Ridley Scott – This Had Oscar Buzz

320 – Matchstick Men

After his comeback stretch of high grossers Gladiator, Hannibal, and Black Hawk Down, Ridley Scott returned in 2003 with a downshift into the character focused Matchstick Men. The film starred Nicolas Cage as a conman with compounding mental health issues who is then reunited with his daughter, played by Alison Lohman. With Sam Rockwell as Cage’s partner in con, the film played both Venice and TIFF to a positive critical reception, but was ultimately forgotten by awards voters by the end of the year.

This episode, we discuss Scott’s waning Oscar chances this year for Gladiator 2 and Scott is our first director to get a Six Timers quiz. We also discuss Cage’s stretch between his Oscar win and the Adaptation nomination, Lohman’s transformation into a teenager, and Rockwell’s emergence into a beloved character actor in the early 2000s.

Topics also include the audience response to City of Angels, local bakeries, and Nutcracker and the Four Realms.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

263 – A Good Year

After the Oscar and box office success of Gladiator, director/star duo of Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe decided to reunite in 2006 for a very different kind of film, A Good Year. Starring Crowe as a finance bro who returns to the French vineyard of his beloved but estranged and now deceased uncle (played by Albert Finney), the film offered Scott the chance to shoot a film close to home and stretch himself into comedy. With Marion Cotillard as Crowe’s love interest and Abbie Cornish as the uncle’s rightful heir, Scott’s fledgling comedy chops resulted in a misfire and one of the biggest bombs of his career.

This episode, we discuss the Ridley Scott post-Best Picture filmography and the 2006 Best Actor race. We also look at Cotillard’s Oscar win during a strike year, Cornish’s world-traveling dialects, and the 2006 TIFF Galas.

Topics also include Industry, a former lost episode, and Buffalo voice.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

165 – The Counselor

There are few names in modern literature with more prestige than Cormac McCarthy, and his work has been adapted into the likes of Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men. For his first produced original screenplay, he partnered with one of the most prestigious names in movies and our most discussed director, Ridley Scott. Together they brought an all-star cast led by Michael Fassbender for a tale of violence and hubris called The Counselor. With scenes of Cameron Diaz humping a car and Brad Pitt being slowly beheaded by a mechanized wire lasso, The Counselor was immediately dismissed by (most) critics and audiences for its interminable plot and excessive violence.

This episode, we talk about film adaptations of Cormac McCarthy’s work and Ridley Scott’s upcoming twofer Oscar hopefuls this season in House of Gucci and The Last Duel. We also discuss offensive onscreen representations of Mexico, Fassbender’s hard-to-place screen persona, and bastardization of the MTV Movie Awards.

Topics also include Ridley Scott trailers, Bardem’s styling in the movie, and “The Continental.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

085 – Exodus: Gods and Kings

We as Oscar watchers can’t quit predicting Ridley Scott just like Ridley Scott can’t stop making historical epics that end up underwhelming. In 2014, he gave us one of them – a retelling of Moses story (minus all that religion) called Exodus: Gods and Kings. With Christian Bale at the forefront, the film stirred controversy for casting all white actors led to a tepid box office, with the film becoming one of many late year disappointments in 2014.

This week, we unpack how this film stands up against previous versions of the exodus story, The Ten Commandments and The Prince of Egypt. We also lament some of Scott’s big budget habits (that he might be returning to later this year with The Last Duel) and the many ways that Exodus: Gods and Kings’ does not stand up to his best work.

Topics also include Joel Edgerton’s rising Oscar trajectory, our top ten films of 2014, and the Oscar-winning dueling divas of “When You Believe”.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

019 – Hannibal

Happy Halloween, listeners! This week, we’re getting creepy with Ridley Scott’s follow-up to Best Picture winner Gladiator, the gross-out macabre sequel Hannibal. The legacy of The Silence of the Lambs made this one of the most heavily covered productions of the early 2000s and convinced that it might be similarly bound for Oscar glory. Maybe someone was just feeding us our brains.

With Jodie Foster out as Clarice Starling as well as Jonathan Demme passing off directing duties, Scott was chasing every actress in Hollywood that was also among the Academy’s favorites. Also on our mind’s this episode: producer Dino De Laurentiis, how the film (wisely) nixed its more problematic elements, and its terrifying makeup. Also Anthony Hopkins talking about poppers.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

006 – 1492: Conquest of Paradise

Brace yourselves for some slow motion colonialism set to the dramatics of Vangelis – this week, we are discussing 1992′s Christopher Columbus epic 1492: Conquest of Paradise. With star Gerard Depardieu having a moment in American cinema and director Ridley Scott fresh off of his first nomination for Thelma and Louise, what could possibly go wrong?

Listen as Joe and Chris remember Sigourney Weaver’s costumes, trailer packages on VHS tapes, and how the film is the prototype for Ridley Scott’s slew of historical epics.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS