Oscars – Page 29 – This Had Oscar Buzz

048 – Rendition

With the return of Big Little Lies to our television screens, we’re taking a look at a film starring one of the Monterey Five’s key players and her newly arrived nemesis. No, that outdoor coffee shop wasn’t the first time someone demanded answers between Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep – they first squared off in 2007′s Rendition. All together now: “JUST TELL ME HE’S OKAY!!”

Rendition was one of the many, many prestige titles that tried to unpack the War on Terror to underwhelming results with Oscar. But this film also had some of the highest expectations of them all due to the star wattage of Streep and newly minted tabloid staple couple Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal, plus recent Foreign Language-winning director Gavin Hood at the helm. Ultimately, this film was too dull and obvious to be embraced by a critical community already impatient with these kind of very similar films, and Oscar followed suit.

This episode, we discuss more Foreign Language director successes that sparked buzz for their first English-language films in the years to come, the impact of a poor TIFF reception, and the romance that wasn’t meant to be. Get ready to try to tell those 00s anti-war films apart, because we have a quiz coming!

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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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046 – The Human Stain (2003 – Part Three)

This week we bring you the Stefon of the 2003 Oscar race: Anthony Hopkins inadvertently saying racial slurs, Nicole Kidman with curly hair, a cringeworthy adaptation of Philip Roth, holdover from the Monica Lewinsky scandal, cast members from The Real World London. It was only inevitable that we would eventually discuss The Human Stain, but for our month-long 2003 miniseries it was perfect timing.

Once thought to be Miramax’s other big 2003 player starring Kidman, the film is a poorly timed and poorly observed look at political correctness in America that critics rightfully dismissed. It would then quickly die in theatres and in the Oscar race, with Miramax succeeding to some degree with the rest of their lineup of films. This week, we discuss the film as emblematic of Miramax and Harvey Weinstein’s shuffle tactics with Oscar prospects, the film’s offensive handling of race and sexual mores, and one performance in the film we think rises above its many problems. As always, it all comes back to The Hours.

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045 – Sylvia (2003 – Part Two)

We continue our month-long look at the 2003 Oscar year with what could be the poster child for bland biopics: Sylvia. Starring Gwyneth Paltrow as poet Sylvia Plath, the film paint-by-numbered its way to box office and critical failure that inappropriately obsessed over the artist’s untimely death rather than the impact of her work. A perfect on-paper prospect thanks to its famous subject and Paltrow’s recent Best Actress win, Sylvia was the 2003 failure that left us gooped.

This week, we take an extended look at 2003′s rather malleable Best Actress race and discuss the earliest predictions that ultimately fell through. We also discuss Focus Features’ slate being dominated by Lost in Translation, why Daniel Craig should never be allowed to play a brunette, and Paltrow’s greatest performance on a movie poster.

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BONUS – A 2003 Rendezvous

To kick off our 2003 miniseries, we are bringing you this special bonus episode! Here we will lay the groundwork for what the expectations were for the Oscar season before we discuss our four chosen films – The Missing, Sylvia, The Human Stain, and our first Listeners’ Choice In The Cut! Joe and Chris also share a glimpse at where they were in their Oscar obsessive journeys during the year in question and dabble in some Oscar ASMR. It was the year that Cold Mountain disappointed and The Lord of the Rings triumphed across the finish line of its multi-year narrative – and we’re here to break it all down in the month of May!

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043 – The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train will likely be remembered for following in the mold that Gone Girl had previously set for it, thanks to both books literary phenomenon status. However when it came time for a movie adaptation, The Girl on the Train chased that would-be spiritual predecessor’s formula without achieving its critical success. But what the film itself will be most remember for is much more unfortunate: it’s another key reminder that Emily Blunt still hasn’t landed an Oscar nomination.

Blunt headlines the twisty murder mystery that ultimately serves no one in its largely female ensemble. Though the actress was nominated at both SAG and BAFTA, her work didn’t make a Best Actress lineup that (as the results show) didn’t stop morphing until nomination morning. This episode, we look back at the film and novel’s more troublesome aspects, what it might take for Blunt to nab that elusive nomination, and the canonically correct way to answer the central question of Indecent Proposal.

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042 – Evening (with Richard Lawson)

This Had Oscar Buzz has always been a long day’s journey into Evening! In 2007, the film strangely opened in the summer and quickly became the poster child for the “Oscar bait” moniker. Starring a massive female ensemble including [inhales sharply] Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Glenn Close, Mamie Gummer, Eileen Atkins and Meryl Streep, the film is an unfortunately vague journey through one dying woman’s regretful memories of a fateful wedding weekend on the coast.

Joining us for this episode is Vanity Fair’s chief critic Richard Lawson to help unpack the many, many things that make Evening such a disappointment and a dreary, sex-negative enterprise. We also discuss our accidental obsession with Claire Danes (here discussed in her fifth episode), how the film borrowed heavily from our relationship with The Hours, and the 2007 era of Focus Features. Get ready to howl like Close and chase some moths!

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041 – The Ice Storm

Hello Charles! This week, we talk about a real headscratcher: how did Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm get no Oscar nominations? Debuting at the Cannes Film Festival and Lee’s follow-up to his first Oscar success Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm is perhaps even more critically beloved than when it debuted in 1997. But this was also the year of every other movie chasing Titanic’s shadow.

The film had several potential points of entry into the Oscar race – Adapted Screenplay, its authentic period design, and especially Sigourney Weaver as a near nominee in Supporting Actress. But we discuss some of why it was shut out, whether it was the fallout for small movies caught in Titanic’s wave or fledgling indie distributor Fox Searchlight focusing its energy on The Full Monty. Topics also include BAFTA’s emerging days as an Oscar forecaster, the Oscar field that surrounded that incomparable front runner, and the injustice of Joan Allen’s Oscar narrative.

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040 – Love and Other Drugs (with Nate Jones)

Can you believe that in 2010 we got Oscar buzz for a film about the rise of Viagara in the 90s that was also a sexy romance and was also about Parkinson’s AND was directed by your dad’s favorite director of macho war epics? It came true – we’re finally talking about Love and Other Drugs! Reuniting Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway after both had earned their first Oscar nominations, this film was sold on its frank depiction of sex but largely reviled for the many disjointed pieces.

This week, we have Vulture senior writer Nate Jones joining us as our tiebreaker to Joe’s hate for the film and Chris’ apologetic affection for it. We take a look back at the notorious (and misunderstood) Oscar hosting gig for Hathaway that year and Gyllenhaal’s pivot from charismatic leading man to weirdo. Topics also include examples of nudity sold to Oscar as creative risk, 2010′s stacked Oscar lineup, and just what kind of music played in mid-90s Circuit City.

Stay tuned to the very end of our episode for a special tease on an upcoming project we are doing…

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039 – Suburbicon

2017 was a rough year for Paramount and their awards slate, but none of their films bombed as hard as George Clooney’s Suburbicon. Retooled by Clooney and his writing partner Grant Heslov from a Coen Brothers’ script that sat unproduced for 30 years, the Coens’ brand of misanthropic crime saga is infused with a very white perspective on racism in middle America. The film was DOA on the fall festival circuit and evaporated even faster with audiences.

As if his foot-in-mouth comments weren’t enough, 2017 was also a year that earned no favor for for Suburbicon’s miscast Matt Damon – particularly when he also led Paramount’s other misfire Downsizing. This week, we discuss how Damon killed his post-The Martian favor, Oscar Isaac’s inevitability as a future Oscar nominee, and Clooney’s status as a de facto pick for early predictions despite increasingly diminishing returns.

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