This Had Oscar Buzz

If you make a remake to a cinema classic (and Oscar nominee), chances are the buzz starts there. But in revamping The Manchurian Candidate to the post-9/11 culture, Oscar winning director also added the pedigree of recent winner Denzel Washington and then-recent nomination record breaker Meryl Streep, the buzz multiplied. But this version of a … Continue reading "389 – The Manchurian Candidate"

We’re talking about one of our favorite films of the 2020’s this week with Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera. Told with magical realism and an earthy bespoke quality, the 2023 film follows Josh O’Connor as a British archaeologist in Italy who belongs to a crew of tombaroli, grave robbers who sells off their findings. With O’Connor speaking … Continue reading "388 – La Chimera"

As maverick director David Lowery returns to theatres this week with Mother Mary, we’re looking back at his 2013 film Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. The film follows two Texas lovers played by Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara torn apart by a showdown with local police, where he accepts guilt and jail time when she shoots a … Continue reading "387 – Ain’t Them Bodies Saints"

With The Christophers finally arriving in theatres, we are returning to the ever-evolving filmography of director Steven Soderbergh. In the period of his one-for-you-one-for-me jostling between micro budgets and mainstream fare, 2011 offered his paranoid eco-thriller Contagion about a virus that overtakes the world. Though the film was an early fall box office success with major Oscar winners as … Continue reading "386 – Contagion"

We’re journeying back to the early 1990s this week to discuss the forgotten failure Billy Bathgate. Adapted from E.L. Doctorow’s Pulitzer finalist, the film cast Dustin Hoffman as real-life mobster Dutch Schultz opposite a Loren Dean as the fictionalized street kid who falls under his wing. With Bruce Willis in a supporting role at the peak … Continue reading "385 – Billy Bathgate"