Sam Rockwell – This Had Oscar Buzz

This episode, we’re looking at 2010′s Conviction starring Hilary Swank as Betty Anne Waters, a real life Massachusetts woman who earned a law degree to fight for the innocense of her brother wrongly convicted of murder. With a cast that includes Minnie Driver, Peter Gallagher, and Sam Rockwell as Betty’s jailed brother Kenny, the film received a middling festival reaction and fizzled at the box office before getting buried among Fox Searchlight’s bigger contenders. Though Swank and Rockwell respectively earned SAG and Critics Choice nominations, the film disappeared quickly.

Perhaps Conviction’s biggest stamp on Oscar culture was Swank’s appearance in that year’s formative Hollywood Reporter Actress roundtable. This episode, we unpack what makes that year’s roundtable a high bar for actress obsessives and go deep on the history of the THR Actress Roundtable. We also get into Rockwell’s unfortunate recent typecasting and the brief and impressive performances by Juliette Lewis and Clea Duvall in the film.

Topics also include Melissa Leo’s Oscar-triumphant 2010, the Oscar history of Swank vs. Bening, and Helena Bonham-Carter becoming one with her many bangles.

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We decided to end the summer with another Listeners’ Choice episode and your triumphant film was 2013′s Sundance title The Way Way Back. The film was another massive Sundance buy for Fox Searchlight, who sold it to audiences very much in the mold of its successful Little Miss Sunshine. But even with two of Sunshine’s Toni Collette and Steve Carell among the cast, audiences and critics alike were far less enthusiastic about The Way Way Back’s summer vibes, leaving the film forgotten by year’s end. Well, except by our good friends at the AARP M4Gs.

The highest praise for the film was granted toward Sam Rockwell, still in the phase of his career as a critics darling before his first Oscar nomination. We get into his newfound typecast as racists, how the film feels like it should be a period piece, and the ethos of festival fever.

Topics also include the Black List, water park culture, and Allison Janney as various anthropomorphized types of alcohol.

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Tag: Sam Rockwell

127 – Conviction

109 – The Way Way Back