Jennifer Jason Leigh – This Had Oscar Buzz

275 – The Woman in the Window (Patreon Selects)

We’re wrapping up our run of Patreon Selects episode with a real doozy! Originally intended for 2019, The Woman in the Window was meant as a prestige adaptation of a popular thriller, packing quite the pedigree. With the attached talents of director Joe Wright, writer Tracy Letts, and star Amy Adams (along with a stellar supporting cast), the film follows an agoraphobic who witnesses a murder across the street, setting off a mystery of mistaken identities and skewed perceptions of reality. Then, it was hit by a rapid succession of misfortunes including the Disney-Fox merger, a cringe-inducing exposé on author A.J. Finn, and, well, the pandemic.

This episode, we talk about what went wrong and what might have been watered down by the Tony Gilroy reshoots. We also discuss Adams’ recent run of disappointing roles, our hopes for Nightbitch later this year, and Jennifer Jason Leigh joins our Six Timers Club!

Topics also include the emergence of Fred Hechinger, Julianne Moore’s brief boozy performance, and the film’s somewhat unceremonious Netflix drop.

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248 – Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (with Jourdain Searles!)

We are returning to the work of Jennifer Jason Leigh this week, and Jourdain Searles is joining us once again with an underrated and underseen gem. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle takes on the life of indelible writer Dorothy Parker, capturing her days with the insular Algonquin Circle and her later dissolution with the group, all with Jennifer Jason Leigh as the noted wit. Launched at Cannes, the film was celebrated for her performance even with a limited audience, including Golden Globe and Independent Spirit nominations for Best Actress. But even in a famously uncompetitive Best Actress lineup, Leigh was left out.

This episode, we talk about Leigh’s several close calls for a nomination in the 1990s and our feelings about the nomination that she eventually received for The Hateful Eight. We also talk about Pulp Fiction‘s domination on the independent film scene, the Cannes Film Festival, and the influence of producer Robert Altman.

Topics also include writer/director Alan Rudolph’s filmography, the film’s massive (and nepotism baby-inflected) ensemble, and the person-not-company Condé Nast.

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245 – Dolores Claiborne (with Louis Peitzman!)

In the small hall of Oscar-endorsed horror films, the centerpiece must be Kathy Bates brilliant and terrifying win for Best Actress in Misery. A few years after that win, Bates returned to Stephen King territory (though you can debate how much of a horror story it is) with Dolores Claiborne, the mystery of whether or not a woman killed not only her wealthy employer, but her husband decades prior. With Jennifer Jason Leigh as Bates’ estranged daughter and director Taylor Hackford at the helm, the film couldn’t return to that other King film’s Oscar anointing but endures as an intense melodrama and one of the best King adaptations.

This week, writer Louis Peitzman join us to unpack the history of King adaptations and each of our history with King’s work. We also discuss supporting player Judy Parfitt’s exquisite line readings, the differing takes on The Shining delivered by King and Stanley Kubrick, and this story’s connection to Gerald’s Game.

Topics also include the many 1995 Best Actress outsiders, Bates’ pre-Oscar theatre career, and Dead Like Me.

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189 – Margot at the Wedding (with Kyle Buchanan)

After earning an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach followed up that film’s success by partnering with the recently Oscar-ed Nicole Kidman for Margot at the Wedding. The film cast Kidman opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh (then married to Baumbach) as verbally warring sisters, the youngest of who is planning a quick wedding to a bumbling idiot, played by Jack Black. Those looking at the film’s on-paper Oscar prospects were greeted with a daring showcase for Kidman, but a film even more caustic and cruel than Baumbach’s previous film. To date, it remains his worst reviewed directorial effort, but maintains a cult of ardent defenders.

This episode, Kyle Buchanan from The New York Times joins us to discuss his book Blood, Sweat, and Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, the Fury Road Oscar year, and what makes Margot such a brilliant Kidman performance. We also get into the botox criticisms that plagued the film’s reviews, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s close calls before her Oscar nomination, and Kidman’s cringey virtuoso book store monologue.

Topics also include which Drag Race contestant Margot is, bucket hats, and the value of Oscar clips.

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153 – A Thousand Acres

It’s time for yet another long-promised episode in This Had Oscar Buzz lore, and also from a Pulitzer Prize winner! Adapted from Jane Smiley’s novel (which itself was loosely based on Shakespeare’s King Lear), A Thousand Acres cast two-time Oscar winner Jason Robards as one town’s beloved titan farmer and a trio of dynamo actresses as his daughters: Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. The daughters inherit the farm as their father’s dementia starts to take hold, leading to a struggle for control of the farm in the shadow of revelations about the sexual abuse they endured at his hand. Though the film netted a Best Actress nomination for Lange at the Globes, the film’s harsh critical drubbing pushed it out of Oscar’s view.

This episode, we get into the film’s shortcomings while discussing how it might have been more kindly received today. Also, Pfeiffer is the latest performer to join our 6 Timer’s Club while we discuss Lange’s career resurgence thanks to Ryan Murphy and Leigh’s long road to her first Oscar nomination after several attempts in the 1990s.

Topics also include the films of director Jocelyn Moorhouse, Ving Rhames passing his Golden Globe off to Jack Lemmon, and our Best Actress pick for 1997.

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047 – In The Cut (2003 – Part Four)

For our fourth of four films in our 2003 miniseries, we placed the responsibility squarely on you: the listener. (Please try to disregard that Joe repeatedly refers to “readers” in this episode; to him, podcasts are books you read with your ears.) Out of a poll that included The Company, Shattered Glass, and The Station Agent, you chose director Jane Campion’s sex-charged thriller In the Cut, and a more notorious Oscar flop you could not have found. A decade after breaking ground as only the second woman ever nominated for Best Director, Campion was pretty much run out of town for this tonally deliberate meditation on sex, violence, and a sleaze-stached Mark Ruffalo expressing a penchant for cunnilingus and anilingus. Both!

Then of course there was Meg Ryan, who stepped in to replace Nicole Kidman and instead stepped in front of a firing squad made up of critics and audiences who were not ready for her to be playing a schoolteacher who gets off quite literally on her proximity to danger. When Harry Met Sally and Then Sally Went Looking for Mr. Goodbar was not the movie people wanted.

Chris and Joe discuss Meg, Mark, and Jane, as well as Jennifer Jason Leigh, “F” Cinemascores, and much more. You asked for this! And by “this” we mean “Mark Ruffalo’s visible penis.”

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