Oscars Outsider - Oscar News, NYFF Buzz & Best Documentary Predictions

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

The Oscar race keeps getting messier. We break down the first reactions to Digger, the New York Film Festival relaunch of Paper Tiger, the growing momentum behind I Play Rocky, and the latest category-placement news around The Odyssey. Then we dive into what may be the most controversial Oscar category: Best Documentary. We make our early documentary predictions and get into NAZA, Musk, 14th, You Can See Everything, The History of Concrete, Once Upon a Time in Harlem and more — plus the bizarre history of a category where Academy voters once reportedly used flashlights to signal when they wanted a movie eliminated. And before we wrap up, we preview next week’s Oscars Outsider fantasy draft and some of the rule changes we’re making for year two.

How the hell are they actually deciding on what the nominees are? Because I'm not sure if this is 100% true. But according to what Ebert said, he found out that the system that they had in those days was that they would start screening a documentary for a panel of academy members. And the academy members would each have a little flashlight. And then when the movie was showing, if one of them got bored, he would start shining the flashlight on the screen. And when there was too many lights being shone on the screen, they would stop the movie and say, okay, this one's out.

Welcome back to Oscars Outsider, your podcast about the awards race and Hollywood history. I'm your host Dylan Ferguson. And with me as always is Craig Midwinter. Hey, buddy, how's it going? What's up, Doc? What's up, Doc? Yes, we are, in fact, going to talk a bit about docs tonight. That is on the docket.

We are docking points for what documentaries are going to be most likely to get into the best documentary race at the Oscar. There's been a lot of very controversial in many cases or publicity gartering documentaries coming out this year. And a lot of them are really kind of releasing right around now. So it felt like a good time to dive into the best documentary race. A bit of the history of that and everything that's going on this year with all these controversial and often politically charged titles. We'll get to that a bit later. We're going to give you some updates on the New York Film Festival, of course, and sundry bits of news involving the road to the Oscar. we're also going to prepare you for next week's episode

when we're going to do our yearly Oscars fantasy draft. We'll tell you what that's all about and get you ready and maybe recap a little bit about what happened in our first edition last year. Should we get right into it, Craig? Yeah, let's dive into it. Yeah.

So we always start things off with a little bit of news. I feel like quickly we should maybe just kind of digger up just to kind of wrap up we were talking last week. Because last week we were talking about some of the, I guess, anxiety around the digger release and how it might not be going the way Warner Brothers wanted and how maybe that's kind of Tom Cruise's fault. And we recorded that show like between when the first screenings were held and when the embargo was lifted for social media.

So we do have like official social media reactions out, even though reviews haven't come out yet. That's going to be a bit later. And it is pretty messy, right? The first reactions are generally pretty messy. There are words like mess disaster are being thrown around, though some people are also using words like ambitious and bold. It takes are kind of all over the map.

And honestly, this just makes me more excited to see the movie because it sounds like people are like really kind of shocked and in many cases upset about what they're seeing. a couple of reactions just to give you a bit of the tenor. Ryan Latanzio said, the problem with continuing to make statements about your own art and reflect on your own legacy is that eventually you'll ruin both, a self-indulgent miscalculation from end to end.

There are definitely a number of reactions of like that sort. Though some people were more like Jim Hemphill, who wrote Digger not only showcases Tom Cruise's best performance since Magnolia. It's one of the most visually inventive, conceptually audacious and unpredictable studio movies ever made. Take so many bold aesthetic swings it makes Bardo look like an episode of the Golden Girls. One that was shared a lot is from David Ehrlich, the senior critic at Indy Wire, and that damn hippo avatar that shows up as the top review on every single movie on Letterbox. watching Alejandro Gonzalez and Yari 2 try to construct a joke is like watching Frank

Gary try to draw a straight line. Mildly funny joke that I think would have hit harder if he wasn't talking about a filmmaker who made a comedy that won best picture. I think the like the birdman of it all is the thing that I think maybe gives hopes to people who still think that Digger is going to be really good slash popular slash win a bunch of awards. because if we do go back to when Birdman was released in 2014, not necessarily this messy.

It was premiering at the Venice Film Festival. I think it was the opening film of the Venice Film Festival. It definitely had mixed reviews. There were definitely a number of people being like, what the hell is this? This is weird. I don't like it. And of course, we know how that ended.

Birdman ended up winning best picture at the Oscars that year. So that's kind of the best case scenario for Digger. I don't know. Craig, do you think we learned anything substantial? about Digger and its Oscar chances based on these early reactions. Well, I think the popular ship has sailed. Like, I don't have hope that this is going to be popular. It is going to be divisive that is very clear from the reactions that we are getting.

I am seeing the people, the more passionate side of the, like, the two sides is the side that says it sucks. But that is, again, also not super surprising because, like, the way. way that people react to birdman, which I think is the clearest parallel that we can, we can draw here is like the people that hate Birdman fucking hate Birdman. And I like Birdman. So I'm a Bergman guy too. Yeah. One comment that I saw on discussion for for Digger was talking about Birdman being like, you know, Birdman kind of rules as long as you don't have a cinephile in your ear telling you how bad it is. And like I agree. Like I do think that Birdman

kind of rules. So this might be good. I don't know that the people that are going to like this movie are going to be nearly as passionate as the people that are going to hate that movie. But, you know, Birdman was also divisive and it ended up, you know, going on and really performing. So we'll kind of see. I don't think that there's enough within the reviews and reactions to say how this is going to fare at the box office or at the Oscars. I think we're just going to have to kind of wait and see both how the movie is. And I'm starting to believe that it isn't going to matter really much how the movie is. It is all going to be about the discourse that follows and the campaign and how Tom Cruise's campaign specifically goes.

If people kind of turn on Tom Cruise and decide that, you know, they're going to want to sling mud and just like hate on his performance, then it's going to bury Digger's chances across the board. Though I think one of the things that these early reactions are driving home is that this is really an Alejandro Gonzalez and the Aradu movie. You know, we've been thinking of it as a Tom Cruise movie because that's how Warner Brothers has positioned it. They've made their promotion all about Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise.

But when it comes to how the movie is actually received as we're seeing of these reactions, I think it's like, Tom Cruise is not irrelevant, but it's not the most important thing. And like, I think how you feel about In Yarra 2 might be a better, a better judge. Like that David Erlich comment, David Erlick's a barely like film Twitter guy. And film Twitter generally as a rule hates Adyaratu. They think he sucks. And so he's playing to his audience there, right? That's not the opinion that everybody shares.

But, you know, in certain film circles, like you suggested, that is like a comment opinion. And yeah, I mean, obviously the discourse around Cruz is going to matter a lot for the Oscars race, especially for actor. Is he or is he not going to be a contender for actor, as we assumed he was for a long time? But in terms of the movie, I feel like how you feel about Innihara, too is going to matter a lot more than how you feel about Cruz. Because once we actually get our eyeballs on the film, you know, that's whose film it is.

Yeah. I am still a bit worried that this is going to kind of end up splitting. down the middle and not really appealing to the people that like Inuratu's films just by being too almost like marvely in the comic like that that trailer that first trailer still has me completely shook and thinking that this is going to be just a cheese fest and um i'm sure that a lot of the people that already hate Inuratu are going to say obviously it's going to be a cheese fest um but like I am afraid that this is just not going to, not going to be able to like thread the needle that.

I am kind of hoping that it does. The range of possibilities come Oscar night, I think is so wide at this point. It's going to be really interesting when we do our Oscars fantasy draft next week to see where it falls in our draft because I feel like anything between it getting 10 plus nominations and getting even zero nominations, like both possibilities are on the table. it could go it could go anywhere i think at this point but i will say that this wide range of reactions has just made me much more excited to see the film like now i cannot wait to see like what the hell these people are talking about i'm i'm super excited whether i love it or hate it i don't know or somewhere

in between but i just can't wait to see it uh right should we move on since we recorded it was announced that digger is now in fortnight so i haven't had a chance to play as digger but um how do you think his performance as a character in Fortnite is going to impact his chance. I would love to be able to make a Fortnite joke, Craig, but I got none. My pockets are empty on that one. Let's talk about

something else. So the New York Film Festival is now underway. We've just made it through the opening weekend. So still a lot to go, but we've seen a couple of the big premieres. We've been expecting Godzilla minus one, which

is a potential player for special effects, but not really anything else. The opening night film, of course, was Paper Tiger, which played out a couple of days ago. A well-received screening for James Gray's Paper Tiger. It sounds like the people in the audience, which included some pretty influential people, were very into it. Scarlett Johansson showed up this time. It got a pretty good reception. And also the Hollywood reporter is saying that it is confirmed that neon is mounting an Oscars campaign for Paper Tiger.

This is interesting because, I mean, Paper Tiger is not a premier. Call it a remire at Premier.com, but they've kind of been relaunching it here at New York on home ground for James Gray. And James Gray movies have never made any noise at the Oscars ever, which is a little surprising. just because he is, I think, among the best filmmakers in working in Hollywood. And his films are often things like crime dramas that have, like, well-known stars in them and that are critically acclaimed. So it seems kind of odd that he's never had a movie that has gotten any Oscar nominations. I think Ad Astra got, like, A, special effects or sound nomination or something.

That's it. But that's really been a question of circumstance. He's kind of kept getting knee-capped by unfortunate circumstances. Like, if we go back to 2013, the immigrant, I remember that there was Oscars buzz around the immigrant before it was released. And then what happened with that movie was produced by the Weinstein Company. And James Gray essentially got into a fight with Harvey Weinstein. Harvey Weinstein did this thing that he was very well known for doing, which is that he tells a filmmaker that they're getting final cut. But then after, before he releases the movie, he basically bullies them.

Is that what Harvey Weinstein is known for? is that? I said one of the things. One of the things. He basically makes cuts to the film anyways or like bullies the filmmaker into accepting them. But in this case, James Gray held his ground and he refused to accept the cuts that Harvey Weinstein wanted to make. And as a result, Weinstein buried the film. Basically didn't release it at all.

And that kind of killed it in the cradle. The Lost City of Zee, which was this movie a couple of years ago, that was produced for Amazon. And Amazon, for some reason, sat on the movie for like two years before releasing it, which squashed its chances of having a popular release or getting a getting the Oscars votes. And at Astro was a movie that was taken away from him, 20th Century Fox cut the movie against his will. This time he did not have final cut. And James Gray basically distanced his cell from the movie.

And then the last one was Armageddon Time. and Armageddon time for Focus Features was apparently supposed to have a significant awards campaign, but early screenings did not go great. And it was, it basically bombed at the box office. And then when that happened, Focus Features just dropped their plans for awards race completely. So which is just to say it has never happened for James Gray.

For one reason or another, he has never had a movie that has had a studio behind it, pushing it to get Oscar nominations. And it sounds from what the whole, Hollywood reporter is saying that Neon is planning to actually do that with Paper Tiger, and they have confirmed that they are going to campaign for Miles Teller for Best Actor, and Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, for supporting actress and supporting actor. Whether this actually works, whether they actually get any traction for this, is another question. We've talked about

Paper Tiger before, but now this is kind of the make or break point for it. Craig, do you think they have any chance here? Do you think that Neon could actually get this movie into the Oscars conversation? I think it's possible that it gets into the Oscars conversation. I think it was very smart to do a little bit of a relaunch here at New York Film Fest. There are really good reviews coming out, and it feels like it's on a lot stronger of a foundation than it did going in. So I think it's definitely possible. The things that kind of concern me are that if the main campaign around this film is for Miles Teller as the lead actor, just it's such a it's such a competitive field this year so too crowded i don't i can't see where he would

get in yeah it's going to be really tough to have a foothold so i don't think that you can like make this the cornerstone for your uh your campaign but um maybe maybe finding a better kind of spearhead for for the campaign would make a lot of sense to me that's that's kind of the the challenge that I see for paper tiger right now. Also, neon has a really huge slate, but a lot of it is like international. So

I think that it's possible. I think that it still has a real uphill battle. Also, I don't really like Miles Tyler. I'm fucking annoying. Maybe he's really good in this and maybe my judgment

is just clouded by that. Yeah, I mean, you can see the lane for it right? Like there is no movie that's really in the Oscars conversation, which is a classic Hollywood crime drama. This is a Hollywood crime drama. So you can see there's kind of an opening there for it to kind of get into the conversation, which or it isn't blocked by another similar movie. Yeah, Miles Teller, I feel like I'm not the world's biggest fat either, but I do feel like it makes sense for him to at this point in his career get Oscars buzz. It feels like he's kind of been around long enough at this point. He's done enough of like, both. some kind of big budget spectacle movies and work with some interesting directors

on like more art house style movies that it's like yeah it makes sense for him to be at the point in his career where one of his roles would get Oscars Buzz I just think that this isn't his good Oscars Buzz for Whiplash I may have had a nomination for that I can't recall I feel like it makes sense

if he had a nomination but yeah bouncing around the conversation not a completely serious shot yeah but I agree that I don't think this is his year just because there isn't room for him in the race. Like there's just too many actors who are in that conversation now for somebody else to really

muscle their way in at this point. Though you never know. It still is pretty early. You know, we've been talking about the stuff for so long that we can kind of trick ourselves into feeling like it's later than it actually is. Things can get shaken up. But I really don't see Miles Taylor finding an opening there. Yeah, I agree that if it does manage to sneak its way into the race, this movie, it would

probably have to be something like maybe Adam Driver for a supporting actor. Maybe if they kind of throw their weight behind that and make that like the conversation around the film. Like you got to see this driver performance. That could be like their way to get a nomination. But like one or two nominations would be the cap I think for for this film. It is like it's it's a movie that has like a small budget. It's like a $15 million budget cobbled together from various sources. Like I think there's like 25 executive producers listed on the credits. I mean, that's kind of the only way you can get one of these, these sort of indie movies made today in a very hostile Hollywood landscape,

unless you're like a teenager with a YouTube channel. But I, but, you know, I'm a big James Gray guy, so I would love to see the movie get some attention. It's hard for me to see that happening outside of just certain cinephile circles, though. I mean, I think if you've got a package, where you manage to sneak some sort of acting nomination in. I don't know where that is. Like you said, Adam Driver is supporting.

Supporting feels like it's even more crowded than the actual acting race this year. But maybe like Scarlett Johan, Hennyson even. And if you're able to get like a screenplay nomination and like a directing nomination or at least be within that conversation, it's possible that you get into the best picture. And who knows what this does at the box office? Maybe it just hits a spot, it gets good word of mouth, and has a lot of legs, then that is going to help a lot.

I think that wide release on this is going to be pretty important as well. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how neon handles it, though I think that James Gray is lucky to have neon behind it. Let's hit on a couple of things more really quickly. I do want to just mention the closing of the San Sebastian Film Festival in northern Spain and Basque Country. We haven't really talked about it. It's not kind of one of the big ones, but it is a movie, a festival that attracts a lot of industry attention. Not really any big premieres there, aside for maybe, what is it, Heart of the Beast, the Brad Pitt movie, which is, I think, already in theaters.

But I thought it was interesting that the movie that won the Golden Shell, the top prize at San Sebastian. question was, Tender, loving care. Tender loving care from Mike Lee, the latest and presumably final film

from the great British humanist, Mike Lee. And La Bola Negra was also at that festival. It won like a secondary prize. So just to give you an idea that it was,

you know, it was up against some serious competition. Tender loving care was, I'm definitely very excited to see Tender Loving Care. I haven't really thought of it as something that could be in the Oscars conversation.

But I'm surprised to see that some other people seem to think it is. Like, for example, IndyWire just recently put out a list of Oscars contenders and their top 10 contenders for Best Picture included Tender Loving Care. They put it ahead of movies like Fjord and I Play Rocky. Yeah, I don't know, Craig. Do you think that there could be enough Oscars voters with Britbox subscriptions to get for this, for the new micro-exam. Lee Joint to be their cup of tea?

I don't really see it, but you never know. I mean, it definitely could be within the Baptist conversation, but I just, I don't see a spot for it. There could, I mean, yeah, it's hard to see just because it doesn't have really

actors that Americans know in it. I mean, there just could be a lane for a movie that's just kind of like sweet and kind and nice and a little sad. I don't know. I do think that some venues like Indywire are getting a little too, a little too out over their skis by putting it as a best picture contender personally. But I would like to see it happen.

One more thing I want to mention quickly. When we talked about I Play Rocky for the first time in depth a couple of weeks ago, I was saying that I was really wondering how the real life Sylvester Sloan was going to factor into it. and I do still think that I Play Rocky looks to be on track for Best Picture Distinction. I feel like that's a ill likely thing to happen. And Sylvester Stallone is making the rounds now. He's doing interviews. He's making public appearances. Not necessarily in conjunction with I Play Rocky, but he has a new memoir coming out.

So that's why he's promoting his new memoir. But you can't ignore the timing of it, right? He's putting out this memoir kind of at the same time as I Play Rocky is going into theaters. So there does seem to be kind of a synergy there. Even though he hasn't really openly allied himself with the movie yet, I was really curious, as I said before, about whether the real life, Sylvester Stallone, could be something that helps the movie or hurts the movie.

And he just did this sit-down interview with the New York Times, a video interview, which I watched yesterday. And I was really impressed by it. It was really, really interesting. I was engrossed. I thought that Sly was like, coming off as really like introspective, really, you know, really examining his life from a philosophical angle, really had a lot of humility and interesting things to say.

And, you know, way more than like the Tom Cruise GQ interview, for example. He's like, like, Slye is actually like open it up and actually showing his personality. And so I'm starting to think that Sly will actually be a benefit to the movie if indeed he does like it and doesn't decide to turn against it. and he seems to be trying to put some space between himself and mega as well which as i as i mentioned was one of the things that could be an issue for the film his cozy up to donald trump he has um i mean he's not going out and saying oh i disown donald don't don't trump uh you know impeached the orange cheeto ruth kanda forever he he is but he isn't uh being super like uh he isn't associating himself

with it that much as he has in some past appearances. He's done appearances with Donald Trump in the past, but he has said, like, when Trump put him on the, his counsel for remaking Hollywood or whatever with Mel Gibson and John Void, he said, oh, he did that without telling me. I had nothing. I found out about that from CNN. He's making some anti-war statements in his New York Times interview.

He's showing a version of himself, which is very actually likable. And I think this is good news for I, play Rocky. Yeah, I mean, I Play Rocky is definitely on the rise right now. And the timing of this makes perfect sense for all parties concerned, like Stallone with his memoir and this film with its campaign. So this definitely is a boost. It's going to, we're going to continue seeing this sort of thing for all films as the, as the season of all. So it's not like, it's not like we're seeing anyone playing like 40 chess here or whatever, but it's definitely trending in the right direction for I Play Rock.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's going to be an interesting thing to watch. And this is my interview was interesting to watch. Everybody should see that. It's really good. I went to go and see Primetime this week and the trailer for I Play Rocky played before it. And the people that were sitting behind me were so hyped on it. So there's definitely some excitement for this film.

All right. Were they giving it a mid-trailer applause, Toronto? style. Almost, actually. There was someone like, oh, we have to go see that movie, right? Yeah. So it was like, it was enthusiastic. Yeah.

It's going to be a crowd pleaser, I think. That's one that that's just going to be a grower, I really think. Craig, any other news that we should touch on here? So I think that I saw that it was confirmed. Let me. Yeah. So it was confirmed that Anne Hathaway is going to be. campaigned within the supporting actress category.

There was a lot of question about whether or not she would be campaigned within the best actress or best supporting. We got confirmation on that. That was like that came out almost immediately after we stopped recording last week. So not the most up-to-date news. But I think that was one of the only other things that I had within my... They basically kill your chances by the way of that because they're putting her up against Samantha Morton. And I think Samantha Morton is going to be the one that people are going to rally behind for The Odyssey, but you do you, Warner Brothers.

Yeah, it does, it does seem odd from the perspective of trying to like nominee Max, like if they're wanting to like really go to break that record, which we talked about being potentially achievable for for the Odyssey. I, uh, I think that this kind of sewers that. It might be able to tie. Not necessarily. I mean, I'm not, when I say that Ann Hathaway is getting blocked by Samantha Morton, and I'm talking more in terms of, winning rather than her getting a nomination. I can see the both three nominations. And I could see the Odyssey getting two nominations in supporting actor as well for

both Legerzamo and Pattinson. And if it has four acting nominations, that's already more than the three that sinners had last year. It would be five if it gets two. Oh, and Dayton, two would be five. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So if Odyssey's ceiling is five acting nominations, sinners had three acting nominations last year. So if it hits all the same other nominations. nominations. It could even miss one. Like, it could miss original song and still beat the record set by Sinners last year by getting two more acting nominations. Still in play, is what I'm saying. Still in play. We'll see. Yeah. All right. Should we move on to something else? Yeah, let's go. Let's do it. Let's get out of here. Let's get out of it. We're still in New York, aren't we? Yeah. 100% agree. All right. So, Elway, let's talk docs. This is a a big year for documentaries.

A lot of discussion being generated by documentaries. So there's a lot of potential for this to be kind of what brings the heat on Oscars night. Let me give you a quick historical sidebar, very quick on the best documentary category, because it is not at all an obvious thing for the Oscars to do. It's kind of like the best international film category, which we talked about a couple weeks ago. We have a deep dive into that. and so go back and listen to that episode of that interests you. We won't be doing a deep dive here tonight, just a dip.

Just putting the toe in. But it's similar in the sense that the Oscars were kind of like not made for that, but were never officially about excluding it either. You mentioned we were talking about you can see everything. And you were talking about, you know, documentaries potentially getting a best picture nomination, which has never happened. And I was like, there must be a rule against that. But there isn't.

You know, I went and I checked and there ain't no rules as a dog can't play basketball. The rules do not actually forbid that. Though it has never really happened, probably the closest is at the first Oscars. When Chang, Ernest B. showed back and Marion C. Cooper's Chang, an awesome sort of documentary filmed in what is today in Northern Thailand, was one of the nominees for unique or artistic production, which they kind of had two categories in the first Oscars, outstanding production and unique and artistic production, which are both kind of somewhat equivalent to Best Picture,

which did not exist until the second Oscars. There's too many asterisks, I think, for that to be considered. Really an instance of a documentary getting nominated for Best Picture, but it's kind of the closest we've ever gotten. The category dates to the second. World War. There are some movies that are documentaries that had Oscars nominations before for things like cinematography. But really, it comes out of the Second World War period when there is really a blurring of lines between American state propaganda and Hollywood. Some of the top

Hollywood filmmakers, as is well known, like John Ford and Frank Capra, were filming propaganda films for the American government in support of the war effort and the Oscars made a special category to honor those films. So when we get our first our first trophies for for best documentary film at the the 1944th Oscars at the 15th Academy Awards, it's all just going to to war effort propaganda films. And you know, up until 1949, that's all, That's basically all that's getting nominated and winning. In 49, we get the first best documentary winner that is not a war propaganda film, a daybreak and Udi, a British film about cultural changes in Nigeria.

And so since then, the category, which has always fit awkwardly into the Oscars, has often gone to, like, issue films, things that talk about subjects that are of interest to people in Hollywood. Hollywood. And often it has been the category, which has brought a lot of the more controversial moments on Oscars night. Hearts and Minds, a documentary about the Vietnam War one in 1975, very, very critical about the American War effort. That was a big flashpoint at the Oscars that year. They had to have Frank Sinatra read a message from Bob Hope saying that we do not take responsibility for any political references made on the program and we are sorry they took place this evening after the filmmakers spoke out against the Vietnam War and some of us are old enough to remember Michael Moore making statements against the Iraq War and getting a mix of booze and applause after winning for bowling for Columbine but the the process by which the Academy which is not at all again designed to honor Oscars has has handled this has often been very weird Um, a, a big moment, uh, for change was when, uh, hoop dreams in the 1994 failed to get a nomination for, uh, for best documentary.

And, uh, that was, um, it was especially Roger Ebert who was really sounding the alarm about that. Because Roger Ebert loved Hoop Dreams. He named it the best movie of the year. I'd later called it the greatest American documentary. And, um, and he talked to a lot of people in the film industry about, like, how the hell are they actually deciding on what the nominees are? And according to him, he published this years later. And he says that according to reliable sources, I'm not sure if this is 100% true, but according to what Ebert said, he found out that the system that they had in those days was that they would start screening a documentary for a panel of Academy members.

And the Academy members would each have a little flashlight. And then when the movie was showing, if one of them got bored, he would start shining the flashlight on the screen. And when there was too many lights being shown on the screen, they would stop the movie and say, okay, this one's. note. So a lot of movies weren't making it until 10 or 15 minutes in. The thing is, and they had a rating system too where people would fill out a ratings card between 0 and 10. And if you've ever been involved in something where things are rated that way, it doesn't

work very well because by giving things zeros, you're just like eliminating them from contention. And so people, when they didn't like movies, they were just easily eliminate them, whether by flashlight or giving them a zero. And there was, in the 2000 Oscar for race, there's a movie that one called One Day in September about the Munich Olympics bombings where the producer of the film, Arthur Kahn, bragged that he got his movie to win Best Documentary at the Oscars without ever releasing it in a single theater because he realized that with this system where people could give it a zero and basically disqualify it, your best chances are to show it to as few people as possible to, reduce the odds of getting zero. So he only showed it to a few private screenings of Academy members. He managed to win Best Documentary by just straight up gaming the system like that. So they have changed the rules as a result of that.

As a result of Hoop Dreams and one day in September, after Hoop Dreams, the executive director of the Academy, Bruce Davis, actually took the step of asking Price Waterhouse, the accounting firm that tallies the votes to like turn over all the results so that he could like see what actually happened. Barbara Coppel, who is like a legendary American documentarian, led the push for them to just revap the system because it was clearly totally broken. And as a result of that for the year 2000, they established the documentary branch of the academy, which now handles the process.

And the documentary branch is actually one of the fastest growing branches out there. And which hasn't meant that there hasn't been controversy. like we remember when no other land won that was very controversial and the filmmakers behind that are back back in the news this year. So let's bring this to this year. Let's bring this year because there are some documentaries out there that have been making a lot of noise. So I want to touch on a few of them. One of them, of course, is the Musk documentary, the Elon Musk film by Alex Gibney. So this one's been in the news a bit lately.

It premiered at Venice. Venice had a lot of big name documentaries. this year. Because there has been a lot of articles about whether people are trying to bury the movie. There was, the Hollywood reporter was originally saying that Universal, which has the rights of the movies through Bleaker Street, was trying to get rid of the film. They had bought the rights for, I think, a couple million dollars, like three years ago. They haven't done so.

And Universal has said that that actually wasn't true, that they weren't trying to get rid of it. But since then, there's been a lot of chat about. ads for the movies being banned on social media sites. So they have had ads for their movies be banned on X, which is not surprising, of course. But also a little more surprising on meta sites on Instagram and on Facebook, and also on YouTube and on TikTok. They all apparently flagged ads for the movie as political content that was not allowed,

which is weird. Like if you watch YouTube with ads, like there are like political ads all the time on YouTube. Yeah. So they actually, Bleaker Street appealed the decisions directly to the social media outlets. And I saw just today that YouTube and meta has said, oh, that was a mistake, actually, and that they're actually going to allow the ads now. TikTok is still not allowing ads and not responding to Bleaker Street, apparently. And X is not going to allow the ads.

But, again, that was expected. So there seems to be, this seems to be making people nervous. This seems to be making people nervous, the distributor. and social media sites in terms of distributing and promoting the film. Probably part of the reason is that Elon Musk has a very strong relationship with the head of the Federal Communications Commission.

Brendan Carr, they've done events together and stuff. So that's the government body that handles making bans and judgments against media companies. So that might be the thing that's making a lot of these companies nervous. But ultimately, it's probably just going to end up creating more

like word of mouth publicity for Musk. I don't know. Do you think this is going to make the movie more of an Oscars contender in terms of best documentary? I'm not sure that I see this one within the conversation just because it does feel

like a pretty crowded field for docs. Like usually at this point, there's like maybe one or two that seem like they're locked. But right now it feels like there's like four or five that could easily be within that conversation with a lot of like big big studios behind them. Yeah, yeah. So of course, the other one is Naza, which had a huge premiere at Venice, breaking the

standing ovation record. So that's a film about Israel's campaign against Gaza from Yululah, Abraham and Rachel Zor, two of the filmmakers behind No Other Land. And that is about to play at the New York Film Festival. And the screening at the New York Film Festival has garnered a lot of attention. There have been protests in the street outside the Lincoln Center where the film was going to be held. They have been bringing out trucks. So these are like Israeli-American organizations, you know, Zionist organizations who are protesting.

They've brought out trucks where they're screening onto the side footage from the footage from Gaza's attacks on Israel. they have purchased subway ads attacking the movie in advance of its screening. So some of these American Zionist groups are really going all out, trying to counteract the opening of Naza at the New York Film Festival. And it is very shortly going to be playing in theaters. They are doing an independent distribution model for this film, which is probably very wise because that way they can avoid any major media companies that might get cold feet about it. They are also going to make the film available free online starting in November after a short theatrical window.

So they are trying to make sure as many people can see it and that as few people as possible can get between people and seeing the film. But yeah, it's generating a lot of controversy in New York right now. This will obviously be a bit of a radioactive title for the Oscars. But I don't think that they can avoid it, do you? No, I think this is definitely within the conversation at the Oscars. is getting a nomination and in a really good position to win, I think. Yeah, I think so too. I think so too.

All right. A couple others I'd like to touch on quickly, the Everest movie, which is another Venice title, Everest The Other Side, also a controversial movie, but kind of for different non-political reasons. This is from the filmmakers who made free solo, if you remember that, the movie about Annex Honnold, climbing El Capitan. Everest, the other side is about a couple of people who make it their mission to both climb up and then ski down the treacherous north face of Mount Everest.

And what makes it controversial is that one of the people in the film died during the filmmaking process. It's obviously an extremely dangerous thing that they are doing. So the filmmaker's kind of implication in that their potential guilt in terms of encouraging these people to do these extremely dangerous things is something that that has created some finger wagging, some people saying that it is an unambiguous. ethical film. Have you been following the stuff about Everest the other side? No, I haven't. This one's not really on my radar. Okay. Well, Free Solo won best documentary at the Oscars. And

this is the same people coming back with a new movie that that played at Venice and that in some circles is getting a lot of attention. I see this as in the conversation for sure. Interesting. Yeah, this one wasn't one of the ones that I had picked in my five. But yeah, I don't know how much the actual controversy around this would impact its chances. I think this is the sort of thing that if the dock is good enough, voters are going to be able to look past and not really assign the guilt to the filmmakers. So, you know, you said your top five here, you've got that ready to go. So why don't we just do that? Why don't we dive into it?

What do you see as the nominees for best documentary this year? So 14th from Ava D'Vernay is my number five, which has Netflix behind it. And honestly, a lot of my picks are kind of motivated based on the studios and how much like campaign power I think they've got behind it. Which counts for a ton at the best documentary category. Totally. Because it's not like, well, the documentary branch now takes control of like creating the short list and creating the nominations, that once the nominations are set, any academy member can vote on these films. So, you know, whether that film has actually been brought to their attention makes all a difference.

Yeah. And so Netflix is behind this and it is a spiritual sequel to 13th, which again did very well. I think it won. So I see this within the conversation for sure. NASA, again, we, We've covered that is in my five as well. Rehearsals for a Revolution has Sony Pictures classic behind it. And so I feel like this is one that is going to be within the conversation as well. You can see everything, which has A24. It's got a huge push behind it. Obviously, a lot of buzz, a lot of people picking it to win the category.

I do see this within this conversation. I still think that it's got a good chance to win. I am getting slightly annoyed at how in your face the marketing around this is, how like present it is and how the dialogue around this movie is already so in like hype beast mode. So I do worry about over exposure here, but within the documentary category, historically it feels like whatever the one is, most famous is the one that is going to win. And then finally,

the last slot that I've got is Once Upon a Time in Harlem, which is Neons, neon's entry here. I'm really excited for Once Upon a Time in Harlem, a bit different from the other films, um, uh, from a movie made from footage,

uh, shot by the late William Graves, the filmmaker behind Simbiosecletaxoplasm, a really great overlooked American filmmaker, um, a film that kept. a lot of the surviving members of the Harlem Renaissance artistic movement in the 1970s. So some great 70s footage apparently, which, yeah, some of the festival screenings.

It's going to play, I think, at New York Film Festival soon. And that's a very anticipated screening. Yeah, some people seem to really like that movie. And I can't wait to see it myself. My list is going to be pretty similar. So 14th is one that I could have mentioned in terms of being movies that are politically charged. The thing is that hasn't opened yet. That is the closing night film at the New York Film Festival.

I believe 13th, the Aved Duvarnay's previous one 13th documentary didn't win. I think it lost to the O.J. Simpson movie that was like eight hours long that year. Oh, okay. But it was definitely very much in the conversation. And 14th is about birthright citizenship, which is a hot button issue in America right now because Trump is trying to curb birthright citizenship. citizenship. So that's also one that's going to be like a very politically charged film. A lot of the anti-Trumpers are going to rally around that as well. So there's one that I'm going to put in my

nominations list that you didn't mention there. John Wilson's the history of concrete. Oh, okay. Yeah. Interesting. This is very different from the more political films that we've been talking about. It's a movie about concrete. But a lot of people really like John Wilson. And this movie recently premiered at the IFC Center at New York. And it was super popular. They had, it was the second most popular premiere in the history of the IFC center. The number one most popular was Parasite.

So like a lot of people in New York are really stoked to see this movie. I'm excited to see this movie. You got to have something in the nominations that's a little more, a little more quirky and fun. They can't all just be things. just make you feel terrible about the state of the world. So, like, I'm going to put the history of concrete as one of the ones that I think it's a nomination.

I'll put NASA in there as well for sure. You can see everything is really in a weird position. It, like you say, it's probably going to be the most, like popular one, at least in a lot of circles. It's a very kind of condensed buildup from it being the surprise. screening at Telluride to coming out in theaters very soon, like a week or something, I think. Like, that's a very, very short runway.

I wonder if the actual, like, documentary branch is going to be jazzed enough to actually put in the nominees. I could see it getting stifled at that stage, like, before it gets to the nominations, because the documentary branch doesn't really see it as one of there, as something that's, like, not as much of a documentary, because it seems like kind of a hybrid project. Right.

Even with Lance Oppenheim being attached, do you think that it could fall into that? That's true. He is a very well-respected documentarian. Yeah, I don't know. I'm debating that, you know, just to be a little a little spicier, I'm going to leave it off my list. Okay. I'm going to leave it off completely. I'm going to go with...

Dumbbell react. What? Calibit. I'm going to go with... NASA the 14th once about a time in Harlem history of concrete but I got to get Musk in there too

that's the thing. Hmm. Because I feel like the Everest movie is in there. Oh no, I can get that in. Yeah. I'll go with, yeah, NASA 14th, the history of concrete, Everest and Musk. I'll think that as my five. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's hard to make cuts. Like you say, this is, uh, wait. No, I didn't put

once in a time in Harlem in there. that's it might be wishful thinking but I really want that in there. Let's actually let's cut Everest. I'm going to cut Everest. So I'm going to go, yeah, I'm going to go once upon a time in Harlem, 14th Naza history of concrete and musk. That'll be right. Get out of here.

I'm docking here. Sorry. I am so sorry. All right. Yeah. if there is like a big controversial moment of the Oscars this year, that's likely the category where it's going to come from, no matter which movie ends up winning.

So always fun for that. We're always here for the drama. So to wrap things up, Craig, I thought that we should maybe prepare our listeners for what we're going to do next week, because what we're going to do next week is kind of going to be the backbone of the rest of these podcasts heading all the way into March, right? We're going to do a fantasy draft,

which basically how it works is it's a fantasy draft like you do with sports, except we're using the films themselves as our players. We're each going to pick films that we think are going to get a lot of nominations and wins. At the Oscars especially, because we have a scoring system that provides more points for the Oscars, but also in other awards and the precursor awards like the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes, which also garnered points, not as many as the Oscars, but still garnered points. So we're each going to try to pick our roster.

We've made some rule changes compared to last year. We're doing it earlier than last year. Last year we started in December. This year, we're going to start in October. We're going to start next week. And we're going to have a preseason period during which we can have bigger, more flexible rosters. And then before the nominations are announced for the Critics Choice Awards, we're going to have to cut down our rosters to only eight films,

which will have to ride with, barring any trades until Hollywood's biggest night. And some of these rule changes, I think, might provoke a lot of trading, which is something that I'm looking forward to. What are you most excited about when we get to our draft day tomorrow when we start picking our films for our fantasy rosters? Yeah. So the thing that I am most excited to, the thing that I'm most excited about is how whoever draft second, which I believe we've decided is going to be me since I got first pick last

year and ended up winning, how we overcome what is seen as a juggernaut film that is likely to go number one. Yeah. So we're talking, of course, about tender loving care and whoever Yeah, so, you know, I was thinking of actually doing a coin flip again because we were discussing rule changes. And I think that I have a way to maybe balance it out a little bit more. So one rule change that we're going to introduce to you to more, a little spoiler here, is that for our preseason rosters, one person is going to be holding 12 films and the other person is going to be holding 14 films initially. that can change because during the preseason, you are allowed to make numerically imbalanced trades.

I can trade three films to get one of your films. The idea is that the person who picks second gets those extra films as a way of getting a little extra draft capital that they might be able to use if they're savvy about it to try to even the odds face to the person who gets that first overall pick, which will, of course, be the Odyssey, because this is kind of like a LeBron James draft. There is one huge elephant at the top of the draft there.

Yeah, that is really going to be interesting to see the who picks second. And like I said, I think it could be either of us. I think we should still like throw this up on the end. Yeah, sure. But yeah, whoever picks second will definitely need to have a good strategy for how to make up for that. And using those extra picks might be the way to do it. So last year was sort of similar. when we did this little recap of what we did last year.

And if you want to see the results of what we did last year, you can go to oscars outsider.com. And I think we still have those results up there. Yeah, they should be up there. Yeah. So the way it evolved over the season, I think we did flip a coin. You got the first pick.

And last year did have a pretty strong candidate at the top of the pile, which was one battle after another, which did, of course, end up going on to win best picture. it maybe was not as much of the unstoppable juggernaut as some people thought it would be just because sinners did reveal itself to be a very, very strong contender down the stretch, though not enough to overcome it. It was pretty close last year.

Going into Oscars night was still up in the air. A big reason for that was that I, despite picking second, I was able to get sinners. I did actually get sinners with a fourth overall, not the second overall. I ended up using my second overall on Hamnet, which was not a bad pick. Hamnet ended up being the third most valuable movie in the draft. Then I picked Marty Supreme, which let sinners fall. So yeah, which let Sinners fall before. The fact that we're even earlier and like looking back on those two and three picks,

there's a lot that could happen. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. And, you know, I shouldn't say that you just won because you had one battle after another. You did make some other smart picks there, including grabbing Frankenstein, which ended up being pretty valuable throughout the season last year. And the late F1 pickup, but I did end up fumbling a little bit. And after your insistence that Wicked was going to be a huge player,

I took the bait and traded you for it somehow. I think I traded like sentimental value or something like that. You traded sentimental value for Wicked, which ended up, which was really the reason why I was still in the race on Oscars night, because that trade worked out terribly for you. and great for me. The only trade that we pulled off during last year's campaign, sentimental value for Wicked,

which, to be fair, kind of made sense at the time. But once the Oscar nominations actually came out, it was clear that the sentimental value was worth way more. Those drops, though, that's interesting, too, because we did allow, last year we allowed us to, at one point during the race, drop one title to pick another title. And you mentioned that you picked up F1, right?

I think you dropped, is this thing on? for F1. That worked out good for you. That ended up being a best picture nominee. I actually hurt myself with my drop and pick. I dropped my eighth pick, 16th overall weapons, and so that I could pick up Sarat

at a point when Sarat had kind of just gone into wider release and there was tons of enthusiasm about it. And it felt like it was going to be a best picture nominee at that point. In my defense, it seemed like that was what the track was on. At the end of the day, weapons was more valuable, mostly because of Amy Madigan,

who won best supporting actress, but I did actually hurt myself by dropping weapons for Sarat. So there are risks there. We're going to allow for a bit more drops this year because if we have this preseason phase. Not too many, though. We've been discussing the exact amount there. But hopefully there's going to be a lot more trades.

I think that having more films during the preseason phase and being able to hold more than eight films and having kind of a lineup that can be anywhere between, between eight and 16 titles during the preseason, that might allow us to really get creative with the trades. So I don't want to talk strategy too much because we don't want to reveal what we're going to do. Now that we're getting there, I want to kind of keep things close to the hand. But which titles are you really interested to see like where they go in the draft order?

I already mentioned Digger is the one that I'm like really fascinated to see like what what pick is going to be used on Digger? Is there one that you find really interesting here? There's a lot kind of within the middle of the pack that I'm interested to see how they pan out within the order. Things like the debut, the invite, Wild Horse 9, like those middle of the pack picks, I'm interested to see how they slot up again. Yeah, yeah, me too. These are some tough calculations to make.

for share. And we're going to make them. We're going to make them next week. So make sure you tune in next week to Oscars Outsider if you want to join along as we make our as we make our picks. And you can tell us where we're wrong. And please do because if you think that you could do it better than us, maybe you can. But I want you to prove it. I want you to prove it by say, not three months down the road saying, oh, you should have done this.

No, no, no. At the same time as us, at the same time as us, you got to stick your flag in the ground as we're going to. going to be doing next week when we draft titles for Oscar's fantasy draft, which is a game we're going to continue to play all the way through to March. All right, Craig, I'm excited for that next week. Any last thoughts that you want to leave our listeners with today? No, that's a good one. Let us know if there are any documentaries that we didn't discuss that you think could be in the conversation. I noticed I just checked on next best picture here. And there was one that was mentioned in their top five that neither of us discussed.

So let us know. Is it American doctor? American doctor, yeah. Yeah, okay. I feel like, I mean, that's a movie that has like Gaza stuff in it. So I feel like that's getting pushed out of the conversation by NASA. But we'll see. Yeah.

Tell us if we're wrong. Yeah. All right. Yeah. And tell us what you'd like to hear us discussing which movies you think that we're overlooking that we have not even talked about yet so far on the show. maybe they'll come up next week during our draft. Maybe not.

We will see. My name is Dylan Ferguson, D-Y-L-A-N-Fergusin. If you want to look for me on Substack, go ahead. I have some writings about movies. Haven't done anything in a while, but maybe I'll do something new soon. Yeah.

Don't miss our draft. So subscribe, follow if you want to make sure that you're there when it happens. Craig Midwood is with me as always. Good to see again, man. Yeah, for sure. Oh, and correction from last. week thanks to the movie witch who left us a comment about La Bola Negra's premiere not actually being or not actually playing at New York Film Fest but at next fest so yes good catch to movie witch checked out their channel go go and subscribe they've got deep dives on their Oscar picks as well for each of the category so go check them yes absolutely do that yeah and great catch there we appreciate here from that in the comments yeah and if if you've seen digger I think there We've got one comment from somebody who saw a digger on the last one and really liked it.

If you've seen it, let us know what you think because, like I said, I can't wait to get my eyes on it. And so I'm really, really greedily lapping up the takes from everybody who has been lucky enough to see it so far. All right, thanks, guys. We'll see you next week on Oscars Outsider.