Jeff Goldblum – This Had Oscar Buzz

We’ll get you a red cap and a speedo for this week’s episode, becuase we’re talking about Wes Anderson for the first time with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The follow-up to Anderson’s first Oscar-nominated film The Royal Tenenbaums put Bill Murray front and center in the year after Murray almost won Best Actor for Lost in Translation. But critics were far less kind to this film than Anderson’s previous efforts (it remains his only rotten movie on RT), and voters looking to reward Murray for his previous loss were met with a more caustic and off-putting character than hid lauded “sad Murray” era.

This episode, we look back at how Murray was shockingly snubbed for Anderson’s Rushmore and the ebbs and flows of Anderson’s career in relation to audience/critic perceptions. And since no performance in a Wes Anderson film has ever landed an Oscar nomination, we pick our top 5 performances in his films we think are most deserving.

Topics also include Seu Jorge’s David Bowie covers in Portuguese, whether or not Ray is appropriately categorized as a musical, and which performance in The French Dispatch has the best chance at a nomination.

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What was it that placed a light comedy like Morning Glory on early Oscar predictions in 2010? Was it the potential for a morning news riff on Broadcast News brilliance? The ascendancy of Rachel McAdams that we knew would eventually pay off with an acting nomination? Or the late career turn as journalist curmudgeon from Harrison Ford, who in recent years has generated Oscar talk for even The Force Awakens? Turns out it was a little bit of all of those things.

However, Morning Glory quickly faded from Oscar prognosticators radar when it opened to quite disappointing box office and middling reviews. Unfortunately, the film never quite satisfies on its promise, even with a winning cast that also includes an underserved Diane Keaton and pre-uberhip era Jeff Goldblum. For McAdams, it would take being in a Best Picture frontrunner to land that first nomination we had been expecting, but Morning Glory at least has a few vocal fans.

This week, we feel the rain on our skin as we talk about the specific brand of pop optimism given to us by Natasha Bedingfield, the genius of screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, and Diane Keaton open-mouth kissing a frog.

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Tag: Jeff Goldblum

167 – The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

063 – Morning Glory