back at his reign as prestige hottie in the 90s. After nearly missing a win on his first nomination for 12 Monkeys, Brad Pitt’s red hot persona yielded an Oscar expectation that was met with disappointing projects before Fight Club reignited. But one of his most prominent misfires of that era was the misguided and milquetoast Seven Years in Tibet.

The film follows Pitt as mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, who becomes tutor to the young Dalai Lama before and during the invasion of Tibet. While the film fumbles in trying to generate the kind of epic period sweep that Oscar often rewards, its biggest issues lie in a narrative that indulges in cultural tourism, pacifies its true-life protagonist’s Nazi associations, and offers one of the most underwhelming uses of Pitt’s star persona. This week, we’re looking at Pitt’s ascension as 90s peak sexpot, and the Oscar year that favored another epic (you know, the boat one) and a different handsome blond actor.

Topics also include the 90s pop culture obsession with the Dalai Lama (including Scorsese’s Kundun in the same year), the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival, and Pitt’s shaky abilities with dialects.

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076 – In Her Shoes

Though it was not the victor of our Listeners’ Choice, the very vocal fans of In Her Shoes told us we shouldn’t make you wait for this one any longer. Starring Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette, this one has slowly gained its admirers after disappointing box office and failing to turn Shirley MacLaine’s 2005 comeback into awards gold. Count Chris and Joe among that fanbase.

Dismissed initially by critics as a “chick lit” trifle in favor of more masculine fare, In Her Shoes is an emotionally rich tale of two sisters reconciling their relationship and the baggage from their mother’s untimely death. With MacLaine as the grandmother they didn’t know they had, the film is a perfect match of coziness and pathos that we adore. My Marcia would never speak ill of In Her Shoes, My Marcia loves In Her Shoes.

This week, we long for the return of Cameron Diaz as we dub this her greatest performance. We also discuss the underrated filmography of director Curtis Hanson, Diaz’s MTV Movie Awards dominance, and Collette’s history as one half of iconic female cinematic duos.

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