Willem Dafoe – This Had Oscar Buzz

304 – American Psycho

Time to get controversh with with one of the most argued about films of the century, 2000’s American Psycho. Based on Bret Easton Ellis’ lightning rod novel, the film passed through multiple directors before landing in the inspired hands of Mary Harron. The independent director struck the right satirical note on Ellis’ difficult blend of consumerism and masculinity, and found a flawless muse as the titular psycho Patrick Bateman in Christian Bale. But the film’s sex, violence, and dark humor incited its own controversies and was too much for the Academy despite the praise for Bale’s performance.

This episode, we talk about the film as a launchpad for Bale’s adult career and how his lesser known status at the time almost lost him the role. We also talk about Bateman’s musical obsessions, the other casting choices for Bateman, and Reese Witherspoon joins our Six Timers Club.

Topics also include the Broadway musical version, the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, and 2000 Best Actor.

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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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225 – Murder on the Orient Express

All aboard, listeners! This week, we’re looking at Kenneth Branagh’s recent attempts to take on Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot with 2017′s Murder on the Orient Express. Directed by and starring Branagh as the French investigator, the film assembled a gobsmacking assemblage of stars (from Michelle Pfeiffer to Judi Dench to Penelope Cruz to Johnny Depp) for one of Christie’s most iconic whodunits that looked to be a splashy blockbuster. Though the film was a box office success enough to launch a new franchise, the film received a ho-hum critical response and never got close to achieving the Oscar embrace received by Sidney Lumet’s 1974 version of the material.

This episode, we talk about Branagh’s underwhelming approach to the material and how the film doesn’t give us movie stars acting opposite movie stars in the way that we want. We also discuss how Death on the Nile compares to this film’s lacking sense of fun, Michelle Pfeiffer’s acting nominations, and the 2017 Saturn Awards.

Topics also include Ingrid Bergman’s Orient Express Oscar win, the film’s odd trailer punctuated by Imagine Dragons, and the mustache.

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167 – The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

We’ll get you a red cap and a speedo for this week’s episode, becuase we’re talking about Wes Anderson for the first time with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The follow-up to Anderson’s first Oscar-nominated film The Royal Tenenbaums put Bill Murray front and center in the year after Murray almost won Best Actor for Lost in Translation. But critics were far less kind to this film than Anderson’s previous efforts (it remains his only rotten movie on RT), and voters looking to reward Murray for his previous loss were met with a more caustic and off-putting character than hid lauded “sad Murray” era.

This episode, we look back at how Murray was shockingly snubbed for Anderson’s Rushmore and the ebbs and flows of Anderson’s career in relation to audience/critic perceptions. And since no performance in a Wes Anderson film has ever landed an Oscar nomination, we pick our top 5 performances in his films we think are most deserving.

Topics also include Seu Jorge’s David Bowie covers in Portuguese, whether or not Ray is appropriately categorized as a musical, and which performance in The French Dispatch has the best chance at a nomination.

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