Spike Lee – This Had Oscar Buzz

262 – Inside Man

We return to the filmography of Spike Lee this week with his biggest box office success, 2006’s Inside Man. With a star-packed cast led by Denzel Washington as a hostage negotiator, Clive Owen as the bank robber opposite him, and Jodie Foster as a nefarious fixer, Lee took a standard crime thriller and made it his own to instantly rewatchable results. While the film generated the kind of “you know what was a good movie? Inside Man!” year-end critical reassessment we often talk about, it wasn’t enough to result in the snowball effect that leads to Oscar nominations.

This episode, we talk about how Lee elevates the film with his stylistic trademarks and the film’s twinship with 2006’s Best Picture winner The Departed. Topics also include Foster’s return this season with Nyad, Owen’s post-Oscar nomination slump, and Universal’s 2006 Oscar slate of The Good Shepherd and Children of Men.

Topics also include Washington’s aughts Tony Scott collaborations, whatever the hell is going on over at Gladiator 2, and the Streep/Gummer split.

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100 Years, 100… Snubs! – Part Four

The penultimate episode of our May miniseries is here! And this week, we are returning to a few repeat boot victims and some of our favorite oft-discussed films and performances. This round of snubs and boots includes terrifying bundles of sticks (cough), being 4′8″ and dying, codpieces, visions of the afterlife, lump twins, Mike Leigh performers, Spike Lee performers, horror movies, the upcoming live action The Little Mermaid, and lots more!

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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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