This Had Oscar Buzz

This episode, we are returning to the career of the great Nicole Holofcener with 2006′s enesemble comedy Friends With Money. The film stars Jennifer Aniston as the housemaid friend to three wealthy women played by Joan Cusack, Catherine Keener, and Frances McDormand, and studies class and friendship with the kind of wit and grace that’s made Holofcener’s films so special. But despite strong notices for Aniston’s off-type performance and rising appreciation for Holofcener’s work, the film peaked with a Supporting Actress win for McDormand at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Once again, we praise the Holofcener ouevre and exhalt the Holofcener/Keener partnership. We also look at Cusack’s rare multiple comedy Oscar nominations, Aniston’s love of working with comedic actors like Adam Sandler, and McDormand going off in an Old Navy.

Topics include creative differences between Holofcener and Julianne Moore attempting to make Can You Ever Forgive Me?, films that might have overshadowed her work in their Oscar seasons, and our Holofcener rankings.

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We return to the filmography of Brian DePalma this week with 1993′s Carlito’s Way. The film reunited DePalma with his Scarface star Al Pacino as Carlito Brigante, a former criminal struggling to go straight after his release from prison and his shady circle that keeps pulling him back in. Released the year after Pacino’s long-awaited Oscar win for Scent of a Woman, the film and Pacino received mixed reviews and was ultimately buried in Universal’s mighty awards slate that included Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, and In the Name of the Father.

This week, we discuss Al Pacino’s Oscar draught between his win and The Irishman and some of the troublesome spots in DePalma’s filmography. We also look at John Leguizamo’s cinematic breakout in the early ‘90s, Penelope Ann Miller’s filmography of female roles in male-centered movies, and an “unrecognizable” Sean Penn returning from a three year movie break.

Topics also include the Cahiers du Cinema, Carole Bayer Sager’s Oscar nominations in Original Song, and iconic ghost cinema Heart and Souls. And we also announce our upcoming May miniseries!

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After the success of The Hours in 2002, author Michael Cunningham was a hot commodity in prestige cinema. At the same time, Colin Farrell emerged as the next big thing and was seemingly inescapable at the movies. The two converged in 2004 for A Home at the End of the World, an adaptation of Cunningham’s novel delivered by celebrated stage director Michael Mayer. Also starring Robin Wright, Sissy Spacek, and a breakthrough Dallas Roberts, the film follows a bisexual throuple that forms their own unique family unit outside the societal norms and their struggles to maintain their delicate balance.

Released in the summer and met with lukewarm reviews, A Home… was mostly forgotten by year’s end despite the strong work of its cast. This episode, we revisit an early THOB bet about Colin Farrell’s long-term Oscar prospects and discuss the beginning days of both Warner Independent and Farrell’s career.

Topics also include Oscar’s recent history of straight actors in LGBTQ roles, Sissy Spacek smashing plates in the aughts, Michael Mayer’s Broadway directing credits, and “pentathalon bangs”. And we tease this year’s May miniseries!

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After becoming a Broadway sensation, landing the Tony Award for Best Play and lead acting nominations for each member of its acting quartet (including a win for Marcia Gay Harden), Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage looked primed to become yet another stage-to-screen adaptation with Oscar in its sights. But when the movie version arrived, it eschewed the play’s lauded, starry Broadway cast (not to mention the many famous names that starred in hit productions around the globe) for a miscast foursome: Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet. The film, abreviated to simply Carnage, failed to capture the play’s humor and precise bourgeois target, on top of being directed by Roman Polanski.

This episode, we compare the missteps of the film to the successes of its stage version, including one major mistake that bookends the film. We also discuss Marcia Gay Harden’s Tony speech, map Winslet’s long road to Oscar starting with Sense and Sensibility to the category maneuvering of The Reader, and play another round of Alter Egos.

Topics also include American Express commercials, Broadway bootlegs, and the infamous barf scene.

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We’re finally getting around to one of the most notorious of aughts era failed awards plays, Steven Zaillian’s All the King’s Men. A remake of the former Best Picture winner and originally heavily predicted in the 2005 season, the adaptation was unceremoniously punted into the following year. The next September, the film had a disastrous debut at TIFF and was in and out of theatres within a month. Incoherent and uninspired with a barking Sean Penn at the center, the film is a soup of accents and flat convolutions that makes for a flop that is more boring than cringeworthy.

Zaillian has yet to direct a film since, but we look back at his other directorial efforts like Searching for Bobby Fisher, as well as a writing career that’s paired him with a top tier of directors. This week, we look at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival packed with successful Oscar plays and remembered for its thwarted Borat premiere. And we discuss The Departed and Scorsese’s winding road to Best Picture, almost again blocked by a stealth Clint Eastwood. Mark Ruffalo quiz alert!

Topics also include Kate Winslet’s odd lineup of 2006 titles, why Jude Law is better when not playing a traditional leading man, and the traumatic cinema experience that is Jack the Bear.

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It’s finally here: our This Had Oscar Buzz Class of 2020! Even in a COVID-impacted Oscar year that saw a longer eligibility calendar and much fewer trips to the theatre, we still have a slew of movies with Oscar hopes that were left out in the cold on nomination morning. And we are here to celebrate (or at least in the case of The Little Things commemorate) them! We get into our favorites and yours from the year of Unprecedented Times, and we break them into several categories, from the movies we were happiest or saddest didn’t make the Oscar cut, the most forgettable, and the ones we can’t wait to give the full THOB treatment to first!

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