327 – On the Road

With I’m Still Here garnering praise in this year’s awards race, we thought it would be a great time to talk about Walter Salles – and, well, things turned out great with a surprise Best Picture nomination for Salles and company. After earning stateside honors with films like The Motorcycle Diaries and Central Station, Salles took on an ambitious and long-gestating project: an adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. With a starry cast and impeccable craft team, the film received a mild-to-dismissive reception at its Cannes premiere and struggled throughout the season to regain traction.

This episode, we praise the work of Salles (including in this divisive film!) and mention the many names that were previously attached to bring the landmark book to the screen. We also talk about Kristen Stewart during the height of Twilight, Salles’ reedit of the film before its fall release, and the supporting cast that includes the likes of Amy Adams, Viggo Mortensen, Elisabeth Moss, Alice Braga, and Kirsten Dunst.

Topics also include IFC Films, the 2012 National Board of Review Top 10 Independent Films, and other beat generation films.

323 – Rust and Bone

For New Years week, the auld acquaintance that won’t be forgot on our show is… a grim French drama about broken bodies. In 2012, Jacques Audiard returned to Cannes with Rust and Bone starring Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts as reluctant lovers healing through personal tragedies. The film left Cannes with no prizes but with a lot of buzz for Cotillard, which came on strong throughout the precursor season. But with a Best Actress field in flux, a few surprise ascendant nominations left an early contender like Cotillard in the dust.

This episode, we talk about our experience of liking the film less on rewatch and the trend of Cannes films becoming Oscar players in the past decade. We also talk about our issues with Emilia Perez, the film missing out on being the French International Feature submission, and the season that led to Cotillard’s Best Actress win for La Vie En Rose.

Topics also include Katy Perry, the 2012 Cannes lineup, and Audiard’s Palme for Dheepan.

303 – Red Rocket

With Anora anointed with the Palme d’Or this year, one of the narratives ahead in the coming season will be whether Sean Baker’s microbudgeted cinema will be embraced by the Academy in a big way. After lots of buzz for Tangerine and an acting nom for Willem Dafoe in The Florida Project, Baker was buzzed again for Red Rocket and its showcase performance for Simon Rex. With Rex as a manipulative down-and-out porn star returning to the small town that cast him out, Red Rocket‘s moral minefield and rueful comedy was ultimately not embraced by Oscar.

This week, we talk about Rex’s dynamic performance and the film’s recreation of the 2016 election cycle. We also talk about the meta elements of Rex’s casting, Baker’s rise among the ranks of independent cinema, and the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

Topics also include donuts, 2021 Best Actor, and READ posters.

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281 – Fair Game

We return to the work of Naomi Watts this week for a discussion on 2010’s Fair Game. Costarring with Sean Penn for the third time in a decade, Watts starred as outed CIA agent Valerie Plame with the film detailing the leaking of Plame’s identity amidst her husband Joseph C. Wilson’s criticisms of the Bush administration. With Doug Liman taking the director’s chair after a series of action films, the film is a surprisingly sober recounting of the Plame story and one of Hollywood’s better offerings deconstructing that era of American culture. But despite launching the film at Cannes and Watts’ solid performance, the film became yet another disappointment among the many political dramas of the period.

This week, we talk about the career of Liman, including the fraught production of The Bourne Identity. We also discuss Watts’ period between her two Oscar nominations, the general landscape of Bush era politics and how few films successfully unpacked it well, and the relative box office disappointment of Edge of Tomorrow.

Topics also include Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, Bush administration names like “Scooter,” and the National Board of Review’s Freedom of Expression award.

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278 – Annette

Coming out of the COVID-led doldrums of 2020, the Cannes Film Festival loomed large as a “movies are back!!” starting gate for global cinema. Its opening film, Annette, was a long-in-development rock opera with music by cult fave Sparks and directed by visionary auteur Leos Carax, returning to the Croisette with his first film in nearly a decade. With Adam Driver at the helm as a batboy shock jock comedian who falls in love with opera star Marion Cotillard to disastrous results, the film is a bizarre fantasia about destructive creative ego and features a puppet as the titular baby singer. Though the film drew raves and buzz around Driver and Sparks’ score, Annette was alas too freaky for the Academy.

This week, we talk about Driver’s career and how his unique physicality makes him a worthy successor to Carax’s usual collaborator Denis Lavant. We also talk about the other famous castings while the film sat in development, the 2021 Original Song contenders, and Simon Helberg’s supporting performance.

Topics also include Baby Annette in the gay stan wars, Carax’s filmography, and the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

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274 – Certified Copy (Patreon Selects)

Our patrons said we must stay in Tuscany! This week, we’ve got another Patreon Selects episode and it has us talking about one of our least favorite Oscar years. In 2010, Abbas Kiarostami returned to Cannes with yet another masterpiece in Certified Copy, a dense and transfixing musing on reproductions of art, authenticity, and perception. The film didn’t release stateside until 2011, but did earn Juliette Binoche Best Actress at Cannes and a wide range of critical response, from befuddled to enraptured. But Certified Copy became more of a critical favorite than Oscar hopeful, while a different Iranian filmmaker, Asghar Farhadi, would win the country’s first international Oscar for A Separation.

This episode, we talk about Binoche’s career including her mixed bag of American projects. We also talk about the film’s slippery presentation of reality and role-play, the Iranian New Wave and Iran’s Oscar history, and the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Topics also include other 2011 favorites in a bad Oscar year, coffee shop ladies, and Cannes acting prizes.

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271 – Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Patreon Selects)

Our Patreon Selects episodes continue this week with a pick from Audrey: the beloved 2019 lesbian romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The film launched at the Cannes Film Festival, winning the Best Screenplay prize and skyrocketing director Céline Sciamma to the names of most beloved contemporary directors. However, when the Oscar race began, France instead chose to submit Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables for the International Feature race. Sciamma’s film still gained feverish fandom on the fall festival circuit and even more critical raves, but ultimately distributor Neon focused its awards campaign energies on fanning the flames of the Parasite moment.

This episode, we talk about the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and Portrait’s delayed platform release that got abbreviated by COVID. We also discuss Adèle Haenel’s stunning enigmatic performance, the film where Noémie Merlant falls in love with a circus ride, and the case for Claire Mathon in Best Cinematography.

Topics also include Louis Ironson’s poster’s disease, 2019 films directed by women, and the 2022 Sight and Sound poll.

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254 – The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Some might call Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar ascent an unlikely one, given the oddness at the core of his films. But with the Foreign Language Feature nomination for the explicit Dogtooth and the Original Screenplay for The Lobster, the Greek auteur cemented his status in the Oscar club. A victory lap of sorts came with The Killing of a Sacred Deer in 2017, returning Lanthimos to Cannes competition with the pedigree of Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman. But any expectation that the film might be another Academy affirmed oddity all but evaporated when Cannes audiences discovered a bloody and deeply strange (even for Lanthimos) modern fable about a father given an otherworldly, violent demand from a deceased patient’s son.

This episode, we talk about our anticipation for Lanthimos’ Poor Things this season and the elements that make this film so divisive. We also talk about Barry Keoghan’s brilliant breakthrough performance, Alicia Silverstone’s caramel tart, and the film career of character actor Bill Camp (new bet alert!).

Topics also include the now-defunct Executive Committee, Kidman smoking while gardening, and 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

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248 – Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (with Jourdain Searles!)

We are returning to the work of Jennifer Jason Leigh this week, and Jourdain Searles is joining us once again with an underrated and underseen gem. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle takes on the life of indelible writer Dorothy Parker, capturing her days with the insular Algonquin Circle and her later dissolution with the group, all with Jennifer Jason Leigh as the noted wit. Launched at Cannes, the film was celebrated for her performance even with a limited audience, including Golden Globe and Independent Spirit nominations for Best Actress. But even in a famously uncompetitive Best Actress lineup, Leigh was left out.

This episode, we talk about Leigh’s several close calls for a nomination in the 1990s and our feelings about the nomination that she eventually received for The Hateful Eight. We also talk about Pulp Fiction‘s domination on the independent film scene, the Cannes Film Festival, and the influence of producer Robert Altman.

Topics also include writer/director Alan Rudolph’s filmography, the film’s massive (and nepotism baby-inflected) ensemble, and the person-not-company Condé Nast.

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243 – Wonderstruck

We’re talking about one of our favorite filmmakers this episode and for one of his most mildly received movies. In 2017, two years after the critical success of Carol, Todd Haynes returned with a pivot to young adult literature with Wonderstruck. Based on the book by Brian Selznick, the film follows two deaf children across decades who trek into Manhattan in search of family: Rose in 1927 and Ben in 1977, respectively played by Millicent Simmonds and Oakes Fegley. With passing observations to film history and the invention of the talkie, the film takes a heady approach to a story of familial reconciliation across generations. But when the film widely disappointed viewers early on at the Cannes Film Festival, the film struggled to gain fans over the year, becoming the first of Amazon’s many awards duds over the season.

This episode, we discuss the film’s early tepid reception at the Cannes Film Festival and all of the talk of this year’s Cannes, including the debut of Haynes’ May December. We also discuss Simmonds’ work in the A Quiet Place franchise, the challenge in marketing Haynes’ films, and Julianne Moore’s dual roles in both storylines.

Topics also include Carter Burwell’s glorious score, another round of Alter Egos, and gossip from the 2017 Cannes.

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