Bradley Cooper – This Had Oscar Buzz

256 – Burnt

This week, we’re bringing you an episode to make you yell “YA BURNT!” Back in 2015, Bradley Cooper was to headline an ensemble dreamed about an unruly addict chef trying to earn his third Michelin star. Switching from the anonymously titled Adam Jones to the equally anonymous Burnt, the film had already earned a little bit of punchline status before skipping the fall festival circuit and delivering a dud wide release. Despite Cooper’s rising star power and Academy pedigree, this one didn’t come close to the awards or audience embrace as 2014’s American Sniper.

This episode, we look back at a the rise of chef culture in pop culture at large from Top Chef to The Bear. We also talk about Alicia Vikander’s busy 2015 that led to an Oscar win, the film’s ludicrous but formulaic plotting by screenwriter Steven Knight, and the underwhelming cinematic output from director John Wells.

Topics also include Cooper’s upcoming Maestro, his Oscar nominations as a producer, and Serenity.

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161 – The Mule

Many of Clint Eastwood’s most recent films have arrived in quick turnaround, going from announcement to filming to release in a head-spinningly short amount of time. In 2018, he had one of his fastest productions ever with The Mule, a story of an 80-year-old man estranged from his family who takes on a job hauling drugs across the border in his pickup truck. Inspired partly by a true story, the film’s sprint to theatres set expectations that it might be another of Eastwood’s successful late season arrivals like Million Dollar Baby. The result was a Christmas season box office success, but a film that ultimately didn’t attempt much of an awards campaign to make voters take notice.

This episode, we don’t mince words about how we feel about the film’s offensive stereotypes and clunky pseudo-comic character study. We get into Bradley Cooper reuniting with Eastwood for a thankless role here in the same season as his triumph with A Star Is Born, and how Cooper shockingly missed out on becoming the season’s frontrunner. And we discuss the film’s trolling tactics, the work of screenwriter Nick Schenk, and the free pass the film received by critics.

Topics also include an egregiously underused Dianne Wiest, flirting at flower conventions, and Eastwood grumbling the word “internet.”

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146 – The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features – Part Four)

This week, our Focus Features miniseries brings us to The Place Beyond the Pines, Derek Dianfrance’s epic, novelistic tale of fathers and sons. The film reunited Cianfrance with his Blue Valentine star Ryan Gosling as a motorcyclist who turns to crime, with consequences that will reverbate across households and generations. After launching at TIFF in 2012, Focus Features held the film until the following spring, leaving it as a highly divisive afterthought come awards season.

We unpack Cianfrance’s ambitious triptych vision with a stellar ensemble cast of Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Dane DeHaan, Ray Liotta, Rose Byrne, Ben Mendelsohn, and Eva Mendes. We discuss the film’s underserved female characters, early 2010s Gosling fatigue, and its emotionally intelligent exploration of masculinity that still left some viewers cold. And there’s still room to rave over cinematographer Derek Cianfrance and his bold work for this film that left him with a concussion.

Topics also include Cianfrance’s underseen HBO limited series I Know This Much Is True, Michelle Williams’ nomination for Blue Valentine without one for Gosling, and reading A Little Life on vacation.

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009 – Serena

Grab your snake-catchin’ eagle and buckle up for this week’s Oscar misstep: Susanne Bier’s literary adaptation Serena.

Set during the Great Depression, this lumber baron romantic thriller starred Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper and became a question mark lingering over multiple Oscar seasons. After a beleaguered post-production process and its struggles to find a distributor, the film immediately disappeared when it finally arrived in theatres, after both stars had delivered multiple blockbusters and two Oscar successes with David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle.

Listen in as we unpack a movie that asks “how much animal symbolism is too much?” and “what would happen if Lady Macbeth and the Monopoly guy fell in love?” The answers: “never enough” and failed Oscar buzz.

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