Best Actor – Page 3 – This Had Oscar Buzz

224 – The Man in the Iron Mask

As Titanic continued its months-long reign at the box office, its closest challenger (before Lost in Space would dethrone it, that is) at the multiplex starred none other than one of its star-crossed lovers. Yes, Leonardo DiCaprio owned the box office in the weeks ahead of Titanic’s Best Picture win, pulling double double duty as evil King Louis XIV and his dungeon-cast identical twin in The Man in the Iron Mask. The directorial debut of Braveheart’s Oscar-nominated screenwriter Randall Wallace, the film adapted Alexandre Dumas’ novel and assembled an awards friendly ensemble for its musketeers: Jeremy Irons, Gerard Depardieu, John Malkovich, and (the somehow still un-nominated) Gabriel Byrne.

Poor reviews plagued the film on release, but DiCaprio’s appeal turned the film into a box office success. This episode, we talk about DiCaprio’s no-show Oscar attendance after being snubbed for Titanic and his career in the immediate years that followed. We also discuss Wallace’s dubious filmography, Titanic’s other box office challengers, and DiCaprio in a Baby Bjorn.

Topics also include Bryan Adams, COVID Pinocchio movies, and this year’s AARP Movies for Grownups nominees.

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221 – The Front Runner

We’ve previously discussed the work of Jason Reitman with our Men, Women, and Children episode, and this week we have another Reitman bomb: 2018′s The Front Runner. The film features Hugh Jackman as Senator Gary Hart and dramatizes Hart’s failed presidential campaign that was thwarted by an infidelity scandal. Released on Election Day after a very mild fall festival run, the film posits Hart’s case as the beginning of political muckraking in America, but fails to make a compelling case for that argument or find a pulse on the political climate in the immediate year’s following the 2016 Presidential Election.

This episode, we talk about Jackman’s prestige run in the shadow of Wolverine and his prospects this year with the reviled The Son in a weak Best Actor field. We also welcome Reitman regular J.K. Simmons into our Six Timers Club, and discuss Reitman’s other 2018 release Tully, post-Hart political sex scandals, and Vera Farmiga Phone Acting.

Topics also include Phil Hartman’s Clinton impersonation, current awards season malaise, and our upcoming mailbag episode!

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216 – Snowden

Welcome all our new CIA listeners, because this week we are talking about 2016′s Snowden. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as controversial whistleblower Edward Snowden, the film follows Snowden’s journey through exposing the surveillance state and his exile to Russia, all while maintaining his relationship with girlfriend Lindsay Mills (played by Shailene Woodley). With Oliver Stone at the helm and Laura Poitras’ Snowden doc Citizenfour having recently earned the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, the film arrived with high expectations that it immediately disappointed when this bland biopic debuted at TIFF.

This episode, Joe gives us a recap of his New York Film Festival experience this year before we dive into Stone’s misfire. We also talk about Oscar winners that have played Oscar winners, Gordon-Levitt’s distracting baritone while playing Snowden, Peter Gabriel’s film awards history, and Stone’s fall from the height of his cultural significance in the 1980s and 1990s.

Topics also include TIFF premieres that open to general audiences during the festival, the 2011 Best Supporting Actress race that Woodley narrowly missed, and Chris’ ongoing journey with Survivor.

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214 – Mud (with Roxana Hadadi)

What’s better than movies like this? Guys being dudes! This week, Vulture television critic Roxana Hadadi joins us to return to the McConaissance with Jeff Nichols’ Mud. Matthew McConaughey stars as the film’s eponymous criminal who befriends a young teenager (played by Ty Sheridan) grappling with the death of his town and his parents’ divorce. The film debuted at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival while Nichols’ star was on the rise and McConaughey was mid-ascendancy, but was mildly received on the global stage. When the film was released in stateside theaters the following spring, critics were much more enthusiastic about Nichols’ take on masculinity and myth, but the film was ultimately overshadowed by McConaughey’s other Best Actor bid, Dallas Buyers Club.

This episode, we discuss the filmography of Jeff Nichols, including the divisiveness of Take Shelter’s ending and projects that almost happened. We also get into Sheridan’s career as a young actor, Matt Damon’s macho crypto ad, and the Independent Spirit Awards Robert Altman prize.

Topics also include Chris Pine nearly playing the lead, Taylor Sheridan as Nichols’ tether, and irrational fears of snakes invading our everyday lives.

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Reunited at TIFF!

It’s an annual tradition! Joe and Chris (reunited for the first time in years!) are reporting on the films of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, including this year’s (Not Grolsch) People’s Choice Award winner: Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans. And we’ve got bets against each other gaining some heat! This episode, we unpack our feelings about some of the festival’s biggest titles including Glass Onion, Women Talking, The Woman King, The Banshees of Inisherin, and The Inspection. We also discuss potential THOB titles of the future, Taylor Swift crowd control, and the dire Best Actor race. Topics also include the TIFF preroll ads, International Feature contenders, and TIFF’s history of People’s Choice winners and Oscar.

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206 – Infamous

Before Bennett Miller’s Capote even arrived and made a steamroll Best Actor winner out of Philip Seymour Hoffman, there was an entire other Truman Capote biopic in the can. Charting the same portion of the legendary and controversial writer’s life as he wrote In Cold Blood, 2006′s Infamous cast Toby Jones as Capote along with a cast of more recognizable faces than the previous year’s version, including Sandra Bullock as Capote’s friend and confidante Harper Lee and new James Bond Daniel Craig. Despite Capote having played some of the very same film festivals, Infamous was welcomed into the fall festival season anyway. But this film’s emphasis on the high society gossip that was integral to the author’s persona wasn’t enough to distinguish this film from what came before, quickly dissolving from the season.

This episode, we unpack the unavoidable comparison’s between this biopic depiction and Miller’s film. We also have our first double Six Timers Club between Infamous supporting players Sigourney Weaver and Gwyneth Paltrow, and discuss Paltrow’s role as Not Peggy Lee, and Warner Independent’s other awards hopeful in 2006: For Your Consideration.

Topics also include Raja’s Diana Vreeland Snatch Game performance, “James Blonde”, and Parker Posey in The Staircase.

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188 – Wild Mountain Thyme

We’re cracking the seal on our Class of 2020 films and somehow manage to do it without miring ourselves in the depression that was the first covid year! And as promised, we’re talking about Wild Mountain Thyme, the oddball romantic comedy from Moonstruck Oscar winner John Patrick Shanley, adapted from his Tony-nominated play Outside Mullingar. The film casts Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan as two Irish farm dwellers who have been dancing around a would-be romance since childhood, and was one of the several films bandied about among Oscar prognosticators in a year that saw few films released, much less pushed for Oscar.

This episode, we get into the film’s oddball twist and the ire inspired by the film’s… shall we say… questionable dialects. We also discuss Shanley’s less successful career as a film director, Blunt’s mighty precursor history that has led to zero Oscar nominations, and the current moment where Jamie Dornan sings in all of his movies.

Topics also include the 2020 Golden Globes, The Great Chipmunk Adventure, and Debra Messing’s Irish accent that must be heard to be believed.

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186 – Danny Collins

This week, we’re looking at another surprise Golden Globe nomination that fueled minor Oscar talk, 2015′s Danny Collins. An assemblage of fedoras, silk scarves, and one catchy original song, the film stars Al Pacino as a washed up singer in the vein of Neil Diamond who ingratiates himself to the family of his estranged son. Written and directed by Dan Fogelman, the film may have all of Fogelman’s trademark cliched, but we (along with the HFPA) were quite charmed by the Pacino performance and the film as a whole. But that Globe surprise proved to not be enough for Oscar, leaving the film to be a forgotten spring release.

This episode, we go into the Fogelman ethos and examine the long period between Pacino’s Oscar win and his next nomination for The Irishman. We also discuss the cursed 2015 Original Song race that Danny Collins could have enlivened, Pacino’s string of HBO performances, and how Jennifer Garner is a more interesting supporting player than a lead.

Topics also include Dunkaccino, hanging out at the Grove, and Movies That Star Four Old Actors.

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185 – The Aeronauts

We’re taking flight this week with the “women don’t belong in balloons!” heard round the world. In 2019, The Aeronauts’ awards hopes took flight by reuniting The Theory of Everything’s Oscar winning-and-nominated duo of Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones in the quasi-true story of a hot air balloon expedition that launched modern day weather forecasting. The film was originally intended for IMAX and early press promised a stunning visual display and a thrilling adventure for the ages. But when Amazon eventually canceled those IMAX plans and the film’s festival run resulted in lukewarm responses, The Aeronauts was left as a punchline for its unintend silly punchline from its trailer.

This episode, we look back at the Jones/Redmayne pairing as an unexpected one to stir a quick prestige reunion and the acting lineups during the year of Theory. We also discuss the cinematic output of Amazon Prime and their waning awards success since minimizing their theatrical strategy, the film’s divisive visual effects, and hint at what we have coming for our May miniseries.

Topics also include 1990s hottie Vincent Perez, our love of Himesh Patel in Station Eleven, and who these really good aeronauts might have bumped into in the sky.

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181 – Leatherheads

This week, we are once again returning to the diminishing returns of George Clooney’s directorial career with 2008′s Leatherheads. The directing follow-up to his Oscar-nominated Good Night and Good Luck, this lighthearted film about the early days of American pro football stars Clooney as a player opposite Renée Zellweger as a journalist trying to break the story of a college football star (John Krasinski) who falsified the war hero story that made him famous. The film was received positively by critics and mildly by audiences, but was quickly forgotten as a hodgepodge of screwball comedy, sports crowdpleaser, and post-war drama.

In this episode, we look back at Clooney’s directorial attempt to follow in the footsteps of his collaborators and the 2005 Oscars where George Clooney earned three Oscar nominations, including winning in Best Supporting Actor for the forgotten Syriana. We also discuss Zellweger’s post-Oscar career fade, a what-if scenario for Clooney not winning for Syriana, and just how unsafe early football seems.

Topics also include the Zellweger movie we call “SOS backwards”, being blocked by LightsCameraJackson, and another round of Alter Egos.

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