Oscars Outsider - Nolan Gets Roasted by His Own Scholar (Plus: Our Way-Too-Early Best Cinematography Predictions)

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

Emily Wilson — the scholar whose Odyssey translation Christopher Nolan called his primary source — just published a scathing review in the London Review of Books, and the hosts dig into whether she's right. Then Dylan and Craig go way too early on their Best Cinematography predictions: who makes the five-nominee shortlist, who gets snubbed, and which pick causes the first real disagreement of the episode.Covered this week: The Odyssey (Hoyte van Hoytema), Digger (Emmanuel Lubezki), Dune Part Three (Linus Sandgren — not Greig Fraser, as one host embarrassingly assumed), Fatherland (Laszlo Lukazal), Werewolf (Jarin Blaschke), Hope (Hong Kyung-pyo, never nominated despite shooting Parasite and Burning), and The Black Ball (La Bola Negra). Plus: a live trailer reaction to Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine, the full New York Film Festival lineup (Paper Tiger, Behemoth, The 14th), and why filming in Western Sahara might become the Odyssey's next Oscar-season headache.Films discussed: The Odyssey · Digger · Dune Part Three · Fatherland · Werewolf · Hope · Wild Horse Nine · Behemoth · Project Hail Mary · The Black BallCategories: Best Cinematography · Best PictureChapters:0:00 Intro and news1:27 New York Film Festival lineup10:35 Emily Wilson vs. Christopher Nolan25:19 Wild Horse Nine trailer reaction30:46 Best Cinematography predictions

And it could also be the first good Pedro Pascal movie. Think about it. Is there another one? I don't think there is. Basically, a review in the London review of books. Slamming the movie, really. Just saying that she would have been ashamed to ever in any part of it. Really very, very critical review of Christopher Nolan's adaptation of the work.

Oh, no. A second digger has hit the Oscar season. Welcome to Oscars outsider, the only podcast, brave enough to declare. that award season is 12 months long. We are the outsiders taking you on an odyssey towards Hollywood's biggest night with stops at various islands of film history and Hollywood culture along the way.

I'm Dylan Ferguson. And with me as usual is Craig Midwinter. Craig, how's it going? Pretty good, pretty good. Excited to be back. Yes. So tonight we'll maybe give you some way too early picks for who we think is going to be nominated

for Best Cinematography. We are going to be talking about Emily Wilson versus Christopher Nolan. We are not done discussing the discourse around the Odyssey. We are going to be live reacting to the new trailer for Wild Horse 9, which neither of us has seen yet. Before we do, we like to get some news out of the way. It's been a week since we've done the last show, hasn't it, Craig? It's been a week. Nice.

So last week, we started off our news segment by talking about some of the Fall Fest. A lot of the lineups have come out. We've learned a lot about the, a lot about them. We know a little bit more about the New York Film Festival now, which is going to be running at the end of September. I had mentioned last week that it had been announced that the opening night film was going to be James Gray's Paper Tiger. And that's kind of a felt like a good opportunity for Paper Tiger to get a chance to relaunch its campaign after a none too successful premiere. at Khan. Now we know, which we did it last week, what the centerpiece film is going to be. So the New York Film Festival has kind of three gala screenings. The opening night film, the closing night film.

The closing night film is going to be the documentary, the 14th by Ava DuVernay. The centerpiece screening presented by Rolex is going to be behemoth. That's the new film from Tony Gilroy, which we might have mentioned in glancing, but we haven't really discussed behemoth too much. It is definitely an interesting one. Like with Paper Tiger, they're going for a New York guy film. Like Tony Gilroy is definitely a New York dude. Tony Gilroy has not actually officially directed a movie since duplicity, which was, is that what that was called, that Clyboan movie?

Yeah, I think that was duplicity, yeah. Which I believe is 2009, 17 years ago. So it's been a long, long time since Tony Gilroy has officially directed a movie. I say officially since it's considered that he directed much or maybe most of the Star Wars movie Rogue One, where he was kind of brought in to fix it, I guess. Though officially his name, it does not appear as a director of that. That did lead him to being the showrunner for the Star Wars series andor. But Tony Gilroy, you know, this is the guy who made Michael Clayton, a movie, which was Best Picture nominee. Back in the days when there were still only five Best Picture nominees per year.

So you could call this a really long awaited comeback for Gilroy with behemoth, exclamation mark. This could be, if this movie is good, it could be history making for a couple of reasons. It could be the first good movie with an exclamation mark in the title. On the pod, we subscribe to the Lawrence Hart Rule that if it has an exclamation mark in the title, you want to run. and it could also be the first good Pedro Pascal movie. Think about it. Is there another one? I don't think there is.

Yeah, I can't pick a one. So, Behemist starring Pedro Pascal and Olivia Wilde. Craig, do you think that it's centerpiece premiere at New York Film Festival could be the debut coming out of an Oscars contender? I don't think so. I mean, obviously it's possible, but I'm just not feeling it. I saw the trailer for this and it looks like it's going to be a bit of a snooze fest as far as I'm concerned. I don't think that Pedro Pascal looks like he's got too compelling a performance. This is maybe one take that is going to like sit poorly on the internet or like age poorly if he blows people away with his performance.

But it just does not look like it's going to be real winner. hard to say for me from the trailer like the trailer it doesn't even have any plot in it really it's it's a very like kind of a teaser trailer deal um where it's just like a bunch of random clips with barely any dialogue barely any plot we understand that it's about a cellist i think it seems to be set in the world of music it's kind of giving us tar vibes which is a good sign for me since tar is one of my favorite american movies of recent years uh but it tells us very little about what the actual story is going to be um it's definitely going to presumably have a lot of story because Tony Gilroy is definitely a story guy. So I'm definitely intrigued. I think this is probably within the screenplay conversations, but I don't really see it aside from that. Actually, if you read Tony Gilroy's screenplays, they are fantastic. Like the way that he handles exposition within the actual body of the screenplay is fantastic. I love it.

But yeah, something about this trailer, it just, just gives like TIF vibes to me and I mean not like derogatory. Yeah, I just I don't see it being a real player here. They definitely use a really bad font for the the title card, which the title card is like very heavily featured in the trailer. And it has a kind of like phony gold scene to it. Yeah. That combined with the exclamation mark on the title kind of makes me go,

oh, but but that's just, you know, a marketing decision. that doesn't necessarily be anything. I'll say I could see this being an Oscars player because I could see a lot of people really thirsty for kind of a serious modern day drama that they can line up behind if it's shaking out that the contenders are, in fact, going to be The Odyssey, Dune 3,

maybe Project Hail Mary or, you know, like fantasy sci-fi movies, if that's like where most people are are going and I could see everybody being like, God damn it, I just want there to be a good serious adult drama that takes place in the modern day with real people. I could see behemoth being in the movie that people, that those people line up behind and try to push as their candidate. You know what I mean?

That's a good point. I feel like those people might just go into the biopic, which like I feel like they could rally behind Michael, which I. I don't think is completely out of it. I think I'm talking about two different types of a voter here. I'm talking about the people who are going for the brutalist, the people who are going for tar. You know what I mean? The people who are like, I want a serious drama.

Not the people who are like, ooh, I want cool songs. I could see that. I could see the group of people that you're talking about being split off into, like I said, Michael, for one, I could see some of them going to the debut, and I could see some of them going to either Fjord or Fatherland, whatever emerges as kind of the more like foreign, but contemporary well, I guess Fatherland is not contemporary, but something that has like some like serious tones to it. Yeah. I think, yeah, Fjord could be that movie, but but there might be a thirst for something that's, you know, that's American.

There might be as far as for an American, a serious American drama, the way there was for, for, for, for, for tar a few years ago. So I could see it getting in the conversation. I could see it getting in the best picture of nomination, a list for that reason. And even like if digger's still a contender, which I don't know, that's, you know, it looks like a zany comedy. That's not going to satisfy the people who want a serious adult drama. Right.

Any other news that you've noticed since we last recorded? No. pretty quiet week, to be honest, there were like posters and first looks at the like the makeup for Wicker which people are

fawning over talking about how amazing it is. It's fine. It'll probably be within that conversation but it does not mean anything to me but aside from that, nothing stood out to me. Okay. Yeah. It should be pointed out that I've been talking about the New York Film Festival

and it's definitely an interesting showcase that's kind of right at the start of when award season is really wrapping up at the end of the fall festival season. But it doesn't necessarily have a huge bearing on the Oscars. If we look at what were the opening a centerpiece and closing films last year, it was after the hunt, father, mother, sister, brother, and is this thing on? So not exactly Oscars heavyweights in retrospect. The After the Hunt premiere in particular was considered a disaster that derailed the movie rather than generating buzz for it. And some people are suspecting that Neon does it want to give a fall festival premiere for artificial

Luca Guadino's new movie because they're afraid of another after-the-hunt situation where the fall festival premiere actually generated negative buzz. Yeah. And is this thing on, you know, Craig still thinks it could win the Oscar for last year. He thinks he thinks they need to recount. but did it actually make many waves. Could get in in cinematography still, I think. Here's how Cooper could still win.

Yeah. We need to have new electors. Anyways. So there has been continuing discourse around the Odyssey that is obviously to be expected. The movie continues to be huge despite the fact that it is now. up against an even hugeer movie. The new Spider-Man movie, it is still raking in big money and tons of dialogue. It is definitely the monoculture still. And one thing that's been gaining a lot of traction recently is Emily Wilson versus Christopher Nolan. I wanted to talk about this. I find this

really fun and they especially find this fun how much attention this is guarded. So for people who don't know, Emily Wilson is a classical scholar who is most famous for having written. The most recent popular English language translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are generally considered the most contemporary and two right-wingers, the most woke versions of English language Odyssey translations. During his press tour leading up to the Odyssey, Christopher Nolan often mentioned that, well, he consulted different translations. He used Emily Wilson as his primary source. He, I think it's fair to say he got a certain amount of pleasure in, in positioning Wilson's

translation as his main reference, because it allows him to position himself as being kind of contemporary and culturally liberal. So it was kind of maybe surprising to some people, maybe satisfying to some people, when it it turned out that Emily Wilson does not like the movie. she did a couple interviews where she kind of suggested that she wasn't that into it before writing a full piece, a full, basically a review in the London Review of Books, slamming the movie, really, just saying that she would have been ashamed of her in any part of it. Really, very, very critical review of Christopher Nolan's adaptation of the work,

which generated a lot of discourse. Apparently the London Review Books website was temporarily downed because they were not equipped for that kind of traffic that they received. Craig, have you read the actual piece? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I thought that there's some really good points in it. I'm eager to chat about it. What did you think of it?

Yeah, I first encountered it from like references to some people like stitching out bits of text and being like, Wilson's doesn't know what she's talking about here. She's like, she's off. And actually reading it, I was more like nodding along like, yeah, good point more than anything else. I could definitely be persnickety with with some things that she says. Like I think there are there are points where I'm like, no, he doesn't present Odysseus shooting the Cyclops in the eye as a heroic moment. That's that's not the right interpretation or like, you know, moments where she's like, oh, the diverse casting makes everybody feel like a black best friend. I'm like,

I don't know if that's a fair comparison. There are individual things where you can definitely nitpick them and be like, I don't think the text actually justifies that reading. Same thing with any review, right? Any review, you could, you could, you can pick apart various observations. That's how reviewing a work works. You have to make judgment calls on a bunch of different things and you can't flesh out every single analysis of every single little bit. Um, so obviously there's going to be some things that I'm going to be persnickity about. On the whole, I mean, I agree with, with a lot of it. I think the general assessment that, you know, nobody has sex and the food looks terrible is on the nose. I definitely agree with the idea that it is not, that Nolan's version is not

weird enough, is not violent or sexy or different enough that it's, that things are a little flattened and uncomplicated in the ways that I understand would be disappointing to somebody who is very deeply invested in the source material and all the idiosyncreties and of a text that dates from the archaic period in a civilization that is very very distant to us and has a very a very odd relationship to the modern era yeah so i think that her big point about Nolan seeming to be kind of reluctant to dive into the themes of the Odyssey that that are really pertinent to today. I think that that is kind of fair.

Like it does feel like he is a bit reluctant and leaves this to be a bit of a canvas for us to kind of project whatever views we have onto as opposed to staking any real ground himself, which like is a little cowardly. But I think one of the big misses in her article for me was like she has a complaint about what he has added regarding the sea people and how like how Odysseus is like, yeah, we are the sea people. And she argues that, you know, the bronze age collapse was triggered by like climate change and internal unrest and all these things. And that this idea of the sea people is like widely disregarded at this point. Um, but I feel like that is kind of known and that was kind of his point. And that was one of the things that kind of made it seem to me that he was making the point that, you know, the external threat is us. Like we are what is causing this external threat. And that was one of the more like points that like one of the more, uh, contemporary points that I feel like he actually had the guts to make here, even though I don't think that that is like a ballsy take by, by any means. Um, it. Um, it. Um, it. It feels like she maybe missed that and was looking for a way to make a historical knit while also complaining about it not really wanting to say anything.

But there's a lot of other things within her article that I think were valid. I do think that the inconsistency that he had presenting the various like moral contradictions within it. I think that that's a really valid point. I think that it does seem like there's not any sort of weight to those actual contradictions within the story placed on it. And it's not really giving us anything to think about. And I also think that, you know, from just a pure like filmmaking perspective and the ability to like get us on the emotional side of the Trojans that are slaughtered. and like make us feel the guilt that Odysseus is supposed to have. I don't think that they gave the Trojans enough,

or I don't think they gave us enough of a emotional connection to the Trojans in order for us to feel that as strongly. I think that that was a really good point that she made. Well, I also think whatever points is that the fact that Odysseus is guilty is inaccurate compared to the poem. He doesn't show any guilt in the poem. And the idea that he would be wracked by guilt over his actions that he did as a warrior are inconsistent with actual classical Greek literature, where that's not like a part of the text at all.

And I think that's an interesting thing. I kind of disagree with the idea that Odysseus in the film is uncomplicated. I do think that there is that like with Oppenheimer, one of the things that the movie actually does do successfully is have a character who is complicated in the sense that his actions can be easily read as either justifiable or like really terrible depending on the angle. And I think no one's a little heavy-handed at the end

with his like, oh, where Odysseus basically says, oh, no, I just made the Bronze Age collapse. But I think there is a lot of moral complication to the character. And I don't think that is really given full credit in the review. Though I do absolutely agree with the idea that she gestures at and so have other critics, that Odysseus isn't kind of the wily, clever trickster in Nolan's movie, that he is in the poem, that he is more of just kind of a mopey, guilty, glum guy, which feels a little bit less compelling than like the morally ambiguous, clever trickster leader that that Odysseus is

usually portrayed as and, you know, throughout the past 3,000 years of representations. I think that's a bit of an issue. I definitely think, like, the movie I think does have relatively clear politics. So I don't agree with the idea that it's like avoiding the political moment. I think it is, I think that people like Elon Musk were kind of right in the sense that it is an anti-Trump movie in the sense that it does have, it does end with a very clear message of like, oh no, if we break the bonds between nations, if we stop, you know, welcoming foreigners and showing like trust and goodwill between nations, then suddenly nobody can read or write because civilization has collapsed. that that feels like a clear anti-Trump message and a kind of an idea of like, you know, since we started these foreign wars in the East, we've started a ball rolling that's going to, that's going to ruin this kind of entente between peoples and nations, which isn't to say

that I think it's like a left-wing movie or anything. Like I think the ultimate message remains a very conservative in the sense that it's like, oh, you have trust inherited wisdom. And because if you don't, then civilization itself is at stake. That, I think, is like an essentially kind of bedrock conservative message and not an especially thrilling one. And I think you could draw a lot more kind of creative and exciting messages from The Odyssey if you wanted to, but that's not really no one's bag.

Yeah. I think one of the other complaints that I've got about her. review specifically is it feels like she has like I think that she gestures towards the idea that the job that she had in translating The Odyssey is different from Christopher Nolan but I does not feel like that is fully internalized in what she's what she's talking about especially when she makes nits about the the lack of faithfulness to the source material like I I don't really care that Odysseus within the film is not as tricky as he is in in the source material. Like things are going to need to change in order for the filmmaker to express what he needs.

And the Odyssey is a mechanism for Christopher Nolan to express what he wants to express. I think that like some of the points that he makes through the film are kind of, kind of bland, but I still think the movie, movie kicks ass. I think that, you know, just her criticism, she is equating her. her responsibility as a translator of the Odyssey and the interpreter of the Odyssey to what Christopher Nolan is doing. And I don't think that it is a one-to-one comparison. I mean, obviously, there are similarities, of course, but they're different roles. Yeah.

I am glad that this is a thing. Like, it feels like the kind of discourse that was in like the 50s and stuff when they would regularly use these kind of literary magazines to bring in like scholars to comment on the day's popular entertainment. Like I think it's cool. I think it's cool as hell that we were at a place where like deadline is writing articles about the feud between Emily Wilson and Joyce Carol Oates. Like that's awesome. By the way, Joyce Carol Oates response to Emily Wilson was really funny where she accused

her of using the crude language of mega folks, which is way off base. But she's a queen. She's a lot to do it. which is you got to love an 88-year-old classical author and power Twitter user, Joyce Carol Oates, whatever she rolls out, whatever it takes. Though I'm definitely much more on Wilson's side here because one of the things Joyce Carol Oates says is that she's like, you know, Nolan's movie is going to help you sell a bunch of books.

Like, where's the collegiality there? And I think one of the things that I like most about Emily Wilson's piece is that it would have been very easy for her to be like, you know, this is a. a great thing for classical studies and for the sale of my books in particular. So I'm going to be gentle and grateful about this moment. And I think it's ballsy and cool that instead she was like, you know what, I don't like the movie. And I'm going to tell everybody I didn't like the movie. Like, yeah, go off. Hell yeah. And I will just quickly point out, I do also appreciate that there is a bit of a reference in this article towards the fact that Christopher Nolan filmed scenes in the

Western Sahara, which is a very politically charged thing. and I wonder if that's something that we're going to hear more discourse about heading into Oscar season. It's definitely something that's gotten a lot of notice in certain circles, but I don't think I've really punched through the mainstream, the fact that Western Sahara is, of course, a very contentious territory where the indigenous Sari people are very much threatened by the Moroccan government, who claims ownership of this territory that is really not theirs, according to a, anybody, almost anybody else besides Morocco and a couple allies and the fact that Nolan accepted the Moroccan government's dubious permission to film in Western Sahara territory is definitely a something that merits controversy. And I wonder if that's something that we're

going to be hearing about more heading into Oscar season. Yeah, I think almost certain. All right. Do we have any other Odyssey thoughts before I move on? I'm sure we're going to, we're never going to be done talking about the Odyssey. This is going to be a, we should have just an Odyssey Corner in every episode where we just quickly get everything off our chess before we move on to other movies. Yeah, nothing left for me this week. All right.

So Craig, you called my attention to the fact that there is a trailer out finally for Wild Horse 9, the new movie by Martin McDonough, which is going to be having its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in early September and is definitely

a movie to watch in terms of Oscar season. The last couple of McDonough movies, three billboards outside of Ebbing, Missouri, and the Bansu Shees of Inashirin were both movies that garnered a lot of nominations. And were both, I think, it's fair to say, best picture front runners,

or at least in the conversation for Best Picture. So it's fair to surmise that we could see that happening as well for Wild Horse Nine. You haven't watched the trailer. I haven't watched it either. We thought we tried something a little different here. we might work let's do a live reaction to the trailer and uh and and see how this goes okay let's let's hit play you got it up oh no a second digger has hit the oscar season um okay i i actually like it i'm here

for it it feels like it is not as zany as as as digger although it definitely has It has almost... Seems pretty zany, man. It does seem zany, but it does not seem as, like, over the top as as Digger is going to be. I really like John Malkovich. I really, I love Sam Rockwell. I just, like, I love him. And this one actually seems like fun to me.

The dialogue is a little bit Gilmore girls for me, like that pitter-patter, Kevin Smithy, screenwriter-mout, same way, like a real. It's 90s core. It's 90s core. Yeah. That's what McDowell does. McDowell does 90s core movies to me. I'm into it. I, you know, I also, I liked three billboards outside of Ebbing, Missouri or whatever the hell it was called. Yeah, I'm excited for this one. I'm more excited for this than I am for Digger.

I'm supposed to get excited about a John Melkovich, Sam Rockwell movie. What is this? 2001? Come on. I, I'm not a Martin McDone guy myself. I don't. really like his scripts. I find that none of his characters behave in any ways that recognisable actual human beings behave. I find that he makes

cynical forced dramas that are that border on misanthropy in their cruelness to be. So he's not for me. That is a filmmaker for other people. So I'm naturally primed to dislike it. I was going into the trailer, skeptical.

I will say I got a laugh line out of the moment where Sam Rockwell hangs up the phone after like saying shoving up your ass or something. And John Melkiewicz says, who was that? Your mom? That was the one moment where I chuckled. Otherwise, there weren't any jokes where I was like seriously entertaining the idea of laughing. So, I mean, it's a trailer. It's a vibe check. But I don't think this is going to be a movie for me.

though, you know, Melkovich, Melchovich is great. He's a legend. I will say that. He can make most dialogue interesting just because of his like kind of delayed stulted delivery. And I feel like this movie is going to lead on that a lot. Yeah,

I mean, I'm excited to see Sam Rockwell and John Malcovich as kind of an odd couple. Add in the CIA. I don't know. This is almost like a like spun a roulette wheel. or whatever we have a bunch of topics and like through together a movie. But I'm excited to see what turns up here. I think that it looked really good.

The trailer for this looked good. So yeah, I'm into it. Aesthetically, the cinematography looked pretty good. Yeah, I like the idea of it being on Easter Island. That's fun, though, I mean, McDonough's last movie was an island movie and I wasn't into that. But the idea of Island movies is something that speaks to be. It seems to be a movie about, well, about American Empire, which is what Digger is about, too, right? And arguably what The Odyssey is about.

So that might be one of the themes at this year's Oscars, if these are all, in fact, front-line contenders. I'll give it a shot. I'll probably have no choice if it's nominated for Best Picture. But like I said, McDonough movies are not my cup of tea. All right. We got a little bit of a disagreement here. Yeah, so we'll see. I guess we're still about, well, we're about a month away from first reactions, I suppose.

There's really only a month out, I think, from the Venice Film Festival. I believe it starts something like September 2nd. So we're not too far from having our first reactions for Wild Horse 9 and a bunch of other movies that are going to be preparing out of Venice. The season is really going to get started in earnest very soon. And maybe pretty soon we can stop pretending that things like Michael and Project Hail Mary are Oscar contenders once we have like a bunch more actual contenders show up. But I don't know. We'll see.

Any other thoughts on that? No, let's get into cinematography. Yeah. So we've done some way too early predictions already. So if you look at our past like five episodes, we've done way too early predictions for, of course, Best Picture, which movies are going to be nominated, who we think is going to win. These takes are definitely going to age poorly. But that's part of the fun of doing it so far in advance.

We've also done it for our best director. We've done it for best actress and we've done it for best actor. So let's move on to some of the below the line stuff. I thought today we could try to predict who we think is going to be nominated for best cinematography on Hollywood's biggest night. Craig, should we use the same format we've used before where we kind of each give one and one? All right. So let's try to each come up with our list of five nominees and then afterwards. We'll pick who we think is most likely to win.

Craig, give me one. Give me one of your five nominees. Okay, let's start with the most obvious. The Odyssey is in this conversation. Next. Sure, The Odyssey is inmetography by Hoytavan Hoitima. I still don't believe that guy's name is real. He won best cinematography for Oppenheimer.

I have him on my list. I agree that that feels kind of obvious. I also don't like love this cinematography. I don't think it's bad, but I'm not like, I felt the same thing, same thing about Oppenheimer. I think Hoitovan Hoitima has done some really good work. I absolutely love his work on Nope, the Jordan Peel movie, which is, I think, one of the best American movies of recent years. I'm not, there are a few moments in The Odyssey where I'm like, wow, great, great work.

So I'm a little hesitant to call it like the obvious frontrunner, even though it makes the most sense, and it's the movie, which is the presumed frontrunner, of course, which is presumed to get tons of, tons of nominations. and of course the fact that everybody's talking about the formats is something that kind of pushes the cinematography discussion into the forefront. I think that was part of what we saw with sinners last year, which won best cinematography was the fact that there's a lot of discussion about the different formats used for sinners, which really pushed the cinematography into the forefront in terms of being one of the aspects of the filmmaking that people were most talking about. So for the Odyssey, that's kind of unavoidable, I think that it does get into that conversation. I mean,

we'll do winners afterwards, but I feel like it's maybe not a front runner to win, though I absolutely agree that it's like, it's a nominee. It would be surprising if this movie filmed in various locations all over the world with like these big epic scenes filmed entirely on IMAX for the like front runner for best picture does not get a cinematography nomination. So I co-signed that. Give me another one. Okay. So I think that Digger is in this conversation unless it is terrible, which is definitely a possibility. I think that it is in there. Just like all of everything that we saw in the trailer, it's just a very cinematographic film. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that this one's in there. Yeah, and you can't ignore the fact that it's shot by Emmanuel Lubeschi,

who is a legend, who has been nominated for the Oscar eight times, who has won the Oscar three years in a row for Gravity, Birdman, and the Revenant, really an unrivaled feat, definitely one of the most respected cinematographers working and really ever. So I think that alone kind of has to push it

into the conversation. I expect Emmanuel Lubeski's cinematography for Digger to be in there. Possibly, even if the movie is not a best picture, a nominee. Though I don't know about that. I suspect they'll have to go hand in hand.

But yeah, For me, it's not just the fact that, you know, there are some images that look like they have a pretty striking color palette that from what we see in the trailer. It's, it's the name recognition that that really is a big deal. I think that we're the only people that are kind of lukewarm on this digger trailer. Like, I have not seen a lot of people that are all that concerned about it. Really? Yeah, I mean, it definitely does not feel like it's falling out of online conversations at least. You know what, though?

I, once in a while, I'll look at like the gold derby rank. Not very often, but I remember before the trailer looking and like, if you look at like the expert picks, Digger and the Odyssey were like neck and neck for for Best Picture number one. And I checked a few days ago and Digger was down at like fifth or sixth position. Like it seems to have fallen. Okay. Just based on that one single metric, which is the expert picks on gold derby, but one data point that might indicate that we might not be the only ones who post trailer are like, I don't off. This is a serious ad best picture contender. So at number three, I think this is where the picks start to get a little bit more interesting

for me. I think that Greek Frazier gets in for Dune Part 3. And he's also the cinematographer on Project Hale. Hold on. Greg Frazier did not do Dune Part 3. It's Linus Sandgren. What? Yeah.

Frazier did one and two. You're correct. But they switched cinematographers for for three. I don't know if it was because Fraser was too busy with other projects or what it was. But Dune Part 3 is Linus Sandgren. Okay. Well, that changes things. I still think that we could see Dune Part 3 take a spot here.

But yeah, that's interesting. I did not know that. I mean, you wouldn't necessarily guess it from the trailer either, right? Like it looks like the same visual language, which obviously that's, his job is to continue the same visual language. I'm sure Villeneuve isn't expecting him to shoot it in a totally different way.

But I will also co-sign that, so we're not diverging yet. I also, Dunes 1 and 2, shot by Fraser, did each get a cinematography nomination, if I'm not mistaken. You know what? I think, Dunn won. It won. The first Dunn actually won

best cinematography. So the franchise definitely has that history. It's a movie that's very built around, individual language, of course, which I often find a little drab. Honestly, I'm not the biggest lover of the aesthetics of the Dune movies. I think they lack a lot of dynamism and creativity personally. But the Dune 3 trailer looks cool aesthetically,

and I will co-sign that one too. So we continue to not diverge. I think we both agree that the Odyssey Digger and Dune 3 are nominees. Give me a fourth one. Let's see if we differ this time. Okay. I feel like we might be on the same page. still, but I think Fatherland is going to get a spot here as well.

Pavel Pauwokovsky. Oh, my God, my names are brutal. He's for Cold War. No Polish people are going to correct you. Don't worry. They don't have the internet. Cold War did get a cinematography nomination. It's the same cinematographer, Laslo.

Lucas. Lucasel. Okay, yes. Thank you. Yeah, so I see that that being a possibility here. I am also co-signing Fatherland. For me, the black and white's a big deal. They like to give a cinematography nomination to a movie shot in black and white, Cold War and Ida, the previous Pavlikovsky movies, were both black and white movies, both shot by Lucasell. And both were actually cinematography nominations. Even Eda had a cinematography nomination as well as Cold War. Though it is

worth noting that Lucasel also shot the zone of interest in Hamnet, which were both Best Picture nominees, though neither of which got a best cinematography nomination, maybe slightly surprisingly. So his work isn't necessarily a

slam dunk. And I'll say that in Hamlet, I didn't like his work very much. So... Yeah, no, I didn't... I didn't think it was that well shot. So I'd that actually upset that he didn't get a cinematography nomination for Hamnet. So with Hamnet,

I feel like he was really trying to go for the idea of having this world be a stage. And it was a bit like on the nose for me. And yeah, I just, I did not really, I didn't really love it. But I also saw like a cam version of Hamlet. Like I was racing to get this in before our discussion.

I saw a can. So it's also possible that... And the audio design was terrible. Why is there just people coughing and munching popcorn the whole movie? There could have been like a steady filter put on this and who knows what. So I'm not going to dog them too hard for that. Yeah. No, I agree.

It was not shot for divvicks. Yeah. But I think going back to Paul Likowski and shooting in black and white and movie that I have predicted to be a best picture. nominee would I think if it is a best picture nominee that's got to be in the conversation so I also have father lad as one of the nominations for best cinematography so we're in alignment on four of five what's your number five then okay so this was a little bit more challenging I wanted to throw something that I thought was maybe a more of a dark horse on here but dark horse but I ended up going with LeBola negra which I don't think is that much of a dark horse I feel like Netflix is

can have a big push on this. It looks good from the trailer. There's a lot of like variety here. And, you know, period epic across Spain and Greece. There's just lots of opportunity to awe the audience in terms of the cinematography. So I think that's the five small. All right. Okay.

So we finally have a divergence here. I did not pick Libola Negra as one of my five nominees. I think one of the five nominees is going to go to werewolf. Are we calling it Verwolf? Okay. I recalling it, a werewolf. I don't know

what we're calling. That I definitely see that going in cinematography by Yaron Blaski. His cinematography for the lighthouse and Nosferatu was nominated in each of those previous years. So I expect the very eye-catching cinematography for werewolf to get in the conversation. It's just going to be such. It's the kind of movie where I think it's going to get a cinematography nomination and

nothing else, you know. Yeah. Could get into production design. in theory, but probably not. You know, it's just one of those. It feels like a cinematography and nothing else kind of movie. It has a very cool look based on the trailer that we've seen. Apparently, they did kind of, uh, they did something where they shot in black and white

and in color and layered it on top of each other to get that kind of look of, uh, where there's kind of a hint and hint of color, but the color hasn't actually been drained out of the image, apparently. It's kind of like superimposed on a black and white image or something. I'm not too sure technically what they did there. But it looks cool. It's both grainy and has that kind of antiques and you dug out of the soil look to it that I think is what Robert Eggers is going for. So I expect that to be a nomination.

Vervoth. Yeah, that is that is a good pick. That's what I almost put in my number five. So I'll pick a different pick for my, my dark horse pick, the one that could surprise. I think that hope there's a possibility that hope gains some momentum here. it like there's a lot of like action scenes and vistas within the the trailer here this is something that is like barely well received want to play dot con and i i just see the potential for there to be a little bit of a push here for for hope you know what i was going to pick the same thing

as my dark horse my question mark around hope is that i don't know what the release is yet i don't know if you've seen anything on that like who's distributing it in america Is it going to get a big theatrical distribution or not? I don't know if that's been settled. I don't know if those rights have been sold. I don't know if you know anything about this. Yeah, I don't recall. Yeah, so I mean, it's going to depend, of course,

on whether it actually becomes a movie that a lot of people see or not. It definitely garnered a good deal of attention to when I'll play that Khan. And also, Hope is shot by the Korean cinematographer Hong Kyeong-Pyo, who is basically the best cinematographer in Korea. He shot Parasite. He shot Burning. He shot The Whaling. So just a bunch of like the most kind of remarkable and best looking contemporary Korean films have been shot by Hong Kongpo who has never been nominated for the Oscar yet, not even for Parasite, which was slightly surprising to be.

So I could see this being the moment where he gets the nomination, especially since it sounds like Hope is a very kind of lavish spectacle. so there might be a lot of very impressive shots in there. If it is a movie that gets a decent general release in America, which, again, I do not know where we are at on that. Anything you're surprised that neither of us put in here? I don't think so. You just said Wild Horse Nine looks good, but... Yeah, it does look good.

It's not one that I, like, had immediately on my radar for cinematator. But I think that this is so up in the air depending on how much momentum any of these campaigns have around other above the line categories. So I think that just best guess based on kind of the most cinematography were most on the same page. And I'm not terribly surprised by that. Yeah. You did mention that Greg Frazier did Project Hail Mary. That could be in the conversation for sure. obviously neither of us picked it, but I wouldn't be surprised if that gets in. It is,

you know, a pretty visual movie that, uh, that has, you know, space stuff and also weird interiors and, uh, and a lot of wide shots of like strange things. Um, so I wouldn't be super surprised by that, but ultimately decided to cut it from my list. Yeah, I think that, uh, that's possible for sure. Yeah. All right. Well, any final thoughts here, Craig? No, I think that about does it. Cool. Well, don't forget to let us know in the comments how wrong we are. Tell us whether you think of Wild Horse Nine looks awesome or whether it looks like absolute crap.

And you would have been ashamed to have rid any part of it. Tell us whether your team Craig or team Dylan on that. So we'll be back soon to Oscar's outsider to bring you more awards race, news and commentary. Any last thoughts, Craig? Just to hit the like button, subscribe on whatever platform. you're on and again, yeah, let us know where we're wrong. Nice. Thank you. That's been Craig Midwinter.

I'm Dylan Ferguson. If you look for my name on Substack, you can find some of my writing about movies, including my review of The Odyssey. And I just put a new piece up comparing backrooms and blue heron. So give that a look. It's free if that interests you. And we'll see you next time on Oscar's Outsider.