Academy Vs Audience

Welcome to the 70s, New Hollywood! And as Erin, Claire, and Dan enter this new decade, all is fair in love and war... and if it isn't, love means never having to say you're sorry. The Academy goes for Patton, a biopic of the controversial World War II general, and Erin and Claire are... not convinced. Meanwhile, the audience showed up in droves for the simply titled Love Story, and the h...

Grab your hat, your boots, your portable radio, and all the chewing gum you can carry, as New Hollywood hits hard in 1969. The Academy goes for the bleak, urban tragedy of two failing hustlers in Midnight Cowboy, and Dustin Hoffman shatters our hosts' hearts. The audience went for something lighter, more fun, and yet with fewer surviving protagonists in western buddy comedy Butch Cassidy and...

It's 1968, the dying days of Hollywood's "Golden Age," and while grosses have been down and the market's oversaturated, the big-budget Hollywood musical is going down swinging. First, the Oscar goes to Oliver!, a whimsical, light-hearted, peppy musical adaptation of... Oliver Twist? Weird choice. Once we're through the toe-tapping child trauma, it's on to Funny G...

Welcome to New Hollywood, listeners! The Academy goes for tense, racially charged In The Heat of the Night, where Sidney Poitier announces "They call me Mr. Tibbs" and helps a hick southern sheriff solve a murder. It's gripping, it's powerful, it brings up some sad thoughts for Erin, Claire, and Dan in the wake of recent events in Canada. Then on the lighter side, Dustin Hoffma...

It's 1966, and as the so-called "Golden Age" of Hollywood collapses, nobody's having a good year. The Oscars favour A Man For All Seasons, the story of Thomas Moore, a man bold enough to [checks notes] take no actions, speak no opinions, and "My name's Paul and that's tween y'all" Henry VIII's marriage controversies. Yeah. Great subject for a biopi...

It's 1965, and Academy Vs Audience hits Film History's Second Juggernaut: Dame Julie Andrews and the late, great, Christopher Plummer in The Sound of Music. Erin, Claire, and Dan dig into the sweet little musical about love, family, music, and the dangers of capitulating to Nazis... breaking down the kids, the king that is Captain Von Trapp and the glorious problem that's Maria, and...

It's 1964 and it's all singing, all dancing, all grudge match for Julie Andrews! The Oscar goes to Lerner and Lowe's My Fair Lady, with Audrey Hepburn taking over the role Julie Andrews created onstage, because the future Dame wasn't "a big enough draw." In response, Andrews joins Walt Disney for the aggressively whimsical Mary Poppins, claiming the box office crown f...

It's 1963, and both Hollywood and the UK were starting to poke at the boundaries of film censors. First off, the best picture winner, England's Tom Jones, in which the title character tries to win his lady Sophie (whoa, She's a Lady), but can't resist saying "What's New Pussycat" to any woman with a come hither look. Our special guest, Video Vulture John Tebbutt,...

War! Huh. Good god, y'all, what is it good for? In 1962, the answer is two surprisingly good movies. First, the Academy Award goes to Lawrence of Arabia, featuring stunning cinematography, deadly deserts, amazing breakout performances from Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif, and some DEEPLY uncomfortable casting choices for Arab leadership. But by a narrow margin, the box office crown goes to...

Welcome, listeners, to the Academy Vs Audience/Recovered crossover! Dan, Erin, and Claire welcome Dan's Recovered co-host Keith Kollee to dig into 1961's Joint Champion, West Side Story, the only movie whose every film remake is an Oscar contender. The gang digs into this story of rival gangs, racial tensions, corrupt cops, amazing progressive trans representation, and if there's ti...

Welcome to the 60s, the decade that most changed Hollywood! But not quite yet. In The Apartment, Jack Lemmon is doing a sex farce while Shirley Maclaine is in a doomed romance tragedy, Billy Wilder tries to make both work at once, and the Academy was here for it. The Audience wasn't ready to give up sword and sandal epics, and turned out for Kirk Douglas' more secular take on the genre i...

Here at the end of another decade, Dan, Claire, and Erin ask a question: can a movie have too much Jesus but also way too little Jesus at the same time? It's our second biggest Joint Champion Juggernaut, Ben-Hur, in which Charlton Heston pursues vengeance via chariot while Forrest Gumping his way through the New Testament. Claire and Erin cry out for slash-fic, Dan makes his final statement o...

In our first all-musical episode (don't look at us like that, Broadway Melody doesn't count), Claire, Erin, and Dan dissect two musical movies from famous teams to see which aged worse. First, our Oscar winner, Lerner and Lowe bring us the story of a Parisian womanizer realizing he might have feelings for the teenage girl he's watched grow up... and be trained as a courtesan by her...

And we are back! It's 1957, and one film towers over some tough Oscar competition and... a lean year, box office-wise: The Bridge on the River Kwai. Claire, Erin, and Dan dig into the film's portrayal of cult-like devotion to duty, honour, and so-called principles via the film's main cast, led by our first appearance of Alec Guinness, as well as the modern feel, the criminally under...

Our Best of Munsi Triptych wraps up in 1952, as Erin, Claire, Dan, and Munsi dig into two films with questionable romance content. First, An American in Paris, the quaint, charming, whimsical tale of a middle-aged painter trying to win the hand of a teenager away from the French singer who's groomed her since childhood. With Gershwin songs! And Gene Kelley sure can dance! Then flash ALL the w...

Our hosts' various breaks continue, and we return to 1943, a year where the Academy couldn't have been more right and the Audience couldn't have been more wrong, and Munsi Parker-Munroe is back to witness both. Come to Casablanca to visit Rick's Café American, stay for the Stage Door Canteen... because there is no leaving the Stage Door Canteen. Maybe we're all still there...

We've hit a perfect storm of host conflicts, so while we recharge in our various ways, enjoy a trip down memory lane, beginning with 1933, in which eventual recurring guest Munsi Parker-Munroe joined Claire, Erin, and Dan for, perhaps, the worst combination of movies we've yet discussed: Cavalcade and Eddie Cantor's... best?... movie, Roman Scandals. Look back and laugh with us! Fin...

In 1956, two movies take their sweet time with two famous stories. Our Best Picture takes us Around the World in 80 Days (and 200 cameos) as this first film version of Jules Verne's novel loads the screen with exotic locales, familiar faces, and long, LONG shots of scenery. But 'tis but a blip next to our Box Office Champion, As Cecil B. DeMille brings the Book of Exodus to life through...

Erin and Dan are joined by returning guest and Hugo Book Club co-runner Olav Rokne to dissect the latest crop of Best Picture nominees, in the wake of learning who won what, and how many of the ten nominees went home empty-handed (Claire will be back next time). Who deserved what? Who maybe snuck onto the shortlist undeservedly? Which of these movies is Erin willing to watch recreationally, and wh...

It's 1955, and the films get simple in both a pleasant and insulting way. The Academy chooses Paddy Chayefsky's quiet romance of two people deemed unlovable finding each other in Marty, while the audience goes for the tonally confused war movie Mr. Roberts, which tries to be both a wacky wartime farce and a somber reflection on service and ultimately manages neither. Ernest Borgnine enjo...

Erin, Claire, and Dan get a break from feature-length Sunday School sermons to talk about two possible Good Actually movies! Thanks, 1950s! First, young Marlon Brando reinvents film acting for the better in the hard hitting On The Waterfront, and your hosts are here to, gush, unpack a few flaws, examine the line everyone thinks they know, and look at how the HUAC tried to ruin it. Then Bing Crosby...

It's 1953, time for what many consider a beloved classic in From Here to Eternity, and certainly some of our hosts agree. Romance, tragedy, and one heavily telegraphed surprise attack await... and then, due to poor choices by 50s audiences, it's time for more Sunday School with The Robe. Richard Burton joins the stars if Samson and Delilah and Quo Vadis as a Centurion who finds Jesus......

It's our first joint champion of the 1950s! Good news, no bible stories. Less good news, Cecil B. DeMille really wanted people to know how neat he thinks the circus is. There are love triangles that make a Hellraiser puzzle box look simple, criminals lurking in the shadows, many plot-relevant elephants, and yet all of it is somehow drowned out by monotonous circus montages and severe overacti...

Erin, Claire, Dan, and returning guest Munsi Parker-Munroe unpack some terrible leading men as the Oscars get musical while the audience goes to Sunday School. First, Gene Kelley brings us the songs of the Gershwins, some incredible dance numbers, and a romance that set gender relations back fifty years in An American in Paris. Does the dancing defy the duncery? We discuss, then jump back to the n...

It's the 1950s, and we kick off the decade with two very different movies. First, legit classic All About Eve brings us into the backstabbing world of being a woman in theatre through immortal frienemies Margo Channing and Eve Harrington; then, Cecil B. DeMille kicks off 50s Hollywood's obsession with feature length Sunday School classes in Samson and Delilah. Erin, Claire, and Dan love...