Best Original Song – Page 2 – This Had Oscar Buzz

134 – Big Eyes (with Jorge Molina)

After years of cast announcements, a biopic of painter Margaret Keane escaped development hell thanks to director Tim Burton and Oscar hopeful Amy Adams with 2014′s Big Eyes. A departure from Burton’s late-career big-budget preexisting IP efforts, the film promised a showcase for Adams that could earn her that elusive Oscar after her previous five nominations. This week, writer and Just To Be Nominated creator Jorge Molina joins us to talk about the film’s underwhelming insight into Margaret Keane and its wild miscasting of Christoph Waltz as her scheming husband that took credit for her work.

This episode we look at the diminishing returns of Tim Burton’s career, from a filmmaker formative to the taste of a generration of young cinephiles to the forgettable spectacle that fills his current era. We also discuss how close Adams might have been to a win in her nominations, the biopic screenplays of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, and the sparse lyrics of Lana Del Rey’s Globe-nominated title song.

Topics also include the year of Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, and Guillermo Del Toro arrived as a lasting Oscar narrative for Mexican filmmakers, previous nominations for Burton films, and when they handed out craft category Oscars in the aisles.

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110 – The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

Netflix and the Academy have had a rapidly evolving relationship in the past several years. This week, we look at the short trajectory from demonstrative shutout for Beasts of No Nation to a potential domination this season with a discussion of their 2017 awards also-ran The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected). The less heralded and less seen of Noah Baumbach’s two films for the streaming giant stars Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, and Elizabeth Marvel as extended siblings coping with their difficult father’s (Dustin Hoffman) waning health – and we kind of adore it.

Launched at the Cannes Film Festival (along with Okja) to boos at the sight of the Netflix logo, the film got lost in the shuffle for both critics and streamer-averse awards voters. Though Netflix would break through major categories that year with Mudbound, the streamer stigma would continue to play out in future seasons. This week, we’re talking about the whole Netflix thing, Noah Baumbach’s long break with Oscar post-The Squid and the Whale, and “Myron/Byron”.

Topics also include Marvel’s underrated performance, the 2017 Best Original Song nominees, and Sigourney Weaver introducing herself as herself.

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084 – Burlesque (with Oliver Sava)

Come Oscar nomination morning, sometimes you show a little more, sometimes you show a little less. You know we stan Diane Warren, and this week, we’re talking about Burlesque. Yes, back in 2010, even this new camp classic earned it’s flashes of Oscar hope, as most post-Chicago musicals did. While it was the big screen return of legend, icon, and star Cher that spelled some Oscar potential, it was ultimately her big ballad written by Warren “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” that was the film’s closest brush with Oscar.

This week, freelance comic book/TV/film/dance Oliver Sava joins us to talk about the film that earned equal parts side-eye and earnest affection as a throwback to 1940s musicals by way of The Pussycat Dolls and the screen debut of Christina Aguilera. Burlesque was also a Best Picture – Musical/Comedy nominee in a year much maligned among awards voters, and the nomination earns our affection, along with the film.

We also look back at the legacy of Diane Warren as a pop hitmaker and the diminishing returns of her Oscar nominations. Topics also include Burlesque’s copying of The Devil Wear’s Prada’s formula, unfortunate Freudian slips with Stanley Tucci, and – duh – air rights!

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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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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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001 – Mona Lisa Smile

Our first episode of This Had Oscar Buzz is about 2003’s Mona Lisa Smile, director Mike Newell’s Wellesley College period melodrama, starring Julia Roberts and all of the It Girls of the early Aughts. Come for the art history lesson, stay for the dashed awards hopes.

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