The Big Picture - The ‘Barbie’ Freak-Out, Oscar Nominations Mailbag, and ‘The Zone of Interest’

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Sean and Amanda open the mailbag to answer lingering questions about the Oscar nominations, including the growing fervor around Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s failure to be nominated for ‘Barbie,’ why ‘The Iron Claw’ received no nominations, which film could surprise at the awards, and more (1:00). Then, Sean gives a quick recap of what he saw at the Sundance Film Festival (1:13:00) before they finally do a full deep dive into Jonathan Glazer’s ‘The Zone of Interest’ (1:22:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did Don Draper really buy the world a Coke? Did Tony Soprano really die? Or just order more onion rings? The finales of our favorite shows can make us argue, make us cry, and make us crazy. From Spotify and The Ringer, I'm Andy Greenwald, and this is Stick the Landing, a new podcast where we'll be telling the story of modern TV backwards, one fade out at a time. Find Stick the Landing on Wednesdays on the Prestige TV feed, on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Oscar nominations, the zone of interest, Sundance, and Hillary Clinton, of course. I asked you guys to stay offline. You know, I asked you. I told you not to post. And look, here we are.

Once again, somehow roped into the same-ish box as Hillary Clinton. That's what I'm angry about. As I said, I was not angry about the nominations. I understood. I didn't agree with all of it. But I am fucking angry that somehow I had to deal with Hillary Clinton again. Hillary Clinton, go do something. Like, honestly, we have problems.

I'm serious. Like, multiple horrific conflicts in the world climate change like if if it needs to be a girl boss thing then like pay equity maternal health the fact like the fact that it takes six months to get a gynecologist appointment i'm still paying taxes on tampons like there are a lot of issues but not this get go away go do something you were so calm before we started recording and and as soon as as soon as i said one human's name this all came furling out incredible rant from you uh i'm referring to say it i think that was the greatest moment in the history of the big picture i'm just gonna put it right down

that has the belt i just had a strong suspicion that picture. I'm just going to put it right down. That has the belt. I had a strong suspicion that if I opened this way, I might elicit what a lot of people wanted from you, from the conversation about the Oscar nominations. They wanted fire, brimstone, rage. How dare they not recognize Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie. You, seasoned and thoughtful Oscar pundit, you understood understood you knew

why like in the world i guys and this is a made-up awards show it got eight nominations i i said tuesday morning and i'll say again i in the best director slot i don't know who i would take it away from to give to greta we got some questions about the acting categories and i know exactly who i would take it away from to give it to margo but like it's it's i was disappointed i said so but also i understood how it happened and also i found the discourse afterwards to just be absolutely uh horrifying it was just very stupid well stupid and annoying and i was like oh this is why i don't like things or like try to join in things that other people like. This is why like I don't. Well, you put your finger on something there.

Exactly. Because like this is just, do I need to be affiliated with all of this? Including Hillary fucking Clinton. Yeah. You've always been a non-joiner. Yeah. As long as I've known you. Yeah.

And you tried, I thought, in a very spirited and careful way to celebrate Barbie and what Barbie accomplishes. But when things like this get big, this is what happens. I really liked Barbie. And I also think that a tremendous amount of skill and intelligence and craft went into making Barbie. Of course. I really do.

And I understand that other people don't. And it might be a type of writing humor it might be perspective it i mean it's certainly perspective and life experience but also just it might be that i respond to that type of production design um in a way that other people do not i the obvious comp here is like this is a mini Dark Knight storm, you know, just in terms of like a group of people feeling that they were not

they were interested in movies and what they were interested in movies was like not recognized at the Academy, which is you know, just poetic given that this is the year that Christopher Nolan is finally getting his makeup for Dark Knight. But anyway, I have been thinking— And frankly, 10 years from now, Greta Gerwig will make an interesting biopic of Susan B. Anthony,

and it'll be audacious and interesting, and then she will be recognized. So I think, like, sociologically, pop culture-wise, that's what's happening. But for me, I was thinking a lot about how Barbie was my number two movie of the year, and Spider-Verse was yours. me i was thinking a lot about how barbie was my number two movie of the year and spider verse was yours and spider verse is also like an extraordinarily achievement of filmmaking and really beautiful and like i don't respond to that type of filmmaking in the same way so there is something and i'm not equating them or saying that one's better than the other but it's just kind of like there's correlation yeah i see the achievement in barbie and other people

don't like that that's fine. Yeah, I think... Let's set the discourse aside for a second because I frankly don't want to spend very much time on that. It's as bad faith as all of those conversations are. What's relevant, I think, is the fact that there was this kind of outcry

even within the community, Ryan Gosling releasing a statement in the aftermath of the nominations. I mean, that's just an awkward position to be put in where you as Ken get nominated and the other two don't. If you don't acknowledge it, you're also in trouble. It would have been weird. Yeah, it definitely would have been a little weird. But it stirred up a big conversation. And I think you're 100% right. You nailed it. It feels very similar to the conversation when The Dark Knight was not nominated

for Best Picture, which then led to significant Academy changes. They have reshaped how they nominate movies and actors and filmmakers now. I completely agree with you about the director's slate. It's one of the best director's slates in recent times. It's very exciting.

I was joking about the European nature of the Academy Awards lately because other European nations do have their own film awards. And as the Academy considers itself like the world body, even though its 100-year history does not reflect that,

it's amusing to me now that films that are made in the German language or the French language are now just as capable, if not more capable, of competing in Best Picture. But Justine Trieu being nominated is a historic moment in many ways.

So did it come at the expense of Greta Gerwig? I guess, insofar as only five people can be nominated. But also at the expense of Alexander Payne. You know, like, I mean, there were many people in the mix. And another thing where people have been like, we need to do the replace, Justine took the slot for Greta. I mean, like, that sucks. That sucks for all of us.

That's what I mean about the bad things. You know, I just like, it sucks. And I think, obviously, the America for Era nomination also triggered, for me personally, just genuine confusion. It doesn't make sense, right? Like, logically, in terms of how we're checking boxes, I just don't mathematically. Even though I really liked her. I think I even, I was thinking about this last night as I fell asleep, which just gives you another insight into my mind.

You've been Sean-pilled. No, no, I was, no, not quite. I was thinking about how I do think I put that on my very early Wild Swing predictions. Oh, did you? Yeah. Oh, well, great call. I know. So that worked out for me.

It's a W. Yeah, that's one. We haven't returned to those. We'll wait to return to our big Oscar bet after the awards. I don't feel great about them. I don't think we did very well. Nevertheless, speaking of Spider-Verse, I had Spider-Verse in my best picture slate there. Listen, it's good to dream.

It didn't work out. And it's good to love what you love and then to not talk to other people about it. It's been fun and exciting, though, that so many people care about these awards. And I think it's unfortunate that some of the so-called snubs drove some of the conversation, but I care about the Academy Awards to this day. And this is one of the best slates of Academy Award nominations in its history. It was a very exciting year for film. I pretty much liked every single movie that is nominated for best picture, if not loved. Many of the films that are in my top 20 are in that list. I had to think through it, but yeah, I did too.

And I think we're now at a place where, you know, movies like Maestro, which we sort of, we really admire, but have complicated feelings about, we're now sort of like dinging maybe harder than we would have. It's fine. Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hadid flew to London yesterday together. So they're just, they're thriving. Do you have a Bradley tracker? I read the internet. Okay.

Okay. Like I read everybody's bad takes and I got very angry. And then I went and I looked at tabloids, which is another form of self-hate and also, you know, collective disintegration, but that's okay. I still read them. And I saw that Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hedede were headed off together with her bodyguard and Bradley was hugging her bodyguard. I see.

At JFK. I'm happy for both of them. Me too. I'm happy for the listeners of the show. They had so many questions. We asked, we opened the mailbag. Look at you. And they- Look at you.

They had a lot to say. Bobby Wagner is here to help us answer some of those questions. Can I say something? I noticed that people were like, what was Amanda on, on Tuesday morning? What were you on? I thought I was like pretty normal. And you don't think I was normal? I thought you were great. I thought, I mean, I thought I was like restrained. Was there like something unusual to my performance?

I think you're on something today, pretty clearly. I'm like really hot now because I got so upset. You really just turned it on. I just. It was like Daniel Day-Lewis waiting in the wings before a big speech and there will be blood. It's like I knew it was coming and I had really not. You texted it to us and Bobby and I just. I was like, our episode is made now.

As soon as that happened, I was like, yes, they've done it again. Big Hillary has delivered. Hashtag. Was it hashtag hillary barbie or barbie hillary hillary hillary barbie what was the what was the intention there was that that they are going to run on a ticket together you know what another thing that just made me so angry about it was like it was a full it took them 24 hours for whatever team of people she's assembled to not solve any of the world's problems and instead sit together and workshop that. What are you talking about? What's she supposed to do?

Literally anything. Oh, my God. Fucking tweet about something that matters. And not your... I feel this way a little bit about Obama, too, as the years go on. Oh, wow. You're digging into jmo territory listen i'm not i am not a serious person i can't do the serious jobs you know obama was also snubbed

with uh with american symphony i'll have you know no nominations for higher yeah actually that's not true there was one song nomination i lied but i'm just like i so does that mean that obama and hillary are competing in best song? I guess so. We don't know if Barbie the film has accepted Hillary Barbie, the hashtag. I think Obama and Obama can't run again. We should change the rules and we should have them both enter the race this fall as well, I think. Honestly, like that would be better than this. I do this because I can't.

I trust you it won't be better than this. You're right, it won't. Well, but it won't be better than this. You're right. It won't. Well, but it's like, can you make that situation worse? I guess so. I guess so. I think we could. I think we could find some ways.

Probably we could. This is going to be a chaotic episode. We have this mailbag. I've been watching Sundance movies. I'll share some Sundance thoughts. And then we're going to talk about the zone of interest. Because even though it is still not widely seen, it is widely nominated and one of the best movies of the year. So we're going to talk through it for those in the world who have seen it.

And if you haven't, you can return to this episode and listen to it. It'll come at the end. You can also listen to my interview with Jonathan Glazer, the nominated filmmaker behind the movie, and the sound designer, Johnny Byrne, also nominated, which I did on our Wonka episode, which is definitely the coolest episode of 2023 as I look back on the year that we had together.

Perfect spot for that interview. Couldn't have placed it anywhere better myself. I like to, as you know, Bobby, after many years

of doing this together, I love to put two weird things together. That's my flavor. Wonka is going to be on streaming soon. And I was thinking about showing it to Knox.

Did I tell you that Knox... So guys, so Knox has officially seen a movie. Oh, great. Yeah. And it was Singing in the Rain. The whole thing? Yeah, he sat down. We didn't do it all at once, but we did like one hour and then the other hour.

And the fact that he had seen some of the clips before was very helpful in him latching on and then trying to figure out what was going on around it um he was mostly like really excited when you know make him laugh would come on or anything with an umbrella because an umbrella is one of his favorite things in the world right now in any form um just like the the actual umbrella the song umbrella by jay-z um and rihanna but he does the uh-huh uh-huh ad-lib when he wants to listen to it it's like a really rich cultural time at nox's house anyway so somehow he thinks that like when he says movie he just means singing in the rain now that's like the only movie that he. So he's like movie and then I put on Singing in the Rain and I don't know whether

I want to show him another movie because I think there's... Well, we got to get him out to a screening of Singing in the Rain. I think there's... Well, I know. You should just cut... Now it's time to cut straight to Babylon.

He's right there. He's seen Singing in the Rain. It's fucking Babylon time. It's a great call. Speaking of Margot Robbie snubs, you know. Okay. Well, I don't think there were

any questions for Knox here, unfortunately. Okay. I just, you know, Wonka maybe will be his second movie that's actually despicable it is and honestly but i thought about mary poppins he also loves mary poppins is great that's i know but it that's like a slow start okay it's it's like a good 25 minutes if i have problems at the bank before mary poppins shows up you know i see so i haven't seen mary poppins you could just you could just skip that he is like three you know well that's what we do now but you know i'm trying to encourage like he sits on the couch with us we sit down it's movie you

know you should do some bulgarian slow cinema okay you know You know? Or maybe some Carl Theodore dryer. Let's call this the Sixers game that's on in my house every fucking night. Joel Embiid at the free throw line. What's the difference? All right, Bob.

Give us some questions. How'd you choose these? As I do every time, I scroll through every single reply to the tweet because I am an honest proprietor of questions

for the Big Picture Mailbag and I pick the ones that I think are going to elicit the best responses from you guys. Great. That's what I do every time. That's my characteristics. So if you're submitting a question, don't submit a question for yourself.

Submit a question that will make Amanda have a meltdown similar to the Hillary Clinton moment. First question comes from Susan. After this year and last year, are the Oscars just going to be this predictable for the foreseeable future? And do you think the Academy cares enough to make a change? I mean, they're predictable until they're not.

I agree. It's like 2019 was extremely predictable until Bong Joon-ho won Best Director and we turned to each other and we were like, oh my God, this is happening. And then Parasite won Best Picture. And there are instances of that, you know, Moonlight and La La Land. La La Land was like the behemoth. And that was a surprise in a very memorable way. So I think the other thing is that, you know, if you're listening to this podcast and submitting a question, then you're also really locked in.

So some of it's on you. Not on you. It's on us. Like, we're all paying attention and we've gotten pretty good at this. Yes. Despite the demeanor of the show, I think we actually take it quite seriously. And so we read a lot and we are closely following it. So it feels more predictable. And I think also the movie going public has become more aware of the concept of precursors and social media has allowed people access to things like the Gotham Awards.

Like no one knew about 10 years ago. They didn't really follow these kinds of things as closely as we do now. So it feels more predictable. And frankly, the Producers Guild is something that if you know about that, it charts the path for the most part to almost always at least eight of the nominees. And so the Best Picture race in particular felt very predictable once that came through this year. The show itself would benefit, I think, from a couple of surprise wins, but there's no way to manifest that. There's not a person that isn't organizing the way that the voting is played out. And the campaigning is so complicated that it's easy to see the direction things are heading in. I think I made this point

in a meeting I was in the other day where someone was asking me about the nominations. And I was like, I think I got like 21 of 23 guesses right last year about the awards. There's just like the betting markets are clear. The precursors are clear. There's just a lot of stuff out there. What can the Academy do to change this? Push the show up. Push the show up.

Push the show up to January that's the only way to fix this is to have the voting entirely done in December and make sure that the movies are in the hands of the people that are voting

and do away with all these precursors it's fun for us to make fun of the Golden Globes and to chart SAG nominations but like who gives a shit about that stuff

this show and that the industry ultimately cares about Oscars so move it up I there's a counter example from this year which is that the Emmys were 10 days after the Golden Globes. Yes.

Maybe two weeks, but very, very close afterwards. And they were even, the Emmys this year were honoring like half a different season than the Golden Globes. They were delayed four months. I mean, number one, the Emmys got to fix their eligibility window. Number two, they should actually be in January. But it was confusing, but it was almost exactly a repeat in the TV categories. Now, there are some reasons for that. There's just so much TV that people just watch three shows and then vote for them. It's very similar to the Oscars this year, where it's been Oppenheimer all the way down this year in the same way it was going to be Succession all the way down.

And some of that is honestly, I think on both sides, the Golden Globes just fighting for any sort of legitimacy and, you know, revenue in the future. And so they played it really, really safe this year and sort of copycatted what they thought the Oscars would be. But, you know, that's a Golden Globes problem, of which there's always one, not an Academy problem. So, I mean, moving it up would just be better for us and probably better for movies. Well, this interesting thing has kind of calcified around Hollywood where, you know, the release date is so bad this month. Even by the standards of Dumpuary,

there's nothing. There was nothing last Friday. There is nothing this Friday. What the fuck, man? And why are there some weeks where

there are five wide-release films and there are multiple weeks this year where there are no wide-release films or if there is one, it's from, like,

Lionsgate? That's weird. It's because... I mean, I understand financially, is one, it's from like Lionsgate. That, that's weird. And it's because, I mean, I understand, but a January Lionsgate release is very different from, you know, an October Warner Brothers release.

So I say that because everybody has accepted that most of the tools that go into marketing, promotion, you know, publicity are going towards things like Sundance and things like the awards at this time of year. And it's just become the schedule. It's just the schedule of the world, the same way that the NBA has a schedule of the season and free agency and the draft. And then there's like six weeks where nothing happens. Movies have a very similar kind of schedule. These are real people working in real jobs, and there's only so many people to do the work. So if you allocate January to March,

it means shows like ours only talk about the same movies over and over again because no new movies come out, and we're talking about the awards race. And frankly, we get sick of it, and other people get sick of it, and we start like warping our opinions of the movies because we've been talking about them so much. And it's also not good for the talent because the talent fucking hate this. The people that are nominated hate having to go to 100 events in 39 days.

That's not fun. It's fucking annoying. So I think it's a mistake. I've been saying for years they should move it up. But if it starts to feel like a fait accompli completely with the show, that's not good for the show either. So I think it's a good question

insofar as a change I personally think should be made. I agree with you. The only thing is it's an amazing advertisement campaign for the movies that do make it to like award season and to the nominations. And, you know, we see how people see movies now. So January and February are kind of reserved for being like, oh, well, I guess I should go see poor things or how can I go find... There's fewer and fewer of those, though. You were the first person who said to me, like, December doesn't work anymore. And for the most part, it doesn't. I mean, that's true.

But right now, like, for example, I went to see Zone of Interest again yesterday in order to prepare for this podcast. And it was like a very noticeably fuller screening. You know, I live in Los Angeles. People are paying attention to awards and that sort of thing. But it was still a weekday the middle of the day and almost every other movie at the theater besides mean girls was an oscar-nominated movie or an award season movie and it like it is clear that there is theater business on a on a smaller scale but like i don't know what other scale these movies are going to have a chance to be seen in theaters. Just contextually, it used to be a lot different. There was always historically.

Everything used to be different. But like the Oscar nominated movies used to do better business for a variety of reasons. This year in particular is unusual because the two biggest box office drivers that are nominated came out in July. Right. So there's not that like carryover where you're going to see movies for the next couple of months that came out nine months ago that doesn't exist anymore. Part of it though is that it's like they've made room for the awards films to play in theaters right now but most people have already seen those awards films so they're not releasing any new movies which I don't think is a good strategy for movies or movie theaters. Just citing it. Okay. What's the next question? Blake wants to know, the Oscars almost always have one big surprise win. We're just talking about how predictable it is and how sometimes there is a surprise that sneaks in there. What will be this year's surprise win? You got a guess?

I don't see one. I think Best Actress, there are two ways that it could go. And I don't, it could go to Emma Stone or it could go to Lily Gladstone. And you and I have kind of seesawed back and forth on where we think it's it's gonna be so that could be a surprise one way or the other just in that we're not 100% sure I know that you feel pretty sure at this point that it's gonna be Emma Stone I I do think there is some momentum there. I think it's a race.

I definitely think it's a race. So I guess that counts. Screenplay? I mean, is that like a big surprise? Like for us, that's fun. But that's what I mean. This is what happened last year. Like it just, everything got very clear.

And then we had kind of a dull night. Yeah. And it feels like we may be repeating that that process okay so i don't i don't see any i mean i i guess what is screenplay now is it an anatomy of a fall versus the holdovers i think so and then adapted is barbie versus oppenheimer versus american fiction maybe yeah and that i mean but seeing core Jefferson up there for American fiction that'd be awesome yeah by the way American fiction got five nominations that's a very exciting thing yeah um or seeing I I guess like seeing Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach up there for Barbie would be entertaining it would it would be it would be entertaining um who do

you think is going to be seated in the front row? This was kind of related to a question that was asked that is related to me of the future winners. I think that Margot Robbie will be seated. You think so? Yeah. Not nominated? Well, but she was nominated for Barbie. Yeah, but it's not going to win.

Well, she's really famous. I know. That's even worse to me than what you pointed out with the Globes with giving it the Cinematic Achievement Award or the Box Office Achievement Award. Yeah, I agree, but they're, you know, trying to have their cake and eat it 14 different ways. See, I thought RDJ. I'm sure he will as well. I thought Danny would be, like, in the Jack Nicholson seat. Okay, there's more than one

from Roe's team, you know? In fact, there's, like, an entire row. But you wouldn't put Robert Downey Jr. next to Margot Robbie, for example. And there's for example and there's like there's a zone a zone of interest one might say okay okay so if you're looking if it's the camera shot like from the stage onto the front row in that in that center orchestra section who's at the 50 yard line who's at the fifth it would be robert downey jr i agree with that but i think you're gonna have margot robbie she's at the 40. No, she's on aisle left.

Oh, okay. Which is also a prime spot. Yeah. Where like when the host comes down and does bits. Exactly. Yeah, and Margot can get involved. Yeah. Wow, okay.

That's interesting. Okay, Bob, what's the next question? Sorry to jump on that one, but it's notable to who we think is going to win. Jacob asks, how are best international feature film contenders selected by other countries? Made a little joke about

how it was just a bunch of dudes named Jacques in a room for France. I don't think that's actually true. Actually not. The ASAS was on the selection committee for France this year. If the United States got to institute a similar procedure

and compete in the category, which film do you think would have been selected? That's a really good question. I thought that was a fun little wrinkle. Yeah, I like that part of the question. oppenheimer it's really that's not you think you think without question yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so there's a really great piece in variety called anatomy of a fail inside france's dysfunctional oscar committee by elsa caslassie

that was published yesterday and goes into the headline yeah it's it's really good and also it has it has like a lot of the um the tea if you will about the specific france situation which i think is like funny and also not totally representative in general the process is there is like a a nominating committee on each country and the names of the committee have to be submitted to the academy by a certain day. And it's, you know, related to like a national film board or Luminaire, but it can vary. Yeah, some countries do it by way of the film industry and some do it in a kind of nationally organized governmental body, like a ministry of culture will do it sometimes. And then they vote and that like that board votes every year and this year in france

it came down to a 4-3 vote between anatomy of a fall and the taste of things and taste of things won and then apparently someone asked if they could change their vote after the fact and that was declined it's also been noted that justine trier when she won the palm door at can gave a um a political speech that some of france's old guard did not seem to appreciate and it became a big deal in france at at time. And so it suggested that the elder statesman on the French selection committee perhaps had some residual feelings. I see. Were the contents of the political speech around the film Barbie? Was it all about Barbie and Margot Robbie? So I think that's what happened. we got a lot of questions about this like this isn't the olympics like do you think france cares that much no like that that's kind

of the thing like france has its own like vibrant cinematic like community they have their own awards they like have plenty of things i don't i don't know if it's the most nominated films one of the most nominated films at the cesésar is the French Oscars is Anatomy of a Fall. It's Anatomy of a Fall. But like, first of all, does France really care that much whether or not they're winning?

No. But also, it is sort of like, the Anatomy of a Fall was nominated for Best Picture, for Best Director, for like Best Screenplay.

Like, why do they care about the international film? I don't know if the nation of france cares or even the french film industry i think people who follow these things closely care because it's clear that the zone of interest versus anatomy of the fall is a very exciting race and it would be a way to make that race exciting and now it feels decided in some ways and also obviously if anatomy of the fall is nominated for best picture how could it not be logically the best film out of france from that year according to the voters of the academy i don't know i also like that first of all i'm not saying i agree with that things was snubbed and i

think it would have been very cool to have the taste of things in international film and anatomy of a fall competing in that you know and i predicted that and thought and that seems like a decent strategic play on the part of the... This is related to a lot of questions around this issue that I think are quite fascinating. One, The Taste of Things definitely is a little bit more of an old guard selection. You know, Babette's Feast famously won Best International Feature, but it was then Best Foreign Language Feature at the Oscars. It is a film in that tradition.

A film more classically composed, more stately, emotional, elegant. Anatomy of a Fall is a very contemporary kind of a film, very in-your-face, very not just politically charged, but intellectually challenging. And it's also a movie that has kind of fit into our modern way of understanding movies insofar as it has been memed.

There are fan cams of Sandra Huller in that movie so those are all made by me I made every single one of those and distributed them to people

to make it viral you did great and they're all set to that PIMP instrumental which is fucking thanks and so you know they've got to do

a live performance of that like they're cowards if they don't have like a whole steel drum choir, like walking down the aisles. It's a really good idea. And like,

and then dancing in front. Let Amanda produce the Oscars. So I think, I think it revealed like the difference. It's not just that the, it's not just the old guard of the French selection committee, but the old guard of the Academy Awards in some ways. And the Academy has changed.

They want Anatomy of a Fall. That's the kind of movie that they want. So the bigger question that is coming up, and Bob, maybe you can ask it now. and the Academy's changed. They want Anatomy of a Fall. That's the kind of movie that they want. So, the bigger question that is coming up and Bob, maybe you can ask it now, it's kind of like

the how of this thing. Like, and how should it change if it should change? Yeah, there was a follow-up question here from Scott. How soon do the Oscars

need to change the international feature category rules that limit it to one film per country? So, this is like a big existential question to me. Yeah.

That is related to a lot of what I've been talking about for five years about how they changed the Academy. And by changing the Academy, they've in some ways negated the International Feature Film Award. Right. You know, if Parasite can win International Feature, why does it need to win Best Picture or vice versa? Maybe more appropriately.

I think, yeah, more appropriately. I mean, it is starting to feel a little bit like a JV award. Yes. Or a little bit like the reverse of the popular Oscar award. The Academy is a U.S. body, but it's so international now. And it is understanding international cinema more widely and more interestingly. Now, you know, I will say that we are all of them. Well, I guess that's not true.

Parasite won Best Picture and is a Korean film. But the race is between two European or the films. I don't want to get into Brexit right now. But the UK. The international feature race. Sure, yes. The international feature race is between the UK and a French film.

Get into Brexit, go ahead. Why not? You've already gotten into climate change and gynecological futures. What's stopping you from getting into Brexit? Why am I paying taxes on tampons? Or diapers, for that matter. That's not just a women's issue.

That's a parent's issue. But why are we paying taxes on diapers? You should do the Tea Party, but for second wave feminism. I learned while you guys were talking about this justine trier's rant was against um the neoliberal french government how they're cracking down too hard on protests which at which point i was like give her the fucking oscar just amanda hobby thriving this morning thank you justine scene um so you could see a world in which the if you allowed multiple countries that the international feature is over indexed on european film in fact it like historically at least two every year at least two often three and sometimes even four of the films are from europe now there's

a reason for that there's a a long history and an established industry of European filmmaking. So, of course, films from France, films from Italy, films from places like Denmark that have a tradition of cinema are going to be more likely to produce strong candidates. the idea behind limiting it to one country is so that in the event that Bhutan has a compelling candidate or Romania or someone that a place that doesn't have as robust an industry could compete and I think that's broadly a good thing but when I start thinking about that

it just makes me think that it's a pointless endeavor and I'm not saying that this should only be a US film awards I think if you want to make the academy the body of world cinema which is what it is slowly creeping towards over time do it and get rid of this award i agree with you or i agree with you it just it feels vestigial at this point it does it does and it doesn't mean that it's not revealing great work by doing so but there's just a way to do it by adding more awards which i think is a question that somebody else asked here which we get every year which is

like and we are just pro. Add more awards. Yeah. Okay, Bob, what's next? Jonathan wants to know, why does it seem like each year we get fewer movies, increasingly nominated for more awards? Are voters seeing less movies? Did they just have more aligned taste?

It seems like we used to get more outliers, Jonathan says. I don't know if that's actually true, but I do think that the machine is smarter. So that the PR and marketing forces that are working on this know how to circle the wagons and do the work. We alluded to the Netflix acting nominations this year that came through. Nothing against those performances, but like Netflix is good at campaigning for performances. And so it's not surprising that they just sort of landed on Coleman Domingo and Jodie Foster and Annette Bening

and lo and behold, they are there. So I think that that's, it can't go overlooked how good they are at strategizing at this point. Right. And it does also feel

increasingly like a movie does not get made unless it's either in the bucket of IP box office or predetermined awards bait. Here is our strategy for how we will market this, where we will release it, how we will campaign everyone. So I guess, I guess Jonathan is correct that you, you have fewer like total rando movies, but that's also just because those movies

don't get made at all anymore. Yeah, I think there's just a haves and have nots in a very clear way right now. And there are fewer big studios than there ever have been. I shouldn't say than there ever have been, than there were 30, 40 years ago because of the consolidation

that's been happening over time, which is one of the reasons why like A24 and Neon have been able to compete so much more because there are fewer contenders promoting movies which is i guess related to another question i don't know if we want to go to that question now too bob yes relatedly uh the most asked question in the mailbag was what happened to iron claw so i wrote this question here from kirby but there was about 15 people who asked um any insight as to why the Iron Claw got absolutely zero nominations? Seems crazy to me.

Do you think that that is revealing of the listenership of the show? That they might have emotional connections to Iron Claw? Yeah. Yeah. Or that they're just more aware of it than a lot of people. I mean, it's doing good box office, but I think it was not aimed at the traditional awards audience. I think some of its strength was that it opened up A24 to new audiences, specifically wrestling audiences. And it just also was so late in the awards season.

The release slot they gave it was mid-December. And we've talked time and time again of that is too late. Combined with the fact that A24 had a lot of great movies this year, and they bet on the other horses, I guess, in the form of past lives. like a fascinating one. And that campaign defies all of our rules and basically all established understanding of the Oscars. But it's exceptional in a lot of ways. And we can talk about that. We certainly will talk about it soon. I think the unusual nature of a zone of interest is probably one of the reasons why the Aaron Cullen never had a chance.

And I know that a24 always believed in the zone of interest um and that this is like a long gestating project and deserve to have the support that it got the big difference is that the iron claw did not premiere at a festival and so there was not this sense of inevitability around things like poor things or maestro or um you know or zone or i mean almost all of the other titles that are not Barbie and Oppenheimer premiered at festivals. We talked about them after having seen them at festivals and excitedly said, I can't wait to talk about this for two and a half months until people could get a chance to see it. That's powerful, you know, and it's very unusual for a

film to get this kind of attention if it doesn't have that kind of blockbuster to be a middle movie you know iron claw i love because it's a middle movie it's a it's what i talk about that we don't have all the time and something i'm really appreciative of and grateful for that we got it but it didn't get to go through the system the same way that rain man went through the system however many years ago which was kind of a middle movie that became a blockbuster in part because of the way that it was celebrated right so you know i guess it's sad i think it was so clear to me that there was a world in which it premiered at toronto wins the audience award zach efron's campaign makes a lot of sense it may not have been ready by then i was also going to ask and it may have been immaterial but like did it

have a waiver because that's another situation where you get zach efron out it may have been immaterial, but did it have a waiver? Because that's another situation where you get Zac Efron out. It should have. Two to three months before, 8-24 maybe. I know, but I think the process of getting a waiver and maybe they just... I don't know. So can you give him a magazine cover? Can you start the Harris-Dickinson wave? It's a very good point.

They may have held it specifically for that reason, although it didn't stop Searchlight from showing poor things at festivals, you know? Like, they still did that and then released it in December. And that seemed to work out fine. Yeah, but you can't bank on promoting, like, all those adorable boys, frankly,

in the same way that you did Emma Stone. What if I just turned to my left to tell you right then Zac Efron was sitting there? I was like, can we take a picture for Bob? I want him to see our two incredible Adonis-like bodies side by side. Just both of you just flexing the biceps next to each other.

A little comparison. That would have been great. This is going to seem obvious for me, but it's amazing what A24 is able to do now. It is amazing. If you can pull yourself out of the cult of A24 and the A24 film bro idea do now. It is amazing. If you can pull yourself out of the like cult of A24 and the A24 film bro idea, it's,

they are, this is a small company. Like, this is not a massive corporation. And it's not just film bro. Three of my five movie, like top five movies of the year were A24 films directed by women.

So, you know, I guess it's like film girl bro by a little bit. But that's fine. It may not be permanent, but they have changed Hollywood. I mean, Moonlight changed Hollywood. It's a remarkable thing that happened. So, you know, I guess it's like film girl bro by a little bit. But that's fine. It may not be permanent, but they have changed Hollywood. I mean, Moonlight changed Hollywood.

It's a remarkable thing that happened. So pretty cool. Even though the Iron Claw just has to settle for making $35 million at the box office, I guess. Okay, Bob, what's next? Do you want to go into history a little bit here? I know this is a great year for Best Picture. We actually like all of these movies. I made a list.

I have so many. I have so many. This list is so long. I was born for this question. Okay. Well, we got a question from Grace. What do you think is the greatest best picture lineup of all time? Okay, what do you think is number one?

Is this your Grace? I don't think so. It is not. She's not on Twitter, I don't think. Thank God. Okay. I thought that she was, but she just didn't check very often. I mean, it's between 75 and 76, right? Okay. I thought that she was, but she just didn't check very often. I mean, it's between 75 and 76, right?

Okay. So I think that the conversation... And it's probably 75, but the ringer answer is 76. I think 75, 76, and 77 is the greatest consecutive run of Best Picture nominees. I will read those. Now, I don't know if if these would be at my winner though so 75 which is the films from 74 is the godfather 2 chinatown the conversation lenny and the towering okay i was so you're thinking of yes but yeah but i was yeah i was thinking i think that this one's part of it. I think that this one has to come first. I agree with you, but we were using different reference numbers.

Yes. So the films of 75, which occurred in 76, this is probably the most, this is the one that everyone points to. This is, I mean, this is it. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, and Nashville. Now, this is the kind of year that when I was learning about Oscar history as a teenager, I was like, wow, the Oscars are cool. The Oscars are amazing.

So Jaws and Wonderful of the Cuckoo's Nest, which were big movies for me as a teenager. And then when you discover Nashville at 16, and then you discover Barry Lyndon at 19, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, fucking wow, the Oscars were so amazing. And then you get into the 80s and you're like, wow, the Oscars are so terrible and boring.

But in the following year in 77, also an incredible lineup, Rocky wins over all the President's Men, Bound for Glory, Network, and Taxi Driver. Very exciting stuff. And this was when it was only five, obviously. I have a bunch of other candidates. Do you have any other candidates you want to cite? Yeah, I do. So I guess I'm saying 1968, which honored the films of 1967. Okay. Fire away. In the heat of the night, Bonnie and Clyde, Dr. Doolittle, why not? The Graduate, and guess who's coming to dinner? There's a wonderful book about this called Pictures of the Revolution by Mark Harris. Okay. I was looking for a 90s one. I have one. So, the films of 1994. So, it would have been 1995.

This was on my list. Yeah, Forrest Gump, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, Shawshank Redemption. What's the weak one there to you? Is it Forrest Gump? It wasn't obviously in 1994. Yeah, it wasn't in 1994. But I think that's like maybe a little too snooty film kit of us. I still love Forrest Gump. And I'm on the eve of doing a live Forrest Gump rewatchables.

I can't believe you guys are doing it. What city are you doing that in? In the city of Washington, D.C. Which is a special guest, Hillary Clinton, joining us, which I'm really excited about. You deserve that. Um, I don't know. I'd like in,

in terms of long lasting, in terms of legacy, I would say probably quiz show. Right. So pulp and Shawshank are forever movies, right? Those are movies that will be loved. Excuse me for weddings and a funeral is a forever movie.

I was going to, I was going to name that next. I was going to name that next. I was going to name that next. Get the fuck out of here. I don't think in terms of the number of people that have seen it and the esteem it has held in, it is quite as high as Pulp Fiction and Shawshank. That's true. But that is what Hillary Clinton was tweeting about.

But we did a Four Weddings pod. I really like that movie. I really like Quiz Show and it has fallen away, I think, as a, I don't know if it was ever a great film, but it was always a film I really liked. And I think it was a kind of a pre-Sorkinese movie in some ways, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of humans talking in rooms movie. I had that one on my list. You want me to go through my super classical ones? Yes, because I have some more recent ones as well, but yes. Let's go back to the films of 1939. I think this is arguably the best, the single best movie year of all time.

Gone with the Wind won Best Picture, also nominated that year. Many, many films nominated that year. Dark Victory, the Bette Davis film, which is an excellent movie. Goodbye, Mr. Chips, which is okay. Love Affair, phenomenal film, Leo McCary's movie.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, of course. The adaptation of Mice and Men by Lewis Milestone, which is really good. Love Affair, phenomenal film. Leo McCary's movie. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, of course. Ninochka, of course. The Adaptation of Mice and Men by Lewis Milestone, which is really good. Stagecoach, which introduced the world to John Wayne via John Ford. The Wizard of Oz and William Wyler's Wuthering Heights. That's a bang on roster. That was only the 12th time they gave out Academy Awards.

They had those movies to give out. I also had two years later. Yeah, this is a good one. This is How Green Was My Valley Defeating Citizen Kane, also nominated that year. Blossoms in the Dust, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back the Dawn, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon, One Foot in Heaven, Sergeant York,

and Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion. Once again, I'm asking you to watch Monsieur Spade. Okay, I will. I have a flight coming up. I mean, you don watch Monsieur Spade okay I will which is I have a flight coming up I mean you don't have to say it like that

you know what did you watch on a plane recently that was really rude to the creator yeah next to Barbie if you can watch

the creator on a plane I can watch I put the creator on a screen and then I put Barbie on the screen next to it and we did like two

I had another 90s year that I thought was really good okay I think 91 given in 92 is underrated silence of the lambs wins that's the last time we had the big sweep in all those categories but also nominated that year beauty and the beast an animated film which very rarely happens i don't that might have been the first ever animated film nominated for best picture maybe Maybe there was another Disney classic I've forgotten. Bugsy. Weird movie.

I like it. Me and my Warren Beatty era. JFK, of course. Yeah. Masterful. And The Prince of Tides, which I think is underrated. Do you know my Prince of Tides connection?

Yes. The author is a family friend. Yes. Well, he lived next door to us in Atlanta growing up. And he wrote Prince of Tides in the shared garage because we shared a driveway behind our house. And then would come over all the time and drink our booze.

And when my mom went into labor with me, he was the one who stayed behind and like locked up the house and you know hid the key and everything. Anyway, Pat is a great friend. Or was a great friend. I've not read any of his work but this adaptation. I mean it's like

a pretty weird slice of this house. Yeah. Nick Nolte is fantastic in that movie though. Okay. A couple of others. Another 90s one.

The one preceding the Pulp Fiction year is a pretty good year. Schindler's List, The Fugitive, In the Name of the Father, The Piano, and The Remains of the Day. That's a really good lineup. I would also say that the year after, 95, is, to me, cinema.

I don't know. You can read the movies, but I feel like we're now cresting into nostalgia porn for ourselves. Sure. But Braveheart wins over Apollo 13. Babe, which everyone loves. Il Postino, not so much. And Sense and Sensibility. Not my favorite year.

You know what? Sense and Sensibility is a masterpiece. Get the fuck out. I think we would also be remiss if we did not point out two more recent vintage. 2007, of course. Oh, yeah. Which is No Country for Old Men, Atonement,

Juno, Michael Clayton and There Will Be Blood. Very very good lineup. You don't like Juno? I don't. I like Juno. And Atonement it was a noble effort with a lot of razzle dazzle. I love Atonement. I know but for me that's real it's like one of the great novels

and sort of like an impossible to adapt. I see. You know, three out of five. It's kind of insane that Juno got nominated for Best Picture. You cannot believe what a fucking sensation it was. What do you mean? I saw it when it came out. I know what a sensation it was, but like critically speaking, it's like a movie about high school kids.

I was 11. Bobby, are you younger or older than Lorde? And by how many days? Older by six months. Older by six months. Okay. Yes. So you passed the millennial test.

Once again, another example of me beating the Gen Z allegations and you guys won't acknowledge it. Sean just calling me four years like I don't know about Juno. Come on. Just admit you've never seen Juno. Just admit it. I've seen Juno so many

times. It's not good. It doesn't hold up anymore. I liked it. I liked it. I mean it was charming but I'm sure Hillary

Clinton loved it. Yes I agree. Next question. Sorry that really threw me. What about 2017 and 2019 2019 is great

it does feature a couple of well sure but the highs are pretty high tell me 2019? well 2019 is very good but it has Jojo Rabbit

and I actually like Joker as you know but I'm not sure if I was like that absolutely has to be nominated for best picture okay as you know, but I'm not sure if I was like, that absolutely has to be nominated for Best Picture. Okay. So, you know. Yeah.

And then 2017. What was it? I forget. Well, I know it has The Post and Three Billboards, but it had Shape of Water 1 over Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread. Yeah, that was a great year. That was a great year. Okay. You guys just glossed right past Ford versus Ferrari in 2019.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Unbelievable. Vroom, vroom. All this work I put in on this show. I'm a fan. No Ford versus Ferrari mention. Ford versus Ferrari strays.

I sat in James Mangold's office for two hours speaking with him about the film. So, I remember. I supported. I edited that. Sounded really bad. Very boomy. Yeah. Not nearly enough sound to open up that edited that. It sounded really bad. Very boomy. Not nearly enough sound. But we sounded good together.

True, yeah. Jim Mangold and I. Next question comes from Philip. I've noticed a high number, higher than usual at least, of films embracing the Academy aspect ratio. Asteroid City, Poor Things, Salpern, Maestro. Are we in the midst of an Academy ratio-a-sance?

I'd love to know what y'all think do you have that letterboxd review that you sent me oh yeah okay i'll read this as much as i can okay so this was a really funny review of salt burn by kevin porter podcaster kevin porter about of salt burn he gave the film two stars and he said i don't know who's in charge of handing out 1371 aspect-7-1 aspect ratios for movies, but it reminds me of when television

at the turn of the century started shooting and broadcasting in widescreen. Think ER or the West Wing Circuit 2001. On our boxy little TVs, it gave shows

an immediate patina of quality, but by just the presence of letterboxing, hey, that's the name of this website, and now we go to widescreen movie theaters

and look, black bars on the left and right telling you this movie is very important but post budapest hotel this seems to be the trend for movies needing to quickly establish they're not like the other girls whoa did the grand budapest hotel invent both the academy ratio and the color pink so i think kevin is right i think it's a it's a a trick designed to convince you that there is something different and important about the movie. I think in some cases it works and in some cases it doesn't. I actually think nowadays the films that are shot in Academy ratio should be the opposite of our expectations.

They should not be sweeping movies with grand vistas. They should be smaller films like recent movies that were shot in a kind of like eda or um american honey you know movies that were the kind of like the confinement or elephant the gus van sant movie about school shooters like movies like that i think are well served by that format movies that are trying to look like dramatic stories that have a big canvas but are boxed in yeah i don't think works very well can i posit one more theory though i think that kevin porter review is hilarious and spot on and it's the first thing i thought of um yeah on instagram it's it's friendlier with a boxier clip i mean i think that

that was a major major part of of salt burn and and i assume tiktok as well you know even though i don't really that's that's not something I'm fluent in. Does that feel cynical or smart to you? I guess it can be both. It's both. Yeah. Okay. Good question.

What's next? Sarita asks, do you think Netflix garner nods simply because it's easier to fire up your TV than dig out a screening link so more voters watch? Maestro, and particularly Nyad,

seems a bit over-indexed with its acting nod i do not no i think that netflix it um has a very talented awards team who are really good at what they do okay and um and they they have a lot of resources they spend a lot of money though interestingly i heard a rumor that they're pretty like stingy about the per diem that they give uh actors and act for public appearances and that sort of thing. And it costs a lot of money to look that good every day, all the time, in front of thousands of cameras. That might be wrong. Or that might just be smart budgeting. But, yeah, they are very, very good at getting people out and making people aware, particularly, as you noted, of the actors.

I think a film being widely seen by the public and then generating conversation is very helpful for awards campaigns because there is at least a sense that you are able to understand what audiences like or don't like about a movie and then you can kind of strategize against that. But in terms of Academy voters, there is a beautiful Academy portal and every Academy member can very easily log into that portal and watch every single movie that is submitted and a lot of movies are submitted.

And there's no pride of placement necessarily. So if you're interested in movies and you vote, it's not like, well, this is on Netflix and this is on Hulu. It doesn't really work that way. Also, you wouldn't believe the customer service on these bespoke streaming sites. It's's really amazing shout out to all the people who have to answer the phone at like 10 45 on a tuesday night because i can't get my like whatever link and they're so

nice and they talk you through every single like password reset so it's not even technical difficulty there's a lot of money in these words. I know, but like, imagine being the person who is always so friendly when they answer the phone, just being like, did you check this spam folder for your password reset? Yeah.

That's a real thing that happens. What's next? Mario asks, what would it take for an animated feature film to be nominated for a Big Five award? Will it ever happen? I don't think actor

or actress will ever happen. But like under any circumstances. I think it's a shame. I think this is another example where new categories to honor this specific type of work would be wonderful.

Agree. I think this is a great way to get Bradley Cooper his Oscar. We bring Rocket Raccoon back. We show the world the work he's done. Is he, he's gone?

Well, James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy is gone. Oh, wow. Because he's with DC now. Okay. So, you know.

What a loss. I mean, you're like the only person I know that feels that way. You and your husband are the only two people I know that don't really enjoy the Guardians movies.

Thank you for recognizing. Well, I've had many conversations with Zach about this as well. Animated movie, it can happen. Of course it's going to happen. Yeah. I think that the shifting nature of the membership seems to have actually hurt animated films' abilities to get in

while it has helped lots of other kinds of movies' abilities to get in. But someone's going to come along. It wasn't Guillermo del Toro, you know, but someone's gonna come along work it wasn't guillermo del toro you know but someone's gonna come along and make an animated feature that can be the bulwark you know the politician of this and you know that i i liked his pinocchio but like a movie like beauty and the beast which is sort of an undeniable classic um when one of those comes along again she loves reading it's it's good it's great that they let women read you know i feel like all the work that hillary clinton did to make that happen has just been absolutely wonderful we thank her for her service what's

next question oh what it's too much for you bobby i will not i will not be tempted to be on the record on a podcast that this many people listen to about Hillary Rodham Clinton I won't do it I'm not gonna do it Jacob asks it's fine now that the mission impossible you know I've read everything I've imagined all the possibilities oh I'm just trying to get to Jacob's question now that the mission impossible Oscar curse has been broken do you think we're any closer to stunts being recognized by the academy in some way i gotta be honest i didn't realize that it had never been nominated until earlier this week

and someone let me know that i didn't realize that they had never gotten a nomination it's pretty weird i mean again the academy has blind spots like including most of what makes movies good so that's pretty annoying. Just best sound. How did it never get into best sound over the years? Those movies sound brilliant. And they had two sound categories. Yeah, really strange. God, they really got to do it.

You know, in the NFL and in the NBA... Oh, great. Oh, good. No, I think this is... Hopefully this is insightful. There was something called the competition committee that meets every offseason and they talk about the rules of the games. And they change the rules.

Yo, you cannot bring in the NFL rules as like an example of hope and improvement. That shit is so insane. Just call me. I will tell you what a catch is. Like, what are we doing? It's 45 minutes. And it's just like, well, the ball bobbled like this and his knee was bent this way. It's so insane.

Like, they made it so much worse. Did you use cocaine before the recording? Be honest with me. No. You can tell me. Do you know? Ketamine. Was it ketamine?

No. No, this is me. Do you want to know how many hours, days, weeks of my life I have lost to reviewing the call at the end of an NFL game or equal opportunity here at the end of a fucking NBA game, which is always 45 minutes for two minutes of play. The rules committees are not helping us. I just want to say, I'm not advocating for, say, replay

when it comes to the voting and the Academy Awards. I'm just saying we can't trust these people. You seem to have issues with the review process. We just can't trust these people. But also, like, come on,

the halftime rules for the NFL? Like, fucking figure... Not the halftime, the overtime. You know? Like, fucking figure it out. It's unfair you have water nearby I think all I was gonna say was that the competition thinks they're good I know I look at Twitter you're making a very valid

point but that is not what I was trying to conjure by drawing this conclusion. Which was just that there's a group of people that meet to talk about whether things work well. Right, and they don't make good decisions. Okay, so you think that if the competition committee for the Oscars met, they would decide to not have a Best Stunts Oscar? Well, they have like eight different competition committees. It's the boards of governors, and it's the subcommittee about this, and then it's that. You know, like they just... You've really unleashed. What happened? Who are are you mad at you're mad at the nfl yes is that like a bad thing no it's fine are you are you thrilled corrupt organization that i love

yeah nfl is wonderful are you kidding me every sunday i know that you like um you like sport you know i do love i love sport but you know? I do love sport. But you hate the Jets. I love them, though. Your quarterback is Aaron Rodgers, so good luck to you. That's been a struggle. And you know that they make bad decisions and that none of the rules make any sense. It's all part of the fun. Okay.

It's just like the Oscars. That's my point. No, I know. But I'm just like, I don't trust them to improve it. I think that they should put us in charge. Again,'t disagree uh okay bob what's next who would you have nominated in hypothetical best first feature and best breakthrough performer awards this question comes from dave uh i made a whole letterboxd list for uh debut feature cool don't mock what happened you've you've you've soured oh my god she's put so much

sauce on that that was seriously what did I do I mentioned the NFL I think I think if you're

under the age of 30 I really enjoy your letterboxd presents and then Bobby you've got two more years three more years

two and a half yeah two years and then after that you gotta grow up and you gotta use a google doc okay

unfortunately I use both. I'm a master of both. Read your list. My debuts, these would be my nominees. Celine Song, Past Lives, obviously. Yes, number one on my list. The Philippo Brothers, Talk to Me. Oh, right.

Yeah, you love that. Jewel Taylor, They Clone Tyrone. Oh, good one. Ray Allen Miller, Rylane. michael b jordan creed 3 i also thought about michael b jordan creed 3 because it got released so early in the year last year and also because of the um awful jonathan major story over the course of 2023 uh was almost like memory hold in some way like we never talked about it it didn't come up but obviously it was not competing for anything.

But I thought the movie was good, not great, but the direction was very promising. Like I thought Jordan actually was a better director than a performer in that movie in some ways and showed that he's got some good ideas about how to make a film. What's your list? Here's mine.

Slean Song, Cord Jefferson, American Fiction. Totally forgot about Cord. Rainn Allen Miller, Rye Lane,. Slee and Song. Chord Jefferson, American Fiction. I totally forgot about Chord. Rainn Allen Miller, Rye Lane, Savannah Leaf, Earth Mama. I had her on my long list.

And Chloe DeMont for Fair Play. Also on my long list. Good year for debuts. Yeah. As far as breakthrough performance, to me, this is pretty easy.

Obviously, Dominic Sessa and Charles Melton were quote unquote snubbed and were terrific this year. Tao Yu, also from past lives, who I'd never seen before,

I guess as a breakthrough and sort of in my experience as a movie watcher. Marshawn Lynch in Bottoms and Abby Ryder Fortson in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. I wanted to add, would Kaylee Spaney qualify for debut for you? I haven't thought about this. I feel like she's done a bunch of stuff. I know she's never had like a big lead part like that.

So it depends on how we define breakthrough. And I guess we would need to be exact about that. But I sort of think it counts. Kaylee Spaney appeared in the film Pacific Rim Uprising. Did you see that one? I don't know. Did I? Is that different from Pacific Rim?

Yeah, it's the sequel. I don't think I saw the... It stars John Boyega and Kaylee Spaney and Scott Eastwood. Okay. Well, I don't think I saw the... It stars John Boyega and Kaylee Spaney and Scott Eastwood. Okay. Well, I don't think she broke through in that. Okay. Just give me these categories. What the fuck are we doing?

It's really not. It's not hard. Okay. What's next, Bob? Let's do a couple more. Chris asks, If you were the head of an independent or mid-sized studio and you had to pick a 2024 release date for one of your movies,

and if Oscar success was your number one priority, which window would you be looking at in order to maximize its chances? I'm throwing a flag on the question, which is that Oscar success being your number one priority does not exist. Okay. That's not a thing that anybody is like, our number one goal here is to win an Academy Award. Okay, but what if it's yours? Mine personally? Then that's hypothetical.

Well, that's what I mean. It's a hypothetical that is impossible. But if that was the case, I guess I would say October. Yeah, I was going to say October 11th in limited and then because that's... Expanding. Yeah, and then you expand it. Yeah, expanding into Thanksgiving. Yeah, I think that's the way to go.

I think that's what they should do. It's more or less what the holdovers did. I would have done it a little differently with the holdovers in particular because it was a Christmas movie. True. So to me, I would have actually platformed holdovers in November and gone wide on like December 18th. No, I still think you got to do it earlier. Christmas is just like an absolute wasteland. Why do you guys choose that?

For the last two years, so Oppenheimer is obviously a summer blockbuster movie. I think that's sort of an exception because Christopher Nolan is unique. And then everything ever all at once last year was February. So it's been a little while since October was like the winning window. Do you think that it still just remains? And that the last two are just outliers?

I think the last two are definitely outliers, but they could signal a change that is coming. We just don't know yet. So in my heart, October is like the aftermath of festival season. So you're able to build buzz for a month and then show the movie to the world, which I think is a pretty critical component at this point, with, of course, some exceptions. Yeah.

And I mean, looking at this year's list, you've got two summers in Barbiebie and oppenheimer you've got one sun dance to to may june i think in past lives you've got three limited release octobers in anatomy will fall holdovers and well did killers immediately go wide it did in october but but in october and then you've got three festivals to late december in american fiction poor things and zone of interest poor things original plan to is september 8th limited and it was going to go wide in october and november right so i still think that the studios still feel that this is the best path forward and that's how they'll do it going forward but when oppenheimer and barbie happens like yeah that may never happen again. You know, we'll,

we'll see. Donna asks, if you could swap out one acting nominee in each category, which nominee would you jettison and who would be their replacement? So it's easy. Okay. You want to go first? Sure.

Uh, in best actor, goodbye, Bradley Cooper. Hello, Andrew Scott. Oh, interesting. You would keep Coleman Domingo and take out Bradley.

Yeah. I didn't think Rustin was very good. Or I just, like... It's fine. I wish it had been better, honestly, because it's a very cool story. Yep. Like, could have been a lot more, like, complicated. I just think he looks very good.

Yeah. But he's very good in it i really like him i didn't realize he's like the second openly gay actor to ever be nominated for best actor uh yeah the first since ian mckellen yeah which i you know like i'm not gonna that's you know that obviously has meaning so i andrew scott would also have been that if he were nominated true that's Yeah. Well, then we would have two. Look at that. Yep.

God forbid. Bradley Cooper is very, very good in Maestro. I still think that Mahler scene is one of the most amazing things of the year. And we've all established how I feel about it. If I have to make room places, I'm making room with Maestro. I get it. I would take Holman Domingo out. It's nothing against him.

I just think that that movie, and even that performance, is a very kind of by-the-numbers biopic kind of role for me. And the period of time that it captures, of course, is incredibly important in American history, but that doesn't make it a good movie. I thought Zac Efron was way better. I thought Andrew Scott was way better. I enjoyed what they did more.

I would rather see either of them. But Domingo's nomination is historic in a way. There probably were a bunch of others that I thought should have been competing there that were never even on the table. But I don't know. I feel like this has just been a two-horse race for a long time, too. So it ultimately doesn't matter that much in actor. What about in actress? What would you do? I can get rid of two people um again annette benning you've

done so much for me i do not think that niad was my favorite of your performances so goodbye to niad to annette benning and you can do well really either margot robbie or gretta lee which is one of the i didn't i don't think we said Gretta Lee's name on the Tuesday podcast. And that was real bummer. I thought she was incredible in past lives. And I would have loved to see her there. So put Gretta Lee in for Annette Bening.

And then her Q score went way up this season, which means now she'll be nominated for less good performance in the future. That's the Oscar way. And then speaking of Maestro I said it earlier goodbye Carey Mulligan hello Margot Robbie. I would

easily take out Annette Bening which is not to say that I had is bad or that her performance is bad but another movie that I think

ultimately didn't work for me and I thought that even though what she did was clearly very physically challenging I thought it was a performance with one note yeah um and I didn't feel that way about Jodie Foster's performance I would put Tayana Taylor in from uh 1001 which

was just one of my favorite movies the last year and I thought she was complete revelation I hope she gets a lot more stuff to do supporting actor I'll go first just get my boy Glenn Howerton in there from Blackberry uh this is a good one. I don't know who to cut, though. Ruffalo? I would probably cut Ruffalo, too. I liked him in Poor Things a lot. Did I like it? It's kind of a similar role to what Glenn Howerton's doing

in Blackberry, actually, in terms of the yelling and the bigness of the performance. Yeah. But I just, I thought Glenn Howerton was amazing, so. I'm doing Jamie Bell from All of Us Strangers,

but also in the place of of ruffalo supporting actress oh rachel mcadams who are you taking out this so this is good i actually forgot to look at this so we can do it now live on the thing that's supporting oh you take a blunt right oh yeah i take a blunt over america yeah yes yeah even Even though I really, I love Emily Blunt as an actor and I want good things for her. You've said it like 40 times on the show. I know. Emily knows. She's been listening along to every episode.

She heard you. Six months. And I'm happy that she's finally nominated for an Oscar. You know? She should have been nominated for Double War's product. Yeah. And Mary Poppins Returns. Oh, yeah.

She was actually very good in that. Was she? Yeah, she was fine i i think so okay so yeah i'll take it away from her i would put in uh what i thought should have happened and probably came close to happening which is julianne moore over america for yeah i just don't it's a shame what happened in may december though i'm happy for sammy birch okay one more question bobby what do we got so this is kind of a related question that I thought was interesting because we don't spend that much time talking about it when we talk about who gets snubbed in the acting categories.

But Harry asked, how do each of you actually judge a performance? Are you looking for particular things or are you just gauging how lost in the character you end up being? And a follow-up, how do you think the Academy judges that question? For me personally personally it's always the latter yeah how lost in the character you end up being i don't have i know a little bit about

acting technique and i've read about it and i have a couple of friends who are actors but i don't i don't use uh my critical lens is not against the how but the feel like how it makes me feel in terms of someone disappearing so so to speak, or just convincing me that we have entered the world through their eyes. But I don't think the Academy necessarily judges that way. I think there's like a degree of difficulty thing that often comes into play.

What do you think? Yeah, especially from actors themselves who understandably are watching it from the different perspective of either knowing the skill set, evaluating the skill set differently. and lots of capital A acting and showing and the physical transformation and all that sort of stuff. And whether that's because that's the kind of acting they do or that's just what jumps out to them. So again, it is, I think they judge it differently

in terms of probably more having a specific checklist and then also what speaks to you in terms of the style. I tend to, I'm like you, I just judge it on does the performance, is it like what you walk out talking about? Because it holds your attention. Good questions. Do you want to just do this last one really quick for Dobbs? Oh, yeah. Matthew said, not a question about the Oscars per se, but I would like to just hear Amanda Cook for however long she wants about the New Yorker.

I really appreciate the time specification. So here's the first thing I want to say, and this goes to the New Yorker and not to Rachel Syme, who wrote the piece and I thought did a wonderful job and has no control over when it runs. We're not a ton of control, but what are we doing publishing this six days after the Oscar voting ends? So strange. I don't really understand that. Who knows what goes into it? You know things get delayed or whatever. Yeah, I know.

I'm sure. And I think they have a different agenda. Months and months after the release of the movie, though. And after, basically, we had an entire fall of Sophia. And I know The New Yorker likes to have the last word, but my eyebrows rose at that. Anyway, this rules. I thought this was a really, really great snapshot of what it's like to, or what I imagine that it's like to be in Sophia's world. I haven't. Sophia is not a woman of a lot of words. And I think that the words that

it got were very funny and memorable and used well. And then just in terms of the reporting of the amount of access and the secondaries, I thought all of the stuff about her mom, Eleanor Coppola, who's a filmmaker in her own right, was really interesting and moving and is not as often explored when you're talking about Sofia Coppola's work and what she inherited from her parents as filmmakers.

Noticed an amazing presence uh chauffeured black cars just waiting for her at all times which is pretty great and then obviously the detail where jane campion and sofia coppola are both jurors at can and sofia offers to style jane campion and then the next day two giant boxes of phoebeo-era Celine show up in Jane Campion's room. There's no one cooler or better in the world. That is just fucking awesome. This has been the Sophia Coppola Minute on The Big Picture. Thanks to all the listeners.

Let's take a quick break. Okay, we're back. I wanted to speak about Sundance with you briefly. I'm participating in a virtual Sundance experience. I would have loved to. Unfortunately, you didn't. Neither of us are in Park City this year. I'm thinking about going back next year. I'm not totally sure about that yet.

But this year at Virtual Sundance, a lot of the big titles are not available. And I also, unfortunately, had to miss a bunch of pre-screenings. So I missed a lot of the hot titles that I could have seen. This is a great podcast. I'm really glad that we're doing this.

Well, I'm bringing it up because there are a couple of very, very notable titles that are still available for people if they want to watch them virtually. We have not yet seen the awards, but also when the awards are announced, those films are made available sometimes to watch virtually as well. People are wondering, what should I see?

What's coming up later this year? I think that there's some value in talking about them. Of the big ones that we didn't see, Presence, the new Steven Soderbergh film of great interest to both of us, was sold to Neon. This is Steven Soderbergh's quote-unquote ghost story told from the perspective of a spectral being. How does that sound to you? I will watch anything that Steven Soderbergh releases, even though as I say that, I'm realizing I got to catch up on a couple TV shows, but that's okay. I'll do it. Yeah. Where are you on full circle?

As I said, I have to catch up on a couple TV shows. However, I did listen to his podcast appearance on the New York Times book review podcast with our pal Gilbert Cruz where he just talks about all of the books that are on his culture diary. Like truly my dream interview. Were you in a hot tub listening to that?

Like set the scene for us. What were you doing? I actually, I was like at home lying down and instead of taking a nap I was like, I'm just going to put this on.

But it was like blasting from my phone. No AirPods. My husband came in and was like, what was going on? Anyway, he... Self-care. That's what was going going on he reads to de-stress much like myself i'm very happy for you both um it seems like not very de-stressful films though otherwise the festival right i saw

the tv glow a huge one premiere uh from jane schoenbrunn who made a film a few years ago called uh we're all going to the world's fair it was a huge hit ago called We're All Going to the World's Fair. It was a huge hit. This is apparently, this seems to be the most acclaimed film out of the festival. A film about trans identity and the relationship to the culture that we consume. So should be an interesting one. I'm very excited to see that. The Outrun is a new film starring Saoirse Ronan.

Seeing a lot of awards pundits saying, lock it in, best actress. How do you feel? It's always a good idea, lock it in, best actress. How do you feel? It's always a good idea to lock it in on January 25th. That just really works out well. A couple others that were getting a lot of acclaim, Will and Harper, which is this new documentary with Will Ferrell and one of his best friends, Harper, whom he met while working at SNL, who has since come out as trans and they go on a journey across America together and meet people and talk about their lives and their experiences. That movie got a long, loud standing ovation at Sundance.

Haven't seen that. Likewise, haven't seen Superman, the Christopher Reeve story, which is still also not acquired, but it is what it says on the label. Our friend Craig Horbeck from The Ringer saw it, said it was very, very powerful and good. I did see a few things.

I'm going to just say a few things. These are just, these are Sean things that I liked. One, in a violent nature. This is... The face you're making right now. A very deranged horror movie. Oh, good.

It is slow cinema horror and it is almost like World of Warcraft but following a slasher serial murderer who has been conjured from the dead. So like the whole movie

is basically following a man walking through the woods killing people. Let me tell you it fucking rocked. It just rocked so hard. What time of day

did you watch this movie? It's definitely in the morning. Okay. Definitely like maybe like right maybe just put Alice down for a nap. It might have been Sunday at like noon, 1230. Are you going to the ADU for that?

I watched it in the living room with my AirPods in on my TV. It was fucking awesome. Do you turn the lights off at least? I close the shades. Yeah, but then do you turn the lights off? And I was locked in crushing a bag of pretzels. Just living my best life. My best life.

It was a very, very interesting horror movie. Very, very glacially paced purposefully but with amazing kills. I highly recommend this movie. I think it's a Shudder movie coming later this year.

I saw a really good documentary about Devo directed by Chris Smith. Love Devo. I saw Girl State, the sequel to Boy State and it is very much a kind of inversion

of what we saw in Boy State the Jesse Moss and Amanda McBain documentary about basically how our government systems are created for young people and then those young people go on to become Hillary Clinton presidents and vice presidents and secretaries of state Madeline Albright herself was a product of Girl State as I understand it uh speaking of World of Warcraft I saw a movie calledbelin i'm gonna explain this to you hopefully without ruining it i think this is a really interesting documentary it's directed by benjamin re it's about a young boy in the netherlands who has a muscular degenerative disease and it's a very sad film and very early in the film we learn that um you know he's died at the age of 25 and that his body has been effectively deteriorating over a period of time.

And he was in a wheelchair and did not have a big social life. And as he got older, increasingly his life went into time spent on the computer gaming. After he dies, his parents send an announcement on the blog that he wrote that he had passed away to let his the people who had read the blog know that and when they did that they started getting hundreds of emails from people who knew him online and the way that they knew him was that he played a world of warcraft and that he was a member of a community in world of warcraft online and of course in world of warcraft a role-playing game you choose your avatar and then you exist in this open world and you encounter people that are also playing the game. And they discovered a log of every interaction that he had ever had

that was captured by the community of the game. So they could see the way that he talked to the people in this world and the friends that he made in this world, that a lot of these people would gather together to spend time together because they became friends with world of warcraft but he never joined them because of his condition and some maybe some shame he felt about that but because they had this log the filmmakers in the game world of warcraft recreated the experiences that he had in this world so you watch the game being played out of his life i've never seen anything like this. It's remarkable.

It totally changed my perspective on what we think of when we think of somebody who is gaming, who is in their parents' basement, who is an incel, who is whatever negative connotation we think that that has. This was a lifeline. This was like it was salvation for somebody who couldn't experience the world the way that we can. Incredible film. It's the reason why-fiction is so interesting to me i thought it was really really great highly recommend that i believe i want to say netflix acquired it um and that will so it'll come out later this year uh two other ones that i'll cite before we pivot our conversation to the zone of interest and you can hear me stop uh speechifying at you one is called good one i think you should definitely see this. It's directed by a woman in India, Donaldson. It's

about a 17 year old girl who is going on what seems to be an annual hike with her father and one of his best friends. And usually his best friend's son joins them. But in this case, he has decided not to. The friend has just gone through a divorce. The father and the daughter have a complicated relationship loving but complicated and it's just a movie about three people hiking through the woods and it seems all very normal

until it isn't very closely observed smart kind of classic Sundance movie in that the scope of it is fairly modest it's a small cast it's a family story a lot of things you think of

when you think of Sundance but there's a turn that is very very powerfully told. So I highly recommend Good One. And then the last one, I think actually is relevant to the zone of interest. It's called A Real Pain. It's the second film directed by Jesse Eisenberg,

one of my favorite actors. I was not such a huge fan of the first film that he directed. This movie starts Kieran Culkin and Eisenberg as two cousins who go on a heritage trip to Poland in the aftermath of their grandmother's death because she wanted them to go visit where she came from, which is, I think, near Lublin, Poland. And the film becomes about this complicated relationship

between these two cousins who were once close but have grown apart. It's a major platform for Kieran Culkin and his just genius charisma. His like remarkable and like it's a perfect vehicle for the kind of like lovable hateable ball of energy

that he is. Brilliantly written character but in this heritage tour they walk through their, their grandmother was a survivor of the Holocaust and of world war two. And they walk through, um, a concentration camp and tour it and tour all of these historic landmarks of

world war two. It's a very funny, sad kind of emotionally volatile movie. I thought it was a huge step up for Eisenberg as a filmmaker. Um, and he also his performance is also really really really good and well observed too um but i i never when i sat down to watch the movie i never would have thought that this would be a perfect double feature with the

zone of interest just seeing who's starring in it and the fact that it takes place in contemporary times and um but it they really are matched in some strange ways about the way that we think about what happened at that time, what our understanding and relationship is to World War II and more specifically what happened to Jews in Germany and Poland and throughout Europe. So I guess we can use that as a way to kind of lead into the zone of interest conversation, which if you haven't seen that movie and don't want to know anything about it, because it's still only playing in a select number of theaters, of course we understand, but it is, as we've been saying, one of the most unusual embracing Best Picture nominees in a long time. There was a lot of questions about how this movie actually got nominated because of the fact that it was not terribly well seen by the public. I think it is a testimony, not just to the studio, but to the writer director, Jonathan Glaser, who, even though he has not been an Academy darling, has a very, very strong reputation as a true artist. And when he makes something, he's only made four movies in roughly 25 years as a director.

When he makes something, it has something to say, and he's done it for a good reason. So this movie is based on a novel by Martin Amis. It stars Christian Friedel and Sandra Holler. It's shot by Lucas Zoll, the great cinematographer who shot Pawel Pawlikowski's movies. It's about a family living in Auschwitz, Poland, right on the outskirts of the concentration camp. It's not just any family.

It's the family, sort of the first family of that concentration camp, because the Christian Friedel character character rudolph haas manages oversees runs the concentration camp and it's almost like a slice of life movie in some ways it's shot very documentary style we see the kind of banal nature of their lives the things that they enjoy and love We actually haven't really talked about the zone of interest that much, despite it coming up so much. What did you think of this movie? You have described it several times as an art piece.

And I think on Tuesday's podcast, you said it's sort of the least commercial of Jonathan Glazer's films, which are not that commercial, any of them. They're excellent. And those are the right terms. It is not a movie where a lot of plot happens. As you said, it's slice of life. It is focused on this family. And you're just watching them doing stuff.

But also what you're not watching or not seeing is as important to what is happening in the film. So this is a film about the guy who ran Auschwitz and the family who lives next to Auschwitz. And references are made to what is happening to the Jewish people imprisoned in Auschwitz. And there are sounds and there are other kind of visual hints. But you don't actually see, you do not go on the other side of the wall. It is all about this family's ability to ignore or deny what is happening. And they're just total separation from it and then asking questions about how we as people deny or separate from these things and like from horrors and from our own evil versus can you really and is it they're always there lurking I think it's incredibly

powerful I do think it's sort of like an experience art piece I saw it for a second time and I responded to it a little less strongly the second time around but I think so much of that is because of the shock of what you are seeing or not seeing the first time. And what you're sitting through, what you're imagining, what you're watching is really unique and startling and upsetting. And this second time, once you kind of know what really awful, gross, disturbing set pieces or moments know, or moments are coming, like you, you lose that element of surprise. So there is, there is something really, um, contained about it, but it's, it's a hard movie to love, but it's pretty astonishing to watch. Yeah. Something I heard from a lot of people after I saw it at Telluride when they walked out of the theater was, well, I'm never watching that again because it is very immersive and because it

does a little bit hard the first time you see it to kind of understand the decisions that have been made to tell the story. It also ends in a very kind of inconclusive and subtextual way. And because of that, it's not like, well, he made his grand statement. Obviously the,

the point of view is very clear in the movie, which is that the strategy of the movie is to make it seem very contemporary in the way that it is shot, in the way that it is framed, and even in the way that it is cut, which is almost like a reality show in some ways. You know, the film has a kind of panopticon feeling, like you're in the show Big Brother and you're looking into every room inside of this house. Right, but the cameras are fixed. Yes, stationary, yes. And so you move from, like, the camera that looks down the hallway to the camera that looks into the kitchen to take you out of the feeling of like a museum piece, you know, like an old timey, fussy, experiential, it's not 1917, in other words, you know, that there's no thrill ride

to this devastation, that it is purely just the people effectively either enacting within the confines of the walls or ignoring, as you said, the horror that is going on outside. You know, Johnny Byrne, the sound designer, was on the show.

We talked about the ways in which they created the soundscapes that surround the movie and surround this residence in Poland. And it's incredibly upsetting. I think it was something like over 600 pieces of audio that were integrated into the sound library and, you know, people screaming

and devastation. The film, the second time I saw it, what I really felt was this kind of churning, mechanical, industrial sound that is always happening. And it is either the train arriving to drop people or load people into the concentration camp, or it's the machines. It is the devastation. It is the ovens. This movie has been criticized, and some people think that not saying what happens or acknowledging it is a failure of the movie,

and I think you're... It's the point of the movie. It is the point of the movie, but if it doesn't work for you, that's totally valid. But that is the experience, like that is and the experience and that is one of the first things that caught me because it is just it's sort of it's not that different from a white noise machine but there's like something going on and there the the filmmaking there are a few kind of moments of interruption and and and purposeful moments of of the film not working as like the

reality tv moment where whether it's like a black screen and the mika levi score or whether it's the stylistic shifts exactly um to to make you to really bring you in to examine okay like what is that and why is this happening and like is the film broken or is there is like the projection wrong or is there something going on here and the and the the the humming you have that moment of being like oh oh my god is that the is that what i think it is is that the crematoriums you know and and then you like become aware that it is and the sound is like astonishing and the most significant version of that but there are you know visual moments of it is of it as well where it just like pops up on the edges whether it is the train and the smoke from the train i mean you find yourself at one point trying to be like well what kind of smoke is that which

is an absolutely horrifying thing to be asking and then you i even had that moment of being like oh my god like is that the question that i'm asking myself right now like what am i what am i watching so it's i mean it's really it's a really intellectual exercise this movie and you have that like as you're watching it it's a it's a movie that asks you to do something that most movies and especially most awards movies don't want you to do which is to kind of think about how it was made and why it was made in the way that it is those kind of interruptions that you're saying for the for example the film opens with a black screen and holds on a black screen for an extended period of time so much so that i know

this is true for our friends Chris and Phoebe, that many people who see the movie are like, is this supposed to be happening? Like, is the projector broken is something you might feel. Yeah. The movie, you know, takes place within the walls of this residence and there's a beautiful garden and Sandra Holler's character is obsessed with her garden

and with taking care of the plant life, the garden life inside of these walls, which is, of course, a contrast to the way that she has no care for the humanity outside the walls. But there's a moment where there is a series of zoom-ins into these flowers, and then a slow zoom hits us on a red flower, and the screen goes completely red, and we hear this complex score sound

that mixes with Byrne's sound design. And it's doing exactly what you're saying it's taking you out of the movie purposefully to make you aware of this is the decisions it's making i think for some people this will be considered a pretentious choice and will not work for them there are some very smart critics who have really not responded to this movie at all who do not like the uh what they feel is a kind of thuddingly obvious and inert approach to revealing this truth that the filmmaker sees. For me, that was not the case. I thought it was incredibly powerful. The second time I saw it, I did think much more about the kind of structural choice. And I think

thought more actually about the characters and the decision that they made in the way that they portrayed this particular period of the Haas family and their life, Because, you know, Rudolf Haas was a real person. He was the real person who oversaw the death of millions of people. He was understood as a ruthlessly efficient commandant for the Nazis. The movie shows him at this kind of crisis point where, in a very perverse way, he and his family have, at this moment in time what everyone wants, or at least is our common understanding of, say, the American dream, which is a successful career, a happy, large family, five children, beautiful home, dream job, so to speak,

and contentment that even surrounded by this devastation, this is a happy family, even though there are some things that are happening under the surface that are not so happy between the members of this family. And then he gets a transfer order to change jobs, and he's being sent to Oranienburg, which is very far from where they're living. And Sandra Holler's character is devastated by this because she too is living her dream life. She has her dream home. She is the quote-un unquote queen of Auschwitz. And I wasn't really registering the story of the film very much the first time that I watched it. But now as I watch it again and as I read more about Haas, who is quite a significant historical figure, he's been portrayed in a series of novels over

the years. He was portrayed in Vonnegut's Mother Night. He's portrayed in Styron's Sophie's Choice. He was in the Nuremberg miniseries in 2000. And he was hanged for his crimes just four years after this film takes place at Auschwitz. It's the last public execution that transpired at Poland. He's one of the arch criminals of the Third Reich. He is one of the people who, you know, if it wasn't him, I'm sure it would have been someone else. But choosing to make this about him, particularly because the novel that Martin Davis wrote is not specifically about him. He inspires one of the characters. But this decision is really critical, which is to say that this kind of fascism and genocidal violence happens because it benefits people there

are people that it benefits and like this movie is time spent with those who benefited from that while ignoring everything else was around them so when i read criticism of the structure of the story or the way that this is told i felt like once you peel away the big brother style filmmaking you peel away that soundscape you peel away the score you peel away the big brother style filmmaking, you peel away that soundscape, you peel away the score, you peel away those cuts to black or the thermal imaging we see of the young Polish girl who's delivering apples to camp people in the camp overnight. The,

all of these formal choices that are made in the movie, I actually think that there's still a really thoughtful and compelling story inside of the movie about this family coming apart in a way. But what they're coming apart over is obviously heinous. You know, it's awful. So actually, the second time I watched it, I don't know if I quote unquote liked it more. But I think I more clearly understood its structure that helped me figure out what the intention was. Yeah, it's true.

And in my second viewing, a scene that I think you're, a scene really stood out to me that speaks to exactly what you're talking about, which is that once Rudolf Haas gets the transfer order, he tells his wife, Hedwig, played by Sandra Huller, and she's very upset and they go to like the the local river or whatever and they have they have like a marital fight and it's the Hedwig character who she says both like we're doing exactly what the Fuhrer told us to do. This is we're living the life that we're supposed to. And also, I don't want to give it up. And it's great. And so you go do whatever you have to do. But I'm staying here. And there is this just insane.

It's not even like denial because there is just something so... like, empty and selfish and horrifying and, you know, it is true, just, like, evil in the way that she's just like, no, I...

This is what we're supposed to be doing and I'm successful and I'm happy here. And it... Like, I don't know if you interpreted it as, he seems even, I guess they're having a marital fight and he's not questioning what he's doing at all. I don't think that's ever supposed to be implied. But she, that character is like maybe actually the true villain of the movie in a lot of ways. Like, that scene really stood out to me the second time around.

Yeah, I think the choice to portray her in the way that they did reveals that the people who were supporting the people who were, you know, working for the SS or, you know, were in command in some way also benefited from it and the ways in which they benefit. Like, there's a very critical scene early in the film where, uh, all of these belongings,

coats and clothes are delivered to the house. And there are all of these women who are gathered together, who are having coffee. And they're clearly the belongings of, of people from the camps and their clothes have been stripped or their, their clothes have been stolen from their homes, their jewelry. And Hedwig in particular gets a fur coat.

And the camera, we follow her up the stairs of her home. She gets upstairs and she stands in her room and she puts on the fur coat and she kind of models it for herself. And she's wearing someone who's being murdered less than half a mile from her home wearing her fur coat.

And she also, she pulls out a lipstick. Yes. Tries on the lipstick and then knows to remove it once she's tried it on and had her private moment of will this suit me?

Yes. So this is a venal, selfish, awful person who's raising children in this environment and not giving them

any context. There's also a fascinating moment in the film where her mother comes to visit her and she shows her all of the success. We've all been there, right? We've all had the moment where our parents come to visit us as grownups and we're so proud. You know, I did it. You know, I got my home or I got my apartment. I got my job. Look at me. I did it. Oh, here's me, me, my children. This is so great. Can you believe it, mom? And over time, after she's, you know, talked about how proud she is of what she's accomplished and how much she loves the home she lives in the mother overnight observes that churning sound

that black smoke in the sky that fire that that evil like redness that we see beyond the walls of the camp and she picks up and leaves in the middle of the night she doesn't even say goodbye to her own daughter because she knows how awful this place is how awful this world is but and that is after in in that scene um when hedvig is showing her the garden they have absolutely chilling really like small talk conversation where the mother's like oh so they're over there and she's like i wonder if this i can't remember the person's name but a jewish person that i knew is over there i used to clean her house i got outbid on her curtains so it's like it's not like the mother is you know like the the moral compass sure like she is also but but there is something about, she is like absolutely.

There were limitations even for some. Limitations even for her or she doesn't have the ability that they have to actually like physically deny what is going on. This mass structural engineered devastation that was this time in history. That by 1943, things were so mechanical in their execution. We see one sequence where Haas is meeting with some functionaries

who explain to him how this oven will work more effectively and they'll be able to shift the temperature from one chamber to another so that they can work more efficiently,

killing people. It's insane. Obviously, the film is a profound reminder. It's not a movie that tracks Hitler and Hitler's rise. We've seen a lot of movies, it, you know, obviously the film is a profound reminder. It's not a movie that tracks Hitler and Hitler's rise. We've seen a lot of movies like that, you know, that we understand how the rise of power can operate inside of a

fascistic society. This is about the people who are making the decision to kill more effectively. And it's very upsetting, you know, Glazer in talking about the film has constantly said, this is about right now. Like this is how things like this are happening right now.

Maybe they are not happening at the kind of like instant magnitude of this, but that he feels very strongly about how the world has shifted back towards a kind of fish-a-stick approach that we ignore death, we ignore the toxicity of our world. I wanted to talk to you about the sort of like final act of the movie where haas takes this new job where he's sort of working in more of an office environment for lack of a better word um he has like accepted his transfer he's being the efficient employee that he needs to be to survive inside of this environment and you know he learns that in fact like he's being transferred back and he's kind of gotten what he wants near the end of the film he has this phone call during a party in an office with Hedvig and he excitedly tells her

about how things are going how well he's doing and the fact that he's coming back and she's very tired and she's not happy about it she She is actually, she has her dream life at home without having to even deal with him. She has her family, she has all her belongings, she has her estate, and she's all set. And then the film takes another sudden turn where we see him observing the party and then exiting. And then we start seeing images from modern day Auschwitz. We see, you know, inside of the chambers, which are being cleaned.

We see the wall of shoes. Um, we see like the remains of 80 years later. Yeah. There's an exhibit that is just a countless number of shoes. There's one that is of suitcases. Um, but there,

but there it's in a museum setting and everything is like behind glass and controlled and presented. And then you see staffers at Auschwitz, at the museum, you know, cleaning. What did you think of this? And so we should also say it's intercut with the Rudolf Haas character walking down a staircase and he seems

to be physically becoming ill overcome yeah and he's not actually he's i mean he's dry heaving sorry to not have a like more like high high brow description of what's going on but he is he's dry heaving and then it cuts to this kind of coda and then it cuts back to him collecting himself and to keep walking down the stairs i think i'm so overwhelmed the first time that i wasn't i wasn't really sure or i guess i didn't have an opinion i i thought a lot about the killers of the flower moon coda the second time that i watched it and i thought that it was a like a very different way of saying a similar thing um and i have i have thought about those movies these two movies in tandem a lot i mean they are both about genocide they approach the subject very differently they approach emotions and the audience very differently but I I it it worked for me in terms of it asks questions about you know like the the

banality of remembrance also and and and and what really can any other person do when thinking about or talking about or like being near these things. It's just kind of like we're all just going about our lives in one way or another. There's like, there's no atoning. There's no making it okay. There's no like undoing it. Yeah. The Killers of the Fire and Moon comparison

is very smart because there's one key difference to me. When I watched this movie, especially the second time, I thought, okay, this is clearly a demonstration of the way that we manage and kind of

clean history to display it. You know, that we kind of even just collecting items and putting them in a container and saying,

here are all of the shoes. It contextualizes it, but you can't really recreate its horror. Like, there's no way as a filmmaker to make the Holocaust visually make sense.

Kills of the Flower Moon tries to do it. And Martin Scorsese is a filmmaker with more of a comfort with violence and comfort with visceral exploration. And we see a lot of scenes early in that film of Native American folks of Osage members getting shot in the head. And we see a lot of scenes early in that film of Native American folks, of Osage members

getting shot in the head. And it is bracing. And that is the way that those murders transpired. It's obviously quite different from the Holocaust, but in some ways it's not. Scorsese tries to portray it

until he doesn't. And Glazer doesn't even try. He doesn't, it's not that it's not the point necessarily, but it's not the best way to execute the idea of the film. It's interesting interesting i'd never really seen anything quite like it um until i saw i saw the heisenberg movie where we also see a giant cage full of shoes and i'm sure there are

other movies that i'm not remembering that showed us elements of these the kind of museumification of these um places where devastating things transpired but uh i thought it was a very bold stroke and i know i could i could feel the people i was walking out of the movie with the second time not happy with the way that it ended just kind of like a little gobsmacked and a little like so what was that but um i thought it was very very effective it didn't have the same emotional thrum that seeing martin scorsese you know read or step to the microphone had, but I thought it was very effective.

I just got to say, from a structural perspective, the movie is really, really interesting. Everything shot in natural light. No backlighting. Nobody's framed like a beautiful actor. The persistent dogma of a 21st century lens. That's what Glazer kept saying.

And using all of this tech to show something old. And they rebuilt the house entirely. So everything in it is new because that is what it would have been at that time. It would have been a brand new home that was constructed for the man who ran Auschwitz. So I think it's a pretty amazing piece of work. I think it'd be pretty weird to watch this

movie at home I agree it was it was strange even when I went the second time and understanding the importance of the sound design and as it's starting someone is just like you know rumbling through their packet of the same like junior mints or something and I I was like I try not to do that but I was this close to being like, you need to stop making noise. Like this is, you'll get it. I saw it on a Sunday night and I had the same thing. Like six guys came in and sat in my row and they were rowdy guys just having a night at the movies. And I was like, you guys don't know what's coming your way.

Like this is not the movie for this energy, I assure you. Yeah. No, it's, I can't imagine being able to recreate like the technical, because it is so technically, like intentionally proficient. I liked what Glazer said about how he directed her in this movie because she had a hard time accessing this character for obvious reasons. Much different than the character in An Item of a Fault, which some also read as kind of a cold character, but she put a lot of identification into. But he said, I remember saying to Sandra, never stop moving. Keep going from one activity to the next so you'll never be tempted to stop and reflect when you see her

performance that's what you see and what is remarkable is her commitment to playing this non-thinking non-reflective selfish human being

that's that's very good directing very smart Glazer is very very smart I again

very weird to be like what do you think of its Oscar chances? Uh, but it is competing in five categories. Yeah. And five big categories. I, I have, I mean, it will win international feature. It feels like it. And I think it should win sound.

I agree. Um. There was a bit of a sigh of relief amongst those who appreciated the film when it was nominated for sound. Yeah. I think, I mean, that's so essential. It's a big work so essential to the to the way that it's um it's made i i don't know about the i don't know about adapted screenplay director or picture it seems like a sort of honored to be nominated type situation i mean it will i am very interested to see

how people respond to it as more people see it. I really did when I went yesterday after the Oscar nominations. It felt like a room full of people who are like, well, this was nominated for an Oscar, so I've got to go see it. And it's like, this is not Seabiscuit. You know what I'm saying? Yes. Yeah. That's very astute that a lot of people are going to be wrong-footed their way into seeing

what they think is just a movie about World War ii right and this is not that like in some for some people this film will be very boring i think for other people it will be deeply upsetting in a way that they were not they don't want right you know that they don't want to have a night at the movies feel this way um and and people also may not may not appreciate the portrayal and the choices and the way that it's you know like it's a hot button movie it is I think also

some things are hard to parse at times I don't think I fully understood the first time I saw it that what was what Friedel's character

had stepped on was a human jawbone when he's in the river in that critical sequence when he rushes home and races his children home and they all wash themselves they attempt to wash themselves

of the sin of all of this. But again, seeing it a second time, you can really kind of understand every critical choice like that. But most people are not going to see it a second time.

Most people are not going to like it. Again, it is astonishing to me that this movie is being recognized in this way. I'm trying to figure out what this says.

It feels a little bit like the Parasite Wind inflection point for me about what the Academy Awards is now. in some ways this is really cool and interesting that a challenging film like this from a filmmaker who has really no legacy with the academy but is extremely respected definitely like in the in the world at large yeah so the people who know know and it's the his strategy throughout this has been interesting. He's only done a handful of interviews.

He's done very few interviews by himself. But he's done a lot of Q&As. So this movie, they did a very good job where he had all these questions about campaigning in this mailbag. And one way to do a campaign is to have this kind of almost um church-like approach to a piece of art where it's like this movie has to be seen to be believed and once you've seen it the people who made it will talk to you about what they did this isn't this is a strategy this is a very smart strategy that got the movie probably in front of more people than otherwise would have come out for it so obviously it worked i hope he makes more movies.

It's weird to be like... What did he say his next movie is going to be about? Oh, I don't know. I don't know if I saw that. Not feelings, but something related to it. Sentiment something. Sentiment. Maybe that's not it,

but it was something like that. That would be an exciting twist from the director of Birth. It was something... Birth is so good. It twist um from the director of birth it was something birth is so good it's amazing it's so so good um it was something where the reaction was oh okay that will that will be interesting to see from jonathan glazer i look forward to uh whatever he does next he's great um that just about does it for us bob did you like the zone of interest you're really gonna toss to me at the last minute to Bob, did you like the zone of interest? You're really going to toss to me at the last minute

to be like, did you like it? That's a tough question to answer. I mean, I generally agree with your framing of it as a piece of art that is meant to make you think deeper, not necessarily a piece of art that... Like a lot of movies are, a piece of art that is meant to entertain you for two hours and to move your day along. This is very much not that so if you're not the type

of person that is like ready for that or you're not the type of person who even wants that sort of thing in their cinema then this movie is probably not going to be for you i had a slightly different read on the the flash forward scene it occurs after you know you guys mentioned that he is like walking down the stairwell and he's he's dry heaving and that happens like right after a phone call that he has with his wife the sandra holler character where he says i couldn't help but think when i was in the full when i was in a room full of people i just thought how would i gas them and i read it as like people in real time even if they don't know it kind of cognitively processing that they are so evil they are going to become part of history 100 years later like that there

will be whole museums dedicated to their evil and that the weight of those decisions that they were making almost like breaks the space and time continuum and he has a flash forward and views this himself. The character himself sees this happening. I think that's part of the intention, but I don't know that it's quite so one-to-one psychologically. I thought it was more of like an ethereal, like, I don't know that his pride of place was about, like, where he will live in history.

More that he is like an efficiency monster, but that history will will confirm his evil you know like if you spend some time reading about him he completely he fully acknowledged and i guess for i don't know if you can apologize for the work that he did at auschwitz but he he before he was killed before he was executed, before he was executed, he... Turned over his diaries, right? In his trial. Yes, and he identified that he was one of the architects

of all of this pain and everything he did was wrong. That he thought that this was right and here's why, all the ways in which it was wrong. He wrote letters to his children explaining about how he hoped that they could have

better lives that were not clouded by this hate and the way that this world was built. And, you know, he hoped that they could have better lives that were not clouded by this hate and the way that the world, this world was built and, you know, whether or not that was performative in an effort to engender sympathy is up for debate.

But I thought it was more of like a kind of like, um, metaphysical reckoning of what he had done as opposed to his own identification. But you know what? I don't know. I don't know what the intention was. I. I don't know what the intention was. I don't know if I connected them in quite the same way.

And I will say, sorry to just throw a little wrench at the end of the conversation. You know, Bobby, I agree with you that him retching is like some just like subconscious, physical, you know, like the body taking over where the mind won't go in terms of like a recognition of. Yes. His evil and his heinous acts. And that note in the movie where even he would have some sort of physical recognition. You have to end a movie somehow. And I do think that we as audience members and like you're you sit through this movie and i

don't you like you need something i guess but i was like this to me is a little bit out of step with the portrayal of these people for the rest of of the movie and i'm glad we're talking about this it's making me, I think, better understand how I feel about it, which is I think that it's purposeful, and I think it's notable that he does not vomit, that he chokes it back, and that whatever could have come out,

whatever could have been acknowledged as some admission of the awfulness of this thing that he is enacting, he's able to move past, which is exactly the point of the movie, which is about compartmentalizing. Right. The awful things that are happening in the world so that you can get a new car

and have a cool house and that he is choking back whatever scintilla of humanity he has so that he can go forward and get the, get the, get the things he wants. And I think that's a profound point, if it's the point that they're trying to make. Because he was still a human being. He wasn't not a human being.

He just was a dreadfully, historically awful human being. Destructive human being. And right after this moment in history is when he's called back to Auschwitz to execute the most people in the most concentrated amount of time of the entire concentration camp. Exactly. Exactly.

So it was almost like one last swallowing of any inch of morality before doing that and then being killed. Very, what a sun ray, sunbeam of a movie. Yeah. Boy. Is this the same podcast that started with me screaming about hillary clinton it is that's just a really wild shift i i think we should just drop the whole movie thing entirely we should just be a full-blown history pod we should just look at the entire arc of human history going forward what do you think that's next week on jmo

okay thanks that's at least a thousand part series on JMO the arc of human history series where we're like we're only like a third of the way through that one

so it would be it would be the evolutionary chart would be and it would start with me I would be the Cro-Magnon man you know

and then it would be Amanda and then it would be Bob and then it would be CR at the top of the food chain you know he would be the evolved man exactly

thanks Bob for your work on this episode thanks to the listeners thanks for all those great questions we really appreciate it at the top of the food chain. You know, he would be the evolved man. Exactly. Thanks, Bob, for your work on this episode. Thanks to the listeners. Thanks for all those great, great questions. We really appreciate it. We will be back next week with two very special episodes. I'm very excited about them, but I will say nothing about what they are.

See you then. Thank you.