Cannes Film Festival – This Had Oscar Buzz

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.

Don’t forget to sign up for our Patreon, This Had Oscar Buzz: Turbulent Brilliance over at patreon.com/thishadoscarbuzz!!

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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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242 – Pride

This week’s episode is one we have promised for some time: 2014′s Pride. The film tells the true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, a queer activist group that partnered with a Welsh town in the 1980s during the mining strike under Thatcher’s rule. Following the lives of both the straight townsfolk and the queer Londoners, the film paints a portrait of queerness, allyship, and activism that rings true today while also satisfying on a crowd-pleasing level. After launching at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight and winning the Queer Palm, the film launched in the fall of 2014 to some ardent critical fans, but didn’t cross the Oscar finish line.

This episode, we talk about the theatre career of director Matthew Warchus and the film’s comforts in this current tumultuous moment for queer people. We also talk about the film’s tremendous ensemble headlined by Imelda Staunton and Bill Nighy, gay infighting, and unofficial THOB mascot Men Trussler.

Topics also include the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Monica Bellucci bluntly listing director names, and the concept of Festival Regret.

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231 – Force Majeure

We’re taking another dive into the Best International Feature category this week to talk about one of the biggest world cinema successes of the past year, Ruben Östlund. Though he made films before it, 2014 catapulted Östlund with the Cannes premiere of Force Majeure, a dark satire of masculinity, and relationships dynamics, and fight-or-flight impulses. The film continued on the fall festival circuit, amassing critical acclaim and advancing to the Foreign Language Film bake-off list as Sweden’s submission. However, on nomination morning, Force Majeure missed a heavily-predicted nomination.

This episode, we discuss Östlund’s reaction video to missing the Oscar nomination and the films that followed, including two Palme d’Or wins and now Picture/Director/Screenplay nominations for his Triangle of Sadness. We also discuss the immediately pre-COVID American remake Downhill, the lack of an International frontrunner in the 2014 race, and other directors who have won multiple Palmes.

Topics also include this year’s AARP Movies for Grownup awards, shading the International winner that year Ida, and sauna moshpitting.

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