Sundance Film Festival – Page 2 – This Had Oscar Buzz

BONUS – Sundancing at Lughnasa

We’re bringing you a special BONUS episode to talk about all the goings on at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival! Chris and Joe both just participated in the virtual festival and have some exciting films to talk about. First, we discuss the few films eligible in this current Oscar season, including the one with (we think) the most promising prospects, Judas and the Black Messiah. Next, we look ahead at the Sundance films with awards potential such as Passing, Mass, and the biggest success of the festival, CODA. We also discuss other favorites of the festival including Censor, Together Together, Summer of Soul, and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.

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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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021 – Tadpole

The Sundance Film Festival is an elusive mistress that giveth Oscar buzz only to taketh away when at lower altitudes. Case in point is this week’s would-be Oscar title: 2002′s Tadpole. The film was a sensation of the festival, winning a Best Director prize for Gary Winick and stirring buzz for newcomer Aaron Stanford and Bebe Neuwirth. But the newfangled digital technology that won praise at the festival for all the new filmmaking possibility it represented ended up looking amateurish and garish upon release.

Tadpole ultimately got lost in a slew of 2002′s rich boy movies and disappointed on release after Miramax’s big $6M acquisition. This riff on The Graduate by way of Voltaire quotes may have been lost to time, but for a minute, it was kind of A Thing. This week, we’re also talking about the distinctions between regular Oscar buzz and Sundance Oscar buzz, the Meryl Streepness of The Hours vs. the Nicole Kidmanness of The Hours, and the National Board of Review’s “prize as party invitation” special recognitions.

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