Bud Cort – This Had Oscar Buzz

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

Tag: Bud Cort

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

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