Elijah Wood – This Had Oscar Buzz

244 – Everything is Illuminated

In the early aughts, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated was an inescapable book, launching the young author’s career (and more than a few skeptics). Naturally, the film adaptation came along, though with the unexpected pedigree of cherished actor Liev Schreiber making his director debut. Starring Elijah Wood as a fictionalized version of Foer traveling to Ukraine to discover family truths buried by the Holocaust, the novel and film are a reflection on the lost history of shetls in Eastern Europe. But when the film arrived on the fall festival scene, underwhelming reviews

This episode, we talk about Elijah Wood’s post-Lord of the Rings career and the other films that have come from Foer’s writing. We also discuss the film arriving in the year of Schreiber’s Tony win, distributor Warner Independent’s successful 2005, and the National Board of Review’s 2005 picks for Special Recognition for Excellence in Filmmaking.

Topics also include emailing Natalie Portman, trailer voiceover, and the Blockbuster vs. Netflix discs era.

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050 – Bobby

Can you believe we have made it to our 50TH EPISODE?! And for the occasion, we’ve allowed you the listeners to pick the film we are discussing – and you’ve chosen Bobby, Emilio Estevez’s 2006 film about the day Robert Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassdor Hotel during the 1968 Democratic presidential primary!

The film stars a smorgasbord of famous faces and called-in-favors, including Sharon Stone, Martin Sheen, Anthony Hopkins, Elijah Wood, Laurence Fishburne, and many many more. But the cast is so sprawling that the film struggles to make any of its ensemble all that interesting and never really settles on what Bobby’s assassination means for mid-00s Americans. Perhaps its Golden Globe Best Drama and SAG Ensemble nominations were always the ceiling for Bobby’s awards prospects.

This episode we talk about stylistically chasing Robert Altman’s Nashville (and a certain reviled Best Picture winner), lounge singer and hairstylist meet-cutes, and, of course, the thwarted prestige legacy of Lindsay Lohan.

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