Golden Globes – Page 5 – This Had Oscar Buzz

079 – A Love Song for Bobby Long

The Golden Globes have a standing reputation for oddball nominations and this week we are discussing one of the peak examples: 2004′s A Love Song for Bobby Long. The film follows Scarlett Johansson as [ahem] Purslane Hominy Will, a young woman who inherits a home from her estranged mother only to find it occupied by two poet drunkards played by John Travolta and Gabriel Macht. Remembered far more as a trivia item for Johansson’s Best Actress in a Drama nomination at the Globes than the film itself, Bobby Long provides a fascinating time capsule to the exact moment when Johansson’s star was on the rise after her big 2003.

But this one was held by distributor Lionsgate for a post-Christmas qualifying release, with its fate doubly sealed when the then-tiny distributor’s other candidate Hotel Rwanda took off just a week before. This week, we take a look back at the history of Lionsgate from tiny indie label to the mini-major distributor they are today, and we argue that Johansson might not be the Globes darling that conventional wisdom claims she is.

We also discuss other qualifying releases that had varying degrees of success, Oscar’s history of actors getting double nominations, and galaxy brain what The Cell: The Musical would look like.

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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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064 – The Evening Star

Is there a faster fast track to Oscar buzz than being a sequel to a Best Picture winner? While there may not be much of a sample pool beyond The Godfather series, 1996 gave us The Evening Star, a follow-up to Terms of Endearment and Shirley MacLaine’s Aurora Greenway. This time without writer/director James L. Brooks (replaced here by Steel Magnolias scribe Robert Harling making his directorial debut), the Academy did not give this proverbial daughter a shot.

This week, we spread the film’s ashes from a speeding beach convertible as we discuss the ways the film disappoints in the shadow of Terms of Endearment, but still has its own charms. And no, we don’t just mean Scott Wolf in his tighty whities.

We also look back at MacLaine’s legendary career (including her all-timer Oscar speech), spitballs who might be the eponymous dames of the eventual Tea With The Dames 2, and go deep on the very personality heavy 1996 Golden Globes lineup of nominees.

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062 – Miss Potter

Certainly one of the biggest Oscar narratives this season will be Renée Zellweger’s return to the big screen, starring as the timeless Judy Garland in Judy. So to mark the occasion (with Chris highly anticipatory and Joe more hesitant in how far Judy can go), we’re discussing one of the actress’ few attempts at Oscar that didn’t register with the Academy in some way: the Beatrix Potter biopic Miss Potter.

The film thrust into Oscar late in 2006 as the newly established Weinstein Company was struggling with its awards fare. Perhaps too gentle of a film to register in a season that rewarded much grimmer subjects, the film’s awards hopes ended at Zellweger’s Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy at the Globes. This week, look back at Zellweger’s trajectory from Oscar shutout to Oscar perennial to the arrival of her comeback.

We also discuss director Chris Noonan and the legacy of Babe, the wildly underrated Emily Watson, and the highly thirstable Patrick Wilson in Little Children.

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061 – Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

A title that became a punchline all its own, this week we are discussing 2012′s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. A light romantic drama about project management and Western relationships with the Middle East, Lasse Hallström’s film accidentally stumbled into the Oscar race when the Golden Globes decided the film was a comedy and gave the spring release three surprise nominations.

This episode, we discuss the career and outsider awards trajectory for Salmon Fishing star Ewan McGregor and how the film’s Globes nomination tally ultimately meant nothing for the film as an awards player. Get ready for lots of Globes talk as we spotlight 2012′s most glaring comedy omission by the Globes and recall perhaps the greatest presenter duo of all time: Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell. You get outta here, listeners!

Topics also include movies narrated by dogs, left-field Globes Comedy picks both good and bad, and assassination attempts thwarted by fishing hooks.

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023 – The Tourist (with Katey Rich)

Remember that time a movie where Johnny Depp explains vaping to Angelina Jolie made everyone super mad at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association? That’s right, we’re talking this week about The Tourist, a film so notorious in Oscar buzz history that we’ve invited a special guest to unpack it: deputy editor for VanityFair.com Katey Rich!

The Tourist had a labored pre-production history that eventually landed it in the lap of recent Foreign Language winning director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. However our Oscar-watching eyes were mostly (perhaps cynically) directed toward its stars: a waning Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie as an arresting but nondescript fancy European lady. Toss in a very convoluted plot of spies, assumed identities, and flatlining humor and you have a recipe for a critical and commercial misfire.

But immediately after The Tourist thudded into theatres, it earned its notoriously generous Golden Globe nominations. We dissect the movie’s lunacy, defend the HFPA’s recent Musical/Comedy picks, and most importantly, we Consider Melissa Leo.

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