Host – Page 33 – This Had Oscar Buzz

030 – Brothers

Our episode this week is on a film that once dominated the earliest Oscar predictions for 2009: Jim Sheridan’s American remake of Brothers. Led by Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Natalie Portman, the film repurposed Susanne Bier’s film as another in a line of film’s to take on the war in Afghanistan – and like many of its predecessors, it failed with Oscar. Except this one stood in stark contrast to that year’s major Oscar story, The Hurt Locker.

Sadly, Brothers fell flat despite its promising pedigree. This week, we discuss the film’s three stars (a bug-eyed Maguire, Gyllenhaal in hottie transition, and Portman in limbo between Star Wars and Black Swan) and Sheridan’s successful Oscar history, and the HFPA’s 2000s love story with U2. And naturally, we get sidetracked on talk of kitchen and Batman soundtracks.

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029 – To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (with Gavin Mevius)

This week, we dive into our pfirst Pfeiffer and it’s also pforgotten Pfeiffer. To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday arrived in 1996, coasting on a triple threat of Oscar buzz: a popular stage play, adapted by the Picket Fences team of David E. Kelley and Michael Pressman, and starring the beloved Michelle Pfeiffer as its ghostly object of affection.

Critics quickly dismissed the film as maudlin (with oddball comparisons to Ghost) and audiences forgot about it even faster. This week, The Mixed Reviews’ cohost Gavin Mevius joins us to rediscover the film – in all of its icky sexual mores and misrepresentation of how karaoke works. We also discover Freddie Prinze’s Jr.’s late career switch, luxuriate in the trash of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, and unpack Pfeiffer’s stalled Oscar trajectory.

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028 – The Paperboy

An episode that asks that oft-repeated eternal question: will the Academy ever be ready for a movie where Nicole Kidman pees on Zac Efron? In 2012, Lee Daniels followed up his Precious Oscar success with a film that scandalized Cannes and answered that question with a resounding “no”. McConaissance be damned!

The Paperboy may be a pulpy southern crime saga that shows Daniels at his most excessive, but it got shockingly close to Oscar thanks to Kidman’s audacious (and divisive) performance. But while negative reviews and the film’s definitive griminess kept it out of Oscar history, it still gave us Efron dancing in his tighty whities in the rain.

Also in this episode, we look at some highs and lows of the this era of the McConassaince, 2012′s odd Supporting Actress year, and an underrated performance from Macy Gray.

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027 – The Family Stone (with Tara Ariano)

This week, we invited over Extra Hot Great co-host Tara Ariano to discuss our problematic Christmas fav, 2005′s The Family Stone. It may be one of several love-it-or-hate it holiday movies, but spoiler alert the three of us are super fans. Oscar and critics however, were a different story. Once thought a potential play for the goodwill lingering from Diane Keaton’s Something’s Gotta Give nomination, the awards tally for the Thomas Bezucha film made its largest dent with a Globe nomination for Sarah Jessica Parker – not to mention playing into the ascendancy of Rachel McAdams.

Topics include the 2005 Supporting Actress lineup that introduced several Oscar favorites, the film’s cozy/prickly authenticity in depicting family dynamics, and the return of our favorite random movie award: the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards!

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026 – Crazy, Stupid, Love.

In many ways, 2011 was the year of Ryan Gosling. This was the peak “Hey Girl” era, and this year alone gave us the critical darling hotness of Drive and what we thought would suit the more traditional Academy tastes with The Ides of March. He was so omnipresent that a weak Best Actor field had us thinking for a moment that Oscar could make room for his most charming work in the trifecta, Crazy, Stupid, Love. Add him in to a cast of other beloved performers like Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, and Emma Stone, and you have a recipe for a real guilty pleasure.

Though Gosling did nab a Globe nomination for his ab-flashing work, this one might have been wishful thinking anyway with Oscar, but then again: there’s that pesky comedy bias. And while CSL has its champions (particularly programmers of cable television networks), the film also has all the trademark contrivances in screenwriter Dan Fogelman’s wheelhouse. This week we discuss Gosling’s ascent as a major leading man, the film’s creepy sexual politics, and how romantic comedies have failed Marisa Tomei.

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025 – Alexander (with David Sims)

Grab some snakes and prep that Dionysus monologue, because this week we are taking it back to 2004′s Alexander. Starring Colin Farrell filling the historic shoes of Alexander the Great, this film was a passion project for Oliver Stone that defeated a rival biopic from Baz Luhrman and Leonardo DiCaprio – but lost the war to critics and audiences alike. And we’ve brought along another special guest to help us on the journey: staff writer for The Atlantic and co-host of the Blank Check podcast, David Sims.

Alexander was a notorious bomb that failed to walk the road that Gladiator had paved for it, but was initially thought of for Oscar almost on Oliver Stone’s name alone. But that hasn’t stopped the director for making several extended cuts of this already very long film. This episode will go into Stone’s diminishing Oscar returns after his heyday in the 80s and 90s, Colin Farrell’s Hollywood explosion, and take our first look at the Razzies.

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024 – Anywhere But Here

This week’s episode is a tale of two actresses at the opposite ends of their respective Oscar stories: 1999′s Anywhere But Here, with Natalie Portman’s kicking off her Oscar trajectory and Susan Surandon struggling to get the nomination that has eluded her since her win for Dead Man Walking. This is a mother-daughter film stooped in mid-90s adult contemporary songs and cozy cliches, so naturally we kind of loved it – even if Oscar forgot it.

This week we look at the career of director Wayne Wang, including showering some love on his other (also Oscar ignored) mother-daughter saga The Joy Luck Club. Also discussed: the much beloved film year that was 1999, what happens after Overdue Oscars, and a full dive into Fumbling Toward Ecstasy era Sarah McLachlan.

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023 – The Tourist (with Katey Rich)

Remember that time a movie where Johnny Depp explains vaping to Angelina Jolie made everyone super mad at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association? That’s right, we’re talking this week about The Tourist, a film so notorious in Oscar buzz history that we’ve invited a special guest to unpack it: deputy editor for VanityFair.com Katey Rich!

The Tourist had a labored pre-production history that eventually landed it in the lap of recent Foreign Language winning director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. However our Oscar-watching eyes were mostly (perhaps cynically) directed toward its stars: a waning Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie as an arresting but nondescript fancy European lady. Toss in a very convoluted plot of spies, assumed identities, and flatlining humor and you have a recipe for a critical and commercial misfire.

But immediately after The Tourist thudded into theatres, it earned its notoriously generous Golden Globe nominations. We dissect the movie’s lunacy, defend the HFPA’s recent Musical/Comedy picks, and most importantly, we Consider Melissa Leo.

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022 – Cake

2014 was a year of mirrored Best Actress hopefuls launched at the Toronto International Film Festival: out of nowhere, Julianne Moore capitalized on a “weak” field and finally won for Still Alice. And then, ultimately snubbed on nomination morning after being recognized by the other big prizes, there was Jennifer Aniston in Cake.

Notorious among Oscar watchers, Cake stars Aniston as a woman dealing with grief and chronic pain, and felt like a dubious candidate from the beginning. Was it the bad reviews, or was it the public’s sometimes cruel consideration of Aniston’s film career, or was it “Anna Kendrick as imaginary friend on a pool inflatable nudging her into suicide” that spelled disaster? Regardless, Aniston’s snub was perhaps the year’s least shocking “most shocking” missed nomination.

This week, we get into 2014′s bench of great, but less Oscar-friendly lead female performances, the mythos of Aniston, and detour into Gaga Five Foot Two.

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021 – Tadpole

The Sundance Film Festival is an elusive mistress that giveth Oscar buzz only to taketh away when at lower altitudes. Case in point is this week’s would-be Oscar title: 2002′s Tadpole. The film was a sensation of the festival, winning a Best Director prize for Gary Winick and stirring buzz for newcomer Aaron Stanford and Bebe Neuwirth. But the newfangled digital technology that won praise at the festival for all the new filmmaking possibility it represented ended up looking amateurish and garish upon release.

Tadpole ultimately got lost in a slew of 2002′s rich boy movies and disappointed on release after Miramax’s big $6M acquisition. This riff on The Graduate by way of Voltaire quotes may have been lost to time, but for a minute, it was kind of A Thing. This week, we’re also talking about the distinctions between regular Oscar buzz and Sundance Oscar buzz, the Meryl Streepness of The Hours vs. the Nicole Kidmanness of The Hours, and the National Board of Review’s “prize as party invitation” special recognitions.

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