The Big Picture · Review · Discussion
November 24, 2020/ 84 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Ron Howard's Netflix melodrama lands as a Thanksgiving turkey, and Sean and Amanda use it to map ten species of Oscar bait.
105 films across 3 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
'Hillbilly Elegy'Ron Howard, on Netflix
Ron Howard's adaptation of J.D. Vance's memoir strips out the book's politics and sociology and leaves a family melodrama. One of the worst-reviewed films of the year; both hosts read it as a vehicle to finally win Amy Adams and Glenn Close an Oscar.
Amy Adams, Glenn Close & Ron Howardthe talent behind the bait
Amy Adams's 2005 breakthrough and first nomination.
Amanda's favorite Adams performance: quiet, behind-the-eyes work anchoring a time-shifting plot.
Adams in Nora Ephron rom-com mode.
A showier Adams part: she yells a lot without going actory.
Glenn Close's 2018 awards play that everyone expected to win, and didn't. The hosts owned some of the 'Oscar Joe' joke-making around it.
Sean's example of Close doing deep, unforgettable work: the opposite of the Hillbilly Elegy 'drag.'
One of Close's first three film roles, all nominated.
Rodrigo García's ensemble anthology (Sean misremembers it as 'the animated movie'), one of Close's chance-taking roles.
Sean is the house's number-one Apollo 13 fan; still wants adult space camp.
Howard's Best Picture winner.
Howard's prestige lane, alongside the hit-making one.
The 10 Types of Oscar Bait You Meet in Hellthe big-tent taxonomy
A 1948 New Republic review of this John Ford film is the first recorded use of 'Oscar bait.'
The origin of the strategy: shown only to voters and critics to qualify, then released wide after nominations. Won Best Picture; producer Alan Carr realized the grim subject only sold once it had nominations attached.
Amanda's dad's kind of 'that'll win the Oscar' call, which the hosts note is emphatically not Oscar bait.
The other dad pick; neither it nor Morning Glory earned a single nomination.
Won the Oscar and nobody called it bait: the counterexample showing the term is reserved for films that fail the artistic test first.
Beat La La Land; part of the diversified Academy shifting what can win.
The war epic Parasite beat: the 'big long war film' avatar of bait.
Sean's recurring point: a monster movie contorted into Oscar shape, which he argues cleared the path for Parasite.
Better written than Hillbilly Elegy but the same recklessly broad-strokes 'portrait of America.'
Part of Sean's case for 2017 as the best film year of the decade.
Bong Joon-ho's monster movie, cited to link The Shape of Water and Parasite.
An earlier stab at the 'portrait of the real America' strain.
Amanda's example of a beautifully written novel whose big formal reveal doesn't translate to screen.
A turgid adaptation of a beloved book that never figured out what it wanted to be.
Edward Norton smuggled a Robert Moses / Power Broker story into a different book: the parts that worked most, per the hosts.
Then just the Rumaan Alam novel Sam Esmail was adapting; Amanda wondered how its on-the-page tension would translate.
A stage-play adaptation that actually won reviews and nominations.
An August Wilson adaptation the hosts call a genuinely good movie: successful bait, with Chadwick Boseman earmarked for Best Actor.
Won Gary Oldman his Oscar, the peak-bait Winston Churchill movie.
Featured Churchill in a bit part; the rule holds.
The real-event / journalism subcategory the hosts find fascinating.
One of the Tom Hanks films whose mere presence rockets a movie to Oscar seriousness.
Hanks's most recent nomination.
A Hanks film held to the Hanks standard and found wanting.
One of the adequate-to-bad movies Meryl Streep gets nominated for regardless.
The glorified-impression biopic that now secures a nomination.
The classic 'afflicted person' vehicle that finally rewards a long-overlooked star.
The loathed / complex-figure biopic actors love: the humanity in the villain.
Divisive but interesting to both hosts.
The exception that proves the rule for the complex-figure category.
A box-office success if not a critical one.
The white-savior movie that won Best Picture despite both hosts' misgivings: charmed by Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, uneasy at 30,000 feet.
The template: Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, an earlier era's version of the same.
Peter O'Toole's late 'one last shot' bid: nominated, didn't win. He never won a competitive Oscar.
Netflix's mortality-showcase bait; Scorsese doesn't need an Oscar, but the money says the studio wanted one.
The classical root of the movies-about-Hollywood strand.
Sean's pure-bait Scorsese play: you can't get that budget for a Méliès history lesson otherwise.
Teased for next week's episode; not obviously a celebration of Hollywood.
The Mank companion piece.
The Coens' mounting makes a case for bait, and Sean likes it more than Hugo.
The disability-in-latex actor showcase, tipping into parody.
The crystallized example: a strikingly attractive star made conventionally unattractive to win, and Charlize Theron did.
Sean's most egregious pick: sociological exploration of America that voters got fish-hooked by, now seen as one of the most absurd Best Picture winners.
A pure awards play engineered to win Kate Winslet an Oscar, and it did.
Not yet released at recording but already presumed a lock.
Floated (by fools like Sean) as a Best Picture contender: the point where 'everything is Oscar bait' becomes meaningless.
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The CrownDamages
Podcasts WTF with Marc MaronThe Rewatchables
Ads NOS EnergyFanDuelKraftNetflix (FIFA World Cup Launch Edition)CarvanaQuaker