movies – Page 17 – This Had Oscar Buzz

164 – American Pastoral

We’ve talked before about adaptations of Pulitzer Prize winners and films that had disastrous premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, but perhaps none as disappointing as this week’s film. From one of the most lauded novels of the modern era, American Pastoral had the heaviest burden of expectations and stop-and-start production history. With a pedigreed cast of Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, and Dakota Fanning, the film was originally intended to be brought to the screen by Phillip Noyce, only to be replaced shortly before filming by none other than McGregor himself. Critics weren’t kind to McGregor’s directorial debut, and it died as soon as it world premiered at TIFF.

The film underwent a fast re-edit, but that didn’t help it from bombing when it opened in the same weekend as eventual Best Picture winner Moonlight, the film underwent a fast re-edit. This episode, we redicover the film’s poor attempt at adapting Phillip Roth, Jennifer Connelly’s post-Oscar career, and how using Buffalo Springfield in movies about the 1960s should no longer be allowed.

Topics also include a return to David Strathairn being hot, McGregor’s screen persona, and Fanning’s rise as a go-to child actor.

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163 – The River Wild

How do you get a studio action movie some Oscar buzz? You cast Meryl Streep in the lead role. Starring the beloved actress as a woman whose family is taken captive on a white water rafting vacation, The River Wild was a modest fall hit for director Curtis Hansen and earned Globe nominations for Streep and the film’s villain Kevin Bacon. But in a scattered Best Actress race that ultimately resulted in a steamroll for Jessica Lange for the long-shelved Blue Sky, Streep would have to continue what would become her longest period without a nomination—a whopping four years

Streep was also nominated at the first ever SAG Awards, which further compliacated the race by awarding the twice Oscared Jodie Foster for Nell. This epsiode, we dive into the film’s thrilling delights and the career of Curtis Hansen. We also discuss Bacon’s closest brushes with the awards race, David Strathairn being hot, and the most iconic movie Gails.

Topics also include which Meryl characters are tops, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and Lollapalooza hats.

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BONUS – Another Year, Another TIFF

Chris and Joe are back “at” the Toronto International Film Festival, and as we’re prone to do, we’re bringing you a bonus episode to recap the experience. We review our virtual TIFF experience from home with a quick mention of the films we missed and how this hybrid year has made for a more muted festival. We discuss our favorite films of the festival, which films might have boosted or lost their Oscar chances, a strong lineup of documentary films, and potential International Feature submissions.

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161 – The Mule

Many of Clint Eastwood’s most recent films have arrived in quick turnaround, going from announcement to filming to release in a head-spinningly short amount of time. In 2018, he had one of his fastest productions ever with The Mule, a story of an 80-year-old man estranged from his family who takes on a job hauling drugs across the border in his pickup truck. Inspired partly by a true story, the film’s sprint to theatres set expectations that it might be another of Eastwood’s successful late season arrivals like Million Dollar Baby. The result was a Christmas season box office success, but a film that ultimately didn’t attempt much of an awards campaign to make voters take notice.

This episode, we don’t mince words about how we feel about the film’s offensive stereotypes and clunky pseudo-comic character study. We get into Bradley Cooper reuniting with Eastwood for a thankless role here in the same season as his triumph with A Star Is Born, and how Cooper shockingly missed out on becoming the season’s frontrunner. And we discuss the film’s trolling tactics, the work of screenwriter Nick Schenk, and the free pass the film received by critics.

Topics also include an egregiously underused Dianne Wiest, flirting at flower conventions, and Eastwood grumbling the word “internet.”

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160 – Elizabethtown (with Phil Iscove)

Joining us this week is Podcast Like It’s 1999′s Phil Iscove to finally unpack a foundational This Had Oscar Buzz text. After winning an Oscar for Almost Famous and delivering a financially succesful (if extremely divisive) hit in Vanilla Sky, Cameron Crowe decided to return to his roots with Elizabethtown. Starring Orlando Bloom as a young shoe designer struggling to cope with professional ruin and the sudden death of his father, he meets a buoyant flight attendant played by Kirsten Dunst who brings him back to to himself. Crowded with song cues, bizarre character beats, and notes of whimsy that struggle to stick the landing, the film received a disastrous critical response at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, leading Crowe back into the editing room before release and Oscar to immediately count this one out.

Still a film that has a sizable fanbase of defenders of its earnest vibes, Elizabethtown is remembered today as the beginning of the end for Crowe and birthing the phrase Manic Pixie Dream Girl (as penned by Nathan Rabin). This episode, we dive into all that works and doesn’t for us in Crowe’s sentimental screwball movie, its infamous casting struggles with the biggest young acting names of the time, and the ups and recent downs of Crowe’s career.

Topics also include Roger Ebert’s later reassessment of the film’s theatrical cut, the Crowe/Tarantino divide of pastiche, and tap dancing at funerals.

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159 – The House of Mirth

This week, we are looking at the work of director Terence Davies and his 2000 literary adaptation of The House of Mirth. Based on the classic Edith Wharton novel, the film casts Gillian Anderson as Lily Bart, a woman who tragically fails to navigate the cruelties of New York high society at the turn of the century. The film earned strong reviews for Davies (rebounding from his adpatation misfire The Neon Bible) and Anderson (still flying high with her Emmy-winning performance on The X-Files), but a small late year release made this one a bigger hit with critics than it ultimately was for the Academy.

We look back at the 200 Best Actress lineup, and discuss how Anderson might have fallen victim to an Academy still too willing to categorized television stars as just television stars and how indie distributor Sony Pictures Classics (rightly) had another awards priority. We also discuss how costume dramas went out of fashion as Best Picture contenders, the film’s spectacular supporting cast, and the 2000 Costume Design nominees.

Topics also include to extinct Village Voice poll, the British Independent Film Awards, and the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival.

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158 – Stepmom (with Christina Tucker)

It has to be said that we have been waiting to do Stepmom from the very beginning, and what better excuse to finally dive in to Chris Columbus’ Christmas Day weepy than this week’s special guest Christina Tucker, co-host of the podcast Wait, Is This A Date?. Uniting the 1998 powers of America’s sweetheart Julia Roberts and recent Best Actress winner Susan Sarandon as a mother diagnosed with cancer and her ex-husband’s future wife, the film earned Sarandon a Golden Globe nomination despite critics not taking to the film’s very sentimental mood.

This episode, we unpack all of the film’s silly moments, from unwieldy real estate to photoshop, from new and various house pets to snowblowing, and all of the things in between that we love about it. We also look at Julia Roberts’ swings from successes to misfires in the 90s, Jena Malone’s return to pop culture in The Hunger Games series, and Susan Sarandon joins our 6 Timers Club!

Topics also include the 1998 Best Actress race, the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, and VH1′s I Love the 80s.

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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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156 – A Most Violent Year (with Kevin O’Keeffe)

“This was very disrespectful.” Once again, Kevin O’Keeffe joins us to talk about the one and only Jessica Chastain for A Most Violent Year. Starring an on-the-rise Oscar Isaac as an emerging entrepreneur in the 1980s trying to avoid crime in dirty business, the film chased Oscar after writer/director J.C. Chandor’s Original Screenplay nomination for his debut Margin Call. But the film’s closest shot at Oscar was the supporting performance by Chastain as Isaac’s wife with a secret or two, which earned her Critics Choice, Independent Spirit, and Golden Globe nominations. Though many predicted Chastain, a surprise nomination went to Laura Dern for Wild, and A Most Violent Year was left out in the Oscar cold.

This episode, we talk about the Oscar Isaac performances that deserved Oscar attention, including the year where the likes of he and Tom Hanks missed out on nominations. We also discuss genius cinematographer Bradford Young, the film’s Best Picture win with the National Board of Review, and just how many people actually watched Triple Frontier.

Topics also include the value of nail acting and coat acting, this current season of Drag Race All-Stars, and who might have been second place to Patricia Arquette in 2014.

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155 – Moonlight Mile

Jake Gyllenhaal is the latest to join our Six Timers Club this week with 2002′s Moonlight Mile. Written and directed by Brad Silberling, Gyllenhaal leads the film as a young man living with the parents (played by Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman) of his fiance’s parents in the aftermath of her murder. A light dramedy with semi-autobiographical elements from Silberling, the film set expectations high with an emotional trailer but quickly died after a poor TIFF reception and even dimmer box office. With an Oscar year that leaned heavily on December releases, this film was an awards afterthought.

This week, we look back at Gyllenhaal’s THOB history and Sarandon’s stellar triptych of very different (and all buzzed) screen moms in 2002. We also discuss the true story that inspired the film, distributor Touchstone’s buzzy 2002 that also includes 25th Hour and Signs, and the film’s onslaught of needle drops.

Topics also include the iconic 2002 Best Supporting Actress lineup, Brian Cox doing McDonald’s commericals, and why Goldie Hawn should be in the hypothetical third Mamma Mia! movie.

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