Kaitlyn Dever – This Had Oscar Buzz

277 – Beautiful Boy

Attention, Dune-heads, we’re talking about Timothee Chalamet this week! In 2018, fresh off of his first Oscar nomination, Chalamet joined Steve Carell for Beautiful Boy, an adaptation of David and Nic Sheff’s memoirs about a young man’s addiction and his father’s attempts to help him. Directed by Felix van Groeningen (who’d directed nominated international feature The Broken Circle Breakdown), the film is a somewhat scattered and ineffective weepie that strains Carell’s limitations but nevertheless earned Chalamet Best Supporting Actor nominations at all the major precursors.

This week, we talk about Carell’s career starting with The Daily Show and his more tricky dramatic work. We also talk about Chalamet’s quick ascent following his Call Me By Your Name success, Maura Tierney’s impactful but too brief role, and 2018 Best Supporting Actor.

Topics also include Dune Part 2, TIFF 2018 galas, and the Beautiful Boy Erased is Back vibes of 2018.

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234 – Dear Evan Hansen (with Adam Grosswirth!)

To settle your post-Oscar hangover, we’re cracking open the Class of 2021 films this week and we’ve invited Muppeturgy co-host Adam Grosswirth to join us. Dear Evan Hansen follows a titular teen battling severe social anxiety, who fabricates a friendship with his bully after he dies by suicide, and faces the consequences of his lie when he goes viral. After emerging victorious from the 2017 Tonys with a Best Musical win and cementing star Ben Platt’s performance into theatre legend, the musical was destined for a whole other kind of THOB legend. Once the trailer dropped, skepticism and mockery of the near-30 Platt playing a teen went rampant, and vicious reviews made the film DOA.

This episode, we unpack the many problems inherent to the material and the attempts to soften them on film that only… make more problems. We also discuss the 2017 Tony season, Julianne Moore attempting the risk of a singing role, Amy Adams disappointing recent years, and the origins of the songwriting oeuvre of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

Topics also include The Politician, director Stephen Chbosky’s association to multiple failed movie musicals, and orchard confusion.

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221 – The Front Runner

We’ve previously discussed the work of Jason Reitman with our Men, Women, and Children episode, and this week we have another Reitman bomb: 2018′s The Front Runner. The film features Hugh Jackman as Senator Gary Hart and dramatizes Hart’s failed presidential campaign that was thwarted by an infidelity scandal. Released on Election Day after a very mild fall festival run, the film posits Hart’s case as the beginning of political muckraking in America, but fails to make a compelling case for that argument or find a pulse on the political climate in the immediate year’s following the 2016 Presidential Election.

This episode, we talk about Jackman’s prestige run in the shadow of Wolverine and his prospects this year with the reviled The Son in a weak Best Actor field. We also welcome Reitman regular J.K. Simmons into our Six Timers Club, and discuss Reitman’s other 2018 release Tully, post-Hart political sex scandals, and Vera Farmiga Phone Acting.

Topics also include Phil Hartman’s Clinton impersonation, current awards season malaise, and our upcoming mailbag episode!

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058 – Men, Women & Children

A film that uses Pale Blue Dot as a quasi-pickup line and features a couple aligning their sex life with 9/11, Men, Women & Children is likely one of the most maligned films we’ve ever discussed. Directed by Jason Reitman and adapted from the novel by Chad Kultgen, the film stars a large ensemble of familiar faces as several families coping with love, sex, and identity in the age of Pornhub and Ashley Madison. Debuting at TIFF in 2014, the film faced an immediate death of scathing reviews and minimal box office, further diminishing Reitman’s once redhot Oscar profile.

This week, we discuss the film’s dated perspective and lack of nuance in its characterizations that make the film such a misfire, and whether or not we love Reitman only when Diablo Cody’s name is attached. We also take a look at the film’s ensemble of likely future nominees such as Ansel Elgort and Kaitlyn Dever, another 2014 film’s crass Oscar campaign, and Adam Sandler’s closest attempt at an Oscar-chasing role (and another performance that we both consider his best).

Last call for Mailbag questions, listeners! Send us your questions to @Had_Oscar_Buzz or [email protected]!

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