Telluride Film Festival – This Had Oscar Buzz

We’ve previously discussed the work of Jason Reitman with our Men, Women, and Children episode, and this week we have another Reitman bomb: 2018′s The Front Runner. The film features Hugh Jackman as Senator Gary Hart and dramatizes Hart’s failed presidential campaign that was thwarted by an infidelity scandal. Released on Election Day after a very mild fall festival run, the film posits Hart’s case as the beginning of political muckraking in America, but fails to make a compelling case for that argument or find a pulse on the political climate in the immediate year’s following the 2016 Presidential Election.

This episode, we talk about Jackman’s prestige run in the shadow of Wolverine and his prospects this year with the reviled The Son in a weak Best Actor field. We also welcome Reitman regular J.K. Simmons into our Six Timers Club, and discuss Reitman’s other 2018 release Tully, post-Hart political sex scandals, and Vera Farmiga Phone Acting.

Topics also include Phil Hartman’s Clinton impersonation, current awards season malaise, and our upcoming mailbag episode!

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In 2015, the ongoing efforts to champion stories told by and about women placed large awards expectations on Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette. A fictionalized telling of the women’s suffrage movement in Britain, Suffragette stars Carey Mulligan as Maud, a laundress who begins as a passive outsider and becomes a passioned activist. But once it debuted at the Telluride Film Festival, its initial harsh reviews squashed audience urgency to head to the theatre when it opened nearly two months later.

This episode, we discuss Mulligan’s many great performances that have yet to yield a follow-up nomination to her breakthrough nomination for An Education – and we praise her upcoming work in the daring Promising Young Woman. We also discuss the heavy competition of the 2015 Best Actress race that failed to honor Mulligan among the major precursors.

Topics also include Meryl Streep’s much-buzzed performance as Emmeline Pankhurst (that ended up being little more than a cameo), the chaos of the current Globes comedy race, and another round of Alter Egos.

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Tag: Telluride Film Festival

221 – The Front Runner

124 – Suffragette