Best Visual Effects – This Had Oscar Buzz

363 – Super 8

In the 2011 summer movie season overcrowded with sequels and IP, J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 stood out as an original event film. Arriving with a mysterious marketing campaign that was the Abrams signature, the film follows a group of kids in the late 1970s who capture footage of an alien while shooting a monster movie in their hometown. The film earned early critical praise and was loaded with homage to Steven Spielberg. However, it proved more divisive as consensus begun to settle, with many finding the film to not be all that original or all that satisfying.

This episode, we talk about Abrams’ position as a director both then and now, and we unpack the degree to which the film is successful as a Spielberg retread. We also talk about the film’s mystery box marketing push, the film’s creature design, and co-star Elle Fanning joins our Six Timers Club.

Topics also include the 2011 Visual Effects race, lens flares, and Fanning’s Oscar chances this year.

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356 – The Fountain

After an indie one-two punch of Pi and Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky was riding high as one of the major emerging directors at the turn of the century. For his next film, he would graduate to big budget studio fare with The Fountain, an ambitious and era-spanning science fiction tale of love and death. The scaled-down version that reached 2006 cinemas starred Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz and remains a love-it-or-hate-it head-scratcher that nevertheless fits perfectly within Aronofsky’s continued themes of the body and soul.

This episode, we talk about all that went down with the canceled version of the film set to star Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. We also talk where we stand with Aronofsky’s work pre-Caught Stealing, Jackman breaking away from Wolverine, and our deep affection for Clint Mansell’s score.

Topics also include Eddington, tree sap, and Donna Murphy doing science.

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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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128 – Cats

It’s time to finally talk about such serious things as digital fur technology and the perils of tribalism – you’ve been begging for it, we’re finally talking about Cats. Our first Class of 2019 film discussed on the podcast, Cats was announced to the immediate revulsion of many, but Oscar predictors saw some possibility thanks to the participation of two Oscar winners: director Tom Hooper and star Jennifer Hudson in the role of Grizabella. But Cats’ communal punchline status continued to snowball, from its heavily memed trailer, to its legendary Lincoln Center premiere, to its rowdy screenings.

This epsiode, we dive into our own relationships with the staged version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical and the composer’s underwhelming returns with screen adaptations. We also cover what made the film such a disaster including Hooper’s ill-conceived high-minded approach to the material and his reported mistreatment of the film’s visual effects team. We also discuss the “Butthole Cut”, visible wedding rings, and “Beautiful Ghosts.”

Topics also include our rankings of the musical numbers, Celine Dion’s television singing competition version of “Memory”, and what the hell “Jellicle” even means.

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102 – The Walk

Bonjour, listeners! This week, we’re returning to the work of Robert Zemeckis for a film whose buzz was built first by an Oscar winning documentary. In 2008, Man on Wire steamrolled the documentary race with the telling of highwire artist Philippe Petit’s daring tightrope performance between the World Trade Center towers – leading Zemeckis to give Petit the biopic treatment with The Walk in 2015. Promising awe-inspiring visual effects to put audiences in Petit’s shoes, the film nevertheless plummeted to an immediate death at the box office due to audiences’ waning favor for both 3D and the film’s star Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Despite some more embarrassing elements like JGL’s French accent and a climatic visit from a CGI bird, the film does deliver a satisfying and thrilling climax. But this episode, we unpack how even the film’s visual effects couldn’t crack Oscar’s lineup in a year with a surprising result in the category. We also look at Gordon-Levitt’s rise from teen star to capital “C” Charismatic leading man.

Topics also include the early films of Rian Johnson, An American Tale, and Werner Herzog saying science things.

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