Broad Appeal

"A mother on a quest for vengeance. A strong and silent heroine. A young woman on the cusp of adulthood. A publisher with the ultimate choice to make. Tonya Harding. Here are the five extraordinary women nominated for Best Actress" - Sharon Stone, in our fantasies. Join us for Part 2 of our Actress Oscar Special. Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

After a short hiatus of watching films strictly for pleasure and not taking any notes during movies, we're back! And what a time to be alive - it's Oscar week! Seán and Brian take on the only categories that matter: Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. And in our typical style, this simple conversation has turned into two episodes. Join us for Part 1 as we talk Mary J., Leslie, Octavia, Allison and (swoon) Laurie. Any guess who our favourite is? Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

The year is 1989. “Bad” communism is coming to an end, Europe is breaking into new nation states, Seán is being born and Emma Thompson is telling the world she is an absolute star in THE TALL GUY. After garroting Richard Curtis in the last episode, he gets an odd free pass here by helping create a strikingly independent female character in Emma's Kate Tampon Lemon. The film is a cluttered and creaking 80s romantic comedy, somewhere between Slaves of New York and A Chorus Line (i.e. far too batty for today's audiences). But weirdest of all, it includes what you never see much of: two consenting adults who barely know each other, casually arranging a date to enjoy a healthy serving of afternoon delight. (Well, if they’re straight, that is...). Known more for its raucous and equally joyous sex-scene between Emma and hunky co-star Jeff Goldblum, THE TALL GUY is a weird little romp down Shaftsberry Avenue and up the way to the Royal Free Hospital, which catapulted Emma to stardom. Seán and Brian cannot resist her

Here at Broad Appeal we have the perfect gift for you: A foaming-at-the-mouth screed about one of the most repugnant little films masquerading as entertainment! Were it not for Emma Thompson, who brings an emotional weight to an entirely undeserving film, LOVE ACTUALLY would be consigned to the dust-bin of history. Also in that bin is every skeezy boss who ever creeped on his staff, political figures who think they can get away with anything, lad culture, and all “awkward” weirdos who just don't know how to talk to women. If you saw this film in 2003 and thought nothing of it, you'll be WOKEn up by the end of this episode. Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, Andrew Lincoln, Bill Nighy et al – they're all here and they're all COMPLICIT! But Emma: As if we needed any reminder that E.T. is not only a consummate professional, with pools of artistic and emotional depth, but can also utilise the flat role of a taken-for-granted wife to craft a polemic on marriage, relationships, forgiveness and family, while never raising he

You may be yin, and I may be yang, but we can all agree on Emma Thompson. For some, she is the queen of 90s prestige filmmaking, for others (i.e. Brian) she is a role model, an idol, a way of life. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (which Em wrote and starred in) takes 18th century English manners and deconstructs them through the Taiwanese lens of director And Lee. The story of wildly disparate sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood certainly left its impact on your wildly disparate hosts. For Brian it was fuel to the fire of his love and passion for Emma, for Seán it was some frou-frou trailer at the start of the VHS tape of Addams Family Values. But will the older, wiser Seán be able to come to his senses (as opposed to sensibilities) and to look beyond the Empire waistlines to see this film for what it is: a delightful, insightful comedy that is as much Thompson as it is Austen? Reader, he loved it. (That's her, right? - Ed. Note: No, Seán, that’s Charlotte Brontë) Part 1 of 3 Clips from the film presented according

Don't you just love it when the bourgeoisie debase themselves? In what is undoubtedly a masterpiece in malice, Judi delivers her best performance ever in NOTES ON A SCANDAL. She is Barbara Covett, a petrified husk of an educator, who believes that Sapphic machinations form the basis of any good friendship. And yet even Dench's detestability is put to the test by Cate Blanchett's Sheba Hart: performing youth outreach in the form of sexual favours offered to the underaged. NOTES ON A SCANDAL is what happens when truly talented people get together to make utter trash - sure it disagrees with our bowels, but we can’t get enough of it. Part 3 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

What do you get when you combine Judi Dench, Cher, Maggie Smith, Lily Tomlin and someone called Joan Plowright with a bunch of hot Italian men, World War II and a healthy dose of fascism? The answer... practically nothing. TEA WITH MUSSOLINI is exactly the kind of film you'd expect from a right-wing homosexual, wistfully recounting his misspent youth amongst delightfully polite blackshirts. Maggie sympathises, Joan frets, Cher is rich and Judi goes gaga for her pooch. Even if the film is bloodless, Seán and Brian make sure to spill plenty of tea during the conversation. We like ours strong. Et tu, Benito? Part 2 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Here at Broad Appeal we try and avoid all honorific titles and that includes “national treasure”. But as it turns out, Judi Dench has earned these platitudes: regal imperiousness is her USP! To say her range is limited to the odd monarch or head of MI6, however, is to do her a disservice. PHILOMENA may look like the perfect film to watch with your aunt, but like The Dench herself, it's far more than that. Judi D. plays the titular Phil, an Irish woman who for years kept a secret close to her heart: doing penance to unforgiving nuns for birthing an unwed child (and for the sin of enjoying the sex that conceived him!). She lived her whole adult life with her boy taken from her. Now she's teamed up with the cynical journo Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), whose level of smugness is perfectly matched with Philomena's polite way of managing B.S. But a wacky buddy-comedy this is not: PHILOMENA is a funny, heartfelt, emotional story handled with superb tact by Stephen Frears, and completely owned by Judi, melting hear

JENNIFER LOPEZ IS A GENIUS. Who else could've spun box office gold from this laughable material and turned it into... the ultimate guilty pleasure? JLo is a suburban Mom (and Classics teacher!) whose ill-advised jones for jailbait comes back to haunt her, and then some. Don'tcha hate it when the neighbor boy with the rock-hard abs turns out to be a psychopath? Achilles never raged as vengefully as this horny hunk who becomes hell-bent on destroying her family unit. This is Fatal Attraction: Female Version - featuring naked butts, pornographic photocopies and a gruesome finale that would put Aeschylus to shame. It's getting pretty wet down here! Part 3 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Ali vs. Forman! Rocky vs. Apollo! JLo vs. JFo! On paper it sounds great: Puerto Rican pop princess faces off against a Hollywood grande dame in her unexpected return to the screen. Alas, what might've been a truly Freudian slugfest as mother-in-law battles bride-to-be lands with a whimper, a shrug and a WTF?! Jen is in candy-coated rom-com mode, rendering herself into an inoffensive Everygirl, while Hanoi Jane is going for a register somewhere in between Miranda Priestly and Mommie Dearest. This fascinating failure exhibits all the formulaic flaws that have sunk many a recent rom-com. Where's the rom? Where's the com? Brian and Seán dream of the diva duet that never happened, while dissecting the wilted bridesmaid's bouquet that was actually tossed. Part 2 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Jennifer Lopez began her rise to multi-platform domination as a charismatic young actress with with some serious indie cred. She shines (and packs a punch) as tough-but-vulnerable federal marshall Karen Sisco in OUT OF SIGHT, hunting down bank robber George Clooney (and nearly stealing the movie from him). We return to the Elmore Leonard universe and contemplate what might've been if JLo had spent more time with directors like Steven Soderbergh (could he have found her her own Erin Brockovich-type vehicle??) Instead, she started churning out pop hits that delighted young Seán (before she started singing about boyfriend Ben Affleck, that is). There's no denying that Jenny from the Block is a woman to be reckoned with. Part 1 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

No one plays fucked-up, damaged sexuality quite like Julianne Moore. In SAVAGE GRACE, as the mercurial heiress Barbara Bakeland whose relationship with her son (Eddie Redmayne) goes from over-intimacy to incest, she stops at all the Stations of the Cross of camp insanity. Accosting her philandering husband in an airport while wearing a flagrant red dress? Check. Making her pre-pubescent son recite porn in a foreign language? Check. Having a threesome with said son's male lover? Check. Somehow, despite the hothouse atmosphere, suicide attempts and moody hallucinations, Juli and Eddie somehow manage to make these perverse, insular characters weirdly fun -- that is, until the incestuous sex grows both mechanical and murderous. Brian and Seán debate the merits of this particularly transgressive example of New Queer Cinema but conclude that it is undeniably watchable -- and that no one but Julianne could make all these crazy contradictions cohere -- por el culo! (wyzz8sdg) Part 3 of 3 Clips from the film presen

Julianne Moore can do no wrong - so who the hell convinced her to play Clarice Starling?! Taking up the baton from Jodie Foster, Moore is saddled with an iffy West Virginia drawl and some even dodgier sexual politics in this completely unnecessary - and completely disgusting - sequel to THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Returning as Hannibal the Cannibal, Anthony Hopkins chews much more than the scenery, while Gary Oldman out-grosses him as a disfigured and deviant vengeful paedophile. Julianne must suffer the indignities of male lechery, ludicrously OTT violence and a narrative sidelining that will leave you screaming along with the lambs. Misogynist, ludicrous and ultimately revolting this is the kind of movie that not only fries your brain but serves it up to you with a balsamic demi-glaze. While Clarice is rendered expendable, Julianne was somehow spared the kind of career disemboweling that would've destroyed a lesser talent. Bon Appetit! Part 2 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy.

Julianne Moore is a Movie Star... but before that, she was a working actress. In the early to mid-90s, eagle-eyed viewers could spot her unique redheaded luminescence on the margins of Hollywood movies and daytime soaps. With the release of a string of acclaimed indies, however, the world took notice - and the first was VANYA ON 42ND STREET. It's a love letter to the theatre in which a company of character actors gather to rehearse in a crumbling Times Square theatre. With nothing but their street clothes, some makeshift props and the presence of Our Greatest Living Actress, Andre Gregory's company put on the best rendition of Chekhov EVER. Also immediately apparent are the nascent qualities we'd come to know as Julianne trademarks: fearless sexuality, heartbreaking vulnerability and a mercurial spontaneity. As Yelena, an unreadable beauty who turns the head of Wallace Shawn and every other man she encounters, the former Julie Ann Smith announces to us all that we'd better pay attention because this woman is

What do you get when you pair an angry, embittered cop with a sparky, big-hearted yet bumbling T-Rex designed to sell children's Happy Meal tie-ins? Quite possibly the most bizarre, joyless film in history. THEODORE REX was a film that Whoopi Goldberg had to be sued into making, because how would she have thought that anyone pitching this film was serious? "Yeah sure I'll make your family-friendly, buddy cop dinosaur movie, yeah!" she must have said, never believing that she was entering into an orally binding contract. The film that you most certainly thought was a rumour, is in fact, real. And we've seen it. Move over, Francis Fukuyama, this film is truly the End of History. Part 3 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

At your next pub quiz, when asked to name a Whoopi Goldberg movie that features Donald J. Trump, you'll have the answer! THE ASSOCIATE is a 1996 satirical comedy of finance and feminism in which the Whoopster launches a one-woman campaign to break into the world of Wall Street (with help from spunky secretary Dianne Weist). This Clinton-era curiosity was woke before woke... sort of. You see, this film's version of taking down the patriarchy involves layering its heroine in a mask of (Caucasian) latex to pose as a fictitious white male titan of industry: the aptly - and repetitively - named Robert Cutty. (What was that name?? Cutty. Cutty? CUTTY!) There is probably a brilliant Brechtian bouillabaisse to be made from these ingredients, laced with a hearty helping of identity politics, but this earnestly flat-footed film is not it. Instead, it's Simone de Beauvoir meets Mrs. Doubtfire as the very real structures of institutional sexism serve as the backdrop for a gender-bending so-called romp. And they say the n

Hail Whoopi, Full of Grace. One-time Oscar winner, four-time Oscar Host. Standup comedian, prestige actress, box office draw, supporting player, talk show panelist... Goldberg has played many parts. Simultaneously smart, saucy and saccharine, she is truly one of Hollywood's most beloved personalities - over a career that ranges from huge hits to massive misfires. Through it all, she's somehow never lost our affection, whether communing with dead spirits or summoning the Holy Ghost to shake up Maggie Smith's cloistered convent. SISTER ACT was first envisioned as a vehicle for Bette Midler, but Whoopi in a wimple proved impossible to pass up. Brian was raised by a nun and Seán has played one on the gay cabaret circuit, so returning to this family classic didn't feel like penance. Upon rewatching, though, how many of its cardinal virtues remain intact? Part 1 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

You want to know what crazy is? Crazy is a film where Michelle Pfeiffer is almost outdone by Lorna Luft. When hearing Tab Hunter sing about pollinating stamens starts to makes sense to you, you know you’ve been watching GREASE 2 for too long. Some actresses' careers might have burned to ash on the pyre of this kind of camp (which is even more nonsensical than the first movie) but young Michelle emerged from it like a phoenix and became a star. The same cannot be said of her co-lead Maxwell Caulfield: the blond heart throb failed to initiate a second British invasion, but DAMN, is he nice to look at!! Part 3 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

WHITE OLEANDER has it all: a ridiculous title, the imprimatur of Oprah's Book Club, and a parade of the blondest actresses of the early 2000s. As she exited the 90s and entered a decade that didn’t know what to do with any woman over 40 (except Meryl f****** Streep), Pfeiffer plays a troubled mother(!) to drippy Alison Lohman (remember her?). Michelle does whatever she can with whatever she’s given, but watching her smirk sociopathically in a prison jumpsuit doesn't make the most of her talents. Prepare yourself for an insanely convoluted bildungsroman in which little Alison gets passed from Michelle to Robin Wright to Renee Zellweger, spouting overwritten voiceovers all the way through. We were worried when the movie started that it might end up being good... we were wrong. Part 2 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

We begin THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE CRAZY with Michelle Pfeiffer, one of the quintessential actresses of the 80s and 90s who is thankfully back on our screens this year. Amongst her many iconic roles, it was arguably THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS (1989) that cemented her stardom. In this timelessly old-fashioned showbiz story, Pfeiffer is saucy call girl-turned-lounge singer Suzie Diamond. Everyone will swoon over Jeff Bridges and pity poor brother Beau, but BAKER BOYS floats on Pfeiffer’s insouciant line delivery as the elusive chanteuse. Watching her scrappy sensual musical numbers you feel all the feeeeeeeelings, and wanna start makin’ whoopee. Part 1 of 3 Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).