Elizabeth Debicki – This Had Oscar Buzz

264 – Everest (with Katey Rich!)

Following Thanksgiving tradition, Katey Rich returns to This Had Oscar Buzz to discussant film with indistinguishable white male actors, and this year we have chosen 2015’s Everest. Directed by Baltasar Kormákur and featuring a massive cast led by Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, and Jake Gyllenhaal, the film follows the true story of a disastrous trip up Mount Everest that left almost an entire crew dead. The prestigious cast and the film’s placement opening the Venice Film Festival led some prognosticators to suspect the film could be an Oscar player, but it ended up a straightforward disaster film that American audiences mostly dismissed.

This episode, we discuss how the film struggles to portray the reasons someone would want to climb Everest and Joe delivers his most hoot-worthy game yet. We also discuss Gyllenhaal’s recent questionable output, Elizabeth Debicki explaining things, and directors we confuse for Kormákur.

Topics also include mountain madness, author Jon Krakauer, and “wife on phone.”

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125 – Widows

You asked for it and it’s finally here! To close the year, we are doing another Listeners’ Choice episode and the landslide victor is 2018′s Widows. The follow-up to Steve McQueen’s Best Picture winning 12 Years a Slave, Widows places Viola Davis at the head of a group of Chicago women caught in the middle of political corruption when their husbands all go down in a heist gone wrong. Highly received by early critics (including your hosts), the film disappointed at the box office and stumbled throughout the precursor season. Now and forever, Justice For Widows!

This episode, we go into the film’s mixed receptions by audiences expecting something more in line with traditional heist fare and 2018′s disconnect between the films that emerged most victorious and the film’s left on the outside. We also discuss the film’s incisive look at Chicago, Brian Tyree Henry’s incredible 2018, and how Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox left this film underserved by its studio.

Topics also include Robert Duvall yelling “I’m old!”, the Bird Box phenomenon, and what other contenders came close in your Listeners’ Choice votes.

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