Samuel L. Jackson – This Had Oscar Buzz

After the smash box office success and surprise Oscar nominations of The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan delivered a follow-up in short order. With a mysterious trailer, Unbreakable reunited Shyamalan with Bruce Willis for another genre exercise, this time involving a man who survives a train crash without any injuries. Samuel L. Jackson co-headlines as a frail man with ideas about what makes Willis’ character so special, and the film help cement Shyamalan’s reputation with audiences as a twist guy. But after the widespread affection for The Sixth Sense, this film proved to be something too dark and obscure for audiences.

This episode, we talk about Shyamalan’s work and this film’s slightly ahead-of-the-curve look at comic book culture. We also talk about the film’s marketing, Willis and Jackson’s underrated performances, and Willis’ star persona in the 1990s.

Topics also include the Unbreakable sequels, James Newton Howard’s score, and 2000 Original Screenplay.

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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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Tag: Samuel L. Jackson

314 – Unbreakable

207 – Life Itself (with Billy Ray Brewton)