Podcast: On the Basis of Sex and Destroyer
Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 4:41PM Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl and Chris Feil talk new films
We recorded this one just before Christmas so apologize on the delay at delivering it to you!
Index (57 minutes)
00:01 Felicity Jones underwhelming RBG in On the Basis of Sex
06:50 Mixed takes on Karyn Kusama's Destroyer with Nicole Kidman
12:52 "Festive" Christmas movies like Vice, Shoplifters, Destroyer, Capernaum, Beale Street... so many depressing films scheduled for the holidays
18:30 Oscar shortlists for Score, Visual Effects, and Makeup
28:00 The Documentary Finals and the short films
35:00 Will Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite) be nominated for Best Director? Will Green Book controversies derail its expected screenplay nomination?
46:22 Leave No Trace and A Quiet Place might be peaking at the right time for big nominations
56:00 The Wrap Up
Further Reading / References
• Oscar Chart: Screenplay Charts
• Oscar Chart: Visual FX & Makeup
• Oscar Chart: Original Score
• Documentary Finalists
• Nathaniel's Destroyer Review
• Shadow & Act's Green Book Article
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?
Reader Comments (10)
Chris pointed this out in the podcast, but for women my mom's age, I think On the Basis of Sex has a different kind of resonance and could be a big hit with pockets of the populace that consistently go to the movies, which is why I do think that the release schedule for this movie is unfortunate, as it clearly could be making more money than it currently is. My mom and a group of random strangers (all women over 50) were sobbing in the lobby of this movie talking about how much they loved it, so I do think this could be a hit, even if it's not an Oscar hit.
I'd like to add to our documentary conversatin, that after recording I watched Minding the Gap based on Chris' reccomendation. And it floored me, what an accompished piece of filmmaking. It's easy to access on Hulu so I hope many of you see it. It is such a wow.
Destroyer's theatrical run is entirely based on Kidman being the lead. It is Netflix level schlock. Her meth face is ridiculous and I wish she were wearing an eye patch instead.
I saw Destroyer and in an earlier post, I said I really really wanted to love Kidman 's performance.
I wish I had, but all I saw was her "acting" almost throughout. For me, she cannot carry a film as heavy as this one was. Sorry, fans! I tried....
Also saw Destroyer and it left me wondering why Nicole is getting so much praise for this. The make-up didn’t really help. It looked unbelievable.
As much as I love her, I am starting to feel that people will once again time of her. She is doing way too many projects. She needs to slow down.
Saw it this weekend -- I thought Kidman was fantastic in Destroyer.
You can easily see all of the shorts either live in theaters or on demand online for many years now. I'm disappointed at the view of the panel that these categories should be cut at the Oscar. Very short-sighted and half-assed arguments there.
Funny that you say the Visual Effects shortlist include "all the superhero movies" and yet Aquaman is not on there (not that I think it should be, I enjoyed the movie a lot, but the CGI was often atrocious). The one I think should have been there is Bumblebee. I don't know if you guys have seen it, but I really think that film benefitted from having a stop-motion animator as its director (Laika's Travis Knight), and that's nowhere more apparent than in the transformation sequences, which play around more with the car parts turning into giant robots and still becoming a part of the giant robot. The film itself is really nothing new (it's basically E.T. with a Transformer, or more appropriately, like The Iron Giant), but it has a lot of heart and Hailee Steinfeld is proving to be a magnificent screen presence and a very relatable leading lady (I loved her in True Grit, but The Edge of Seventeen cemented what a talent she is).
I just saw The Favourite for the first time. I ADORED it (it's wickedly hilarious and I actually loved the ending), but I get why it has detractors. Yorgos Lanthimos is too dark for many viewers and they may not be in the mood for something this dark this time of year (this and First Reformed are my two favorite films of the year, and they're both perverse, in very different ways). That said, this is one of the films in which I find so-called "category fraud" understandable. There's something about applying "Lead" to any role where it almost had to feel substantial, and even though the story is about the triangle and all three ladies have about equal weight to the story, there lies the problem as well. Once you break them up, neither of the three feels particularly substantial enough to be placed in what we call the "Lead" category. So much so that it does feel easier to put them in Supporting because even if we're not sure who's leading the story, we know all three of them are supporting one another's story. I have this feeling with Olivia Colman, who I think is brilliant in the film, but find difficult to categorize as the lead, as I feel she's the object of what the story's main conflict is about and while she does have agency and turns a few wheels in the plot (she is the Queen after all), the main conflict is the rivalry between Sarah and Abigail for the affections of Queen Anne (at least that's how it felt to me). Of course, putting Emma Stone in Supporting feels the more egregious one to me, since her character has such a richly laid out arch that the film follows so closely (she doesn't change, so to speak, but her motivations seem the most propulsive of the three leads).
speaking of gemini and Destroyer LMFAO.
Definitely agree that Supporting Actress could easily be 4/5 lead performances. Thomasin McKenzie is scaring the *shit* out of me right now.