This Had Oscar Buzz

With the release of Criterion’s retrospective box set, film lovers have been revisiting the work of living master Wong Kar-wai. But this week, we’re going to be talking about his least celebrated (and one omitted from that treasured collection). His first film in the English language, My Blueberry Nights is an episodic movie about a woman who … Continue reading "173 – My Blueberry Nights"

Our Thanksgiving tradition continues this year, with Vanity Fair’s Katey Rich joining us as a guest, this time to talk about quickly forgotten prestige thriller Money Monster. Premiering out of competiton in 2016 at the Cannes Film Festival to middling reviews but embarrassing no one involved, the film stars George Clooney as a cable news financial … Continue reading "172 – Money Monster (with Kat...

This week, we are talking about Sharon Stone and The Mighty. Adpated from the young adult novel Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, the film follows a burgeoning friendship between a silent giant teenager Max (Elden Henson) and a King Arthur obsessed neighbor with a rare metabolic disorder Kevin (Kieran Culkin). But the film’s real … Continue reading "171 – The Mighty"

We have two exciting returns this week! First, entertainment writer and Bad Romance co-host Jourdain Searles is joining us once again. Second, we return to the work of Jane Campion, this time for 1999′s divisive and sexually charged Holy Smoke. The film premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival with a high pedigree: Campion … Continue reading "170 – Holy Smoke (with Jourdain Searles)"

“Volk” intensifies this week, because we’re talking about Luca Guadgnino’s 2018 Suspiria remake! Diverging greatly in style and story from the Dario Argento original, Luca Guadagnino followed up his Oscar success with Call Me By Your Name with this riff on witches, post-WWII Germany, feminine power, and the art of dance. Guadagnino’s mounting pedigree stirred some to expect the … Continue reading...

This episode, Extra Hot Great co-host Tara Ariano returns to us to talk about another much-requested film, 2010′s Never Let Me Go. An adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s incredibly lauded science fiction novel, the film stars a post-nomination Carey Mulligan opposite Keira Knightley and breakthrough Andrew Garfield as clones raised for the sole purpose of harvesting their … Continue reading "168 – Neve...

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. … Continue reading "167 – The Life Aquatic with Steve Zi...

Nicole Kidman finally joins the THOB Six Timers Club this week with what many consider her first major critical success. In the same year that Kidman had a major blockbuster in Batman Forever, the actress joined forces with Gus Van Sant for satirical Joyce Maynard adaptation To Die For. The film starred Kidman as the … Continue reading "166- To Die For"

We’re back stumping film festivals to bring you this bonus episode on our experience with this year’s New York Film Festival slate! Here Joe reflects on the Oscar potential of The Tragedy of Macbeth and The Power of the Dog, and Chris says Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers features one of Penélope Cruz’s very best performances. We discuss other films in the … Continue reading "BONUS – NYFF We Lov...

There are few names in modern literature with more prestige than Cormac McCarthy, and his work has been adapted into the likes of Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men. For his first produced original screenplay, he partnered with one of the most prestigious names in movies and our most discussed director, Ridley Scott. Together … Continue reading "165 – The Counselor"

We’ve talked before about adaptations of Pulitzer Prize winners and films that had disastrous premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, but perhaps none as disappointing as this week’s film. From one of the most lauded novels of the modern era, American Pastoral had the heaviest burden of expectations and stop-and-start production history. With a … Continue reading "164 – American Past...

How do you get a studio action movie some Oscar buzz? You cast Meryl Streep in the lead role. Starring the beloved actress as a woman whose family is taken captive on a white water rafting vacation, The River Wild was a modest fall hit for director Curtis Hansen and earned Globe nominations for Streep … Continue reading "163 – The River Wild"

Chris and Joe are back “at” the Toronto International Film Festival, and as we’re prone to do, we’re bringing you a bonus episode to recap the experience. We review our virtual TIFF experience from home with a quick mention of the films we missed and how this hybrid year has made for a more muted … Continue reading "BONUS – Another Year, Another TIFF"

We’re doing something a little different this week and setting our sights on one specific Oscar category: Best Animated Feature. This episode, Kyle Amato joins us to talk about The Good Dinosaur, one of the few box office and critical disappointments in the history of Pixar. The story of a timid dinosaur and the human baby … Continue reading "162 – The Good Dinosaur (with Kyle Amato)"

Many of Clint Eastwood’s most recent films have arrived in quick turnaround, going from announcement to filming to release in a head-spinningly short amount of time. In 2018, he had one of his fastest productions ever with The Mule, a story of an 80-year-old man estranged from his family who takes on a job hauling drugs … Continue reading "161 – The Mule"

Joining us this week is Podcast Like It’s 1999′s Phil Iscove to finally unpack a foundational This Had Oscar Buzz text. After winning an Oscar for Almost Famous and delivering a financially succesful (if extremely divisive) hit in Vanilla Sky, Cameron Crowe decided to return to his roots with Elizabethtown. Starring Orlando Bloom as a … Continue reading "160 – Elizabethtown (with Phil Iscove)"

This week, we are looking at the work of director Terence Davies and his 2000 literary adaptation of The House of Mirth. Based on the classic Edith Wharton novel, the film casts Gillian Anderson as Lily Bart, a woman who tragically fails to navigate the cruelties of New York high society at the turn of … Continue reading "159 – The House of Mirth"

It has to be said that we have been waiting to do Stepmom from the very beginning, and what better excuse to finally dive in to Chris Columbus’ Christmas Day weepy than this week’s special guest Christina Tucker, co-host of the podcast Wait, Is This A Date?. Uniting the 1998 powers of America’s sweetheart Julia Roberts and … Continue reading "158 – Stepmom (with Christina Tucker)"

Somehow we have yet to cover a film starring Helen Mirren, but this episode, we rectify that with 2015′s Woman in Gold. Mirren stars in the true story as Maria Altmann, a woman who fled the Nazis and later sought restitution of her very famous family paintings by Gustav Klimt. The film also stars Ryan … Continue reading "157 – Woman in Gold"

“This was very disrespectful.” Once again, Kevin O’Keeffe joins us to talk about the one and only Jessica Chastain for A Most Violent Year. Starring an on-the-rise Oscar Isaac as an emerging entrepreneur in the 1980s trying to avoid crime in dirty business, the film chased Oscar after writer/director J.C. Chandor’s Original Screenplay nomination for his … Continue reading "156 – A Most Violent Yea...

Jake Gyllenhaal is the latest to join our Six Timers Club this week with 2002′s Moonlight Mile. Written and directed by Brad Silberling, Gyllenhaal leads the film as a young man living with the parents (played by Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman) of his fiance’s parents in the aftermath of her murder. A light dramedy with … Continue reading "155 – Moonlight Mile"

One year after winning Best Actress for La La Land, Emma Stone returned with an even better performance but faced even tougher competition. In Battle of the Sexes, the recent winner starred as Billie Jean King as she faced off Bobby Riggs (played by Steve Carell) in the famed titular tennis match. Directed by Little … Continue reading "154 – Battle of the Sexes"

It’s time for yet another long-promised episode in This Had Oscar Buzz lore, and also from a Pulitzer Prize winner! Adapted from Jane Smiley’s novel (which itself was loosely based on Shakespeare’s King Lear), A Thousand Acres cast two-time Oscar winner Jason Robards as one town’s beloved titan farmer and a trio of dynamo actresses … Continue reading "153 – A Thousand Acres"

Birds do it, bees do it; let’s do it, let’s talk De-Lovely! Reuniting Kevin Kline with his Life As A House director Irwin Winkler, the film casts Kline as the legendary songwriter Cole Porter. Also starring Ashley Judd as his devoted wife Linda, De-Lovely caught attention for its depiction of the Porters’ marriage amid his open homosexuality and … Continue reading "152 – De-Lovely"

We’ve got another long anticipated episode this week! In 2019, Natalie Portman teamed up with Fargo creator Noah Hawley to bring to the screen a highly fictionalized account of a NASA astronaut who suffered a psychotic break and stalked her lover and co-worker across the country. The more salacious details (namely the urban legend diaper that she … Continue reading "151 – Lucy in the Sky"