Best Actor – Page 3 – This Had Oscar Buzz

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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300 – Collateral Beauty

We’ve hit another year of the podcast, arriving at our milestone 300th episode! No better way to celebrate that by finally revisiting one of the past decades most notorious bombs, 2016’s Collateral Beauty. Starring Will Smith as a grieving father, this all-star cast includes Edward Norton, Michael Peña, and Kate Winslet as his three friend who devise a plan to… oust Smith from their advertising firm by… hiring three struggling actors (Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, and Jacob Latimore) to… portray the concepts of Death, Love, and Time that he has been writing letters to, and make him appear mentally unstable. Yeah, this one goes some places!

This episode, we talk about how the film’s imbalance with magical realism makes it more deranged. We also talk about Smith’s Oscar-chasing dramatic roles pre-slap, Ann Dowd as a felony committing private investigator, and the previous talent attached to this buzzy but ill-begotten project.

Topics also include Winslet joining our 6 Timers Club, Rogue One, and our Best Of ballots for the last year of the show!

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296 – Take Shelter

We return this week to one of the Oscar years we bemoan the most, 2011, to talk about Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter. After Michael Shannon landed a surprise acting nomination for Revolutionary Road, it seemed he’d somewhat cornered the market on onscreen psychosis. In this film, he plays a rural father who begins to see apocalyptic visions that may or may not be coming to fruition. As his wife, Jessica Chastain would make her debut when the film premiered to Sundance audiences, already amassing a reputation as the next big thing due to the several films she had coming, including Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.

This episode, we talk about Shannon’s onscreen persona and how it may shade our perceptions of this film. We also talk about how The Help became the film that Chastain was Oscar nominated for in her breakthrough year, Kathy Baker in Edward Scissorhands, and the film’s divisive ending.

Topics also include Sundance 2011 movies, the Death Becomes Her musical, and cozy culture during the apocalypse.

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292 – New York, New York (with Katey Rich) (70s Spectacular – 1977)

The 1977 Oscar year is famously when Annie Hall triumphed over the cultural behemoth of Star Wars, but elsewhere Martin Scorsese followed up his Taxi Driver Best Picture nomination with a big swing and a miss. The Ankler’s Katey Rich is back on the show to discuss New York, New York, Scorsese’s attempt at a movie musical. Starring then-recent Oscar winners Liza Minnelli and Robert DeNiro as two post-WWII lovers whose creative ambitions clash with their relationship, the film received a critical drubbing for its pointed attempts at pastiche and its meandering length, and remains one of Scorsese’s least seen and discussed films.

This episode, we get into what does and doesn’t work in the film and how it gave us its indelible title track, later made infamous by Frank Sinatra. We also talk about the film’s tangled behind-the-scenes relationship to Star Wars, the music branch snubbing Saturday Night Fever, and the surprising lack of current availability for 1970s films.

Topics also include Vanessa Redgrave’s notorious Oscar speech, Al Pacino’s …And Justice for All hair, and Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon.

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290 – The Front Page (with Roxana Hadadi) (70s Spectacular – 1974)

1974 brings us to one of the final films of Billy Wilder, which also reunited a screen duo beloved by both Oscar and audiences, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Vulture writer Roxana Hadadi is back to the show to talk about The Front Page, an oft-adapted farce about newspapermen getting wrapped up in the case of an escaped convict. Most famously retold in a gender swapped version in His Girl Friday, this version stumbles to deliver the best of this director-star trio and missed Oscar’s good graces despite multiple nominations in the decade for Mathau and Lemmon, including Lemmon’s win the previous year.

This episode, we talk about the victory lap made by Francis Ford Coppola with The Godfather Part II and The Conversation both earning Oscar love. We also talk about the film’s apoliticism was atypical of the moment, our love for Ingrid Bergman’s Supporting Actress speech, and the hubbub over the acceptance speech for Best Documentary Feature Hearts and Minds.

Topics also include disaster movies becoming the splashy Hollywood product, The Godfather Part II Supporting Actor nominations, and Anderson Cooper talking about his mom hooking up with Marlon Brando.

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287 – Harold and Maude (with Katie Walsh) (70s Spectacular – 1971)

The 70s Spectacular continues with critic and podcaster Katie Walsh joining us to discuss 1971 and Hal Ashby. After making his directorial debut with The Landlord after a career as an editor (including an Oscar win for In the Heat of the Night), Ashby returned to the director’s chair for what might be the film that became his signature. Harold and Maude cast recent comedy breakthrough Bud Cort as a death-obsessed, disaffected youth who falls for a free spirit who just so happens to be 60 years older, played by recent Oscar winner Ruth Gordon.

This episode, we talk about Ashby’s prolific career in the 1970s, where Harold and Maude would be his only film without Oscar nominations. We also talk about Gordon’s three screenwriting Oscar nominations with her partner, Vivian Pickles’ underpraised performance as Harold’s mother, and the musical contributions of Cat Stevens.

Topics also include T-Mobile ads, the secret hotness of Norma Rae, and Charlie Chaplin’s honorary Oscar win.

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268 – Shattered Glass (with Richard Lawson!)

Hayden Christensen arrived seemingly out of nowhere to land the role of pre-Vader Anakin Skywalker, becoming one of Hollywood’s hottest stars overnight and largely untested as a screen presence. After a respected turn in Life As A House(see previous episode!), the Attack of the Clones reviews soured audiences on this brand new star. The very next year, he gave a terrific performance in Shattered Glass as journalist Stephen Glass who famously fabricated stories for The New Republic. But awards bodies overlooked Christensen’s work and instead nominated the rising Peter Sarsgaard as Glass’ pseudo-rival Chuck Lane.

This episode, we talk about the Entertainment Weekly It List that was Christensen’s first debut post-Star Wars casting and his return to the franchise. We also talk about director/writer Billy Ray, Sarsgaard’s near nomination here, and journalism movies that were successful with Oscar.

Topics also include working with fact checkers, college group watch television, and the 2003 Independent Spirit Awards.

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267 – Heat (with Roxana Hadadi!) (Patreon Selects)

This week, our first film selected by one of our sponsor-tier Patreon subscribers arrives, and we brought back Vulture’s Roxana Hadadi to celebrate. In 1995, audiences were hyped to finally see an onscreen showdown between Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in Michael Mann’s Heat. But what promised to be a standard actioner on paper (on top of a battle of titans) was in actuality an existential tone poem on masculinity, with audiences feeling let down by the lack of fireworks in Pacino and DeNiro’s brief but mighty scene. The film has since been reassessed, earning a vocal and devoted fanbase that hail the film as Mann’s masterpiece.

This week, we talk about Mann’s work studying the masculine mind and Pacino and DeNiro’s 1990s periods. We also talk about Val Kilmer’s Batman year, how the 1995 Oscars largely rejected darker material, and our thoughts on Mann’s Ferrari.

Topics also include bisexual eyebrow piercings, our diner orders, and the Nyad towel.

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263 – A Good Year

After the Oscar and box office success of Gladiator, director/star duo of Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe decided to reunite in 2006 for a very different kind of film, A Good Year. Starring Crowe as a finance bro who returns to the French vineyard of his beloved but estranged and now deceased uncle (played by Albert Finney), the film offered Scott the chance to shoot a film close to home and stretch himself into comedy. With Marion Cotillard as Crowe’s love interest and Abbie Cornish as the uncle’s rightful heir, Scott’s fledgling comedy chops resulted in a misfire and one of the biggest bombs of his career.

This episode, we discuss the Ridley Scott post-Best Picture filmography and the 2006 Best Actor race. We also look at Cotillard’s Oscar win during a strike year, Cornish’s world-traveling dialects, and the 2006 TIFF Galas.

Topics also include Industry, a former lost episode, and Buffalo voice.

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