Cher – This Had Oscar Buzz

211 – Mermaids

We’ve got a personal favorite coming to you today starring one of our most beloved icons! After winning her Best Actress Oscar for Moonstruck, Cher then conquered the world with the album Heart of Stone, and didn’t return to the cinema until 1990′s Mermaids. With Cher as a mother of two rebuking societal expectations, the film also starred the recently Oscar nominated Bob Hoskins, Christina Ricci in her debut, and the ascendant Winona Ryder. A female-led comedy about mothers and daughters, the film earned a Golden Globe nomination for Ryder, but ultimately missed out on Oscar while being released between two Best Picture winners from the dying Orion Pictures.

This episode, we talk about the film’s fraught beginnings with several replaced directors with differing tonal visions for the film and Ryder’s fast rise as prestige actress. We also talk about odd 1990 Golden Globe choices including Ghost and Green Card, life lessons learned too early from formative cinema, and Richard Benjamin’s directorial career.

Topics also include Cher joining TikTok, marshmallow snacks, and Bob Hoskins being hot.

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131 – Tea with Mussolini

No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t keep pushing this movie aside – and Tea with Mussolini breaks through for this episode for you! The film is one of Cher’s few post-Oscar films and stars the icon opposite acting legends Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, and Lily Tomlin – all cast as ex-pat women raising a young man during WWII Italy. While the film was an arthouse hit in the early summer and earned Smith a Supporting Actress BAFTA prize, this costume drama was left forgotten come Oscar time.

This week, we’re unpacking the reemergence of Cher in the late 90s, from If These Walls Could Talk to the megasmash success of “Believe” to her iconic Grammy Record of the Year competition. We also get into the 1999 Supporting Actress and the Globes Musical/Comedy field, the only absent dame from Tea With the Dames, and director Franco Zeffirelli.

Topics also include Cher shouting about her Picasso, movies that use “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, and the trauma of AOL Instant Messenger.

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084 – Burlesque (with Oliver Sava)

Come Oscar nomination morning, sometimes you show a little more, sometimes you show a little less. You know we stan Diane Warren, and this week, we’re talking about Burlesque. Yes, back in 2010, even this new camp classic earned it’s flashes of Oscar hope, as most post-Chicago musicals did. While it was the big screen return of legend, icon, and star Cher that spelled some Oscar potential, it was ultimately her big ballad written by Warren “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” that was the film’s closest brush with Oscar.

This week, freelance comic book/TV/film/dance Oliver Sava joins us to talk about the film that earned equal parts side-eye and earnest affection as a throwback to 1940s musicals by way of The Pussycat Dolls and the screen debut of Christina Aguilera. Burlesque was also a Best Picture – Musical/Comedy nominee in a year much maligned among awards voters, and the nomination earns our affection, along with the film.

We also look back at the legacy of Diane Warren as a pop hitmaker and the diminishing returns of her Oscar nominations. Topics also include Burlesque’s copying of The Devil Wear’s Prada’s formula, unfortunate Freudian slips with Stanley Tucci, and – duh – air rights!

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070 – Prêt-à-Porter (Ready to Wear)

Robert Altman had a major comeback in the early 90s, scoring back-to-back lone Director nominations for The Player and Short Cuts. His follow-up, 1994′s Prêt-à-Porter (that’s Ready to Wear for American audiences and fellow philistines), aimed to skewer Paris Fashion Week to comedic effect, but instead ended Altman’s Oscar hot streak that wouldn’t be reignited until 2001′s Gosford Park.

This week, we take on Altman’s improvisational style when it doesn’t work for this imprecise satire starring an underutilized Julia Roberts, Linda Hunt in Edna Mode mode, and Tracy Ullman in an Amy Sherman-Palladino hat. The film is a convergence of early 90s fashion and supermodel obsession, house music, and independent cinema stars. Still landing Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture – Musical/Comedy and Supporting Actress for Sophia Loren (in the year of her Cecil B. DeMille prize), it ultimately was too much of a disappointment to get Oscar’s favor.

We also discuss a never-better Kim Basinger, the recent history of Oscar’s lone director nominees, and one-hit-wonder Ini Kamoze’s “Here Comes the Hotstepper”. It’s fruitcake time, listeners!

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And From Canada MAILBAG!

You asked for it and it’s finally here! While Joe and Chris are away at TIFF, we are bringing you our first ever MAILBAG EPISODE!

We have been taking your questions in the recent weeks and are so excited to bring you this jumbo sized episode devoted just to the Oscar obsessive minutiae that you all are curious about. Right off the bat, we focus on most asked questions such as the origins of our theme music and whether or not we would ever talk about a film from before the 90s. Topics also include beloved precursor outliers that made no dent in their Oscar race, Cher as Oscar presenter, and THOB actors still awaiting their first nomination.

Thank you again for all of your questions and support! Listen listeners, we love you guys!

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