lee daniels – This Had Oscar Buzz

One year after giving us Nicole Kidman peeing on Zach Efron in The Paperboy, Lee Daniels delivered a late summer hit and Oscar hopeful with The Butler. Starring then-recent Best Actor winner Forrest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, a White House butler to eight presidents, the film follows the arc of civil rights in America through the lens of one Black family. But it was the screen return of Oprah Winfrey that was the film’s closest brush with Oscar, and her work as Gloria Gaines remains an understated treasure.

This episode, we welcome back freelance writer and Bad Romance cohost Jourdain Searles to unpack the film’s high points as a family drama and shakier ground as a conveyor belt of cameos for famous people as presidents. We discuss the 2013 Supporting Actress contenders, and how the film’s Oscar chances were hindered three-fold: a summer release, a distributor that prioritized other films, and an Academy unwilling to consider multiple stories from Black filmmakers in one year.

Topics also include Yaya DaCosta, presidential movies, and the film’s sometimes effective, sometimes cringey makeup.

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An episode that asks that oft-repeated eternal question: will the Academy ever be ready for a movie where Nicole Kidman pees on Zac Efron? In 2012, Lee Daniels followed up his Precious Oscar success with a film that scandalized Cannes and answered that question with a resounding “no”. McConaissance be damned!

The Paperboy may be a pulpy southern crime saga that shows Daniels at his most excessive, but it got shockingly close to Oscar thanks to Kidman’s audacious (and divisive) performance. But while negative reviews and the film’s definitive griminess kept it out of Oscar history, it still gave us Efron dancing in his tighty whities in the rain.

Also in this episode, we look at some highs and lows of the this era of the McConassaince, 2012′s odd Supporting Actress year, and an underrated performance from Macy Gray.

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Tag: lee daniels

098 – Lee Daniels’ The Butler (with Jourdain Searles)

028 – The Paperboy