Audio – Page 20 – This Had Oscar Buzz

A Holiday Mailbag!

As an exciting holiday treat to show our love to our lovely listeners, Joe and Chris have wrapped up a special mailbag episode to answer all of your burning questions! This week, we’ll be unpacking everything from This Had Oscar Buzz lore to the current Oscar season to Oscar history. We’ll be looking back at recent Oscar nomination morning presentations, the 2002 Best Actress lineup, and decide our pick for the greatest Oscar host of all time.

Topics also include what a Hustlers Christmas special might look like, our specific menu for essential movie snacks, and the THOBiest round of Fuck Marry Kill you’ve ever heard. And thanks to one brilliant listener, we even have a fun new game thrown into our rotation! Thank you so much to all of you for your exceptional questions and your support throughout the year!

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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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073 – Hairspray (with Cameron Scheetz)

We’ve got a film notorious in the history of the IMDb Game this week: 2007′s Hairspray! After pointing out the film’s omnipresence in our trademark game during our first Mailbag episode, the nicest kid in town The AV Club’s Cameron Scheetz joins us this episode to talk about the film’s delights, from its stellar cast to its joyful tunes. But this summer release couldn’t get ahead in the fall awards season gamut, getting overshadowed by late-breaking musicals Sweeney Todd and Enchanted despite major nominations at both SAG and the Golden Globes.

This episode, we look at the Oscar season that almost left us without an Oscar telecast because of the long writers’ strike. Topics also include John Travolta’s so-wrong-it’s-right place in the Edna Turnblad legacy, Oscar-nominated performances in musicals, and the unforgettable Adele Dazeem. “Nikki Blonsky From The Movie Hairspray”, we salute you!

Last call for question entries for this month’s Mailbag episode!! We’ll still be taking your questions about Oscar history, the current Oscar race, the podcast in general, or anything that might be on your mind through the end of the week! Tweet at us at @Had_Oscar_Buzz or email at [email protected]!

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072 – I Heart Huckabees

Fox Searchlight celebrates their 25th anniversary this year, and this week we’re looking back at their ascension to the Oscar titan that they are today. While 2004 saw Sideways become instrumental in their rise, they also shepherded a different offbeat comedy ultimately too quirky for Oscar’s tastes: David O. Russell’s farce I Heart Huckabees. The film is a chaotic mix of existential theory, absurdist humor, and bonkers cameos from Jean Smart to Shania Twain – and we love it… with the bonnet.

Notorious for the videos that surfaced years later of Russell and star Lily Tomlin in a profanity-laced verbal spar, Huckabees’ insanity makes sense in light of the many stories of Russell’s on-set behavior. This episode, we praise the film’s ensemble, recall the quirky indie comedy competition from Sideways and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and take a trip through Fox Searchlight’s history of This Had Oscar Buzz titles.

And don’t forget to send us your questions for our upcoming mailbag episode! You have two more weeks to submit to us on Twitter (@Had_Oscar_Buzz) or email us at [email protected]!

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071 – Pan (with Katey Rich)

This week, we welcome back our first ever returning guest: VanityFair.com deputy editor Katey Rich! And what better topic to discuss (as mutual defenders of the work of director Joe Wright) than 2015′s Pan? The film was yet another retelling of the Peter Pan story, this time arriving amidst expectations for Wright to deliver another design spectacle before receiving a savage critical drubbing.

Much as we would love to defend Wright’s honor, we unpack how Pan is an unfortunate spectacle of bizarre design, racial insensitivity, and motifs ripped off from Moulin Rouge!. Also in this trivia-packed episode, we look back at Best Picture and the PG rating, decipher the difference between our Garrett Hedlunds and Charlie Hunnams et al., and how this Neverland saga compares to that other critically reviled one, Steven Spielberg’s Hook.

And at the top of the episode, we announce something special coming to you very soon: another mailbag episode! Send your questions to us on Twitter (@Had_Oscar_Buzz) or email us at [email protected]!

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070 – Prêt-à-Porter (Ready to Wear)

Robert Altman had a major comeback in the early 90s, scoring back-to-back lone Director nominations for The Player and Short Cuts. His follow-up, 1994′s Prêt-à-Porter (that’s Ready to Wear for American audiences and fellow philistines), aimed to skewer Paris Fashion Week to comedic effect, but instead ended Altman’s Oscar hot streak that wouldn’t be reignited until 2001′s Gosford Park.

This week, we take on Altman’s improvisational style when it doesn’t work for this imprecise satire starring an underutilized Julia Roberts, Linda Hunt in Edna Mode mode, and Tracy Ullman in an Amy Sherman-Palladino hat. The film is a convergence of early 90s fashion and supermodel obsession, house music, and independent cinema stars. Still landing Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture – Musical/Comedy and Supporting Actress for Sophia Loren (in the year of her Cecil B. DeMille prize), it ultimately was too much of a disappointment to get Oscar’s favor.

We also discuss a never-better Kim Basinger, the recent history of Oscar’s lone director nominees, and one-hit-wonder Ini Kamoze’s “Here Comes the Hotstepper”. It’s fruitcake time, listeners!

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069 – Ladies in Lavender (with Danita Steinberg)

A perfect example of an early, long-list Oscar prediction movie, 2005′s Ladies in Lavender arrived after multiple festivals to a successful arthouse run thanks to the presence of its Dame headliners Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. But despite coming in the era primed to reward this kind of women’s picture and both actresses in particular, the film ultimately was too early and too small (on top of being overshadowed by Dench’s Miramax picture Mrs. Henderson Presents later in the year) to make a major awards dent on the season.

This week, We Really Like Her podcast cohost Danita Steinberg joins us to talk about the aughts dominance of Dames Judi and Maggie, and their outsider potential for Supporting Actress nominations this year. Topics include the near miss Oscar potential of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the 2005 Best Actress lineup, and Oscar resentments from costar Miriam Margoyles.

We also discuss the film’s shocking lack of the titular lavender and the one actor that Meryl Streep hating working with. And as you might expect, all roads lead back to The Hours.

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068 – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

In the fall festival season, a primo premiere status can assert a film as having major Oscar ambitions. This week’s title, 2013′s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, is a such a case – after debuting an eye-catching trailer, the film debuted as the centerpiece selection of that year’s New York Film Festival. But this typically very selective festival provided a major platform for the film that the film couldn’t measure up to, earning the film an underwhelming status it couldn’t overcome before its Christmas day release.

Directed by and starring Ben Stiller, the film struggles with the payoff of its character arc and its sense of magical realism, making for a disappointing modern remake. This week, we look at the film’s heavy-handed product placement and music cues, and the brief recent history of New York Film Festival’s world premiere gala selections.

We also discuss this year’s fascinating and defensible Golden Globe acting nominations, the film’s notoriously unruly first press screening, and we predict this year’s National Board of Review Top Ten.

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067 – Cadillac Records (with Jourdain Searles)

This week, Bitch Media writer and Bad Romance podcast host Jourdain Searles joins us to talk about 2008′s musical multi-biopic Cadillac Records. Most famous for Beyoncé’s performance as Etta James, the film arrived when audiences and Oscar were getting fatigued with the genre. But detailing the groundbreaking Chess Records, the film spreads its attentions over several artists (including Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters) while it centers on as Adrien Brody as record exec Leonard Chess.

The film itself earns our positive praise for the most part, but we all effusively praise Beyoncé’s invested (even if she doesn’t until an hour into the movie) and transformative performance. But Oscar ultimately overlooked her work along with the film as a whole.

We also discuss Adrien Brody’s fitful post-Oscar career (including a dreadlocked cringe moment on SNL), the short-lived Oscar telecast presentation of former acting winners presenting the nominees, and Jeffrey Wrights understated gifts.

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066 – Bounce

This episode, we have another psychotic romance for you with 2000′s Bounce. One of Miramax’s 2000 awards-hopeful misfires (which ultimately led to the rise of Chocolat), the film stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck as two would-be lovers brought together by a plane crash – only she doesn’t know that he’s the one that gave a ticket to his now-dead husband. At the time, the film was sold almost exclusively on the former relationship between the stars and ultimately that was all it got attention for.

Bounce was also somewhat of a downshift in critical affection for writer-director Don Roos after the prickly Indie Spirits favorite The Opposite of Sex. Though this film sparks with some of his sharp dialogue, Bounce suffers from too many plot contrivances to make the love story less queasy. In the end, a heavy hitter year in the lead acting categories easily shut out the two stars out already dealing with backlash after their Oscar wins.

We also take a look back at the fits and restarts of Affleck’s career from the perfect casting of Gone Girl to the almost matinee idol days of Armageddon, discuss the era that was Brunette Gwyneth, and we return to our beloved Blockbuster Entertainment Awards.

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