Helen Mirren – This Had Oscar Buzz

300 – Collateral Beauty

We’ve hit another year of the podcast, arriving at our milestone 300th episode! No better way to celebrate that by finally revisiting one of the past decades most notorious bombs, 2016’s Collateral Beauty. Starring Will Smith as a grieving father, this all-star cast includes Edward Norton, Michael Peña, and Kate Winslet as his three friend who devise a plan to… oust Smith from their advertising firm by… hiring three struggling actors (Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, and Jacob Latimore) to… portray the concepts of Death, Love, and Time that he has been writing letters to, and make him appear mentally unstable. Yeah, this one goes some places!

This episode, we talk about how the film’s imbalance with magical realism makes it more deranged. We also talk about Smith’s Oscar-chasing dramatic roles pre-slap, Ann Dowd as a felony committing private investigator, and the previous talent attached to this buzzy but ill-begotten project.

Topics also include Winslet joining our 6 Timers Club, Rogue One, and our Best Of ballots for the last year of the show!

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226 – The Leisure Seeker

When the 2017 Golden Globe nominations were announce, the question on everyone’s mind was “What the hell is The Leisure Seeker?!” Starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland as an aging couple having one last getaway in their eponymous Winnebago, the film debuted in competition at Venice before also playing a TIFF gala and went entirely under the radar. Sony Classics quietly gave the film a qualifying release, successfully netting Mirren a Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Golden Globe nomination despite so few seeing the film. The nomination was a head-scratcher to most, but was predicted by none other than our Joe Reid.

This episode, we discuss Helen Mirren’s vast history with the Golden Globes and assess the current diagnosis on the Globes and their often amusing nomination history. We also talk about Sutherland’s famously surprising lack of an acting Oscar nomination, other possible comedy leading actress contenders from 2017, and another round of Alter Egos.

Topics also include what famous festival jurors think of the movies they have to watch, the film’s half-baked look at the 2016 election, and surprise Danielle Deadwyler.

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182 – State of Play

Adapted from the lauded UK miniseries of the same title, State of Play had a labored journey to the screen. Appearing on the 2006 Black List and originally intended as the screen reunion for Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, the American film adaptation weathered several delays, recastings, and creative setbacks, including the 2007 WGA strike. Once in production, the film mounted a cast that included Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, and Helen Mirren to unfold its political conspiracy in the attempted vein of All the President’s Men. All of this prestige put the film on awards prognosticators’ early predictions while it was still planned for a fall 2008 release, but it quickly cast aside those ambitions once in was punted one final time to a spring 2009 release.

This episode, we discuss Russell Crowe’s post-Oscar career of several Ridley Scott films and the phone-throwing incident that tainted his career. We also discuss Ben Affleck in the immediate afterglow of his directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, his immediate pivot to casting himself in his own movies, and director Kevin Macdonald’s pivot from documentarries to fiction films.

Topics also include watching the original miniseries on Netflix discs, snacks that are just chemicals, and The Eagle.

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157 – Woman in Gold

Somehow we have yet to cover a film starring Helen Mirren, but this episode, we rectify that with 2015′s Woman in Gold. Mirren stars in the true story as Maria Altmann, a woman who fled the Nazis and later sought restitution of her very famous family paintings by Gustav Klimt. The film also stars Ryan Reynolds as Altmann’s lawyer with an unexamined relationship with his own Jewish lineage and was Simon Curtis’ directorial follow-up to My Week With Marilyn. A sizable counterprogramming hit in the spring, Woman in Gold was campaigned by the financially fledgling Weinstein Company, landing Mirren sual SAG nominations for this and the abysmal Trumbo.

This week, we take a long look at Helen Mirren before and after her Oscar, including her balance between awards fare staple and ironic action star. We also discuss Reynolds’ screen persona opposite his miscasting here, movies about paintings, and the difference between “overdue” and “this is their year” narratives.

Topics also include the power of being the season’s first screener, Olga Kurlyenko’s Black Widow cameo, and the best mode of transportation in which to seek leisure.

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