December 2020 – This Had Oscar Buzz

Mailbag Fishing In The Yemen

Happy New Year, listeners! To close out 2020, we’ve compiled all of your questions for this special mailbag episode! We kick things off by surveying the state of the current, pandemic-delayed Oscar race including First Cow’s win with New York critics. the New York Times’ 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century list, and how the sparse release calendar might affect the potential This Had Oscar Buzz Class of 2020. With Oscar history, we look back at Elia Kazan’s lifetime achievement award, the upcoming Academy museum, and the ripple effects of certain Best Actress races. We also discuss such THOB staples as Flora Plum and TIFF, decide which of the Four Realms we would be, and fancast our future blockbuster heist film starring actresses of a certain age titled Who Doesn’t Like Money?. Thank you listeners for all of your brilliant questions for the episode and all of your support in the past year!!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

125 – Widows

You asked for it and it’s finally here! To close the year, we are doing another Listeners’ Choice episode and the landslide victor is 2018′s Widows. The follow-up to Steve McQueen’s Best Picture winning 12 Years a Slave, Widows places Viola Davis at the head of a group of Chicago women caught in the middle of political corruption when their husbands all go down in a heist gone wrong. Highly received by early critics (including your hosts), the film disappointed at the box office and stumbled throughout the precursor season. Now and forever, Justice For Widows!

This episode, we go into the film’s mixed receptions by audiences expecting something more in line with traditional heist fare and 2018′s disconnect between the films that emerged most victorious and the film’s left on the outside. We also discuss the film’s incisive look at Chicago, Brian Tyree Henry’s incredible 2018, and how Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox left this film underserved by its studio.

Topics also include Robert Duvall yelling “I’m old!”, the Bird Box phenomenon, and what other contenders came close in your Listeners’ Choice votes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

124 – Suffragette

In 2015, the ongoing efforts to champion stories told by and about women placed large awards expectations on Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette. A fictionalized telling of the women’s suffrage movement in Britain, Suffragette stars Carey Mulligan as Maud, a laundress who begins as a passive outsider and becomes a passioned activist. But once it debuted at the Telluride Film Festival, its initial harsh reviews squashed audience urgency to head to the theatre when it opened nearly two months later.

This episode, we discuss Mulligan’s many great performances that have yet to yield a follow-up nomination to her breakthrough nomination for An Education – and we praise her upcoming work in the daring Promising Young Woman. We also discuss the heavy competition of the 2015 Best Actress race that failed to honor Mulligan among the major precursors.

Topics also include Meryl Streep’s much-buzzed performance as Emmeline Pankhurst (that ended up being little more than a cameo), the chaos of the current Globes comedy race, and another round of Alter Egos.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

123 – Life As A House (with LaToya Ferguson)

This week, we’re looking back at Oscar buzz molded from the success of American Beauty and the (new) hope of an incoming mega-franchise star: 2001′s Life As A House. Writer and podcaster LaToya Ferguson joins us to talk about the film that stars Kevin Kline as a dying man building a dream house with his estranged troubled son, played by Hayden Christensen. The film stayed long in season thanks to precursor attention for Christensen, recently announced as the next Anakin Skywalker – but Oscar wasn’t quite so eager to herald him as the next big thing before seeing his Darth Vader.

Much more unwell than you remember it, Life As A House features a slew of no-boundaries behaviors that we unpack including shower intrusions, milfs, toilets next to kitchen sinks, and going postal at the office. But this episode finds us in nostalgia mode as we look back at Entertainment Weekly’s It List, pre-movie trailer reels on VHS, and the WB’s “Oh What A Night” promo.

Topics also include the 2001 Supporting Actor race, Fred Durst’s directorial oeuvre, and “Anatomy 101 with Professor D’Angelo.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS