Academy Vs Audience

It's buddy cops and classical music frenemies as Academy Vs Audience reaches 1984! First off, the Oscar goes to Amadeus, a film version of the what-if story proposing a deadly rivalry between composers Mozart and Salieri... a rivalry only one of them knows about. Erin, Claire, and Dan dig into it, the music, the wig-game, and if it's as gripping as film reddit insists. While that happene...

It's 1983, and the big movies are all about difficult parent/child relationships. The Oscars went to Terms of Endearment, a mother/daughter story conceived, written, and brought to the screen by men, and Erin, Claire, and Dan have a lot of questions and notes on its success. Audiences, however, needed to see how Han Solo got out of the carbonite, and flocked to Return of the Jedi, which would...

While Erin and Claire are busy with the all-new theatrical experience of Riverona, travel back with us to 1944 and what Dan insists against all opposition is "one of the three most criminally underrated Best Pictures in history," the cask-stength comfort viewing of Going My Way. But first, for All 80s Summer, Erin has a speed-run review of George Miller's Mad Max saga, since we don&...

While Erin and Claire are bringing a fresh new work to what lucky audiences are able to catch it, we turn back the clock to one of our earliest episodes, in which Dan invited Erin, Claire, and you, the listener, to join him in his Yancey Cravat Madness. Followed by some love for Charlie Chaplin! And since this is All 80s Summer, some quickie 80s movie reviews from the one co-host not getting a pla...

It's 1982, and the rift between Academy and Audience grows ever farther. The (many) Oscars go to Richard Attenborough's lengthy biopic Gandhi, bringing you the greatest hits of Mohandas-then-Mahatma Gandhi, managing to fill over three hours of runtime with few insights beyond "Gandhi: Nifty." Meanwhile Steven Spielberg re-conquered Hollywood with the simple tale of a boy and hi...

It’s 1981, and one of the most iconic adventure movies ever takes on a movie with one iconic piece of music that they use a little. The Academy goes with Chariots of Fire, about the 1924 UK Olympic track and field team and the obstacles both great and very small they faced, while the audience flocks to see Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ latest offering, a rogueish archaeologist named Indiana J...

Welcome to Academy Vs Audiences All 80s Summer! The hits get bigger and the Oscar winners get smaller, and nothing spells that out quite like 1980. The Oscars go with Ordinary People, Robert Redford's film about a family in turmoil after a tragedy, and the different ways we successfully or unsuccessfully process grief. The audience, however, just really wanted to see more of Luke, Han, and Le...

It's 1979, nearing the end of the era of serious dramas for adults ruling the box office, and Dustin Hoffman's divorce and custody drama becomes one of our more unlikely joint champions. Erin, Claire, and Dan dig into Ted Kramer's attempts to juggle two lives: raising his son alone after his wife Joanna disappears into the night, and a career that doesn't care for him having ot...

It's 1978 and the tonal gulf between Oscar winner and people's champ has, if anything, widened, as has the gap in host reactions. The Academy goes for Michael Cimino's home-from-Vietnam story The Deer Hunter, which has some stellar performances but also very strange and off-putting pacing, and an iconic, definitive scene that maybe does more harm than good. Meanwhile, audiences floc...

In 1977, a long time ago, you might say Academy and Audience's tastes were far, far away. Claire, Erin, Dan, and returning guest Munsi Parker-Munroe strap in to take on one Woody Allen in his seminal hit, Annie Hall, asking how well it's aged and how challenging it is to deal with the Woody Allen of it all. That accomplished, it's time for our first dip into the Skywalker Saga, as G...

The Oscars have happened, Award Season is done for now, and we take a look at the ten candidates for Best Picture of 2023, with returning guest Oscar enthusiast, and greatest living fan of Zardoz, Olav Rokne. Dan and Olav saw all ten, as is their wont, Erin's seen six, and Claire's here for the vibes as we speed through reviews of nine great movies and also Maestro. What were their stren...

It's 1976, and audiences and the Academy are united in loving one man: Rocky Balboa. A nine film franchise spanning six decades has a small and simple beginning as a struggling young Sylvester Stallone writes himself into stardom as a simple palooka trying to prove to the world and himself that he can go the distance with heavyweight champ Apollo Creed. Erin, Claire, and Dan dig into Rocky&ap...

It's 1995, and we have cuckoos and sharks coming your way! The Oscar went to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, second film ever to achieve the Oscar Grand Slam, as Jack Nicholson's anti-hero McMurphy squared off with Louise Fletcher's icily villainous Nurse Ratched. It's hailed by a classic, but how does it hold up? And what do other versions of the story do better? But the...

Two years after The Godfather dominated the box office and snagged the top Oscar, Francis and the Corleones are back for one of the most lauded sequels ever, The Godfather Part 2. Gina Stewart's back to join Erin, Claire, and Dan in unpacking the rise of Vito and the fall of Michael, and the sad story of Fredo and the career of the man playing him. But the sequel didn't fully wow the cro...

It's 1973, and we take a break from Coppola's mafia movies for... more crimes, of legal and spiritual nature! First up, Paul Newman and Robert Redford are back together for new crimes in a new century, as 1930s con men out for payback on a vicious gangster in Oscar winner The Sting. But as popular as the Butch and Sundance reunion was (very), audiences were even more drawn into horror cl...

It's 1972 and Francis Ford Coppola had an offer neither Academy nor Audience could refuse, with all-time-classic mob movie The Godfather. Erin, Claire, and Dan dig into the suspense, the twists and turns, who the best Corleone kid is and why it's Tom Hagen, and Gina Stewart is back to tell us all about how Mario Puzo's novel was adapted (by Puzo himself and Coppola). Get yourself a...

It's the holiday season, so while taking a brief break, Erin, Claire, and Dan look back at the hits, possible nominees, and other random movies they've seen over the course of 2023. What were some Oscar History highlights? What were the weird trends of 2023 movies? What's the most unfortunate trend? Are we headed for the first Joint Champion in two decades? Probably not but maybe we...

1971 brings us another year where you have to ask if someone wrote the winners down wrong, as the Academy goes with the cop thrillers and audiences decide they're not  quite  done with musicals. Best Picture goes to The French Connection, with Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle, a cop on the edge in world he never made, fighting French drug traffickers with... racism and mostly inept surveillance?...

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...