Host – Page 11 – This Had Oscar Buzz

233 – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

From Shakespeare in Love director John Madden and with a bursting prestige-y ensemble, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is one we have been saving. Led by Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, who both had other films in the race in this season, the film follows several seniors who seek fulfillment and romance in India, including Tom Wilkenson as a man seeking reconciliation with a former gay lover. With Dev Patel as a young hotelier, the film was a global box office success that showed up throughout the precursor season, but Oscar did not come calling.

This episode, we take a look at the 2012′s wide-spread acting races, with all previous winners in Supporting Actor and Jennifer Lawrence winning Best Actress. We also talk about Smith’s two Oscar wins, Dench’s near nomination this year for Skyfall, and the Ol Parker franchise ethos.

Topics also include our winner predictions for this year, “The Quartet,” and Dev Patel going from twink to hunk.

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232 – Waitress

We decided to bring you a slice of joy this week with 2007′s Waitress. Starring Keri Russell as a small town waitress and inventive pie master stuck in a harmful marriage, the heartwarming film would eventually be adapted to the megabit musical with songs from Sara Bareilles. Its beginnings, however, were marked by sadness: in the months before its Sundance premiere, the film’s writer/director/costar Adrienne Shelly was tragically murdered. Waitress won over Sundance, becoming a summer hit for Fox Searchlight and generating praise for both Russell’s performance and Shelly’s delicate tone. However, the film lingered in the shadow of the previous year’s Sundance/Searchlight Oscar success of Little Miss Sunshine despite earning fans.

This episode, we talk about Keri Russell’s career and how Waitress falls between her two definitive television success: Felicity and The Americans. We also discuss the Mickey Mouse Club, the era of movies where characters don’t have abortions, and Celine Dion’s upcoming screen debut.

Topics also include various types of pie, the Sundance Houndog controversy, and the power of Felicity cutting her hair.

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231 – Force Majeure

We’re taking another dive into the Best International Feature category this week to talk about one of the biggest world cinema successes of the past year, Ruben Östlund. Though he made films before it, 2014 catapulted Östlund with the Cannes premiere of Force Majeure, a dark satire of masculinity, and relationships dynamics, and fight-or-flight impulses. The film continued on the fall festival circuit, amassing critical acclaim and advancing to the Foreign Language Film bake-off list as Sweden’s submission. However, on nomination morning, Force Majeure missed a heavily-predicted nomination.

This episode, we discuss Östlund’s reaction video to missing the Oscar nomination and the films that followed, including two Palme d’Or wins and now Picture/Director/Screenplay nominations for his Triangle of Sadness. We also discuss the immediately pre-COVID American remake Downhill, the lack of an International frontrunner in the 2014 race, and other directors who have won multiple Palmes.

Topics also include this year’s AARP Movies for Grownup awards, shading the International winner that year Ida, and sauna moshpitting.

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230 – Stage Beauty

Longtime listeners will know that a special space in our podcast lore is reserved for our first six timer, Claire Danes. This week, we return to her work in the opulent and forgotten Stage Beauty. The film cast Danes as a stage dresser who longs to be an actress in a time when women weren’t allowed on the stage, and opposite Billy Crudup as an actor celebrated for his performances in female roles. In an anemic year for Globes Comedy, it looked like the film could fall into a similar vein of the recently Best Picture awarded Shakespeare in Love, but this became a costume drama that the industry overlooked.

This episode, we get into the film’s surprisingly curious (if still dated) eye towards gender and Crudup’s playful performance, which might be his very best. We also dive into the gossip of Danes and Crudup’s onset affair in which Crudup left a pregnant Mary-Louise Parker, her winning Globes speech that very year, and the elusiveness of an Oscar nomination for Crudup.

Topics also include the unmissable Fleishman is In Trouble, the Tribeca Film Festival, and the National Board of Review’s Special Recognition for Excellence in Filmmaking catchall.

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229 – Magic Mike XXL (with Pamela Ribon!)

Listeners, are you ready to be exalted?! This week, we welcome back author, screenwriter, Listen to Sassy co-host, and now OSCAR NOMINEE Pamela Ribon. And to welcome her back we’re going on a road trip with some exotic male dancers for Magic Mike XXL. The somewhat surprising sequel to the 2012 original (previously discussed on this podcast) dispensed with the commentary on capitalism and gave us everything we wanted from Mike and the boys: more dancing, more skin, and more guys being dudes. But softer box office and softer reviews kept this totally-not-directed-by-Soderbergh-not-at-all sequel out of serious awards contention, excluding some late-year critical reassessment.

This episode, we celebrate Pam’s success with her animated short My Year of Dicks and our high hopes for Mike’s swan song, Magic Mike’s Last Dance. We also discuss Roxanne Gay’s recap, Magic Mike Live, and the film’s genius film ensemble including Jada Pinkett Smith, Andie MacDowell, and Elizabeth Banks.

Topics also include campaign rules, “going to nationals” as a concept, and Joe Manganiello causing your pants to rip.

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BONUS – Sundancing On My Own

And we’re backbackback again with a special BONUS episode this week to talk about our experience will the films of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival! The big prize winner for US Dramatic Competition was A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One, and Chris was wowed by it. We talk about our shared love for new films from our beloved Nicole Holofcener, Ira Sachs, and gnarly debut horror film by Laura Moss, birth/rebirth. We also get into the divisiveness of Magazine Dreams and Eileen, the crowdpleasing delights of Theatre Camp, Celia Weston LARPing in colonial garb in A Little Prayer, and lots more!

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Class of 2022

An annual ritual returns! We are here to welcome the This Had Oscar Buzz Class of 2022! Off the top of the episode, we celebrate friend and former guest (and, spoiler alert, next week’s guest) Pamela Ribon on her Best Animated Feature Short nomination for My Year of Dicks and lament the To Leslie episode that could have been. We also get into the Riseborough situation and previous nominations that were rescinded. And of course we have our returning categories for movies we’re happiest (and saddest) to have missed out on Oscar nominations, most surprising to miss, most forgettable movie to receive Oscar buzz, and our most anticipated for a future episode.

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228 – After Hours (with Mitchell Beaupre!)

Letterboxd senior editor and podcast co-host Mitchell Beaupre joins us this week and is bringing their favorite film along, and it’s our oldest film yet: Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. In the mid-80s Scorsese was rebounding from his closest call with Oscar yet in Raging Bull and a first attempt to make The Last Temptation of Christ falling apart. In a quick turnaround, he made what some may call his most atypical film and freaked some critics out with its dreamlike, absurd take on male ego. With Griffin Dunne leading a cast that includes a delightful female ensemble of Rosanna Arquette, Teri Garr, Linda Fiorentino, and Catherine O’Hara, the film remains one of Scorsese’s most fascinating.

This episode, we get into the film’s underrated status and the oddball first Independent Spirit Awards where the film took top honors. We also discuss the Globes Comedy races where Dunne was nominated for Best Actor, going long distances for rep screenings, and the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.

Topics also include Ordinary People beating Raging Bull, the Bridesmaids SAG drinking game, and the To Leslie Oscar season surprise campaign.

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227 – The Old Man and the Gun

In 2018, it was reported that Robert Redford would be making his acting swan song with David Lowery’s crime caper The Old Man and the Gun. As the film received its festival debut, those retirement statements were backtracked, but audiences were still given a thoughtful and surprising fable about a real “Redford type” of character and a convincing love story with Sissy Spacek. Reviews were largely positive but muted, and with the film’s early season release and the dismissal of Redford’s earlier claims that this would be his last performance, the film remained an awards season trifle with a few devoted fans but no Oscar love.

This episode, we talk about Lowery’s varied and interesting directorial career thus far and Redford’s surprisingly spare history of awards traction for his performances. We also look back at the 1980 Academy Awards when Redford and Spacek won their Oscars, the lingering distaste among film lovers for Ordinary People beating out Raging Bull, and a post-Globe win and SAG nomination state of the current race.

Topics also include Spacek’s Oscar dominance in the 1980s, Elisabeth Moss joining our Six Timers Club, and the National Board of Review’s Top Independent Films of 2018.

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226 – The Leisure Seeker

When the 2017 Golden Globe nominations were announce, the question on everyone’s mind was “What the hell is The Leisure Seeker?!” Starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland as an aging couple having one last getaway in their eponymous Winnebago, the film debuted in competition at Venice before also playing a TIFF gala and went entirely under the radar. Sony Classics quietly gave the film a qualifying release, successfully netting Mirren a Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Golden Globe nomination despite so few seeing the film. The nomination was a head-scratcher to most, but was predicted by none other than our Joe Reid.

This episode, we discuss Helen Mirren’s vast history with the Golden Globes and assess the current diagnosis on the Globes and their often amusing nomination history. We also talk about Sutherland’s famously surprising lack of an acting Oscar nomination, other possible comedy leading actress contenders from 2017, and another round of Alter Egos.

Topics also include what famous festival jurors think of the movies they have to watch, the film’s half-baked look at the 2016 election, and surprise Danielle Deadwyler.

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