This Had Oscar Buzz

We’re back home from our latest trip to the Toronto International Film Festival! And as always, we’re offering you a buffet of our reactions from a week’s worth of movies that will be coming soon to a theatre near you! We talk about the newest People’s Choice Award winner La Bola Negra, along with the International People’s Choice Award winner (and Best Actor contender for Andrew Scott) Elsinore. Topics also include Julianne Moore earning huge crowd reaction in The Debut, Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine underwhelming us both, our collective favorite of the fest Mike Leigh’s Tender Loving Care, the TIFF preroll ads, injuries, festival flops, and more!!

After their 2017 exposé of the horrors Harvey Weinstein inflicted upon women for decades, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey detailed their process in their 2019 book She Said. Post-pandemic, Maria Schrader directed an adaptation that reflected the lives of both reporters in tandem with their work and their struggle to get women on the record about the case. With a strong and sprawling ensemble led by Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan, the film was ultimately met with polite but less than effusive reviews.

This episode, we talk about the film’s struggle with depicting expository process and the perhaps unavoidable comparisons to Spotlight. We also discuss Mulligan’s category fraud campaign in Supporting Actress, Samantha Morton giving one-scene barnburner, and the film’s use of actors in the roles of familiar names in the case.

Topics also include the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards, Ashley Judd playing herself, and MVP Jennifer Ehle.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a musical like no other. A Off-Broadway smash in 1998 from creators John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, Mitchell also starred as the titular volatile rocker who escaped East Berlin after a forced surgery to live as a woman, only to have her songs stolen by the protege she takes under her wing. For the film, Mitchell also took over directing duties, earning several Breakthrough Director honors for the beloved film, earning a new legion of fans.

This episode, we talk about our origins with the film/musical and how the film shared the summer with another rule-breaking musical, Moulin Rouge!. We also discuss JCM’s rangy directorial output, Miriam Shor’s performance as Yitzhak, and the starry Broadway revival that came a decade later.

Topics also include the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, Andrea Martin, and costume designer Arianne Phillips.

We welcome back Richard Lawson this week to discuss Tommy Lee Jones’s final (to date!) directorial effort, 2014’s The Homesman. Led by Hilary Swank, the film follows a 19th century woman charged to transport three women with “prairie madness” across the Nebraska Territory. With Jones as a wayward man who assists her journey, the film debuted at Cannes and promised a return to the Best Actress race for Swank that never came to be.

This episode, we talk about Swank’s two Best Actress Oscars and Richard details his first experience with Cannes. We also talk about this film’s arrival after neo-westerns made a splash in the late aughts, its reflection on women during old west times, and Meryl Streep’s third act cameo.

Topics also include Ben Schnetzer, Amy Madigan narrating the Donner Party, and Julianne Moore’s sudden arrival in 2014’s Best Actress race with Still Alice.

As The Odyssey continues to prove to be a career peak for Christopher Nolan and possible return to the Oscar stage, we’re looking back at a very different take on Homer’s epic poem. In 2024, The Return reunited Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche as the Ithacan king and queen – but limited the story just to the fallout from Odysseus’s arrival back to his kingdom. Despite the promise of TIFF Gala placement and a holiday release, The Return was met with a shrug on arrival.

This episode, we talk about Ralph Fiennes’s physique-forward performance (eye emoji) and Fiennes in the year of Conclave. We also discuss Charlie Plummer’s brattier take on Telemachus, the film’s lackluster design and aesthetics, and the Oscar hopes for Nolan’s blockbuster.

Topics also include Bleecker Street Film, Penelope’s loom, and Best Picture reunion 20 Questions.