Oscars – Page 12 – This Had Oscar Buzz

214 – Mud (with Roxana Hadadi)

What’s better than movies like this? Guys being dudes! This week, Vulture television critic Roxana Hadadi joins us to return to the McConaissance with Jeff Nichols’ Mud. Matthew McConaughey stars as the film’s eponymous criminal who befriends a young teenager (played by Ty Sheridan) grappling with the death of his town and his parents’ divorce. The film debuted at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival while Nichols’ star was on the rise and McConaughey was mid-ascendancy, but was mildly received on the global stage. When the film was released in stateside theaters the following spring, critics were much more enthusiastic about Nichols’ take on masculinity and myth, but the film was ultimately overshadowed by McConaughey’s other Best Actor bid, Dallas Buyers Club.

This episode, we discuss the filmography of Jeff Nichols, including the divisiveness of Take Shelter’s ending and projects that almost happened. We also get into Sheridan’s career as a young actor, Matt Damon’s macho crypto ad, and the Independent Spirit Awards Robert Altman prize.

Topics also include Chris Pine nearly playing the lead, Taylor Sheridan as Nichols’ tether, and irrational fears of snakes invading our everyday lives.

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213 – Where’d You Go, Bernadette

As Cate Blanchett inches towards a possible third acting Oscar with this week’s Tár, we look back at the quickly forgotten Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Based on the praised novel by Maria Semple about an eccentric former architect’s disappearance, the film paired Blanchett with director Richard Linklater (and reunited her with actor Billy Crudup, playing her husband) and faced numerous delays from distributor Annapurna despite its pedigree. Linklater streamlined the novel’s techno-epistolary structure, resulting in a more straightforward film that lost much of the novel’s unique comic tone and character insights. Though Blanchett would earn a Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy nomination at the Globes, the film was already long forgotten at that point of the season.

This episode, Blanchett joins our Six Timers Club and we talk about the barrier of entry to third acting Oscar wins. We also look at Crudup’s filmography and his shockingly paltry lack of awards love, Linklater as a director hard to pin down to a career narrative, and Annapurna’s bumpy and brief road from production company to distributor.

Topics also include “prepandemic” as a concept, Broadway actors telling stories at benefits, and Tyra interviewing Beyoncé.

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212 – The Bling Ring (with George Civeris)

StaightioLab cohost and Gawker editor George Civeris returns to us this episode, and we’re going to Paris’. In 2013, Sofia Coppola delivered another tale of disaffected youth, this time ripped from gossip column headlines with The Bling Ring. With a post-Harry Potter Emma Watson at the center, the film follows several Los Angeles celeb-obsessed teens who famously got busted for breaking into the homes of tabloid staples like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Already demoted to Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section (after Marie Antoinette was notoriously booed in competition), the film was one of the director’s most harshly received films for its depiction of teen misguidedness.

This episode, we talk about our varying opinions on Watson’s performance and our picks for the weakest films in Coppola’s oeuvre. We also talk about comparisons to another film from A24′s first year, the film’s atypical portrayal of the gay teen experience, and the film’s precisely-timed soundtrack.

Topics also include how mid-aughts celeb culture has evolved to today, Secret Celebrity Drag Race, and another round of Alter Egos.

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211 – Mermaids

We’ve got a personal favorite coming to you today starring one of our most beloved icons! After winning her Best Actress Oscar for Moonstruck, Cher then conquered the world with the album Heart of Stone, and didn’t return to the cinema until 1990′s Mermaids. With Cher as a mother of two rebuking societal expectations, the film also starred the recently Oscar nominated Bob Hoskins, Christina Ricci in her debut, and the ascendant Winona Ryder. A female-led comedy about mothers and daughters, the film earned a Golden Globe nomination for Ryder, but ultimately missed out on Oscar while being released between two Best Picture winners from the dying Orion Pictures.

This episode, we talk about the film’s fraught beginnings with several replaced directors with differing tonal visions for the film and Ryder’s fast rise as prestige actress. We also talk about odd 1990 Golden Globe choices including Ghost and Green Card, life lessons learned too early from formative cinema, and Richard Benjamin’s directorial career.

Topics also include Cher joining TikTok, marshmallow snacks, and Bob Hoskins being hot.

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210 – 25th Hour

We talk about a lot of films dealing with the social and political aftermath of 9/11 but few like this week’s episode: Spike Lee’s 25th Hour. Filmed in New York City in the months after and adapted by David Benioff from his own novel, the film captures that dysphoria while following a drug dealer played by Edward Norton as he prepares to enter prison. Lee gives us several showstoppers, including the notorious “fuck you” mirror monologue from Norton and a fantasy finale told by Brian Cox. But the film was handled by Disney’s less awards-certified Touchstone Pictures and opened at the end of December 2002, famously crowded with contenders including what would make up the entire Best Picture lineup.

If 25th Hour got lost in the shuffle (and cultural-political moment), it now has its vocal fans like your two hosts! This episode, we’ll get into Lee’s long history as an Oscar outsider leading up to his recent success, Norton’s fast ascent with a trio of roles in a single year, and the prowess of Lee’s standby composer, the great Terence Blanchard.

Topics also include Cox’s scene stealing in 2002, Rosario Dawson bringing reliable realism, and 2002 Best Original Score.

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209 – A Walk on the Moon (with Tara Ariano)

This week, Tara Ariano returns to us to talk about a forgotten and quite lovely independent film from 1999, A Walk on the Moon. The first feature directed by actor Tony Goldwyn, the film stars Diane Lane as a late 1960s housewife who has a sexual awakening with a hippie blouse salesman (played by Viggo Mortensen) while vacationing with her family. With Anna Paquin and Liev Schreiber respectively as daughter and husband, the film features Woodstock and the moon landing in the background of this quite potent take on female sexuality and the effect of young parenthood. The film had a quiet spring release after debuting at Sundance, but year-end critical notices kept Lane in the awards conversation.

The film also has similar shades of what Lane would turn into an Oscar nominated role just a few years later with Unfaithful. This episode, we’ll discuss Mortensen’s deep bench of pre-LOTR roles, Happy, Texas’ famous post-Sundance financial failure, and how this film avoids the typical “Woodstock movie” trappings.

Topics also include Julie Kavner as Big Brother, gay euphemisms, and the immediate cultural impact of Ghost.

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208 – This Is Where I Leave You

It’s time to sit shiva with a slew of stars and 2014′s This Is Where I Leave You. Adapted from Jonathan Tropper from his own novel and directed by Night at the Museum’s Shawn Levy, the film casts Jason Bateman as a man whose life falls apart at the hour of his father’s death. His mother, played by Jane Fonda, then tasks the entire family to sit shiva in his honor and seriocomic hijinks ensue. Levy would cast a feast of famous and noteworthy names to fill out the friends and family (including Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Kathryn Hahn, Corey Stoll, and more), but their combined skills were not enough to lift the film’s dated humor and stuck-in-neutral emotions off the ground.

The film debuted as a TIFF gala and was critically dismissed, with audiences feeling similarly underwhelmed upon release a few weeks later. This week, we talk about how the film sidesteps around a quite non-Jewish cast and where it places in the Fonda’s late-career era. We also discuss Fey’s limitations with her many crying scenes, our favorite performances from the Girls, and the 2014 TIFF lineup.

Topics also include Fonda’s most recent Oscar nomination for The Morning After, Tonys being awarded to movie stars, and the Wine Country Film Festival.

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207 – Life Itself (with Billy Ray Brewton)

We don’t know if we’re equipped to episode this much, but here we are. A bomb so fiery, we brought host of The Incinerator podcast host Billy Ray Brewton to help us unpack it all: 2018′s Life Itself. From This Is Us’ Dan Fogelman, the film assembles a large ensemble including Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Olivia Cooke, and Antonio Banderas to tell a tale of big emotions, intergenerational heartache, and unreliable narrators. The film arrived as a TIFF gala with big weepy expectations, and like a rogue MTA bus right out of the film, critics brought on a brutal and well-earned drubbing.

After partnering with other distributors for previous releases, this film was Amazon’s widest solo release and quickly became as big of a bomb for audiences as it was for critics. This episode, we unpack what makes it such a mess and how Amazon succeeded that year with Cold War instead. We also talk about the umpteen versions of “Make You Feel My Love,” This is Us’ Emmy flub this season, and Amazon’s purchase of United Artists.

Topics also include Annette Bening “I don’t know her”-ing Natalie Portman, Deuxmoi culture, and the Grammys of Soy Bomb and “Sonny Came Home”.

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206 – Infamous

Before Bennett Miller’s Capote even arrived and made a steamroll Best Actor winner out of Philip Seymour Hoffman, there was an entire other Truman Capote biopic in the can. Charting the same portion of the legendary and controversial writer’s life as he wrote In Cold Blood, 2006′s Infamous cast Toby Jones as Capote along with a cast of more recognizable faces than the previous year’s version, including Sandra Bullock as Capote’s friend and confidante Harper Lee and new James Bond Daniel Craig. Despite Capote having played some of the very same film festivals, Infamous was welcomed into the fall festival season anyway. But this film’s emphasis on the high society gossip that was integral to the author’s persona wasn’t enough to distinguish this film from what came before, quickly dissolving from the season.

This episode, we unpack the unavoidable comparison’s between this biopic depiction and Miller’s film. We also have our first double Six Timers Club between Infamous supporting players Sigourney Weaver and Gwyneth Paltrow, and discuss Paltrow’s role as Not Peggy Lee, and Warner Independent’s other awards hopeful in 2006: For Your Consideration.

Topics also include Raja’s Diana Vreeland Snatch Game performance, “James Blonde”, and Parker Posey in The Staircase.

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205 – The Four Feathers

Long-time listeners of the podcast will recognize this week’s episode as one promised from the very beginning! In 2002, The Four Feathers arrived with major Oscar follow-up and star-on-the-rise pedigree. The film was Shekhar Kapur’s directorial follow-up to the Oscar anointed (and Cate Blanchett launching) Elizabeth, and starred three of the biggest young would-be megastars in its love triangle: Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, and Kate Hudson. But on top of being one of many cinematic versions of A.E.W. Mason’s, the film bored critics and audiences when it world premiered as a TIFF gala, and fizzled entirely upon release a few weeks later.

This week, we talk about its three headliners at critical points of their careers: Ledger being foisted onto traditional leading man roles, Hudson following her Almost Famous Oscar nomination, and Bentley trying to escape that floating plastic bag. We also talk about Kapur’s dual Elizabeth films, the film’s supporting male cast of recognizable faces, and the film’s apolitical stance post-9/11.

Topics also include sideburns, the film’s brownface makeup, and Ledger’s final stretch of roles.

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