400 – Town and Country

It’s our 400th episode this week, so we had to go big. What could be more fitting than a notorious bomb with major star pedigree?! No stranger to misfires, Warren Beatty nevertheless was one of the biggest names in Hollywood that could generate buzz with any project – and more prophetically in this case – could have any budgetary or creative demand met. Town and Country was a simple middle-aged sex farce (that Beatty took neither producing or writing credits…) that ultimately resulted in years of reshoots or creative redirections before becoming one of the biggest and most forgotten Hollywood box office bombs.

This episode, we talk about how the film fails to riff on Beatty’s playboy star persona and the film’s troubled production history. We also talk about the numerous rewrites and reshoots that plagued the film, a foul-mouthed Marian Seldes, and and Beatty’s reactions to the film’s disastrous press cycle.

Topics also include Idaho costume parties, cello tattoos, and our favorites from the previous year of the show.

166- To Die For

Nicole Kidman finally joins the THOB Six Timers Club this week with what many consider her first major critical success. In the same year that Kidman had a major blockbuster in Batman Forever, the actress joined forces with Gus Van Sant for satirical Joyce Maynard adaptation To Die For. The film starred Kidman as the fame obsessed (and possibly murderous) Suzanne Stone, earning the actress raves and a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical, but stiff competition among lead actresses left the film as a headscratcher of an Oscar snub in hindsight.

To Die For was also a rebound for Van Sant from the disastrous Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, and we look back at his career balanced between big successes and major misfires. We also talk about Illeana Douglas’ burst of great supporting roles in the 1990s, the emergence of tabloid and talkshow culture, and the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.

Topics also include the late work of screenwriter Buck Henry, Goldie Hawn in Protocol, and what the plot of Vanessa Redgrave-starrer A Month By The Lake might be.

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