steve carell – This Had Oscar Buzz

277 – Beautiful Boy

Attention, Dune-heads, we’re talking about Timothee Chalamet this week! In 2018, fresh off of his first Oscar nomination, Chalamet joined Steve Carell for Beautiful Boy, an adaptation of David and Nic Sheff’s memoirs about a young man’s addiction and his father’s attempts to help him. Directed by Felix van Groeningen (who’d directed nominated international feature The Broken Circle Breakdown), the film is a somewhat scattered and ineffective weepie that strains Carell’s limitations but nevertheless earned Chalamet Best Supporting Actor nominations at all the major precursors.

This week, we talk about Carell’s career starting with The Daily Show and his more tricky dramatic work. We also talk about Chalamet’s quick ascent following his Call Me By Your Name success, Maura Tierney’s impactful but too brief role, and 2018 Best Supporting Actor.

Topics also include Dune Part 2, TIFF 2018 galas, and the Beautiful Boy Erased is Back vibes of 2018.

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154 – Battle of the Sexes

One year after winning Best Actress for La La Land, Emma Stone returned with an even better performance but faced even tougher competition. In Battle of the Sexes, the recent winner starred as Billie Jean King as she faced off Bobby Riggs (played by Steve Carell) in the famed titular tennis match. Directed by Little Miss Sunshine duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the film had a warm festival and critical reception before quickly underwhelming at the box office and hung on with mentions for Stone and Carell during the precursors.

But Battle of the Sexes was quickly put on the backburner as two of Searchlights other contenders became Best Picture (and Best Actress) heavy hitters: The Shape of Water and Three Billboards. This episode, we discuss some reservations about the film and praise the work of Stone, who go on to again outdo herself a year later with The Favourite. We also discuss Dayton/Faris’ Ruby Sparks, Billie Jean King as that Oscar season’s Real Philomena Lee, and Sarah Silverman as a stealth player.

Topics also include 2017′s Supporting Actor fifth spot in flux, the Original Song race, and hot nepotism with Louis Pullman.

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109 – The Way Way Back

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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074 – Welcome to Marwen

We’re cracking open the lid on the coffin of the This Had Oscar Buzz Class of 2018 for the first time this week! And as promised, the first title that we’re diving into is Robert Zemeckis’s uncanny valley disasterpeace Welcome to Marwen. Based on the documentary Marwencol and the life of artist Mark Hogancamp, the film follows Hogancamp (played by Steve Carell) in the fallout of a brutal attach as he creates a fictional village of dolls inspired by the women in his life.

But the film half takes place in Marwen, bizarrely trapping the film in Mark’s imagination while only loosely relating to his real-world troubles and subjecting us to Zemeckis’ unintentionally horrifying dolls-come-to-life CGI. Naturally, we spend most of the film wishing it developed the female characters beyond their role as caregivers instead of wasting the talents of Leslie Mann, Merritt Weaver, Janelle Monáe, and Gwendoline Christie.

This episode, we look back at Zemeckis’ increasingly diminishing returns beginning with The Polar Express, Carell’s less successful performances, and the perils of Forrest Gump.

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026 – Crazy, Stupid, Love.

In many ways, 2011 was the year of Ryan Gosling. This was the peak “Hey Girl” era, and this year alone gave us the critical darling hotness of Drive and what we thought would suit the more traditional Academy tastes with The Ides of March. He was so omnipresent that a weak Best Actor field had us thinking for a moment that Oscar could make room for his most charming work in the trifecta, Crazy, Stupid, Love. Add him in to a cast of other beloved performers like Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, and Emma Stone, and you have a recipe for a real guilty pleasure.

Though Gosling did nab a Globe nomination for his ab-flashing work, this one might have been wishful thinking anyway with Oscar, but then again: there’s that pesky comedy bias. And while CSL has its champions (particularly programmers of cable television networks), the film also has all the trademark contrivances in screenwriter Dan Fogelman’s wheelhouse. This week we discuss Gosling’s ascent as a major leading man, the film’s creepy sexual politics, and how romantic comedies have failed Marisa Tomei.

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