Best Actor – Page 2 – This Had Oscar Buzz

350 – The History Boys

We’re ringing in another year on the pod with our 350TH EPISODE!! In 2006, Broadway imported the National Theatre production of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, an ensemble piece following a group of college hopeful students and their philosophically opposed teachers. The Broadway production became a Tony record-making sensation. However, prior to the transfer, the entire cast completed a film version that would arrive later in the year after the Broadway fever had cooled.

This episode, we talk about why this film marks a place in THOB history and the film’s complicated presentation of queerness and predation. We also talk about Richard Griffiths’ lauded performance, Fox Searchlight’s busy 2006, and our favorites from the past year of the show.

Topics also include the mixed bag of 2006 contenders, the successful young male cast, and college admissions culture.

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344 – Things We Lost in the Fire

At the beginning of the aughts, both Halle Berry and Benicia Del Toro were riding high on Oscar wins. In 2007, they both paired up for Things We Lost in the Fire, a melodrama from Danish director Susanne Bier. From a script by Collateral Beauty scribe Allan Loeb, the film cast Berry as a grieving wife who invites her dead husband’s addict best friend (played by Del Toro) to live in their home. Reviews were respectable and the film was widely predicted at the start of the season, but after bombing at the box office, it quickly evaporated from voters’ memories.

This episode, we discuss the film as emblematic of a dying breed of melodrama and its narrative proximity to the film both actors won their Oscars for. We also talk about Bier’s multiple films in the International Feature race, Del Toro’s few film roles between Oscar and this, and the critical drubbing Berry faced for Catwoman.

Topics also include poster fonts, The Velvet Underground needle drops, and Agnès Varda and Toni Morrison watching Sin City.

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341 – Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead (Festival Fever!)

estival Fever continues this week with a forgotten adaptation and the Venice Film Festival. Tom Stoppard earned his first Tony Award for Best Play for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, an absurdist spoof of Hamlet and various theatre tropes from the perspective of two of the Bard’s minor characters. A film version was long delayed before Stoppard took over the director’s chair himself for his debut. Casting young actors Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the interchangeable twosome, the film earned the festival’s Golden Lion despite mild reviews.

This episode, we talk about the history of the Golden Lion and how we think this film joined those ranks. We also discuss Oldman and Roth’s breakthrough in Mike Leigh’s Meantime, their major successes immediately after Stoppard’s film, and Richard Dreyfuss’ broad performance as The Player.

Topics also include Chloe Zhao’s upcoming Hamnet, listeners not being able to tell us apart, and our favorite Golden Lion winners.

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331 – Saltburn (with Louis Peitzman!)

We’re here with your Oscar hangover cure to break the seal on the THOB Class of 2023 and we brought Louis Peitzman along for the chaos. It’s Saltburn time! After the COVID-era Oscar success of Promising Young Woman, all eyes were on Emerald Fennell to deliver again with her follow-up. Barry Keoghan stars in the film as a social climbing Oxford student who freeloads off his wealthy classmate (Jacob Elordi), ingratiating himself to the family as he stays on the eponymous estate. With allusions to Brideshead Revisited and Tom Ripley, Saltburn was safely the most talked about film of 2023 to earn no Oscar nomination.

This episode, we talk about the controversies surrounding the film’s sexual content and what makes Fennell such a divisive figure. We also discuss Keoghan’s nude finale moment, Rosamund Pike’s performance as the matriarch, and the film’s mixed reception on the festival circuit.

Topics also include needle drops, eyebrow piercings, and movies with bathtub scenes.

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320 – Matchstick Men

After his comeback stretch of high grossers Gladiator, Hannibal, and Black Hawk Down, Ridley Scott returned in 2003 with a downshift into the character focused Matchstick Men. The film starred Nicolas Cage as a conman with compounding mental health issues who is then reunited with his daughter, played by Alison Lohman. With Sam Rockwell as Cage’s partner in con, the film played both Venice and TIFF to a positive critical reception, but was ultimately forgotten by awards voters by the end of the year.

This episode, we discuss Scott’s waning Oscar chances this year for Gladiator 2 and Scott is our first director to get a Six Timers quiz. We also discuss Cage’s stretch between his Oscar win and the Adaptation nomination, Lohman’s transformation into a teenager, and Rockwell’s emergence into a beloved character actor in the early 2000s.

Topics also include the audience response to City of Angels, local bakeries, and Nutcracker and the Four Realms.

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317 – Chappaquiddick (Patreon Selects)

This week’s episode comes selected by one of our sponsor tier patrons over at our Patreon! The 2017 festival season brought us Chappaquiddick, director John Curran’s recounting of the titular incident where Senator Ted Kennedy was responsible in the accidental death of party secretary Mary Jo Kopechne. With Jason Clarke as Kennedy and Kate Mara as Kopechne, the film earned solid festival reviews (with even stronger notices for Clarke) but a planned qualifying release before the end of the year never came to be.

This episode, we talk about the short life of Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures and the 2017 qualifying release for the film that was canceled. We also talk about Clarke’s career in grunt roles, the film’s frustrating post-script in relation to Ted Kennedy’s career, and Bill Crystal’s Oscar hosting duties.

Topics also include vague movie titles, TIFF Galas, and Frederica Kimmel’s friend.

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310 – Man on the Moon

In 1999, director Milos Forman reunited with his People Vs. Larry Flynt screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski for another biopic of an iconoclast, Man on the Moon. Rebounding from the Oscar snub for The Truman Show, Jim Carrey took on the role of Andy Kaufman and according to history, took it a bit too seriously. The film received some strong reviews and plenty of precursor action for Carrey (including another Golden Globe win), but the film proved an Oscar misfire for the twice Oscar awarded director and the still unnominated Carrey.

This episode, we talk about the industry’s (perhaps snobby) perceptions of Carrey and the faux method acting by Carrey that would later be documented by Jim and Andy. We also talk about the Alexander/Karaszewski biopic mold, Carrey’s biker chic MTV Movie Award acceptance speech, and the film’s reverence for Kaufman’s legacy.

Topics also include 1999 Best Actor, R.E.M., and “Courtney Love is in dire need of attention right now.”

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307 – Brad’s Status

Underdiscussed in the Mike White oeuvre is 2017’s Brad’s Status, the story of a father reflecting on his own formative college years while taking his son on a college visit. With Ben Stiller center stage, the film examines privilege and maleness with White’s exacting but humane eye for detail, resulting one of the most emotionally affecting works of his career without sacrificing his penchant for characters who aren’t always likable. Arriving the same year as both the White-scripted Beatriz at Dinner and the Stiller-starring The Meyerowitz Stories, this dramedy was yet another victim of Amazon’s mishandled marketing.

This week, we talk about Stiller’s recent years without of major acting roles and what makes this performance one of his best. We also talk about Austin Abrams’ performance as Brad’s son Troy, White’s other portraits of class, Stiller’s upcoming return in TIFF opener Nutcrackers.

Topics also include daydreams, Annapurna Pictures, and 2017 Original Screenplay.

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304 – American Psycho

Time to get controversh with with one of the most argued about films of the century, 2000’s American Psycho. Based on Bret Easton Ellis’ lightning rod novel, the film passed through multiple directors before landing in the inspired hands of Mary Harron. The independent director struck the right satirical note on Ellis’ difficult blend of consumerism and masculinity, and found a flawless muse as the titular psycho Patrick Bateman in Christian Bale. But the film’s sex, violence, and dark humor incited its own controversies and was too much for the Academy despite the praise for Bale’s performance.

This episode, we talk about the film as a launchpad for Bale’s adult career and how his lesser known status at the time almost lost him the role. We also talk about Bateman’s musical obsessions, the other casting choices for Bateman, and Reese Witherspoon joins our Six Timers Club.

Topics also include the Broadway musical version, the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, and 2000 Best Actor.

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303 – Red Rocket

With Anora anointed with the Palme d’Or this year, one of the narratives ahead in the coming season will be whether Sean Baker’s microbudgeted cinema will be embraced by the Academy in a big way. After lots of buzz for Tangerine and an acting nom for Willem Dafoe in The Florida Project, Baker was buzzed again for Red Rocket and its showcase performance for Simon Rex. With Rex as a manipulative down-and-out porn star returning to the small town that cast him out, Red Rocket‘s moral minefield and rueful comedy was ultimately not embraced by Oscar.

This week, we talk about Rex’s dynamic performance and the film’s recreation of the 2016 election cycle. We also talk about the meta elements of Rex’s casting, Baker’s rise among the ranks of independent cinema, and the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

Topics also include donuts, 2021 Best Actor, and READ posters.

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