Host – Page 32 – This Had Oscar Buzz

039 – Suburbicon

2017 was a rough year for Paramount and their awards slate, but none of their films bombed as hard as George Clooney’s Suburbicon. Retooled by Clooney and his writing partner Grant Heslov from a Coen Brothers’ script that sat unproduced for 30 years, the Coens’ brand of misanthropic crime saga is infused with a very white perspective on racism in middle America. The film was DOA on the fall festival circuit and evaporated even faster with audiences.

As if his foot-in-mouth comments weren’t enough, 2017 was also a year that earned no favor for for Suburbicon’s miscast Matt Damon – particularly when he also led Paramount’s other misfire Downsizing. This week, we discuss how Damon killed his post-The Martian favor, Oscar Isaac’s inevitability as a future Oscar nominee, and Clooney’s status as a de facto pick for early predictions despite increasingly diminishing returns.

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038 – Shopgirl (with Pamela Ribon)

2005′s Shopgirl looked like a safe Oscar bet on paper – a whimsical, lighthearted romance with Claire Danes taking her ascendancy into lead roles and Steve Martin capitalizing on an Oscar shutout narrative that began in the 80s with All of Me. But its Oscar chances died once the film arrived in the May-December shadow of Lost in Translation and left our love story expectations unfulfilled. This week, Ralph Breaks The Internet and Moana screenwriter Pamela Ribon joins us to talk about this film about a sad seller of gloves who doesn’t know how special she is and the men who love her.

Shopgirl is sadly an example of aughts era romances that sacrifices its female protagonist’s sense of self to the arc of her male counterpoints, and all of the chaste shots of ladies backs to portray sex onscreen. This episode we also discuss Shopgirl’s laughable representation of parking in Los Angeles, the perfect Jason Schwartzman burn, and one early Oscar memory of a comedy performance that deserved a nomination.

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037 – The Gift

Before Sam Raimi went into the Spider-Verse, he tipped a toe into prestige waters with A Simple Plan before misfiring with The Gift. The 2000 film starred Cate Blanchett as southern clairvoyant helping solving the murder of a local woman (played by an off-type Katie Holmes) and also her damaged friends Hilary Swank and Giovanni Ribisi. This was thought of as a potential nomination for Blanchett and post-Sling Blade cash-in for screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton, but ultimately was too middling to register in a year of dominating lead actress performances.

This week we look at the post-Elizabeth (but pre-Aviator) Cate Blanchett fog of indistinguishable titles that failed to return her to the Oscar stage, and also the warring factions of actress stans on Oscar message boards. We also consider Ribisi as “Ben Foster with words”, the internet’s pervy Mr. Skin days, and the 4/5 brilliance of the 2000 Best Actress lineup.

(And again apologies on the audio this episode! Next week will be a return to better sound…)

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036 – Where the Wild Things Are

Director Spike Jonze is somewhat of an Oscar anomaly, successfully turning oddities like Being John Malkovitch, Adaptation, and Her into auteur films embraced by the Academy. This week’s episode focuses on perhaps his riskiest and most personal film: 2009′s adaptation of children’s classic Where the WIld Things Are. The film was expensive and divisive, loved by those who were moved by its vision and dismissed by those who felt it didn’t honor their childhood memories of the book.

2009 was the first year of the 10-wide Best Picture field, but voters had already moved on from Jonze’s spectacle by the time of voting. We discuss how Avatar might have sucked all of the “visionary” oxygen out of the room, how the film makes the case for a voice performance Oscar, and the brilliant and unrewarded musical work from Karen O and Carter Burwell.

(Apologies for the first ~20 minutes of audio on this episode – we thank you for your patience!)

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035 – Meet Joe Black (with Bobby Finger)

Can anyone today compare to how red hot of an actor Brad Pitt was in the 90s? After following his Oscar nomination for Twelve Monkeys with dual failed Oscar bait (The Devil’s Own and Seven Years in Tibet, for those keeping score at home), Pitt’s next headlining gig was a prestige fiasco: 1998′s Meet Joe Black.

Directed by a pre-Gigli Martin Brest, a pre-Lecter redundancy Anthony Hopkins stars as a publishing billionaire visited by Death (played to full frosted tip capacity by Pitt). Audiences who left the theatre after catching a glimpse of The Phantom Menace’s hotly awaited trailer were the lucky ones, because this failed Oscar hopeful was categorically a disaster.

This week, Bobby Finger joins us to dig through this very long and very strange film and its accidental slapstick car crash, weird sex scene, and outlandish fireworks display. However, a brilliant score from Thomas Newman inspires us to quiz eachother on composers with multiple nominations in the 90s. And yet all roads lead back to Freddie Prinze, Jr…

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034 – Riding in Cars With Boys (with Bowen Yang)

Penny Marshall’s passing last year reminded us of how unfortunately she never got her due as a respected director. Never was that more clear than the critical drubbing that was met with 2001′s Riding in Cars With Boys. On paper this one looked to capitalize on Drew Barrymore’s post Charlie’s Angels success and Penny’s previous history of missing out on directing nominations for respected films – but the immediate cultural fallout from 9/11 did not meet this film kindly.

This week, writer for Saturday Night Live and cohost of Las Culturistas Bowen Yang joins us to discuss Penny’s legacy and how Riding in Cars With Boys is underrated canon. We look at Drew Barrymore’s second coming (including her brilliant opening performance for Scream), cherish Brittany Murphy’s comedic gifts, and stolen glances with Lucy Liu. And we briefly return to that most formative of Oscar years when Titanic reigned supreme.

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033 – Rent

Once intended to be adapted for the screen by Spike Lee, the Pulitzer-winning musical Rent made its leap to the big screen in 2005 amid impossible expectations. Having helped usher in the modern era of Broadway blockbusters, this one had to live up to the dreams of its massive fanbase but also the shadow cast over all movie musicals in the short years that followed Chicago.

But it ultimately satisfied few, thanks to some key mistakes, starting with the mismatched director Chris Columbus and the recasting of most of the original Broadway leads. This week, we look back at the Oscar success of the decade’s musicals, spend some time lamenting the Crash Best Picture win, and unpack all of the film’s “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman” issues.

And, oh yeah, we brace for the coming impact of Tom Hooper’s Cats.

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032 – Ricki and the Flash

After a string of August (yes, early buzzed) hits, Meryl Streep collaborated with two Oscar-winning names that sent Oscar obsessives to get lost in their rock and roll: director Jonathan Demme and screenwriter Diablo Cody. 2015′s Ricki and the Flash didn’t set the box office on fire and a very competitive Best Actress year possibly kept it out of the conversation, but that doesn’t mean the film doesn’t reveal why we once had such high hopes for it. The film isn’t as much of a harmonious fit as we originally expected for this trio, but they do give us something uplifting that deserved more of a shot than Oscar gave it.

This week we look at the gifts of Diablo Cody, Ricki’s parallels to his recent (foolishly underloved by Oscar) masterpiece Rachel Getting Married, and the major flub of 2015′s Best Original Song nominees and eventual winner “The Writing’s On The Wall”. Just as Ricki gives and takes with her family, we rewrite history to take some of Meryl’s Oscar nominations away to give them to some of her underrated performances.

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031 – How to Make an American Quilt

Coming off of two successive Oscar nominations, Winona Ryder led an immaculate female ensemble for Jocelyn Moorhouse’s How to Make an American Quilt. But instead of furthering Ryder’s mounting Oscar narrative, the film wound up as a surprise SAG Ensemble nominee – and, as Joe and Chris argue, a welcome one. This week, we take a look back at SAG Ensemble’s history, including most and least favorite nominees that didn’t translate to Best Picture nominations.

The film itself is a (however delightful) mixed bag of infidelity narratives that don’t always serve a top notch ensemble of Ellen Burstyn, Anne Bancroft, Kate Nelligan, Alfre Woodard, Lois Smith, 90s mega hottie Johnathon Schaech – and yep, even Maya Angelou. It may be too many plot threads for a 60-Second Plot Description, but also for one modest movie as well. Topics also include underrated Snatch Game performances, SAG’s silly title card rule for its Ensemble prize, and the reason the MTV Movie Awards should exist: the Best Kiss category.

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Class Of 2018

An episode an entire year in the making – we’re welcoming This Had Oscar Buzz’s Class of 2018 into the fold! As requested, we’re running down all of this past year’s films that had lofty Academy Award aspirations and were left with nothing come last week’s nomination morning. And not to confuse these new inductees into the THOB fold, we also unpack the Widows/Eighth Grade/Leave No Trace of it all and discuss the difference between what makes a THOB movie and a movie that is just a bummer to miss out come Oscar time.

This episode we dive into 2018′s films by several categories: The Cake Memorial Award for Happiest Miss, the Justice for Slaughter Race Saddest Snub, the Dr. Louise Banks Award for Most Surprising Shutout, Most Forgettable, and most importantly we name the film we can’t wait to select for a future episode! Oh, and don’t forget to watch our Class of 2018 video!

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