Academy Vs Audience
Ever since 1928, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has handed out trophies to what it considered the best in film. Sometimes they were absolutely right, sometimes they were entirely wrong, sometimes they were so, so basic. But in all that time, audiences have had their own opinions, sometimes better, sometimes much worse. And sometimes, when the stars align or the fates allow, they even agree. Academy Vs Audience is a deep dive into Oscar history, revisiting film history from the 1920s to the 2020s; from the Studio Era to the age of the IP Franchise; from the age...
1990: Dances With Ghosts Alone
It's another triple-header, as the Oscars went for the first Extra Long Kevin Costner Western, while audiences were split between Christmas hijinks and the first big Sexy Halloween Monster. Dances With Wolves managed to be the second western to win Best Picture, while flipping the script on the genre's treatment of Native Americans, but could Costner act and direct at the same time? International audiences went for the genre-crossing hit that was Ghost, while Americans fell hard for Macaulay Culkin Saw-trapping burglars in Home Alone. Which do Dan, Claire, and Erin prefer? Listen to find out!
Find...
1989: Miss Daisy and the Last Bat-Crusade (feat. Munsi Parker-Munroe)
At the end of the 80s, the Oscars found themselves short on meaningful, artful, epics, tried to find some heartwarming story about ending racism, and settled for Driving Miss Daisy. Meanwhile, Hollywood began to pay attention to the worldwide box office instead of just the US, and we have our first split between domestic and international box office champions. Batman and Indiana Jones battled for box office supremacy, and who are we to pick a favourite? Munsi Parker-Munroe returns to help Claire, Erin, and Dan dissect whether Driving Miss Daisy is actually a bad movie or just disliked as...
1988: It's Rain(ing) Man, Hallelujah (feat. Chris Gibbins)
It's the one Joint Champion of the 1980s, as neither Oscars nor audience can resist Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise teaming up for the road movie Rain Man, which also serves as perhaps the first major pop culture depiction of autism. Here to help Claire, Erin, and Dan break down the movie's efforts to examine neurodivergence is Dan's big brother Dr. Chris Gibbins, psychologist specializing in this exact topic, so a fun break from work for Chris. How are the medical professionals depicted this time around, and which is the favourite? What would the 2024 version of this look like...
1987: Three Men and a Little Emperor (feat. Kevin Weir)
In 1987, both Academy and Audience were making questionable choices in very different directions, so Kevin Weir's back to help Erin, Claire, and Dan get into it. The Oscar went to The Last Emperor, chronicling the uniquely tragic life of China's final emperor Puyi, and the gang accidentally watches the longest possible version. The audience goes far lighter with Three Men and a Baby, about three bachelors trying to take care of a baby left at their door... while also in a cat-and-mouse game with the mafia? Comedy! Your hosts search for the exact right Three Men to helm the...
1986: Platoon to the Danger Zone
In 1986, Hollywood was in two minds about the military. Oliver Stone won an Oscar for his ground-level examination of the destruction and darkness of the Vietnam War, via one idealistic recruit being ground down by perpetual horror and atrocity. Tony Scott went another way, with whizz-bang planes that go fast and hot shot fighter pilots flying and fighting and erotically playing beach volleyball in Top Gun, which won over the crowds and made Tom Cruise a bona fide Movie Star. It's dumb and fun vs smart and soul-crushing: who won the hearts of our hosts? Tune in and find...
1985: Out of the Future (feat. Gina Stewart)
It's 1985 and the tonal gap between Academy winners and Audience favourite isn't getting smaller. The Oscar goes to Meryl Streep and Robert Redford's languidly paced, ill-fated romance in Out of Africa. Returning guest Gina Stewart joins Erin, Claire, and Dan to explain how the actual Karen Blixen's memoir of life in colonial Africa was mutated into an Oscar-bait romance. The audience turned out stronger for the unhinged sci-fi comedy Back to the Future, which would pave the way for a generation's worth of comedic hot takes, but does it still work as a movie? And what's Dan got to...
1984: Amadeus, Key of Axel F
It's buddy cops and classical music frenemies as Academy Vs Audience reaches 1984! First off, the Oscar goes to Amadeus, a film version of the what-if story proposing a deadly rivalry between composers Mozart and Salieri... a rivalry only one of them knows about. Erin, Claire, and Dan dig into it, the music, the wig-game, and if it's as gripping as film reddit insists. While that happened Eddie Murphy cemented himself as a movie star in Beverly Hills Cop, and we look at which parts aged more gracefully than others. Is Amadeus still a classic? Is Beverly Hills Cop still...
1983: Terms of the Jedi
It's 1983, and the big movies are all about difficult parent/child relationships. The Oscars went to Terms of Endearment, a mother/daughter story conceived, written, and brought to the screen by men, and Erin, Claire, and Dan have a lot of questions and notes on its success. Audiences, however, needed to see how Han Solo got out of the carbonite, and flocked to Return of the Jedi, which would seem to be the end of Star Wars. It wasn't, but nobody knew that. Lots of hot takes on bad names, bad relationships, and unnecessarily sexy alien lounge singers, so...
1944 Revisited: Going Back to Going My Way
While Erin and Claire are busy with the all-new theatrical experience of Riverona, travel back with us to 1944 and what Dan insists against all opposition is "one of the three most criminally underrated Best Pictures in history," the cask-stength comfort viewing of Going My Way. But first, for All 80s Summer, Erin has a speed-run review of George Miller's Mad Max saga, since we don't live in a just world and will not have a 2024 episode on Best Picture Furiosa and Box Office Champion The Fall Guy. That's on us as a society. Join us in reminiscing on Father...
1931 Revisited: Yancey and the Tramp and Some 80s
While Erin and Claire are bringing a fresh new work to what lucky audiences are able to catch it, we turn back the clock to one of our earliest episodes, in which Dan invited Erin, Claire, and you, the listener, to join him in his Yancey Cravat Madness. Followed by some love for Charlie Chaplin! And since this is All 80s Summer, some quickie 80s movie reviews from the one co-host not getting a play onto a stage right now. Join us in the Wayback Machine!
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