Podcast: Best Actor Captain Phillips? Plus Inside Llewyn Davis
Sunday, October 6, 2013 at 4:25PM 
For this weekend we have a mini podcast but good things come in small packages.
Katey & Joe attended the Inside Llewyn Davis premiere at the New York Film Festival and tell Nathaniel about it from Garret Hedlund's ponytail, Carey Mulligan doppelgangers, Coen ambience shenanigans and film festival fashions.
All three of us loved Tom Hanks performance in Captain Phillips and Nick joins us, finally, to chat about the Best Actor race. We reference this "no frontrunners" article if you missed it. You can listen at the bottom of the post or download it on iTunes. Join in the conversation in the comments.
[Editor's Note: Because iTunes only hosts the 10 most recent episodes (I'm not sure why that is), the podcasts for this year's films we'll start disappearing after this particular episode so make sure and download them if you haven't yet listened to any episode.]
Reader Comments (10)
Great, insightful conversation re: Tom Hanks and Captain Phillips. Somehow he both tapped into his star groove *and* expanded our understanding of him as a performer. I guess he filmed this after he did the Nora Ephron play (so it's not a ScarJo situation w/ theatre leading to better film work) but I wonder if he took a few acting lessons that shook him up in some way? Or, maybe it just Greengrass to realize he had something more to give.
The Best Actor race is fascinating this year (yay!) but the most remarkable thing is how many great, great performances are going to totally fail to gain traction. Ethan Hawke, John Gallgher, Jr., David Oyelowo, Miles Teller...
Also, thanks for making this a weekly podcast. Always look forward to the laughs.
For your reference: the "Simpsons" character who most closely resembles the old man from the "Inside Llewyn Davis" NYFF screening: http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/50Sq4n4kt2k/hqdefault.jpg
Nathaniel....why haven't you mentioned anything about Gina gershon in the lifetime movie: house of versace this weekend lol..... She was so fun!!!!
david - i haven't watched it yet. waiting to see it with a couple friends of mine who also love her.
Pardon me because it's off-topic, but I thought I'd mention this is a thread that the entire crew might read: the genre of "Women Who Lie to Themselves" has a new Latin entry in Gloria. It's not perfect but it is an interesting tale with some superb acting. I re-listened to part of the post-TIFF podcast and can't tell: have any of you guys seen it, either at TIFF or at NYFF?
I think one thing that's interesting is that although the other acting categories "seem" to have frontrunners and best actor does not, best actor "seems" to have all five spots filled up without much room for anyone else to get in, and it's pretty early for a predictable five to survive till nominations with no usurpers, so I'm wondering who else might emerge, and who will show signs of weakness among Ejiofor, Redford, Dern, McC and Hanks.
Evan -- we'll be talking about Gloria on the next NYFF-specific podcast. I loved it.
Adam Driver as a potentially consistently used Coen Brothers player will be so worth it in the end, even if I find myself as chilly toward Inside Llewyn Davis as you guys do.
Since I wasn't even in this part of the podcast yet and hadn't even seen Captain Phillips at the time, can I just say I loved that part of the conversation. I could see Hanks as a Neeson/Kinsey situation who can't quite pull through to the end of the season, but that might be true of any of his competitors, too, especially if some wild cards start showing up in what currently looks like a field of five. (Phoenix in Her, for example, or Jordan in Fruitvale.) Great discussion of why Hanks's work is surprising, familiar, and special all at once, guys. I would have chirped in about the strong performance of Barkhad Abdi as Muse, the lead captor. I actually thought the whole ensemble was good, on both boats.
Also, I would just like to point out that I was not negligently sleeping. We often record two on the same day, and since I hadn't seen Phillips or Davis yet and my time zone's an hour earlier than everyone else's, my comrades agreeably decided ahead of time to record this session first, and then the one that got posted last week. If this rumor isn't cleared up quickly, I'll get a reputation as a lazybones or a truant, and then I won't get hired for good jobs, and then I'll be uninsurable, and then I'll turn to meth, and then I'll be in The Canyons.
Awesome podcast yet again. Is it weird to say that even though none of you were feeling Inside Llewyn Davis, listening to this podcast is the most excited I've been about that movie since it came out at Cannes? I also had a good laugh at Joe's comments on NYFF fashion. I did an overnight to the city to go to my first NYFF screening ever this weekend so I was basically only carrying clothes that would fit in a backpack, and it was very amusing when the lights went up realizing that I was the sole T-shirt and jeans gal in a sea of pinstripe button ups. American Promise btw is a solid, affecting doc, but the beats are expected and the filmmakers go for breadth over depth, which has mixed consequences.
Question about NYFF: are you planning on doing a podcast on the films that are premiering there? I know there's a lot of overlap with CFF. I won't lie, I treated myself to a second weekend in the city for Blue Is The Warmest Color, Nebraska, and 12 Years A Slave and the (selfish) small town ex-pat in me wants to finally be able to be a part of the conversation about the big movies when the damn things actually come out, not two months after the premiere when everyone's stopped talking about them.