The Big Picture - Best Actor Goes to Who??? The Winners, Losers, and WTFs of the Academy Awards.

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

After 15 long months, the Oscars are here. Sean and Amanda break down every award, the in-person ceremony, the weirdest moments of the night, and more.  Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Head into the Ringerverse to stay up to date with all things superheroes and nerd culture entertainment. Hosted by a rotating lineup of superfans at the Ringer, including Mallory Rubin and Van Lathan, shows will provide instant reactions to blockbuster releases, insightful backstories on canon, and mind-bending theories, as well as fresh takes on the latest news and rumors. Check out the Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the 93rd Academy Awards. It happened inside the cozy confines of Los Angeles's Union Station. Hollywood's biggest night went off. Well, it went off with a hitch, actually.

It happened in person, and we're going to talk about that right now on The Big Picture. Amanda, we were having what seemed like a unique, calm, normal award show. Things were sort of getting back to normal, and then some wildness happened at the end of this show. For starters, best picture was presented with 20 minutes left in the award show. Here's what I thought to myself. What the fuck is happening right now? Because I've never seen this before. But Steven Soderbergh, as one of the producers, is prone to making unique decisions as a creator. And so I rolled with it. Then we got Best Actress. Very exciting. Frances McDormand won. I predicted that correctly. That was a sweet moment. And then we got Best Actor. Who came out but

Joaquin Phoenix, the winner of Best Actor last year, to present the Best Actor Award. Now, we have been talking for months about the expectation that Chadwick Boseman was going to win this award posthumously. And then what happened? Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for The Father. Anthony Hopkins, who did not attend the Oscars and did not attend any of the satellite spaces. So this show ended basically on a freeze frame of a photo of Anthony Hopkins. And boy, that was not ideal. That was not an ideal ending to this award show.

I think we were both a little bit unmoored by it, frankly, because not only were we not expecting it, but it seems I have to assume that the producers of this show were not expecting that. So when Best Picture came up with two awards left, with Best Actor and Best Actress still left, there was, you know, an outcry on Twitter, not the first outcry on Twitter of the evening. And we'll come back to that because there was an energy that I wanted to bring to this podcast, which was really just like 90 minutes of you mad straight at Sean Fennessey.

And I'm going to get there. I'm going to get there. But best picture, people were very upset that it was out of the traditional order and was not presented last. And what I thought was like, oh, what they're going to do is they're going to get best picture, which is a foregone conclusion out of the way. They'll do best actress and they'll close on giving best actor to Chadwick Boseman. And it will be very sad, but it will be a summation of the ceremony and of the year in a lot of ways. It, you know, kind of the momentum to the end of the evening. This is Soderbergh being Soderbergh and producing. And I was like, okay, I see what you're going. And yeah, nope, that didn't happen. And it was like, I gasped. I think I texted, oh no, oh no, oh no to you like four times

and just talk about just like deflating whatever energy or joy or like bewilderment or just like hot takes that people had at the end of this evening. And I say that with someone who has a huge amount of respect for Anthony Hopkins and thought he was wonderful in The Father, a film that I liked. But the way that it played out, I just, I don't think anyone wanted to see that. And we are both kind of, I don't know, I'm just like flapping my arms more than usual right now. That's the best, like, that's the energy that I can give you. Yeah, we talked about this on our predictions episode.

I think in any other year, not only would Anthony Hopkins have been the runaway favorite, but it would have felt like a very worthy win. It's obviously incredible work that he did in The Father. It's not to diminish that by any stretch of the imagination.

But not just because of Chadwick Boseman's tragic passing, but because of the fact that Anthony Hopkins didn't participate in this. So usually at the end of the show, you get best picture, you get producers on stage,

you get people thanking, and then the host comes back out and says, thank you so much for watching and congratulations to all the winners. And this just, this kind of ended like a wet fart. I got to be honest with you, Amanda. It was really, really weird the way that this ended after all of this pomp and circumstance. I mean, I think, I guess we know what happened in the sense that more people voted for Anthony Hopkins in the chat. Like I get that. I think I do understand what happened in the most literal sense, but I really thought they, they knew because I don't think that you make that decision to mess up the categories and end on that note, unless you have some guarantee of what's happening.

And also, by the way, Anthony Hopkins has made it extraordinarily clear that he would not be attending the Oscar ceremony. Just like follow Instagram, follow his interviews. He's of a certain age and he's earned the right to do whatever he wants. And he's just been adopting cats and living his best life. So I knew if Stephen could have called me, I would have told him. But I just like, how did this happen? What did they what? Why? Life is about taking chances.

Creators take chances. This was a chance that they took. I'm mystified by the chance. As the further away we get from it, I'm into the embracing chaos aspect of it. I'm into the like, well, at least it wasn't boring. I mean, that was not boring. It was unfortunate in the final moments, but it was different. And the first hour of the show I thought was quite poor, and we'll talk about that. And then I thought the second half, when the awards started to get a little bit less predictable, and the energy started to pick up in the show, it seemed like, I don't think people were

consuming alcohol, but it certainly felt that way as the show went on. It got a little bit looser as these things often do. And then we just arrived at that weirdness. I mean, I'll be curious to see how they address that specifically. I'll be curious to see if Anthony Hopkins ever chooses to acknowledge his Oscar win, his second Oscar win.

Who knows? Somebody will have to get him on the horn, I guess. Is he in Wales now? Is he in the tropics? Yes, he is in win. Who knows? Somebody will have to get him on the horn, I guess. Is he in Wales now? Is he in the tropics? Yes, he is in Wales. He posted on Instagram today, he was at his father's grave and he was reciting poetry.

So again, I don't want to make jokes about Anthony Hopkins. He's just living his life. I do believe after he won the BAFTAs, which he also did not attend, they caught up with him and he did a video and he seemed very gratified. This is not Anthony Hopkins's fault, I think. No.

Like this is, you know, so I just, I don't know what the Academy was thinking, but I guess there's always one of those every year and it's usually the last award. So in that sense, Steven Soderbergh made the right choice. He certainly did. Gosh. Well, where to go from here? Should we talk about the show on the whole? Can I get just some of your general reactions to how you thought the night went? Yeah, I loved it. I had a great time. And at first, that was actually genuine. I really enjoyed the first hour. Choices were made. Certainly, some of them were weird. It was shaggy. It was a little bit confusing at times, but I, I had the rare feeling of thinking that something was made for me. And that definitely

means that it is not popular with the world at large and that a lot of people will be bitching about it in public, but you know what? I love it when things are made for me. I just was very charmed by it. And then as more and more people seemed to be angry about some of the production choices, it really just fueled my contrarian, like, you guys are melting down and I'm loving this even more vibe. So really up until the end, I was having the, I had a great time. So I sensed that in our correspondence. You know, historically, you and I watched the Oscars together.

It's a great tradition that we have. We're obviously not doing that this year, unfortunately. And nevertheless, the sort of adversarial energy rose to the fore. I did struggle, I think, initially with this show. Now, from the very top, I was excited. As soon as the lights hit and you could hear that rock funk soundtrack and the opening credits started to roll as Regina King walked into Union Station, I was like, holy shit, we are getting a Steven Soderbergh movie. This is actually going to be a Steven Soderbergh movie.

I thought it was thrilling. Honestly, I was very excited about it. And then the production started and it was certainly not without confusion or disorientation, but I thought it certainly looked different and it felt different than any award show has. The way that the, where the camera was sitting, how the camera moved around Union Station, even just the way that some of the speeches and the conversation on stage was paced felt different and exciting. And then they started to give the awards out. And I got a little bored. I'll be honest with you. As soon as Laura Dern started telling actors they were good at acting, I was like, why can't we just see what I want to see? Which is actors acting in movies.

That is the thing that I care about the clips. I've been telling you this for years. I want to see the time in the history of cinema and this podcast where Sean Fennessy doesn't get to see exactly what he wants to see because all of the film history and also modern blockbusters are geared towards Sean. One time for 20 minutes when Laura Dern is just talking about, you know, what she learned from going to see a Fellini movie with her mother. And Sean's just like, no, this will not stand. Okay. That isn't what I had an issue with. I thought that was a lovely anecdote. What I didn't want was Laura Dern expressing her appreciation for the inclusivity that Daniel Kaluuya brought to the movies. You know how you can represent that? Show Daniel Kaluuya acting. He's amazing at it. People love him. Of course,

he deserved to win. That was a great moment when he won. So what is it that, aside from just negging me, what was it else that you liked about the production? Well, I watched it immediately after watching the pre-show. And I'm not going to name any names, but the pre-show was the single worst viewing experience that I've had in the entirety of quarantine. And I was so angry. And I'm never a pre-show person. I find all of the kind

of the super showy broadcast where you red carpet banter to, um, be just blood curdling and I can't abide it. And it is really embarrassing to me. And so I think the absence of that and the perhaps more personal and earnest and awkward, but people are trying moments of the real ceremony, I think makes me less uncomfortable and also was just such a welcome change from the very Disney-fied. In the literal, they were selling Disney movies big time during the pre-show, but just also the pre-show energy, I just can't overstate how much it was not for me. I liked the personal touches. I liked that it felt a little clubby.

I liked the set, which kind of had some Art Deco cocktail vibes. Like, I really miss the Sunset Tower. Let's all go back to the Sunset Tower. But also, I would have taken a booth at the Oscars tonight if I were allowed, which I wouldn't have been because it was only nominees and their guests. And Steven Soderbergh did not invite me. But it did have a little bit of that Golden Globes-y feeling of just like all the people in a room and people are telling stories about themselves. And I find the anecdotes about, I think it was Lee Isaac Chung, just like who stood up all through E.T. as a kid, just in

Wonderland. Like, you know what? Great. That's great. That's really charming. I love that. I like hearing those things. And to me, that is more palatable than weird voiceovers and like forced stand-up comedy

bits. I realized that that is not like a commonly held opinion. And I realized that it was not a commonly held opinion. And I realized that it was not the most accessible award ceremony. And if you hadn't seen all the movies, or you just wanted to dip in for 20 minutes and get some jokes off, not really it. But thankfully, I'd seen all the nominated movies. And I do this for a living. And I kind of had a nice time.

Yeah, I definitely didn't have a bad time. I think I was just a little bit off my square, which I think was obviously what Soderbergh and the producer, Stacey Sher and Jesse Collins were after. They were trying to do something that was a little bit more unconventional. And in some cases it worked. I liked a lot of the testimonials too.

I particularly appreciated Steven Yeun talking about seeing Terminator 2, who can relate. That was a deeply relatable moment. I think that it was odd because it was a show that was trying to have it both ways it was trying to be a classical show it was a show that had two different segments featuring a humanitarian award winner it was a show that had an in memoriam segment it was a show that had typical award speeches where people kind of blathered on a little bit at times about thanking their manager.

And it was also a show that seemed to be trying to redefine the look and feel of what an award show can be. And so you put those two things together and it was a little bit of a Frankenstein. That doesn't mean that it was necessarily bad, but I think it sometimes felt odd. And I could sense that a lot of people were becoming frustrated with it. I thought it was very smart in the beginning for Regina King to make a political statement and then to identify that the very act of making a political statement about the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial last week could potentially turn people off. There was a kind of self-awareness and a kind of getting ahead of the conversation

aspect to that that I thought made a lot of sense and was valuable. But I still in the back of my mind felt like a lot of sense and was valuable. But I still, in the back of my mind, felt like a lot of people are still going to turn this off. We do live in a very divided country. We are in a place where, one, not only have people not seen a lot of these movies, but a lot of people are actively seeking a reason to have a defiance to popular culture if it doesn't align correctly with how they see the world. And so the Oscars is in this very tricky spot where, you know, it obviously is a progressive institution or at least aspires to be. And it's also a populist institution. It's making art that is meant to be seen by millions of people. And so that was a specific moment where I was like, gosh, I wonder if the specific decisions

and the way that the, you know, the kind of knee-jerk reactions that we get from people who are just not very thoughtful about the way that we think about and talk about art are going to feel about the first hour of this show. And does that make this a show that goes from 12 million viewers to 8 million viewers? I think that's definitely possible. And I think that's what I liked about it. It's like, for once we aren't making this show for a bunch of people who couldn't even be bothered to watch the fucking movies and are going to turn it on and take offense to like a statement from Regina King, like from the heart and just, and then find something else to bitch about and then go watch whatever it is they're going to watch. Like, you know, the Oscars were not going to be as highly rated as they were every year past.

That was already done. This has been a year where, I mean, everything has been affected, but movies certainly. And they're not the center of popular culture. And I understand that a lot of people are going to be frustrated with the decision to just punt on this as a sales pitch for movies. And I'm doing jazz hands right now, but you can't see it. But I personally, as someone who still cares about movies and who also like cares about the people who are on the screen and liked watching them have these moments was, was fine with not giving a huge amount of consideration to people who don't care. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's

utterly reasonable. I think that's utterly reasonable. I think that that has certainly seemed like the intention of the producers behind the show. I wonder if the Academy will regret that five years from now, because it does feel like it's at this kind of precarious moment in terms of its existence and record low ratings and a record low interest in the movies that are nominated, obviously, could be damaging. Now, you know what? A big part of the sort of valorization of movies was happening tonight. You know, Francis McDormand shouted from the mountaintops, go see movies in movie theaters.

You know, that was, there was a kind of see it on the big screen, hashtag energy going on through much of the show too. So this could all be a distant concern within six months. I hope that it is as somebody who's desperate to get back into a movie theater but it was kind of nagging at me in the first hour it was kind of and even just the very small choices like moving the awards around in terms of when people are expecting to see them i was like if people just tune in and see a screenplay award are they just gonna be like i don't care i don't know why i care about these invisible people that i've completely straw manned but i I was thinking about them. Well, I think there is the larger thing of is, was this ceremony meant to be an advertisement and, you know, a form of ambassadorship for movies and for people who don't currently

care about movies? And was this like a lost cause to like recruit people back to movies? I am personally of the belief that this particular year, not because of the movies nominated, many of which I liked, but just because of COVID and because of viewing and because of like people's bad attitude basically, was never going to be the year that like the Oscars show saved movies. And so I don't know that we lost that much in terms of like the future of the Academy or movies by making a bit more insular. But that is an existential question that can like, you know, be discussed.

Then there's the smaller thing where like Oscar nerds, like you get really mad because they didn't put supporting actor up top. I wasn't mad. I was just like, why? Don't, do you want to do the clips now?

You just want to do it? Let's go. Okay. So let's start with the supporting actor, actress thing. So I think the idea of basically rejiggering the way the expectations of an award show is smart. I thought actually in many ways,

moving best picture in front of actor and actress, especially in a year where there were surprises in those categories is sort of objectively interesting. And in a year where you need to gin up enthusiasm for an award show, good on them. The thing I didn't understand was, why just move best supporting actor like two awards later? Like, if you were going to move best supporting actor out of that traditional opening the show spot, put it in hour two. Don't just give us two screenplay awards and then give us that award. You didn't really do anything except get people less interested in

the show in the first 20 minutes. So just from a purely logical perspective, I couldn't really figure out the rationale there. And Emerald Fennell won, and of course, Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton won those first two screenplay awards. And they're great, but they're not exactly Brad Pitt and George Clooney. If the first people you see winning awards are three screenwriters, is that the way to get people fired up about the Oscars? I'm just, I'm trying to figure out what the thinking was there.

I don't know. I saw some people guess that the adapted screenplay went early because there was a chance that the winner, you know, was someone who was in the UK or I believe in Paris. That's where Florian Zeller was like like on just a very glamorous looking balcony that like possibly could have been the eiffel tower don't correct me if it wasn't does florian zeller live in the eiffel tower

i mean it was like very panoramic the background for all of the paris nominees you know what good for them uh who can say like were those the awards that Regina King wanted to present? Because in addition to having, like, honestly, the very, very difficult job of, number one, just, like, anchoring that incredible opening sequence and essentially just, like, walking down at, like, a fashion catwalk for, like, three minutes and just looking amazing. I believe she was wearing Louis Vuitton and it just, she made it work. And then she was the de facto host. She has to explain to everybody what's going on.

She has to like make you feel comfortable. She has to introduce, like she did have to do a little bit of like, hey, we're at the Oscars and it's different this year. I think she had to like explain why they weren't wearing masks. Like she was asked to do a lot. And I thought she did all of it beautifully. And then maybe that's, those are the categories that she was most comfortable with. You know, maybe also, I think if you look between the nominees for original screenplay and adapted screenplay, they are sort of the closest, the broadest representation of the best picture nominees. So you're introducing the films that way up top, which is possibly like another,

that seems like some sort of Soderbergh producing rationale that no one else would really notice. I liked the speeches, the acceptance. I thought Emerald Fennell gave a great acceptance speech, very happy for her. And also she clearly also wanted Steven Soderbergh's approval. So once again, can relate. I don't know. They just made some decisions. I don't know how many people, besides people who know too much about the Oscars and tweet a lot, were like, why have you made best supporting actor

20 minutes later into the show? Like, I just, I don't know that people care that much. So our dynamic in this conversation is fascinating because I care way too much about how many people are seeing the Oscars. And you care way too much about protecting Steven Soderbergh's honor, even though he does not know you are alive. And so we can fight about this all day. It's not that serious 20 minutes into the show.

It's fine. I slightly misspoke. After the two screenplay awards, we did see the best international feature given out, I believe before Daniel Kaluuya was awarded best supporting actor. And that was actually a great moment because Thomas Vinterberg, of course, one for his film, another round.

And he gave, I thought a beautiful speech. And I thought that was a beautiful testimony to the, that actually was a billboard for the power of movies, the way that movies actually affect people's lives, the people who make them, the people who see them, the people who try to understand them sincerely.

And so that there, there was something powerful about that. That being said, that is still the foreign language film category, which is still a small category. Oh my God. We need to, we need to not be provincial people who are mad that the,

a beautiful film was awarded early in the show and i hope more people see another round the thing i was angriest about is that they obviously spoiled the ending of another round in one of your beloved clips which we'll come back to everyone i'm warming up for it um but i i was weeping after thomas winterberg's speech and then i looked over my husband hates um when i speak about him on this show, but I don't think he'll mind me saying that he was also actually moved to tears by it. It was one of those really beautiful moments

and also would not have happened if they were playing people off. And we'll talk a lot about speeches and speech lengths and that decision, but it took him a while to get to that emotional moment. And I was glad they gave him that time because it was very beautiful. It was very well done. So then we go to the Best Supporting Actor Award. And as you said, we didn't see clips. I don't know why I care about this, but I think I just wanted to see

Kaluuya doing his thing in Judas and the Black Messiah. It's obviously one of our favorite performances of the year. All of the nominees in that category I thought were exciting in their own way. And then when we didn't see them, I don't know why, but I just started twitching. I just started uncontrollably twitching my body. I mean, like, what is different about this? What has happened? I couldn't quite put my finger on it before I realized I wasn't seeing what I was expecting to see. And I think if it were done differently, I might have not have had that reaction. I just thought that it was, there was something incredibly saccharine and kind of awkward about the idea of talking about the performance. Like with all due respect, leave the talking to us. This is what we do. Like, like, like Lauren

Burns film criticism. I'm good. Like, I don't need that. That's not what the awards are. Let's just let the record show that only Sean believes that. And I'm no, I don't, I want nothing to do with that. I'm just embracing chaos, just like Steven Soderbergh. You and I have the fight about clips every year on this show, I think. Every year. And it's specifically about the actor clips that you really feel are important. And I feel are always like four seconds of like someone like performing an exorcism and like and then it just cuts to the

next thing and they are not in any way illustrative of the actor or the performance or the movie it's just people like screaming things um and I and in many ways I think like the tradition of Oscar clips encourage bad acting in Oscar bait movies. So I just didn't care about them at all. I do love Daniel Cleese performance. We're going to talk about the speech in a second, but let's just finish the clips thing first. I don't have any other deep thoughts about it. I just wondered how you felt as the night went on and this became sort of a thing that people were tweeting about

a lot. Like, were you like my people? Were you pleased to be a part of the group of individuals who are just really angrily yelling about Oscar clips online? I mean, I'm not a cult leader. I'm a person with a normal expectation of the Oscars. Okay. I'm just like, did you like look among you and you were like, cool, this is a group i'm glad to be a part of um okay you know i think alliances come in all forms you never can tell when you'll meet a friend on the internet sometimes it's in the strangest place and in this place i was like show me a clip from the father i would like to see an actor act olivia coleman very good in the

father show me show me what that looked like i'd'd like to be reminded. What's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with that. It's beautiful, the form of acting. I love it. What's so interesting is how stuck you are in showing the performances, which is, I think, quite honestly, the least useful part of the Oscar clips.

I would say that the larger argument, which I want to be clear, I do not endorse, was that you need clips to understand the films, especially in a year when the films are so little seen and people don't know about the movies. And that's when I start wanting to yell at people. What if you just watch the movies before you watch the Oscars? Like, just consider it. They're all on streaming services in your homes. Just watch a movie. Here's the thing. I do watch the movies. I watch every movie. It's not about watching the movies. It's about being reminded of their power.

Now, and the oddity here is not so much that they didn't show the acting performances, which I appreciate. It's that they did show them in other categories. So when they show clips in best foreign language film or in best documentary, or I want to say that they also show like in best cinematography, I believe they showed some clips to give you a sense of the look of the film there were some instances where you got to see the movie I just thought it was strange that they chose to remove that from the acting portion and what they replaced it with which was something that kind of sucked like I'm just being real I just didn't think that was a good solution to not showing the actors we may be belaboring this too long. Why don't we just talk about Daniel Kaluuya's speech,

which was great. Incredible. It was like, and it will obviously be remembered for the end and for thanking his mom and dad for having sex and then his mother's incredible reaction. And then for Daniel Kaluuya going into the press room and like still talking about it and being like, I'm avoiding my phone because

my mom's going to be mad at me all time. But that was the end of what I thought was like a very moving, thoughtful speech. And he talked about what Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party meant to him. He talked about filmmaking. He seemed like you got the reaction phase. You got like the thoughtful phase. And then you got the, oh, my God, I just won an Oscar. And now I'm going to celebrate phase.

Again, they gave him extra time, which I really appreciated. He would have been played off. And I thought, you know, all the phases were excellent. And then just a tremendous kicker. I thought it was wonderful. I thought it was very entertaining. And obviously he created an iconic moment that will probably be quoted in future Oscar acceptance speech clip reels. So you just hit on something that is interesting though. This show had no host, no musical performances, which were

mercifully moved to the pre-show. No honorary awards. Obviously those were moved to the Governor's Ball many years ago. And with the exception of the Lil Rel, Questlove, Oscar music trivia segment, there was really no comedy bits here. And with the exception of the Lil Rel, Questlove, Oscar Music Trivia segment, there was really no comedy bits here. And still, the show was three hours and 20 minutes. And I could really only put my finger on one reason why that was the case, and that it was the speeches were a lot longer. No one was quote unquote played off. So what did you think about the decision to let people go on until they were done? I think it yielded really wonderful moments that are worth all of the like dead air. And there was dead air on this broadcast. And there were people who just didn't have it and who talked for way

too long. And again, I'm not going to name names, but how about you think an octopus, if you're going to win an Oscar for a movie about him teaching people, what was the octopus's name? Can someone tell me? I don't know. I think it was Anthony Hopkins, actually. So double winner tonight. So listen, the choice wasn't perfect.

Some people went on for too long. Not everybody is a performer. Not everybody has presence. People get nervous. But that's true in all awards shows. Even when we have had time limits in years past, there have been some acceptance speeches that make you want to crawl under a table and wish it were over. So again, I liked that the emphasis was on the people nominated. Soderbergh said that

that was going to be a major focus of trying to give these people a moment. And even people in technical categories who you don't typically, you don't get to know anything about them. And it's kind of chalked up as a win for the movie and not a win for the person. I liked that. I thought that there were real moments of, they were mostly moving. There was like nothing particularly hectic or funny about any of them, but I liked that it allowed for it. Was it perfect all of the time? No, but neither is any other awards show. We also had a historic win for best director. Obviously Chloe Zhao won for Nomadland,

just the second win for a woman. And I thought she also gave a very good speech here. Very concise, very much about something that she learned at a very young age, which was kind of the theme of this show. When did you connect with stories? When did you connect with being taken away by the possibility of creativity? And that award also came very early in the show. You may remember last year when Bong Joon-ho won, it was quite late in the show. And

so you could really sense that they were kind of tipping the show on its axis a little bit. What other speeches did you like amongst the winners? Well, we talked about Thomas Vinterberg. Yeah, we got to talk about Yeo Jung Yoon just like absolutely just shooting her shot with Brad Pitt. And so, you know, to provide some context that the ceremony did not, Plan B, Brad Pitt's Plan B was a produced Minari. So I think some of the stuff of like, there you are Brad Pitt. Like I couldn't find you was because I don't think he was like on set producing Minari, but she just directed a lot of commentary at Brad Pitt as I,

we all would if on a stage being handed an Oscar by Brad Pitt. And I, you know, that was great because I think we all thought that was a deserving performance. That was an Oscar win that we wanted to see. And then to have Brad Pitt back and for her to acknowledge the way we all feel, I enjoyed it.

How did you feel seeing Brad on stage? I don't know about the ponytail. I'm going to be really honest. Wow. Yeah. Sad. Well, you can't have it all, all of the time.

You know, I very, uh, somewhat jokingly predicted Glenn Close's victory at the Academy Awards for her performance in Hillbilly Elegy. And I didn't get that right. What did, where did,

what are our final tallies by the way? Where did we land up out of the 23 predictions? I stopped counting. I think that you definitely won. Cause you took the flyers that you took turned out to be correct. We'll get to some of those. Did not turn out to be correct.

I'm keeping my powder dry for the Mank combo. Yajun Yun's win obviously was very... When did Mank just become yours? I also loved Mank. But I put my heart on the line by choosing it in Best Cinematography. Are we going right to this conversation? By one other category? Yeah, yeah.

Okay. That's great. You're really putting yourself out there, like, in one category. I mean, I'm not trying to take Mank away from you, but what I'm trying to say is that it lives inside of me. So if you want to be a part of that, you have to tap into that energy. Got it? Okay, yeah.

Okay. So Ya Zheng Yun wins. That obviously was wonderful. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, John Yoon wins. That obviously was wonderful. I thought, you know, not just the, the hollering at Brad Pitt, but just in general,

her speech and all of her speeches throughout this award season, which he has completely dominated for the last three months have all been great. Well-deserved there for her work in that film. And then Francis McDormand during the win for best picture was one of the accepted the, the, the win because she, of course, is a producer of that film.

That film would not exist without her. And she told people to go back into movie theaters, and then she howled like a wolf. And it was, no matter how you feel about Frances McDormand, it was very Frances McDormand. And then as soon as she finished howling, the camera cut immediately to her partner Joel Cohen one half of the Cohen brothers one of the great filmmakers alive who was just like dead-eyed just just blanked it just didn't even like imagine being married to Frances McDormand watching her howl like a wolf on stage and just blanking it was just a delightful moment they're a true power couple in many ways. Any other thoughts on McDormand? No, because of what happened right after it,

I think we all just sort of fast forwarded emotionally past Francis McDormand now having three Best Actress Oscars, which is a lot. That is a lot. And obviously deserving, like a huge figure in movies. We never did the Frances McDormand Hall of Fame, and we probably should at some point. Because that's the kind of career she's had. But it was just kind of like, yeah, Frances McDormand. And I think that's another. The best actress category was the most up in the air, I think.

Odds wise, we didn't really know and i thought perhaps another reason that they moved best picture before actor and actress was for like because the suspense and then the emotion and francis mcdormand winning after having just howled at the moon for best picture i want i to say anticlimactic. It wasn't. No, it was. We'd like already had the emotional moment with Frances McDormand. And then I think she also

had had that moment. And she was just like, I love to work. Bye. You're right. I think she almost was like, I wasn't expecting it, but also the air was let out

of the balloon a little bit. But you're right. It is historic. Only two women in the history of the Academy Awards have won best actress three times. She joins Catherine Hepburn, who, of course, is a screen icon of icons. Meryl Streep also has three, but one of those was for supporting.

So she's in hallowed, all-time, you know, Cary Grant, Nicholson, you know, that like that Hall of Legends kind of conversation. And, you know, I thought well-deserved. I predicted that she would win here just because i thought the support was going to be really really strong for nomadland and ultimately it was even though it seemed like for a hot minute there like it wasn't going to be because of some of the other awards we saw so there were a couple of like i guess quote unquote soft upsets um you could say certainly manx win it for cinematography that was long tab to be Nomadland despite Manx winning at the ASC Awards.

And film editing went to Sound of Metal, which was predicted, but I think is kind of a, it's still a surprising win to me. I think, what were some of the other upsets that we saw? I mean, Adapted Screenplay, I think The Father was a little bit of a coin flip with Nomadland, but there was some expectation. And then once we saw cinematography and screenplay, I started to think maybe we'd get a surprise. But in fact, we didn't get a surprise in Best Picture, only in Best Actor. Let's just circle back around to that really quickly. Okay. Because now I feel like this is going to go down as a weird historical clown moment. And it shouldn't be that. You know, obviously for Hopkins,

who's such a great actor and who, I'll be honest, I had kind of like written him off a little bit in the way that you sometimes write off like Robert De Niro in the later stages of his career, where you can kind of see when he's taking a paycheck job. You see him in Westworld. You see him in some of these thrillers

that he's done over the last 20 years. And you're like, is Anthony Hopkins trying? And then the father, obviously, he's giving, he he is the film he is at the center of every shot it's completely inside of his psyche and the pain and confusion that his character is going through throughout that film and so it is a great win I do think that we probably have to figure out how to sort through Chadwick Boseman not winning. And if that means anything, I don't, I don't want to be kind of shrill or glib by asking that question and,

and suggesting something like untoward about voters, but it's surprising. Obviously Anthony Hopkins won the BAFTA, but Chadwick Boseman has otherwise been pretty dominant during this award season. So what do you think happened? I don't know. I,

I, I mean, I do think that the Anthony Hopkins performance is very good and has been respected. And also I think that people didn't see the father at the beginning of the race. That's the other thing is that Ma Rainey was available on Netflix, I believe like in December of last year, but it was tipped even before Ma Rainey was available that this Chad I believe like in December of, of last year, but it was tipped

even before Ma Rainey was available that this Chadwick Boseman performance, which was also excellent by the way, and, and very moving and was just very clearly a best actor contender. So maybe some of it is just that people finally got around to seeing the father. I, I, you know, I, I don't know why people make the decisions that they make. Were they being snotty about it's a play, not a film? Were they being, was something, the father just fresher in their memory? I'm like, I don't know. Do people not like having a quote narrative handed to them? Even though I think in this case, it would have been a really deserving award in relation to the performance and like a tribute to someone that we lost far too soon and whose career was cut far too short. But maybe people, maybe Academy voters are just

like, no, thanks. I don't really know. I do think that we'll remember it differently because it was the last award in the show and that production choice definitely heightened the, oh, no, this is not what we expected. Nobody wanted it to go this way vibes. And that's a shame. Let me pitch a theory at you. Because we know that there were fewer films released last year, fewer films seen and loved by the Academy throughout this entire process. And when you look at the four winners of the acting categories, and actually, if you look at the winners of all of the other major categories, of the eight major categories, frankly, if you look at film editing, if you look at cinematography, if you look at sound, if you look at most of the below the line, most of those films, not all of them, but most of them were the winners came from films that were nominated for best picture. And in none of the

big awards did you find that. And so I wonder if there just was not a lot of support from Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom did win two awards for production design and makeup and hairstyling which we both predicted and has been strong throughout the campaign for costume design sorry for costume design yes i apologize um but you know the father was nominated for best picture and nomadland won best picture and minari won for was nominated for best picture judas and the black messiah was nominated for Best Picture. Judas and the Black Messiah was nominated for Best Picture. So it's possible that in a year where three or four films that in a normal year might not have been nominated for Best Picture were nominated, and maybe they were just not really as admired as those films. And so someone like Hopkins has a chance to rise above. I don't

know. It's possible. It's a good theory. And I think in any other category, it makes a lot of sense if only because it just people watched the films nominated for best picture and that's it. And then moved on. And, and maybe that is the case here, but I, I think that that doesn't speak well of anyone who in the case of Chadwick

Boseman and Ma Rainey's black bottom, couldn't be bothered to watch Ma Rainey and thus didn't vote for him. I, I, the Academy has got to work on that if that's the case. I agree. It's very strange. A couple of last things before we get to some of your questions.

One, Mank won two awards. That's great. Mank has two Oscars. Citizen Kane has one Oscar. You are the two millionth person to make that observation tonight. I'm not saying I'm original. I'm just saying I'm here for facts. I'm just bringing

facts to the table i i honestly was very very happy that it won for best cinematography i think a lot of this will actually make people who hate mag hate it even more if if i had to if i had to guess oh good that's that's nice in a way yes so we are our island we're living comfortably on our island um let's talk now about oscar trivia night um this was an unusual segment on the show i loved it personally i know you're not as fond of the comic side shows of past award shows but lil rel and questlove teamed up to ask some dj trivia questions to folks in the audience. Andra Day said something when Purple Rain was played. I think it was something

incredibly degrading about the Oscars, which is hilarious because she was nominated for an Oscar tonight. And then Daniel Kaluuya and Lil Rel had a nice little get-out reunion

and were vibing and very funny together. And then Lil Rel handed the mic to Glenn Close. Now, I thought this was the best moment of the night, personally, aside from the awards giving. I presume this was staged. You assume it was completely scripted. Yeah, yeah, of course.

Nevertheless, when Glenn Close identified Da Butt, the song, and then performed the dance. Did you feel closer to Glenn Close or further away from her? My response was like, they won't give this woman an Oscar, but they'll give her lines to learn. And God bless Glenn Close. I love Glenn Close, and she's such a good sport. And she did it with gusto, and she did it with gusto and she sold it. And like, I really admire that. Like it was great vibes, but like, how dare they give this woman an Oscar?

Not for Hillbilly Elegy, please. Yeah, I am. You think she's ever going to get one? I feel like they got to give her one now. Yeah, that's I do feel like the reasoning for her to agree to do this is like, okay, at some point, like I will win you people over one way or another. It's real Charlie Brown

with the football territory right now though. You know, like, please come to our show. It's COVID-19, but just come to our show and dance and sing lines and say lines that we've written for you. I don't know. I mean, I will say you and I are not actors for a number of reasons, including that we've written for you i don't know i mean i will say you and i are not actors for a number of reasons including that we are not attractive or intelligent enough to be

actors but like are those the qualifications i think there are two of them but a third would be that like you like doing this stuff i like i do think they like singing and dancing and they they have fun and they as my friend willa pascott observed like just like don't get embarrassed in the same way that we do and that's why they're out there and so if she enjoyed it then i'm happy for her i'm happy for her too was there anything else from the show that you particularly liked or didn't like well i do wish that they'd done the trivia night earlier in the it seems like a early hour two situation i agree as opposed to like 7 30 and i think at the same time that steven soderbergh was like himself

tweeting out that the show was running over which i you know or something or was he editing simultaneously i don't know what he was doing i don't know but you know once again one of us no one can keep this show under three hours, no matter how many changes you make. It's just not possible. I think they should bring a host back. I'm just going to say it. I think the show needs a host. I think Regina King was de facto for the first 20 minutes of the show. I thought she did a nice job, but I thought the show really came to life once Lil Rel was walking around Union Station and engaging the audience and getting people to laugh. I thought it brought the energy up in the

room a little bit more. I thought it felt a little bit less like funereal slash telethon. I made mention of the telethon idea last week, and it felt a little bit like that at times. There was something a little bit polite and stiff and kind of careful, I thought, through the early stages, especially the way that people were acting. There was a lot of noblesse oblige, I thought. And when he came in and started cracking jokes and Andrew Day started dunking on the Oscars, I thought the show loosened up a little bit. So I agree with you. It could have gone a little bit earlier. And frankly, I thought it could have just used one more of those. One less humanitarian award, one more bit would have gone a long way.

Yeah. Or I think they could have condensed some of the humanitarian award. And I agree with you that the strongest part of it was when the people in the room were interacting, which it is a lot of time to fill with just people in the room interacting. But if that's what you got, lean into it. The produced stuff and the recorded stuff was a bit slower. Okay, let's do some quick listener questions. Later in the week, we'll have a whole mailbag full of questions from you guys.

But just some night of reactions. Bob, you want to hit us with some questions yeah let's do it really quick before we get to questions uh i do have a final tally courtesy of big picture social mvp david lara amanda 15 out of 23 sean 18 out of 23 wow 18 i think that's what i had last year 18 out of 24 not, but not bad. Okay, let's do some questions. This comes from Craig. I believe you guys have kind of already answered this, where the speech is longer than normal.

And then a follow-up question from Tamaror. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Is that a good thing? Was it a good thing that the speeches were longer? I think it was not a bad thing, but not a good thing. I think as you pointed out, Amanda, certain people are just not interesting to listen to speak. And no offense to them. But if you made a small film, it's not your job to be entertaining in front of millions of people on television. And so that is always a challenge

with some of these words. Sometimes you get someone magical who you never had heard of before and wins and gives a remarkable speech. I didn't feel like we had a ton of those this year. There were no like breakout meme icons of this award show. So, yeah. And well, yes. Yeah. I mean, that Glenn Close instant all timer, but you know, that wasn't a speech, but they're also well-known. I mean, people we had never heard of. Sure. Sure. Right. Um, I don't know. What do you think? Would you cut them back next year? I just think that it actually, I liked the moments that actually worked and it's really hard to get those with, with time limits. And I think it's unfair to just kind of make a hierarchy of which categories get as long as they want and which categories only get like 30 seconds.

Cause you're only 30 seconds worth of valuable. Cause you just don't know who's going to be good and who's going to drone on and on and on about an octopus that they don't even name um i think the one thing that they need to do next year is force joaquin phoenix to speak for at least 10 to 12 more minutes because he he just did not look happy to be there he did not look happy to be speaking that was incredible stuff what's next bob it's pretty screwed up that joaquin phoenix was the reigning winner for best actor like that happened 10 years ago joker yeah here we are 2021 this next question comes from hannah it's for amanda specifically which was brad pitt's favorite film of this year well i'm assuming he loved minari because he was involved in it i hope so that's a tough tough, tough look if Brad Pitt doesn't like Minari.

God, I had an answer for this besides Minari, and then I just went blank on it. What do you think, Sean? Extraction starring Chris Hemsworth. Yeah. Available on Netflix. Maybe Spencer for hire. Spencer Confidential.

What's that movie called? Really in a happy season. He loves rom-coms. Yeah, I could see that. Trolls World Tour, probably. Bad Boys for hire. Spencer Confidential. What's that movie called? Really in a happy season. He loves rom-coms. Yeah, I could see that. Trolls World Tour, probably. Sure. Bad Boys for Life. These are all good films.

Mm-hmm. Trolls World Tour is the most overrepresented movie on the big picture. The Andy Reviews asks, who was the most disappointed loser? You know, I didn't see a ton of cutaway shots. You know, what even when we were seeing the faces on camera it seemed like they moved off pretty quickly did anybody jump out to you fincher looked pretty bored at one point um which like yes which i i say with full respect and admiration um i would have he just didn't really have his like i'm on camera face

what a king we love him forever i think sorkin looked very confused during trivia night oh yeah you know and and I think just like the fear of the microphone coming to him which as someone who also just deeply dreads audience participation I do sympathize with Aaron Sorkin in that moment like I would have been under the table like absolutely not but you're right otherwise it was mostly just like kind of catching people in the frame because you know there were always like 10 people behind the frame and i think stephen young really enjoyed glenn close's uh bit as well he was in the back in the background of that so he but he didn't seem disappointed he just seemed like he was having a nice time laughing at comedy.

That reminds me. Was The Trial of the Chicago 7 the only film not recognized with any wins that was nominated for Best Picture? I think it was. I think so. Right? Because you've got Nomadland, obviously. You've got Sound of Metal wins. You've got Mank wins.

You've got Minari wins. You've got Promising Young Woman. you've got the father judas and the black messiah and then trial the chicago seven shut out just as the irishman was a year ago netflix continues on without best picture even in a covet 19 year this is this is it's a thing now it's a thing now yeah what's next just Justin H. Was Riz Ahmed's presenting stint a sneaky Bond audition? And if so,

was it a successful one? I don't think. Are you asking did he look very handsome in, was he wearing a tux or was it just kind of formal wear?

I think it was like a mock turtleneck if I recall. He looked great. Let me just tell you. He did look really good. And all the Soderbergh angles were very flattering to him.

He even made the pre-show look good. So in that sense, yes, sure. Who else did you think had a good look tonight? I thought the men's fashion really outstripped the women's fashion this year. I have to say, I just like a lot of the... I didn't love the color palette in a lot of the women's looks. Angela Bassett being the clear exception. That was the number one for me.

She was crushing. Also, the delivery of her intro to the In Memoriam. I was like, damn, I feel like I'm in a movie. She was just giving it. And Zendaya looked great as well. And people looked beautiful. No one looked bad. But I thought, I mean, Lakeith.

Should we talk about Lakeith? Yeah. Who was in London. I believe, what's he filming in London? I assumed that's mean, Lakeith. Should we talk about Lakeith? Yeah. Who was in London. I believe, what's he filming in London? I assumed that's why he was there. I don't know. I would have assumed he was getting ready to shoot Atlanta. And I just, there were a lot of classic tuxes as well.

People tried. I appreciated it. Once again, Steven Yeun looked great. Did anyone stand out to you? Well, I thought it was an interesting choice for Carerie mulligan to wear a tent to the oscars that was that was a very large dress it was very there was a lot of fabric on that tent yeah um who else looked good harrison ford just looked like he had just crushed like four or five j's right before he came out that was really fun that bit yeah it was good really good really crinkling that paper yeah he was because he had fucking weed rolled up in it before he was reading from it.

But there was that moment. I was just like, oh, my God, Harrison Ford is going to like this is like piloting an airplane. But then he actually landed it. Wow. To continue the airplane metaphor. And the like the joke was good. I thought that it was going to be a old person moment, but it wasn't.

It was good. You know, we always joke about how there's too many montages or not enough montages or too much reference to old Hollywood on the show. That was one of the few moments where you were reminded of another movie that someone had made. It wasn't just like, I saw a movie when I was nine with my mom. It's like Harrison Ford was in Blade Runner. Blade Runner was amazing.

I could have used a couple more of those. I know you don't really care about that historically, but I do like the when we made this movie kind of a montage. So that was a good shout out. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I think that the reason they didn't do it is because they were trying to focus on the movies that were actually nominated. And I did appreciate that. But I also like old movies. Bobby, what's next? David asks, what do you think Daniel Kaluuya and Glenn Close are talking about between the awards presentations? I've given this a lot of thought.

I have to assume they were discussing the Falcon and the Winter Soldier finale. That was probably a big topic of conversation. How was it? Was it good? It was not good. It was, I thought, quite actively bad at times is that consensus or is that just you being mad i think some people are split i thought the midnight boys

were kind of split on the ringer verse um there were a couple of really bad speeches speaking of the oscars during that episode of television so oh okay maybe they were discussing that i don't know maybe they were talking about glenn's work in the world according to Garp. You know, what do you think Kaluuya's favorite Glenn performances are? Fatal Attraction? The Natural? What do you think he likes? Albert Nobbs?

Yeah, I was going to make an Albert Nobbs joke. And then I, for Glenn Close's sake, I just need to move past it. You think that Daniel Kaluuya saw The Wife? No. Well, no one. You and I saw it last minute. And we were the only two humans to see it right so there's no way he saw that i i really hope daniel kaluuya did not see hillbilly elegy

that's one thing i can say i think i wish i hadn't seen it what's next bobby uh chauncey wants to know what other director would you like to see take a crack at producing the oscars um i also have given this question a lot of thought. Okay. The answer is Jim Cameron. It's either Jim Cameron or Chris Ryan pretending to be Jim Cameron. But either way,

I need Jim Cameron's energy. Because I thought Steven Soderbergh brought Soderbergh energy. There was a kind of like vibrant, jazzy score throughout the night. It was very up-tempo,

very funk-influenced. The camera was kind of moving all theazzy score throughout the night you know it was very up-tempo very funk influenced the camera was kind of moving all the time it was unpredictable it kind of had three endings it was it was very Soderberghian in many ways Jim Cameron we're fucking shit up bring Jim out we're going underwater and then we're blowing something up it's gonna I'm gonna love it okay what about you I have two answers now my first was actually going to be david fincher because old hollywood but also total cynicism just like that is that's actually i love steven soderbergh and i loved this but that's what i really want from the oscars um is just old hollywood glamour and meanness um but you've

just also now i want chris to just chris ryan Chris Ryan to do the metal Oscars and just have like the demon host the Oscars do people know about the metal draft can we just talk about it for a second sure we're way down the rear rabbit hole but there is an ongoing tradition I think this is the third year running in which our great NFL writer Danny Kelly Corey McConnell who works on our video team and Christopher Ryan collaborate to make what is for us, frankly, the best picture of every year it's released.

It's called the metal draft. Check it out on the ringers YouTube page. You won't be disappointed. That's all I want to say. It's so special. The whole bit about the bond meets and the cilantro and it's genetic. It's so good. We couldn't even do a podcast afterwards because it would just be me laughing the whole time

Amanda we're almost done hold it together I'm sorry I was just trying to bring some joy into a weird night what's next Bobby Brad asks what first time Oscar winner will have the most Oscar wins when their career is over that's a good question.

First time winner. I mean, you know, Kaluuya is so young. Yeah, I would say Kaluuya is a real contender. I mean, he's so young. He's 32. And literally every movie and every performance he's given has been interesting. Even in stuff like Queen and Slim, which doesn't work, it's still really interesting. So he

very much has that Daniel Day-Lewis like it's an event when he acts in a movie kind of a thing. So he feels like the obvious choice. Yoo Jung Yoon has been making movies for 40 years, so that one seems unlikely. Anthony Hopkins is 83 years old.

He's the oldest winner of an Academy Award and has two. He's not a first-time winner. This is first-time only. Good point. Good point. Francis McDormand is not a first-time winner. What about that octopus? You think that octopus will be back? I'm not. I just need a name.

Just thank the damn octopus. Inky? They talked for so long. They thanked so many people. I think it was just the woman, right? It was just Pippa Ehrlich? Was that her name? No, the problem was also then the other guy talked as well.

And they just kept referencing the octopus, but clearly with not any of the respect that this film purportedly teaches people to have for octopi this is the natural world you being big mad about their speeches would you like the octopus teacher more if it was the metal octopus teacher no i mean yes it would but i'm just yeah i'm being mad also that the octopus teacher won in that category which featured time which i like i think is one of the best movies of last year collective a movie i think is one of the best movies of last year collective a movie I think is one of the best movies of last year Crip Camp a beautiful movie and the mole agent which like

I don't know how that movie was totally legal but we don't have to get into it because it didn't win there should be some sort of a father the mole agent crossover like that should be the sequel it was very sweet but I just had some questions. Okay. I'm trying to think of another first-time winner that could potentially be back here. Her. I mean, Her. That was one of the few shocking wins I thought was that best original song win. I don't know anybody who had that pick. Most people I saw had the Life Ahead Diane Warren song or the song that we both chose, which was from One Night in Miami. So that was pretty shocking. And her is very young as well. I think she's like 23 or 24 years old. Who else? Come on. There's got to be somebody else.

I'm just trying to think through the first time winners. I mean, John Batiste is a first time winner for best score. That seems possible because you also do need to think strategically? I think Kaluuya in terms of just like the person, first time winner who will have like the most performances or, you know, films that like should be nominated. I think Kaluuya like really stands out, but the acting categories like tend to get weird in terms of who gets nominated and who wins and why. But where there is like a smaller pool of nominees like score or you know some of the technical categories is probably smart so that that's a good one i think vinterberg is another

one that we're missing he technically that was his first win he he you could see him again i think in best director that's where because he obviously was nominated tonight you could see him winning if not for international feature he could win because he's also made films in america he's with with american casts. So that also seems, or English cast at least. So that's very plausible. I'm just trying to, I mean, hey, what about Trayvon Free?

You know, friend of the pod, one for best live action short film. Would not be surprised to see Trayvon directing a feature length film in the future. So definitely possible. Congrats to him. Congrats to the Ringers Van Lathan on that one. That was super cool.

Anybody else? I'm just trying to, i'm just scrolling through the list here uh i'm my boy eric messerschmidt from from mank sure yeah i mean no bob's just giving the blankest look of all time i'm trying to answer the question which is who's's going to have the most Oscar wins so that we need not just one more. I think a cinematographer is actually a good pick because they do tend to repeat. Honestly, the real answer is probably Chloe Zhao, who is 39 years old and seems to be at the very beginning of a major, major, major movie career. Obviously, she's going on to make an MCU movie after this. And then after that, I think she's making a Dracula movie. So maybe not anytime

in the next five years, but long term, I would not be stunned to see Chloe Zhao with multiple Oscars on her mantle. What's next, Bobby? Dylan asks, which movie or individual

do you think was most helped or hurt by coming out during COVID? We've talked about this a little bit in the run-up to the Oscars, but now that we've seen who's won, what do you guys think? What do you think was most helped or hurt by coming out during covid we've talked about this a little bit in the run-up to the oscars but now that we've seen who's won what do you guys think what do you think amanda well um ma rainey's black bottom it would seem was not helped by it was clearly positioned in december for an academy run and an academy you know an oscars that happened in February. I think the timeline is one of the things that,

that mess things up here. Um, at least in the case of Chadwick Boseman. So that off the top of my head, what about for you? One thing that strikes me is that promising young woman, Minari and, um,

the father all debuted at Sundance of 2020 and have been living with us for a long time. You know, we have been able to think about those and usually that's a bad thing. Usually films can be overhyped. But the interesting thing about those three films

is that they were essentially held back from audiences to view until late in the year, the fall or even the winter in some cases. And there actually was some like, like you said about the Anthony Hopkins win, I think there was a little bit of like recency

around the excitement around seeing a movie like The Father. You know, I was criticizing Sony Pictures Classics for holding it back for so long, but honestly it might've played in their favor because people felt like, well, I've got a new movie to fire up starring an actor I know very well and i like and that might have boosted it to

the forefront so the long lifespan is not necessarily a bad thing if the release strategy is smart so that could have benefited all three of those films honestly what's next bobby uh we got two-parter next from dean are the days of a single film winning across most or all major categories gone? And the second part of that is what does this say about the way we consume films today and the role of film in today's pop culture? Thank you, Dean. I think the incredible expansion of the Academy

means that the love gets spread around a lot more frequently. In some ways, Nomadland winning for picture, director, and actor is pretty big. That's a pretty strong showing. But it's very difficult now, I think, for a film to run the table. Rita Moreno presented, and they showed a clip

from the forthcoming Steven Spielberg adaptation of West Side Story. West Side Story famously won 10 Oscars. I think only four or five other films have won 10 Oscars. That feels like it's not, it feels very far away, a film to dominate like that. What do you think, Amanda? Yeah, I would agree with that. I think, especially in the technical categories, it really seems like as the Academy has grown that you don't get the sweep down the board, which we've always used as like our early predictor of, okay, well, you know, Titanic has won like every single technical category. I mean, I don't even actually remember whether

Titanic did, but every single technical category, but I'm assuming it did. So and then actor, actress, I just can't imagine them doing all four from a movie from the same movie anymore, just because I don't know. That's not how the narratives are constructed. And it's so little has to do with the performances and what's I mean, the performances have to be good, but I think to our sometimes chagrin, it's really decided on like, whose time is it? Or what's the most interesting thing at the beginning of the season? And the most interesting thing is not four people in the same movie. Yeah. And as to the sort of second part of that question, it basically speaks to a broader existential concept that we've been talking about over the last two years. What does this say about the way we consume films today and the role of film in today's pop culture? Films like television, like music, like many other things are increasingly stratified and personal taste, idiosyncratic taste is more dominant than ever. There's more choice than

ever. It's easier to spend your time consuming what you want specifically tailored for you than ever before. And that is ultimately going to be reflected in the awards races as well. Now, it's possible that a James Cameron-like figure comes along and makes a Titanic, a movie that... There's always going to be a movie, I think, every 15 to 20 years that just completely absorbs the culture. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, that movie really was Avengers Endgame. That was the movie that $2 billion worth of humans watched, and that overtook Avatar, which overtook Titanic. There's always going to be a generational mega blockbuster that historically gets awards

attention. Comic book movies historically do not will the next one be a comic book movie or will it be an original story or will it be made by a grand master of film we'll have to wait and see that leads us right to our final question from justin r just an unfair question but someone had to ask it way too early prediction of for best picture 2022 you got something in mind? House of Gucci. Let's roll. Wow. I'm on the Chris Ryan train. Now all I do is send Chris set pictures from House of Gucci.

Lady Gaga is having the time of her life. Or it just looks like it by the various paparazzi photos and what I'm reflecting on to them as a person who can't be in Italy right now on the set of House of Gucci. Ridley Scott, like Anthony Hopkins, is 83 years old and he has not been nominated for best director since 2002 for Black Hawk Down. So that would be a solid 20 year gap if that were the case. I am not going with House of Gucci. Okay, that's your loss. That doesn't mean I'm not going with House of Gucci. Okay. That's your loss. That doesn't mean I'm not going to enjoy it. Right now, it's a coin flip between Clifford the Big Red Dog and...

I mean, why not just say it? Why not just say Soggy Bottom? This will be the year of Paul Thomas Anderson. You know, Amanda, we're going to prepare for between 14 and 18 episodes about Paul Thomas Anderson on the show, which is really exciting. Why not make that run all the way through the Academy Awards season? What do you say? I like Paul Thomas Anderson. I'm looking forward to this film. Sounds fantastic. Amanda, any final thoughts on the 93rd Academy Awards?

A roller coaster of emotions. I feel weirdly at peace about it now, which, so I guess we've, you know, we've talked through some of our issues. I just want to say, if you were like really mad about the first hour of this show, then that's on you. It was delightful. That's then, then embrace it guys. Where is your movie love to quote Steven Soderbergh? Is that veiled attack directed at me?

No, it's more just like the people who dip in are just like wow and i'm just saying we you know movies watch them and then watch awards shows about them thanks as always for watching movies for dipping in to hear us talk about this awards race although not as much as we historically do thank you so much to bobby wagner for guiding us through this episode and all episodes. Thank you for listening as always to The Big Picture. I appreciate it. Amanda, I appreciate you. Please tune into The Big Picture later this week when we'll be talking about another cinematic masterpiece. I'm talking, of course, about Mortal Kombat. See you then. Thank you.