ed harris – This Had Oscar Buzz

BONUS – Sundance the Night (with Cameron Scheetz)

We’re breaking into your regular podcast schedule to bring you a special bonus episode recapping our thoughts on the films of this year’s Sundance Film Festival! And we’ve asked Queerty’s Cameron Scheetz back on to tell us what the festival was like on the ground at Park City (along with thoughts on non-virtual films like I Saw the TV Glow)! Topics include June Squibb going vigilante as Thelma, a Kieran Culkin/Jesse Eisenberg Pain-ful duet, and our favorite films of this year’s festival!

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158 – Stepmom (with Christina Tucker)

It has to be said that we have been waiting to do Stepmom from the very beginning, and what better excuse to finally dive in to Chris Columbus’ Christmas Day weepy than this week’s special guest Christina Tucker, co-host of the podcast Wait, Is This A Date?. Uniting the 1998 powers of America’s sweetheart Julia Roberts and recent Best Actress winner Susan Sarandon as a mother diagnosed with cancer and her ex-husband’s future wife, the film earned Sarandon a Golden Globe nomination despite critics not taking to the film’s very sentimental mood.

This episode, we unpack all of the film’s silly moments, from unwieldy real estate to photoshop, from new and various house pets to snowblowing, and all of the things in between that we love about it. We also look at Julia Roberts’ swings from successes to misfires in the 90s, Jena Malone’s return to pop culture in The Hunger Games series, and Susan Sarandon joins our 6 Timers Club!

Topics also include the 1998 Best Actress race, the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, and VH1′s I Love the 80s.

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100 – mother!

We have finally arrived at a major milestone – our 100th episode!! To commemorate the occasion, we’re looking back at the notoriously divisive 2017 discourse factory, Darren Aronofsky’s mother!. An environmental allegory of biblical proportions, mother! arrived after a cryptic marketing campaign with few plot details beyond the promise of a horror spectacle and megastar Jennifer Lawrence at the forefront. Loved by some critics and loudly reviled by most audiences, any Oscar hopes or predictions evaporated once we saw what the film actually was.

for our 100th episode, we’re going all in on a film bursting with talking points, from Lawrence and Aronofsky’s romantic relationship (and how that shadowed readings on the film) to Michelle Pfeiffer rude and horny stand-in for Eve. Though Aronofsky was vocal to the press after release about what the film represents, we examine multiple possible threads of interpretation in its madness. We also look at Jennifer Lawrence fatigue among audiences, the history of F Cinemascores, and the goriest swag you’ve ever seen.

And since this is such a milestone episode, we take some time to look back on our favorites from previous episodes. Thank you listeners for joining us on the journey!

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046 – The Human Stain (2003 – Part Three)

This week we bring you the Stefon of the 2003 Oscar race: Anthony Hopkins inadvertently saying racial slurs, Nicole Kidman with curly hair, a cringeworthy adaptation of Philip Roth, holdover from the Monica Lewinsky scandal, cast members from The Real World London. It was only inevitable that we would eventually discuss The Human Stain, but for our month-long 2003 miniseries it was perfect timing.

Once thought to be Miramax’s other big 2003 player starring Kidman, the film is a poorly timed and poorly observed look at political correctness in America that critics rightfully dismissed. It would then quickly die in theatres and in the Oscar race, with Miramax succeeding to some degree with the rest of their lineup of films. This week, we discuss the film as emblematic of Miramax and Harvey Weinstein’s shuffle tactics with Oscar prospects, the film’s offensive handling of race and sexual mores, and one performance in the film we think rises above its many problems. As always, it all comes back to The Hours.

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