Oscars Outsider - Can Spielberg’s Alien Movie Actually Win Oscars?

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

Spielberg is back with aliens — but is that enough to make Disclosure Day a real Oscar contender?This week on Oscars Outsider, we close the book on Cannes, revisit whether the Palme d’Or winner Fjord is now a serious awards player, and dig into the strange politics already forming around its Oscar narrative. Then we turn to the summer movie season: Scorsese’s AI storyboarding controversy, Taylor Swift entering the Best Original Song race with Toy Story 5, whether Project Hail Mary could follow the Sinners path, and the big question behind our thumbnail: can Spielberg turn aliens into Oscar gold one more time?We also talk Netflix’s shifting awards strategy, YouTuber-to-filmmaker anxiety, horror’s box office boom, Obsession, The Backrooms, and why nostalgia for the 1980s may finally be losing to internet-era nostalgia.Chapters:0:00 Cold Open0:27 Welcome0:54 Cannes Capstone: Fjord Wins the Palme d'Or2:01 The Black Ball & Netflix's Awards Retreat6:53 Is Fjord the Conservatives' Oscar Movie?12:52 Scorsese Endorses an AI Company16:30 Taylor Swift's Toy Story 5 Song18:14 Project Hail Mary & the Sinners Playbook19:45 Spielberg's Disclosure Day: Best Picture Player?25:31 Obsession: The $1M Box Office Monster28:22 The YouTuber-to-Filmmaker Debate31:12 Backrooms Review34:19 The Future of Nostalgia (RIP Masters of the Universe)36:05 Tribeca & the Holding Pattern37:33 Honorary Oscars + Outro

Let me hit you with a stat. Six of the last eight Stephen Spielberg movies have been nominated for Best Picture. Now, is that an arbitrary cutoff point that happens to align with the expansion of the best picture category? Yes, it is. Still a pretty impressive stat. So do you think Disclosure Day is going to be a Best Picture Player? Welcome back to Oscars, Outside era podcast about the awards race and Hollywood history. I'm Dylan.

I'm here with Craig. Hey, Craig, how's it going? Doing good, doing good. Happy to be back. So on that note, let's get into talking about movies. We thought we'd get a little quickie in for you guys here. Just give you a bit of an update on what's been going on in the awards race and around the Hollywood sphere. We'll maybe come back a bit later with something on Hollywood history. Craig, do you think maybe we should just start off by putting a little capstone on our con coverage? We did the, our past three episodes were about con.

That's like kind of far on the rearview mirror by now. we did get a couple interesting comments, I think, on our last podcast, and I'm wondering if we should just quickly address that before we move on to other things. Should we put a little, little Cahn, Capstone? Yeah, let's dive in. Yeah. So, of course, for anybody who needs to get caught up, the big headline of Cun was that the Palm Door, the top prize, went to Fjord, a movie from a Romanian director, Christian Munjou. and it was somewhat unexpected, a movie that had some mixed reviews.

And I guess the big question for us, for sure, is does this solidify Fjord as a certified Oscars frontrunner now that it has a Palm Door or not? Some people definitely doubted our assumption that it does, that Fjord is now going to be kind of in the Oscars race. Have you reconsidered that position at all, Craig, in the time since? We did our quick, de-jerk reaction to the result.

No, you know what? I was thinking there was some, like you said, some great comments about this, but I still think that it is firmly within the race here. And one of the films that was brought up a lot in the comments was the black ball and maybe that having a higher ceiling in terms of the nominations, which is an interesting thought. And I'm eager to dive into that. Yeah, I mean, I feel like we did cover that briefly in our last episode.

Basically, my perspective was the Black Ball is a movie that, despite its rapturous response at Con, and maybe had the most enthusiastic response of any film based on some reports, is a movie that's made by people and starring people who are completely unknown outside of Spain. So it just feels like its potential is very going to, it's going to be very limited, barring a big surprise when it does get onto some screens. in North America. So I just have a hard time picturing it unless it's really kind of an unexpected event.

Yeah, the case that one of our commenters made was that this is likely to be Netflix's big push within the award season. I'm interested to know whether or not you think that that's true or not. Because the way that I see it, I could see them putting, I could see them being divided between that and Cliff Booth,

even though I don't think Cliff Booth really is going to make a huge splash at the award season. But I do think that it is going to divide Netflix's attention. Yeah, I mean, I think it's also worth keeping in mind that Netflix doesn't really go all out on the Oscars the way they used to like five, seven years ago. Like definitely, definitely this past year, Frankenstein got a bit of a push, got some love for sure. Train Dreams also was a Netflix movie that managed to kind of sneak into the best picture race without really ever feeling like a contender. But if you look at, for example,

Jay Kelly, which is a movie that in years past, I think that would be very easy to position as a best picture candidate, which Netflix kind of just seemed to bury. They didn't really seem to give it much attention, didn't get it on too many screens, didn't really seem to do much much promotion. So, like, the days of Netflix trying to buy a best picture by giving blank checks to people like Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Coran, Jane Campion, I think those days basically ended when they kind of, I guess, did some financial restructuring around the same time that they started introducing like an ad-supported tier, you know, when competition got a little bit more

more tight for streamers. And they're not really like giving these kind of $300 million budgets and massive awards campaigns spending, which I mean never worked, right? Like they've like those those movies like the Irishman, the power of the dog, Roma, they all got lots of nominations. None of them actually secured the best picture win. So you feel like that's not a huge priority for them anymore. They've kind of given up on that,

which isn't to say they don't spend on Oscar campaigns. but I think the days of them going all out on Oscar campaigns are over. So for any Netflix movie, I don't think they can really count on getting a kind of big push, whether it's divided or not. Yeah, that's interesting because that kind of ties into one of the things that I had flagged for our news segment, but Dan Lynn, I don't know what his title is at Netflix,

basically came out and said that theatrical releases are essentially off the table for most Netflix films unless you're already a star. So it does seem like they are doubling down on this idea that it's all streaming first. They don't really care as much about getting an award or award eligibility. Yeah. And it is worth part to counting. We did the point in the last episode that the deal that Netflix signed to acquire the black ball does apparently, according to reports, have provisions for theatrical release and awards campaign. But that doesn't mean

that the provisions are going to be for a huge theatrical release and a very expensive awards campaign. It might just be like a very minimal kind of thing just to satisfy that contractual requirement that that was part of the terms that were negotiated to close the deal. So yeah, that is something that they're going to have to do because that's been negotiated into the contract. But I don't think that we can... we can count on them really making that big push because, like you said, that doesn't really seem to be something that they're focused on these days. Yeah, for sure.

Another comment that I really liked was somebody saying that Fjord is going to be divided along the political lines, that the reaction to Fjord really breaks down on a left-right divide. I mentioned as an example of critics that didn't like Fjord, Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian, and this commentary kind of jumped on that and said, yeah, of course. course the left-wing publications don't like Fjord. There's a split between the right week publications that did like and the left-wings that didn't. And they said something along the lines of, you know, this is a chance for the Oscars to redeem themselves by nominating a more conservative-leading movie. I love this comment. Like, this is really

interesting to me to see, to imagine this potential that Fjord could be the movie that's embraced by conservatives as like the anti-woke candidate that will, that will shake up the Oscars and force them to force them to pay attention to a conservative film. What are your thoughts on that, Craig? I honestly don't know a lot about Fjord aside from who is

in it. So I'm really interested to know like what is divisive about this film. From what I've read about Fjord and of course it's going to be a while before me or you or anybody listening probably actually gets to see the film but

the reviews describe it as being a story about kind of a conservative couple in who've moved to Norway who kind of want to raise their family their way and get caught up in kind of a suspicious bureaucracy uh in Norway which has been read by some critics as kind of a uh a libertism of yeah yeah sure a libertarian attack on uh on on liberal bureaucracy um you know i don't want to pass too much judgment on whether that's actually the perspective of movie without having seen it. It's very hard to know just based on a few write-ups. It is interesting to speculate about Christian Manju, the director's political leanings, which as far as I know aren't really known. I admit my

first reaction to that was like, Christian Munju, the guy who's most famous for making a pro-choice movie about like the misery of trying to get an abortion in Shusescu's Roman. Mania, you know, his most famous movie up until this point was a previous Palm Door winner, four months, three weeks, and two days. Though, if you go back to the reaction to four months, three weeks, two days, a really good movie. There were some people who saw it as being maybe a little more anti-abortion than a lot of critics did. Notably, the film does sort of break with its mostly strict social realist perspective to include a shot of a fetus,

which is a very charged image that's often associated with anti-abortion activism, of course, especially in America. So the possibility that Manju has like a more conservative perspective is definitely real, though totally debatable. For sure, Munju's movies tend to take place under Chusescu in the 1980s in Romania, under the dictatorship, which was, you know, at least a nominally. communist dictatorship. He hasn't, unlike some of the other Romanian New A filmmakers, like Christy Pouy, or Radu Jude, he hasn't really been eagerly attacking the American-style capitalism that has overtaken Romania in recent years. So he doesn't show that indignation towards

American-style capitalism, which, you know, again, could be read as him being more of an anti-communist and and and having a bit more of a conservative perspective. This is all pure speculation, but it is definitely interesting to see how the movie will be received. And for sure, like some of the movies that, that I think Fjord sounds comparable to would be like the Rubin Osslin movies, things like, like Triangle of Sadness, or maybe Thomas Winterberg movies, like, The Hunt, which are, if not, like, right-wing in the American sense, because we definitely have to be a little careful about, like, overlaying European political perspectives onto, like,

the American left-right political divide, because they're not the same thing, and it's easy to see why Americans kind of want to have those one-front comparisons. But anyways, those other, like, kind of Nordic filmmakers often are making films that are clearly ridiculing and attacking the hypocrisies of the bourgeois liberals. Fjord sounds like it's kind of in that mode. And I could see somebody being like an anti-woke conservative latching onto that.

And it's definitely an interesting possibility to consider that the Palm Door winner from Europe could be the conservative's favorite Oscar Dobbyty. Yeah, I mean, I guess we'll see. It would be really interesting if it turns out to be that. that way, because like you said, it would certainly be unexpected. Like this movie does not fit the profile of a film that would be latched onto.

But if what you're saying about the narrative is really what, like, the takeaway is, I think that it's very possible. Yeah. All right. I think we should leave, we should finally leave con behind because we've done so much can coverage lately, unless you have any final thoughts on, on Fjord or other topics. No, no.

Yeah, why don't we move on to some other stuff? Craig, what are some storylines you've been watching in the past couple of weeks since you last recorded? Yeah, so I think the big thing that is interesting within the film world right now is that Martin Scorsese has come out and endorsed this like AI storyboarding company of some sort, which like Scorsese is someone that. is like pretty an unlikely character to really get involved in a like pro AI stance here. Like he's someone that I always have seen as are arguing for like the human side of things. And so to be like, yeah, maybe we should look at using AI for storyboarding is a pretty interesting stance. And you know, the the art direction world is. starting to be pretty upset with him about this. So I'm interested to know whether or not you have

seen this news at all. Yeah, I've definitely seen it. The thing about these AI storylines is they all start to get a little repetitive after a while and sense that they're all like, oh, no, this, this beloved figure from the film world has either started using AI or made pro AI comments or joined the board of an AI company. I feel like there's a new one of these every week now. And it's not going to stop any time soon. Definitely the Trebekah film festival has also had some controversy about accepting AI films. I think there's one Iranian film which is entirely AI or something like that. The Scorsese thing, yeah, I mean, for sure, it's a little disappointing to see, like you

say, a guy like Scorsese, such a, one of the world's number one advocates for classic cinema. One of, just such an important figure. the film world, you know, even if he hadn't made so many classic films, he would still be a hugely important figure in the film world just for all his efforts at restoration, in that funding, recovery, and restoration and film festivals and all the stuff that he does. Yes, it's a little disappointing to have him, um, have, uh, have anything to do with, with, with AI. Um, the, this is a little bit like cope maybe, but I mean, I guess the way to mitigate it

is that he's specifically, like you said, talking about an AI storyboarding company, not like generative AI for things that will appear on the screen in the finished film. A slight distinction maybe, but still there is definitely a distinction to be made between using AI tools in the pre-production process and using generative AI for like images that will appear on the film. So at least there's that. But otherwise, yeah, it's like, what else is there to say? This is just another one of these stories lines.

that just kind of keep repeating. Yeah, totally. I think one of the interesting things about this is if you just kind of look at where the money's coming from, like where there are ties. And Scorsese's next film is a Apple original film. Like he's working on that what happens at night with Leo and J-law for Apple. And, you know, we saw the last kind of big AI related story was Soderberg. And he he had that film financed by META.

So it is interesting to see that there is tech money behind these figures that are coming out and advocating for these tools. Yeah, just something that has been on my radar. The other big news relating to the potential. Oscar race within, I guess, the last kind of week or so was that Taylor Swift has released her single for Toy Story 5, which is likely going to be a part of this best original song conversation. And I mean, I think it's kind of mid. I'm not a Taylor Swift fan. So I, it's not really for me. But I'm interested to know if you think that this is something that's going to resonate with voters. I have no idea, man. Original song, yeah, sounds like it, right?

Pixar movie is usually popular artists. Sure, check, that should be a nominee. Then again, there were the songs that I thought were for sure nominees last year, like Wicked and Avatar songs that did not end up. So who even knows? I don't know. I mean, Toy Story is 4 for for having Are there any like weird Oscar documentaries nobody's heard of coming out this year that could that could upset. Yeah, we'll see what Diane Warren has up her sleeves. It might be here a year. But Toy Story's 4-4-4 for at least nominations for original song.

And those have all been, what's his name again? Randy Newman. Randy Newman. Has been all those songs. So to pivot to Taylor Swift is an interesting choice here because he is, he is such a signature of the toy story, musical aesthetic at least. So, yeah, we'll see what happens. It feels like something that will resonate with voters.

Yeah, surely, surely will be. The other thing that people are kind of talking about that I wanted to talk with you about is people are starting to get the yarn on the board and make like similarities between the parallels between the sinners campaign last year and the overall release strategy and Project Hail Mary and thinking that we might see Project Hail Mary within the broader awards conversation as a bigger player than I think you or I and a lot of people had initially thought. I'm wondering whether or not you think that that is possible. I guess it's possible. I think I said the last time we brought it up that I felt people were talking Oscars around Project Hail Mary just because it was

released like just after the Oscars. So people still had that on the brain. So the, I made the connection automatically. Yeah, it, it, again, the timing of the release feels totally off for Oscars, but you can say the same thing about sinners. You're right. It does have that, uh, that in common. I could definitely see it getting in as the like blockbuster slot. I don't see it being like a 60 nomination movie like Sinners was, but then again, it's going to have craft noms, probably, right? It's probably going to get in special effects, maybe sound design. So it could rack up a decent number of nominations. Definitely don't see it as a real player for Best Picture, though, personally.

Yeah, I don't think it's a real player, but I wouldn't be too shocked if it gets a nomination. Yeah. Okay, well, you mentioned the Blockbuster slot, and that's something that I think is really interesting to explore over the course of, you know, the next couple months now that we're in the summer blockbuster territory. I'm wondering, aside from kind of the big one that we've talked about in The Odyssey, what else is on your radar for the summer schedule of the huge releases that might make a splash? And anything that might be surprising to people? Well, look, we're

recording this on Thursday, June 11th. There's a movie that I'm definitely watching coming out this weekend. Let me hit you with a stat. Six of the last eight Stephen Spielberg movies have been nominated for Best Picture. Now, is that an arbitrary cutoff point that happens to align with the expansion of the best picture category? Yes, it is. Still a pretty impressive stat.

So do you think Disclosure Day is going to be a Best Picture Player? I do. Yeah. I think it definitely is. I think there's a lot around it without having seen it yet. I'm hoping to see it in the next week or two. But I think the fact that this is not this huge franchise and has huge like box office potential. If it is a hit, which I mean, I'm not going to bet against Spielberg at the box office. I think that he's the king of the summer. or blockbuster. Has he been lately, though? That's the thing. Has he been in the 21st century? Not so much. Yeah, I guess not, but I'm still not going to bet against him.

I think by Spielberg and aliens, I'm there. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, when people say, like, whenever Scor says he puts out a new mafia movie, it's like, that's always going to get more attention than his other movies. With Spielberg, it's like, oh, whenever there's a new Spielberg alien movie, that's going to get more attention than any of the other stuff he does. you know, move over the post and warhorse because there's an alien movie now. Yeah.

So I think that it could be there. I think Emily Blunt is also someone that a lot of people seem to really like within Hollywood. I'm never like super grabbed by her performances, but it seems like a lot of people really, like she resonates with a lot of people. So I think that there could be conversations around her. It looks like a big movie. I think it's definitely going to be within the conversations for tech, which means like if you have a well respected director, like maybe the most well respected director there is,

and a big movie technically, and you know, you just need a little bit of a murmur of a performance in there in order to have a recipe for at least cracking the top 10. Do you see this in that conversation? I can see it. I'm not totally convinced. So I said six of the last eight Spielberg movies are best pictured omns.

The two that missed would be the BFG and Ready Player 1. Snubbed. Can't imagine why they passed on Ready Player 1. So an argument could be made that as more fantasy sci-fi movies are the ones that are actually less likely, at least lately. Even close encounters actually didn't get a best picture nominee, if I'm not mistaken, though that was a very tough year. And that's way in the past. But I don't know. Some of the early reports on the movie that I've seen from some of the early screenings have been like, wow, this is weird and goofy.

So is it going to have that kind of rapturous critical reception and big box office? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I mean, some of those recent Spielberg movies have really felt like footnotes in his career. you know, even just a few months after release. So I don't know. What I think is interesting is how it's being promoted. Like the final trailer for the movie was like Spielberg on camera being like aliens are totally real guys.

So it is really interesting that he seems to be hitching his wagon to widespread paranoia and conspiracyism. And really playing up the angle of like, this is. actually the best time for conspiracy theories because they're probably all real now, by the way. So that's neat. It may be concerning. But yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how the movie plays. It's going to be interesting to see the movie, too. I'm definitely excited to see it and see what's actually in store here.

I mean, if it is weird and bad, the reaction that, oh, man, the Fableman really should have just been his last movie is going to be hard. to ignore, I think. But best picture nominee, I'd give it, I'd give it better than even odds, I'd say. I'll go that far. I'll say better than even odds. Okay. So anything that is on the slate that might surprise us, that is maybe not being discussed that you think could show up within the award season.

Just in general, or are you talking specifically like summer or blockbuster releases? I was thinking specifically summer, but if you've got something else that I'm open, I'm all ears. Yeah. No, honestly, I can't. I can't think of anything else off in my head. So one thing that one film that I'm interested in talking about, and this is another one that I have not yet had a chance to see. So like, you know, you can you can scold me in the comments. but obsession is performing like crazy at the box office.

Spielberg said he loves it. Spielberg said that he loves it. And this was under a million dollar budget on this film. And I think like I don't know what it's cumulative total is right now. But I think it's like something like 150 million domestic and like over 200 million worldwide, which is crazy. I think that it's got a lot going against it, just being horror. But we have seen that the academy is more open to horror. So I'm wondering whether or not you think that this could sneak in, if not best picture,

but to any of the other categories. I give it 0% odds. I don't see it happening. Yes, there have been some horror movies that have gotten best picture. It's the best few years. But those were kind of bigger budget movies with stars attached. to them. Not a low

budget thing like this. It would be basically without precedent for a low budget horror movie. It's not without precedent for a low budget horror movie to explode unexpectedly. That happens from time to time, going back to things like Halloween and Blair Witch Project.

It's a fun ritual that happens every once in a while where some tiny budget horror movie just really takes off. It's cool. It's neat. To have it enter Oscar's conversation, I think is basically a non-starter. Yeah, I think that you're probably right. I mean, there still is, this still is a super fun story to track because it is outperforming things like the first Star Wars film in over eight years. And it's a low budget.

I think that people have talked about, is it indie Navarette as being potentially within, the acting categories, whether she would be run as either a lead or supporting, depending on what the less competitive category is, because this has just been a huge story at the box office. I think that that's, I think it's possible depending on how things go through the rest of the year, but I'm not, I'm not counting on. Yeah, could see her at the Indy Spirit Awards or the Gotham Award or whatever the hell. but Oscars, I don't know. You know, maybe that's the most likely one.

I think you've probably hit on the most likely nomination from it. But yeah, I don't really see it come Oscar season. I will say, though, that I don't love the trend of YouTubers becoming successful filmmakers. I think it's a bad sign that's being sent to the few people out there that are still willing to produce independent. films that you no longer have to do any work to try to find and nurture talent. You can just see whoever has the most likes on YouTube and give them a production budget. And I think that's a very unfortunate turn for the industry, which mimics similar turns we've seen in things like music and visual arts and writing where people who work for free for the algorithm are the only

ones who end up getting support from indie project financiers. But I think that's really come from the cinema now that we've seen a couple big success stories from YouTubers. And I think that's bad news for the industry personally. Just wanted to get that thought in there. Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. I mean, I'm happy that people are going to see smaller budget films. Like I think that... Well, young people, too. That's what I like about it.

Like, the data shows that the people who are fueling obsession success are like in their 20s or younger. Like, that's what the audience is. There already is some good data that shows like Gen Z is much more eager to go to the cinema than millennials were. So that's good. Like, it's good that

that that young people are flocking out to the cinema for certain titles. Like, that's a good sign for the health of movie theaters. I just don't think it's a good sign for the health of the industry or where these these filmmakers are coming from. Yeah, I don't know. I find this to be a pretty optimistic story. Even though like there is this attachment to YouTube, the fact that we are getting new talent

that are getting shots with, you know, medium, small to medium size budgets, I think that that is, that is good. I think we could get a, an array of, you know, a, an array of, you know, new perspectives and like people trying new things, studios like taking some some risks. I think that that is good. As long as the like the conventions of YouTube don't get ported over as well and trying to like adhere to these like the high retention tactics that people have in order to like build YouTube videos that keep people hooked in,

as long as we don't see that, you know, having a negative effect on on film structure. I think that that is fine. I think so I watched backrooms, which I think is like maybe the film that we're dancing around, dancing around talking the most. And this, I thought that I liked it. I thought that it had a pretty weak script, but in terms of like production design and atmosphere, it was, it was really good. I think thankfully it did not have those same kind of retention tactics built into it, which was good.

Like the pacing on this film, I think, is maybe one of the weaker points. And it wasn't because it was trying to be like fast and choppy. It was because it was a little bit, a bit slower than I think it needed to be. So it doesn't seem like there is a lot of crossover in terms of. the form from YouTube, but I do agree that that is something that we should be looking out for. Yeah, I think my concern is more that the resources are very limited for like young filmmakers who are trying to get started. So if the people who control those resources are going to take the easy route out and reward people who have managed to successfully game the algorithm,

because I don't think being good at the algorithm is a sign of having good talents as a filmmaker. But if those people who are able to gain the algorithm, who are able to put in a free labor to get their career started and to build an audience, you know, that's the thing that so many like producers do now, it's like, oh, you build your public first and then we'll come to you with a contract. But if people who are able to build a public for free by gaming an algorithm are the only ones who are going to get those, resources, that's going to choke out the very few streams of financing that still exist for a diverse range of potential independent filmmakers who are now going to feel even more frozen out than they already are in a very grim climate for independent film financing. But that's my pessimist take.

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's a valid concern. Right now, the box office is kind of proving that these films aren't like cannibalize. each other, right? They're able to both like simultaneously be performing hugely. So I mean, the box office isn't a one to one correlation of what the ecosystem surrounding like funding film is, but it, it hopefully will prove that studios or financing companies are able to take more risks. And the thing is, as much as I do love horror movies, you know, I did a podcast for years about horror movies. If the only indie financing is going to horror movies, that sucks. Like, I'll feel a little bit more positive about this.

If somebody, even if they got a YouTube background, if somebody who directs like a drama for $300,000 blows up, because that's not happening. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, it's very surprising to me. Like, yeah, obsession, nobody saw that coming. That's, that's, was out of nowhere. The fact that, like, the backrooms could beat whatever, um, Captain Corelli's Mandalorian, whatever that, that weird ass Star Wars spinoff thing is.

The fact that the backrooms would beat that at the box office, I'm like, yeah, man, like, nostalgia bait for 50 year olds just lost out to nostalgia bake for 20 year olds. Like, that's, that makes sense. Yeah. So I can't pretend that that's a huge shocker for me. Yeah. It's funny because we're seeing a very similar story play out with, I mean, both the backrooms and obsession and Masters of the Universe, which came out and is a huge flop. And like you said, it's nostalgia. That's also. Exactly. Exactly. That's like that window of like take any property from the 1980s and turn it into a movie and you'll turn a profit. I think that window is closing because those people are getting too old to go to the movies. And, yeah, Masters of the Universe proves that too. That's why I think, like, things like backrooms are going to be, are going to be the future of nostalgia bait for that reason. The things that people who were born in 2000, like, watched as teenagers,

that's going to be the next kind of easy path to get a kind of cheap hit. So how long until we have a theatrical release of Lofi beats, to study to, study, study, study, two, sleep, too, whatever. Not suited up. Well, I think we hit most of my news. So is there anything that was on your radar? No, not really. I mean, I know the Rebecca Film Festival is on right now, but aside from a couple, like,

again, headlines that feel very repetitive and obvious. Oh, there's an AI film that sucks. There's an Israeli being weird. I feel like none of the storylines I've really felt interesting enough for me to touch on so yeah in terms of like the prestige movies

I feel like we're in a holding pattern waiting for waiting for to see what happens with the summer releases and especially to see what happens with the fall festival releases yeah how about you any any other storylines you think we got to get on no nothing

nothing else for me yeah yeah I think that's I think that's That's good for now. I'll definitely, I'll be watching very closely how Disclosure Day performs both at the box office and in critical reception. And we're not too far away from the Odyssey, too, which has to be the most anticipated release in this year's Oscars calendar, which we've already talked about a number of times.

And I'm sure we will talk about again once it's actually out and those receipts are coming in. But yeah, I think that's good enough for now. and maybe next time we'll finally get into some Hollywood history like we've been we've been teasing lately. Any last thoughts to leave our audience with Craig? Oh, there was one other thing. I guess they announced that Glenn Close and Ridley Scott are getting honorary Oscars this year. I don't have any thoughts on that, but just wanted to throw it out there while we were doing it. Okay. Congrats. Congrats to both of them. Nice. All right. All right. Well, thanks for listening. listening guys. My name's Dylan Ferguson. You can find some of my film writing on Substack. If you just look for my name, I haven't written anything in a while, though, but hopefully get

something out soon. Maybe on Disclosure Day when I finally see it. Craig, anything you want to leave our public with? No, just hit the like, subscribe, leave us a comment. Tell us why we're wrong. Tell us why we're stupid. Tell us why YouTube rules. Tell us why AI rules. But yeah, if you want to find me, just wherever you're listening to you here.

That's the best place. Or you can play me in chess, Craig David Winter at Chess.com. Nice. Yeah, give us any thoughts that you want us, or any ideas about things that you want us to touch on in the next episode. Thanks for listening.

We'll see you next time on.