This Had Oscar Buzz

Last week we celebrated the 20th anniversary of Kill Bill – Vol. 1, so naturally we had to bring you Vol. 2 this week! Six months after the release of the original (and its shafting at the Oscars), The Bride returned to finish her vengeance list and kill that Bill. Surprisingly, the finale earned stronger reviews and earned … Continue reading "258 – Kill Bill – Vol. 2"

We’re here celebrating a 20th anniversary for a beloved film this week, listeners! After his longest break between movies to date, Quentin Tarantino delivered a samurai epic while trying to crack the script for another epic, Inglourious Basterds. That ultraviolent actioner, Kill Bill, would also reunite Tarantino with his Pulp Fiction star Uma Thurman, given a major showcase as … Continue reading...

This week, we’re bringing you an episode to make you yell “YA BURNT!” Back in 2015, Bradley Cooper was to headline an ensemble dreamed about an unruly addict chef trying to earn his third Michelin star. Switching from the anonymously titled Adam Jones to the equally anonymous Burnt, the film had already earned a little bit of punchline … Continue reading "256 – Burnt"

We’re back from our annual trip to the Toronto International Film Festival! Once again, we’ll be dissecting our festival experience, the films we saw, and what lies ahead for the season. We discuss the Peoples’ Choice Award winner American Fiction and its chances in the awards race, several International Feature contenders at the festival including Perfect Daysand The Teachers’ … Continue reading...

Before Tom McCarthy would deliver an Oscar triumph with Spotlight (and a bomb with The Cobbler), his critically beloved films centering on everyday people culminated in Win Win. The film starred Paul Giamatti as a lawyer and wrestling coach who takes in the grandson of an elderly client, one who he has taken guardianship of solely to alleviate his … Continue reading "255 – Win Win"

Some might call Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar ascent an unlikely one, given the oddness at the core of his films. But with the Foreign Language Feature nomination for the explicit Dogtooth and the Original Screenplay for The Lobster, the Greek auteur cemented his status in the Oscar club. A victory lap of sorts came with The … Continue reading "254 – The Killing of a Sacred Deer"

We’re going back further than ever before this episode and we’ve got writer/critic/author Emily St. James along for the ride! After a consecutive run as an Oscar favorite in the late 1940s to early 1950s, director John Huston gave us 1956’s Moby Dick, an adaptation of perhaps the greatest novel of all time and often … Continue reading "253 – Moby Dick (with Emily St. James!)"

Ahead of this season’s Nyad, we are looking back at the Oscar history of Annette Bening and 2017’s Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. One year after missing out on a nomination for 20th Century Women, Bening returned with this film, starring as actress Gloria Grahame . Told from the perspective of actor Peter Turner … Continue reading "252 – Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool"

Are you loving our new original intro music, listeners? We’re joined this week by its composer and our friend Taylor Cole to muse on the genre musical biopic with 2015’s Love and Mercy. The film follows different chapters of Brian Wilson’s life and mental wellness journey, with Paul Dano taking on Wilson’s life as he … Continue reading "251 – Love and Mercy (with Taylor Cole!)"

We’ve come up on another anniversary episode of This Had Oscar Buzz, and we’ve got another favorite that long-time listeners have heard us praise before: 2019’s Her Smell. Debuting on at TIFF 2018, the Alex Ross Perry film is a daring and ambitious take on the riot grrrls of the early 1990s. Starring Elisabeth Moss … Continue reading "250 – Her Smell"

Ahead of this week’s release of Ira Sachs’ Passages, we’re discussing perhaps Sachs’ most lauded film, 2014’s Love is Strange. The film stars John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as a newly married couple forced to live apart in New York City when one of them is fired from his Catholic school job for being gay. … Continue reading "249 – Love is Strange"

We are returning to the work of Jennifer Jason Leigh this week, and Jourdain Searles is joining us once again with an underrated and underseen gem. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle takes on the life of indelible writer Dorothy Parker, capturing her days with the insular Algonquin Circle and her later dissolution with the … Continue reading "248 – Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (with Jourdain...

The cementing of Cillian Murphy as a major actor has been a long time in the making, possibly coming to fruition this weekend with the release of Oppenheimer. Audiences likely most know the actor for his starring role in Peaky Blinders, but his cinematic arrival began in the early 2000s with films like 28 Days Later. However, 2005 … Continue reading "247 – Breakfast on Pluto"

Though this episode brings talk of the gloom of covid lockdown, we still get to talk about one of our favorite films of the last several years. The story of two men who become friends in the harshness of the 19th century Pacific Northwest and start a business by stealing the milk of the area’s … Continue reading "246 – First Cow"

In the small hall of Oscar-endorsed horror films, the centerpiece must be Kathy Bates brilliant and terrifying win for Best Actress in Misery. A few years after that win, Bates returned to Stephen King territory (though you can debate how much of a horror story it is) with Dolores Claiborne, the mystery of whether or not a … Continue reading "245 – Dolores Claiborne (with Louis Peitzman!)"

In the early aughts, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated was an inescapable book, launching the young author’s career (and more than a few skeptics). Naturally, the film adaptation came along, though with the unexpected pedigree of cherished actor Liev Schreiber making his director debut. Starring Elijah Wood as a fictionalized version of Foer traveling to Ukraine … Continue reading "...

We’re talking about one of our favorite filmmakers this episode and for one of his most mildly received movies. In 2017, two years after the critical success of Carol, Todd Haynes returned with a pivot to young adult literature with Wonderstruck. Based on the book by Brian Selznick, the film follows two deaf children across decades … Continue reading "243 – Wonderstruck"

This week’s episode is one we have promised for some time: 2014′s Pride. The film tells the true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, a queer activist group that partnered with a Welsh town in the 1980s during the mining strike under Thatcher’s rule. Following the lives of both the straight townsfolk and … Continue reading "242 – Pride"

And we’re back! We hope you all enjoyed the 100 YEARS, 100… SNUBS! May miniseries, but regular episodes are returning and did we come back with a special one! The Mixed Reviews co-host and journalist Luis Rendon joins us to talk about one of the most beloved musical biopics of all time, 1997′s Selena. The … Continue reading "241 – Selena (with Luis Rendon!)"

We’ve arrived at the grand finale of our blowout May miniseries 100 Years, 100… Snubs! It’s all been leading up to this Red and Wild strawberry social with guests arriving, boots handed out with abandon, and our picks for the biggest Oscar snub of all time! We also dive into a feast of topics including … Continue reading "100 Years, 100… Snubs! – Part Five"

The penultimate episode of our May miniseries is here! And this week, we are returning to a few repeat boot victims and some of our favorite oft-discussed films and performances. This round of snubs and boots includes terrifying bundles of sticks (cough), being 4′8″ and dying, codpieces, visions of the afterlife, lump twins, Mike Leigh … Continue reading "100 Years, 100… Snubs! – Part Four"

We’ve got 20 more snubs (plus guest appearances!) on deck for another installment of 100 YEARS, 100… SNUBS!, and this episode is out for blood! We dive into the much discussed 1999 Best Original Song category, two very famous snubs that DON’T make our list, Chris’ early stumping for one highly anticipated performance this year, … Continue reading "100 Years, 100… Snubs! – Part Three"

Our May miniseries continues this week with 20 more of our picks for the greatest snubs of Oscar history! As we march towards our pick for the single greatest snub of all time we’re talking about early 2000s emo music, Jessica Lange and Charlize Theron as bootable nominees, Beyonce’s trio of performances for nominated songs, … Continue reading "100 Years, 100… Snubs! – Part Two"

It’s May miniseries time, Garys! And we’re doing something a little different! In 1998, the AFI compiled a list of the 100 greatest American films of all time, and turned the list into a primetime special complete with famous faces and a schmaltzy Trisha Yearwood song. It was such a success, the AFI continued to … Continue reading "100 Years, 100… Snubs! – Part One"

We have another movie we adore to discuss this week! Writer/director Tamara Jenkins has long gaps between films, but has nevertheless delivered an all-killer-no-filler lineup, beginning in the late 1990s with Slums of Beverly Hills and returning a decade later with the Oscar-nominated The Savages. Her next film another decade later, Private Life, starred Kathryn … Continue reading "240 – Private L...