The Big Picture - The Oscars Hangover Mailbag. Plus: Bong Joon-ho Returns!

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Sean and Amanda are joined by Joanna Robinson to tie up some loose ends from Sunday’s Oscars (1:00) and to answer your mailbag questions about ‘Anora,’ Sean Baker’s huge night, snubs, ratings, the cultural relevance of the ceremony, and anything else you could cook up about the awards (42:00). Then, Sean is joined by returning guest Bong Joon-ho and interpreter Sharon Choi to discuss his new film ‘Mickey 17,’ following up the tremendous success of ‘Parasite,’ his famous storyboarding style, what he took inspiration from in the making of this movie, and more (1:30:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Bong Joon-ho and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello there, friends of the program. It's Tate Frazier and it's officially that special time of the year where we go on a march through madness together for the 85th edition of the NCAA tournament. What makes March so special, you ask? Well, it's the unknown. It's the fact that this is basically Survivor on a basketball court on CBS without Jeff Probst. And no matter how much you prepare, you cannot predict this kind of chaos.

And that is what we will be covering on this podcast. One Shining Podcast, all the madness, all the David versus Goliath personified. It's the best show in town. The ball is tipped. And here you are with us. Come listen and join us wherever you get your podcast. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about life after the Oscars, a very exciting show today. Later in this episode, Bong Joon-ho returns to the show to talk about life after the extraordinary success of his Oscar run. It's a little embarrassing. It's like, do we really need to be here? Respectfully. Why are you guys? We'll chat.

I feel that almost never. But for Bong, yes. Bong is here. Bong's got a new film. Mickey17 comes out this weekend. I had a nice long conversation with him. His first conversation on this show since 2019 when he was running shit with Parasite.

We'll talk about what happens when a neon movie runs shit in Hollywood in this episode. Thankfully, Bong was as witty and smart as ever about his movie, which I hope people will see this weekend. Stick around for the conversation. But Joanna Robinson is here. Joanna has been a steady hand through this award season. It's so nice to see you.

I meant to ask you, can we have dinner next week? I didn't realize that you were like here in LA. We are recording a podcast right now. She's here for a while, it's so nice to see her in person. I extended a lunch invite last week actually, but we didn't make any plans. No, we didn't. I'm booking dinner. Okay.

It's great to have you back, Joanna. The Academy Awards did happen and you did watch them. I did. You thought about maybe not watching them. What were you going to watch instead? No, I was definitely going to watch them. Okay. I was never not going to watch the Oscars.

It was either go to a party. It was either go to the Neon Party and watch it or watch it at home. Oh yeah. And for content, I should have gone to the Neon Party, but instead I just watched it at home. Okay. So yeah. Did you have others with you?

Was it a solo viewing? Like set the scene. Yeah. Oh, super glamorous. No, it was just it was just me, which is deeply unusual. I was a really unusual Oscar viewing experience for me this year. And I actually really enjoyed it because I felt like the pressure was lower than it usually is for watching the Oscars or me personally, because I wasn't sure I was coming on the big pick.

And now that I know I'm here, I'm full of takes. But it was great because then I was just watching it for me and enjoying and like not having feeling like I need to form opinions in the moment. Ah. Yeah. That makes sense. It's been about 10 years since I didn't know that pressure. Nevertheless, we'll probably get into whether or not

we did a good job on Sunday night. You did a great job. That's very nice of you to say. But you're also paid by the ringer, so no one can trust you. That's another thing I did though, is I did watch Sean and Amanda. You guys know this because I was texting you guys about it. So, yeah.

We did have fun. I wonder if all of those people at the Neon Party brought down the ratings just a little bit this year. They were down a little bit. Not too bad, actually. Segway King. Only 18.07 million people watching the show. Down 7%. Okay. Hi, everyone. it's me Sean. You may be wondering why I'm interrupting myself in this lovely conversation we're having

about Oscar ratings. Well, the answer is very simple. When we recorded this episode, we did not have all of the data. And now we do have all of the data, thanks to the Nielsen Corporation, they have informed us that actually, the ratings for the Academy Awards were even higher than we thought. So instead of that 18.07 million number that I just shared, it's actually 19.69 million viewers who watched this after tabulating PC and mobile viewing. Thank you to all of you who are watching on your iPhones, you degenerates. And this is great news because this means that the Academy Award ratings are

actually up this year, over the 19.5 million from last year's Barbenheimer Oscars, which is remarkable in some ways, but also when you consider the fact that this is the first year that Hulu is streaming the Oscars. It's not that great, it's only a 169,000 viewer bump, but it's still better than being down. So as always, I am torn about how I feel about ratings that do not matter for your life. Nevertheless, I wanted to correct the record here for this episode. Let's go back to the otherwise lovely conversation we were just having on the show. Thank you.

But isn't the caveat that the Academy wants you to know that more younger people tuned in this year? Sure, yes. People not in our demo. Definitely. In Bobby's demo? Because they're huge Timothée Chalamet fans? Because Sandworm?

Sandworm, yeah. Ariana Grande. Yeah, yep. Good call. I think that's what it was. I've had a lot of conversations about Ariana Grande since Sunday night from people who I did not realize were in any way interested in the Oscars or in Ariana Grande.

And they were just like, well, she was snubbed. Just like at Whole Foods yesterday. I was like, oh, okay. Just like people I met on the streets. So I guess some young people cared and were rooting for her. Definitely Grande and Selena Gomez as well. I mean, Selena Gomez is like one of the most followed people on Instagram.

Unfortunately, Selena Gomez was not nominated for an Oscar, so... Yeah, she was there. She was not, yeah. Did she go on stage? No, she was there. Didn't she present something? There were some... I mean, Timothée Chalamet, Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande

is about as good as the Oscars can ask for, for central young stars at their ceremony, right? Well, they could have asked for Zendaya, but unfortunately, they just completely blanked that. I don't know. The more I think about it, the more starless the ceremony and the telecast felt.

And obviously, those three people are very famous. They didn't win. And so Timothy was on screen a lot. And I guess Ariana performed to open the show, but otherwise they didn't use the very small star power that they had. And that front row was all the nominees and there was no one else in the audience.

I mean, there were, there were lots of people and I like all of them. And poor Denis, your beloved Denis had that middle seat, you know? Disrespected. I thought you were. I think that's why Zendaya wasn't there, honestly. No, she wasn't there because they forgot challengers existed. And CR texted us this great tweet about the fact that Nolan's filming The Odyssey right now

and that's where a lot of famous people are. But yeah, if you don't get, if you don't nominate Nicole Kidman, if you don't nominate Angelina Jolie, if you don't nominate these people, they're not going to come. We've talked before on this podcast about that idea of like the mayor of the Oscars who's sitting in the front row. It used to be Jack Nicholson. We've had Meryl Streep there. Who's there sort of anchoring the star power, and you've got Timmy on the end

that they definitely cut to more than anyone else. Coleman Domingo in his red suit front and center. Yeah, I wanted to talk about that just a little bit because Coleman Domingo within the industry and amongst cinephiles, beloved. Somebody everybody identifies as like a great guy, amazing performer. Incredible performance in Sing Sing, like very deserving, great at campaigning, looks amazing in clothes and has looked amazing at every event.

However, he's not that famous. Right, exactly. That's why I said Coleman Domingo, question mark. With no disrespect, because as you guys know, he was one of my favorite performances of the year, but that's not a Merrill or a Jack figure. And that's sort of emblematic of the whole ceremony, right? Is that we are honoring cinema,

we're not honoring pop culture as much. And that has been the major shift. That has been the thing I think most significantly as I think about the last five years is that this is a much more high-minded arts ceremony and much less of a celebrity factory, which is how we understood it. It's also possible that our memories

are deceiving us, that in 1994, not everyone was in the room. It just felt like they were. It felt like a much more concentrated experience. I don't know, I would have to re-watch a telecast. In the 90s, the nominees included Tom Hanks multiple times and Mel Gibson, which wasn't as problematic then as it is now, and Julia Roberts. And it's true that in many ways, like the Oscars of the 90s made those celebrities, but it was a symbiotic relationship. And like the

studio movies featuring quote-unquote movie stars that still existed, like, met with the Oscars. The Venn diagram was overlapping. Now we have, you know, our beloved like extremely talented arthouse favorites, and then we have all the IP movies with like people you've heard of. The divide is bigger than ever. But also I think the ceremony, as we noted, there were only two trailers shown during the entire broadcast. The ceremony did not really promote any upcoming movies, maybe because there aren't that many. Snow White? But I guess Rachel Zegler was sort of there,

though they took care not to say the word Snow White, as far as I could tell. They played some, you know, Someday My Prince Will Come. Right. Oh, did they? I didn't pick up on that. But even in the sense of having... But they stood her next to Gal Gadot and she was like, she looked like a little tiny baby, Rachel Zegler.

That was so mean. They also identified Rachel Sennett as Rachel Zegler on the red carpet for like a long time. So Snow White going super hard in my house right now. So we're fired up. All this to say, like, the promo piece of it, and even if you would get celebrities to the ceremony to promote the movie that they have coming out in April, May, June, you know, this summer, those movies don't exist or the, you know, the studios

or whoever don't feel that their audiences are at the Oscars. So it's just, it's a real vacuum. I think that they're, you know, I was gonna make a joke about how why was the cast of Warfare not present on stage in their gear, but more pointedly, like, where was the cast of Fantastic Four? You know, like, why did they not present? That would have been...

And that's a Disney property. I mean, I think that, like, I... When I texted, I'm sure one of many group chats you guys were in that night, but when I texted, like, I really like these presenters, and then I actually took it back when they brought the Snow White duo out. But I really liked the presenters

because we weren't getting the upcoming stars of X. We were getting much more, I thought, interesting people out there. And so for me overall, with apologies to Bobby who told me before we started that he thought the Oscars were quite boring this year. Am I allowed to say that, Bobby? You can say that.

Yeah, I thought, well, in particular, I thought the speeches were pretty boring and like more ramble-y than usual. I thought the speeches weren't great, but I thought I really liked the thought they put into the presenters, to the bits. I did not think the supporting actor, actress bit worked. That was the one that I did not think that works. But when they brought out...

I agree, I didn't like that either. Yeah. But when they brought out the Fab Five for like production design and costume, I thought that was really, really fun and thoughtful. I thought the comedy bits that they did with like Ben Stiller and Amy Poehler, were really thoughtful. Oh, Ben Stiller, that was funny. I forgot to mention that on Sunday, but that was also very funny. Yeah, so I think that, like, you know,

I thought they were being thoughtful in terms of where they were sort of mixing things up a little bit. We're going to be goofy here, we're going to be expansive here. So the cadence of the whole show really worked for me personally. I mean, everything that you just said is true and positive. And then there were like 45 minutes of dance and song performances. I have thoughts about that. That's a different thing. Yes. Just to top off the ratings thing, I do think that there were a couple of significant factors.

You mentioned the length of the show, three hours and 47 minutes, that sometimes can depress viewing. Everything is kind of settling, I think. You know, the Globes were kind of settled year over year. You've made peace. Yeah. I mean, award shows are obviously significantly smaller than they were when we were kids, but they're still much bigger than almost anything else that's on TV that isn't football. So the show, this is going to keep coming up, though,

because the show is going to be renegotiating in like six months, 12 months with ABC and or streaming service. And I bring that up because of course the show did stream. We didn't watch it on the streaming service, did you? I did, I did watch it on Hulu. And did you experience a blackout? I got the glitch, but I thought I had fucked up somehow. That's always my default assumption.

So then I just went back to Hulu home base and started clicking around. I got it back up within, I would say less than a minute. Okay. I think other people were less perhaps panicked than I was. I just started clicking around on anything I could find and click around. And finally I came back up. We did not even know that had happened when we were watching the show, which we watched on ABC and we, I think it was immediately after we finished recording.

I had many people in my mentions being like, you need to talk about how Hulu fucked me dude, which, you know, is kind of par for the course for my mentions. But, um, I... I think it's interesting that the first time, and the first time's always tough for these services, but the first time on a big stage, when streaming is obviously the future of how we're gonna watch this stuff, to have an error.

Also coming off of, I thought, SAG went pretty darn well on Netflix. You know, like, it's pretty streamless, a seamless experience. That's also like the first time that Netflix has gotten a live event totally correct. They had their Love is Blind after show fuck up. They had Mike Tyson fight problems. The Hulu glitch as far as we can tell is because it went over.

I think it's because they didn't allot for the fact that at 11 o'clock Eastern they were gonna have some resetting. Doesn't that make you absolutely want to scream? Like idiotic. Of all the fact that at 11 o'clock Eastern, they were going to have some resetting. Doesn't that make you absolutely more of a scream? It's like, idiotic. Like, think about, I just think about how many people worked on this and were involved in it. And it's just that you're not thinking like a consumer of the product.

You're just, you're programming and no, it's just, it happens all the time. The one thing you can rely on for the Oscars is that they will go over. Yes. It's just two departments not talking to each other. Yeah, of course. It's the content people not speaking to the engineers, which, you know, that does happen from time to time. Joanna, I asked you to compile some observations. So you've had a chance to not only watch the show,

but ingest a lot of takes. Yeah. So you've heard some stuff. I have heard some things. Did you bring some raw new material to the table? I thought it was new and then I heard some other people say it, but I wrote these before I heard other people say it. So they were new to me.

Okay, what's number one? I will say, I think a decent spread of awards is far preferable to one movie dominating, right? Would you agree? I'm glad you brought this up. This is the third year in a row where we had a heavy concentration on one movie that became the powerhouse of the race.

Enora was not as heavily tabbed as Everything Everywhere All At Once and Oppenheimer. I think I kind of hinted at this at the beginning of when we started talking on Sunday about how like, five awards for one movie and all being big awards is a lot. And that kind of flattens the show, I think, a little bit, where it feels like this steamroll effect. I kind of disagree in that almost every, except for what, a complete unknown

Nickel Boys, every single best picture nominee won something. One thing. Or two things. There were four movies that had multiple awards and I think that's it. Now, maybe that's roughly the average, but for a movie like In Order To Do, it never happens. It might have just been the way that they spread out the categories throughout the night or something like that. It didn't feel like, oh, Inora again, oh, Inora again.

You know what I mean? It felt like we're honoring the Brutalists now. Now is the time when we talk about what Wicked did well. Also because they only gave out like six awards in the first hour and a half or something. No, I'm serious. So there was a little like one for you, one for you, one for you. And Joanna's right, the Enora steamroll only really came at the end unless you're nerds like us and or listeners of this podcast. And as soon as editing happened and a reasonable screenplay,

you knew what was going to come. Correct. I think that's what I was reflecting on where that happened. her reasonable screenplay, you knew what was gonna come. I think that's what I was reflecting on. Where that happened and I was like, okay, they just kind of popped the bubble a little bit. And there was nothing to do about it. You couldn't wait until the end to give out best editing. That would have been very strange. But it did feel slightly deflating while watching it.

But that feeds into my second point, which is, that's true. I definitely knew Enora was gonna win best picture early on. I still think best actress was up in the air until the last minute. I think once editing and screenplay happened, he did turn to me and he said, I'm really nervous if I have to be more. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't like, shh.

I wasn't like, shh. I wasn't shocked. You guys got a vacation. But there was leading, going into it before we knew that Enora was gonna win midway through the, the telecast that what's gonna win best picture, what's gonna win best director, what's gonna win best actor, what's gonna win best actress. And I cannot remember an Oscar ceremony that I last went into,

not knowing for sure almost all of those categories. That was what was so exciting to me about the last week in the run up to the show. Yeah. Watching the show, I was like, ah, OK. So, you know, the thing I had said where I was like, they're either going four for four or five for five or they're going one for five.

Yeah. And it became clear early on. There's nothing you can really do about it. It's just it did happen more or less with Oppenheimer and it did happen the year before that too. So is this a trend? Is this just because people are falling in love with a movie? Or these just happen to be three very good campaigns that were executed?

You could argue flawlessly. I mean, those are three campaigns that just kind of cruised very, very well through their season. No controversies, no big problems. Everyone kind of agrees, like, I like this movie, if not, you know, if not love it. And I do think the power of like over love is something that is dominating at the Academy Awards these days. Especially in years like this, where I don't think that there were a lot of people being like, this is my movie, this is it.

I am campaigning for it myself. I do wonder how much of the total tells us about just like, how voters are watching things and what they're watching. I have a pet theory based on no evidence that Enora is just kind of the one that a lot of people are like, oh, okay, I'll check that one out, I guess, but I'm not going to sit down and watch the brood list because it's four hours long. I saw Conclay.

I'm not going to watch the substance. Yeah. I'm not going to watch. I'm not going to do all of this work, but it seems like people Enora, and maybe I'll watch it at home and like it too. And then they were like, OK, homework done. Check, check, check. It's funny, because that feels like a slight rebranding of Enora after the awards, because I feel like leading up to it, everyone said that that was what Conclave was.

That Conclave was the movie that everyone liked, and everyone felt palatable, and everyone was definitely gonna watch it. And so that was probably gonna win on a ranked ballot, because that's what would rise to the top. And then Nora, like I was talking to someone who was sort of berating me forever thinking that Demi Moore would win because he was like the older Academy voters,

we've talked about how they've diversified, but they were never gonna go for the substance. And I was like, Nora's not a Disney movie. Nora is an edgy movie, you know? And so it's just in the larger context of like And I was like, Anora's not a Disney movie. Anora is an edgy movie, you know? And so it's just in the larger context of like the punishingly long runtime of the Brutalist or the extremes of the substance,

Anora starts to feel more normal. I think that's what it is. I think it's in the context of the race. It was what you're describing, which is like, this is the, maybe the second most approachable movie out of the 10. Like what am I actually, okay, my ballot's due in four days. I haven't been paying any attention.

I haven't watched anything. What am I actually gonna sit down and watch? I did watch Wicked, but... It's not just the substance. I think that's true for Dune, part two. It was pointed out that in all four of the anonymous ballots that Entertainment Weekly ran, that none of the people who were voting had watched Dune, part two. Which is one of the biggest movies of the year, But I think a common refrain that I heard for the last

nine months and which you were the first person on the show to cite, which is like, is this a real best picture contender? I think it should be. And a lot of people agreed because they love that movie, but it doesn't really have a lot in common with Academy history and Academy love. And it didn't do that well. It's got two tech awards. You were the one who pointed out on Twitter about the two tower stats that like, does it have a chance at the return of the King 3P? So the watch spoiled Dune Messiah. I already knew that thing already.

OK. It's weird. It's deeply weird. I know that it's weird. I read the Wikipedia page. Yeah. Sean is claiming that he won't, but he keeps insisting that we're gonna have a return of the king situation. No, I am not insisting that, and I never did. And I'm just like, do you understand how many people are gonna be worms? Like it is literally just gonna be the Conan bit,

but without a harp, you know? I really think that, that's hilarious. I really think that- Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I really think that- This is the kind of instant feedback we need. I think that Dene is going to make some dramatic changes.

Okay. But still. He has to. I don't think for sure that it's going to be rewarded. I do think that part of the pattern of this year was people thinking that that was what was going to happen, because they don't know what's in that book. Um, okay. That's your first observation about the spread. What's your second?

Well, I already kind of said my second, which was like which categories were question marks. Oh, the nail biters. Yeah, the nail biters. I think that was good. Did we just trick ourselves though? You kind of brought that up. You were like, we kind of knew it was a Nora, and for some reason we backed off, but we knew.

My friend, a couple friends of mine were at the neon party, and during the screening, there was like the watch party and then the after party. And during the watch party, a bunch of neon, you know, it's just neon folks rooting for their own film, of course. And they start chanting like, the sag's don't matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And go for the end of it. And so, yeah, I mean, the sag awards, I mean, Demi had a narrative building up. It was really Timmy's, Tim's win at the SAG Awards that really... Because we were like, oh, it's Brody, it's Brody on a Walk. It's Brody, it's Brody, it's Brody. And then we're like, oh, is it Tim? Is it just because we want to see him make another speech? Is it because we want to watch him wear another incredible suit?

I was like, I should have changed Mikey. I should have went Mikey the whole time. I don't know why I did that. That was stupid. You were very forceful and convincing throughout that process. I'm still shocked. And I think I really just like, I should have changed Mikey. I should have went Mikey the whole time. I don't know why I did that. That was stupid. You were very forceful and convincing throughout that process. I'm still shocked. And I think I really just like, I am concerned for every like lower level employee at CAA, at Demise Management Company, whatever.

Like the photo of her in the bathrobe with the chou, what's the dog's name? I never learned the dog's name? I never learned the dog's name. And two plates of fries as like the, I'm okay. That was like a real, that was tough. That was, things are really bad. And I wonder how people are behaving themselves.

She's gonna be okay. But she's fine. She's gonna be totally fine. I hope, I mean, I don't know how she was, like if she was, I mean, I think about this every time this happens. When it happens to Glenn Close, when it happens to whoever, that everyone told you you were gonna win or you might win. And I just hope that they have people around them saying,

but also you might not, but also let's look at what Mikey has also done, but also let's be realistic about this. And I don't know if Demi, as a team, is the kind of star who has a team around her that is realistic with her, or a kind of team around her that's just sort of like, you got this, babe, it's you, it's your year. I think one of the reasons why Mikey won is that the more that people saw her during the campaign, the more they realized just how different she is from Annie.

That she actually did have a kind of transformation performance-wise that, you know, she's much more clearly a much more retiring, soft spoken person. And so the, you know, jealousy is a disease, honey, and all that shit. Like that's not, that's, that's acting. So, and she's, she's really great at it. And they wanted to award that. Guys, can you clip that for social? I would be happy to be part of that meme.

If you could make me closer inside of that meme, I would be very happy. Uh, can we get a take with like 30% more Brighton Beach in it, you think, for social to make it really go viral? Take two. As you know, I have stuffed all of that, you know, intonation down as I get further and further from Long Island. The other thing too is, you know, our friend Michael Lasker has been saying to me for the last couple months, he's like,

you called this, man, you've been saying Enora for seven months, you called this. And I'm like, I can't claim calling anything because I looked at when Cannes happened, the only reason I was like, this is a big deal and it's gonna be a big deal movie is because the field was so weak this year. No, it's not that a Palme d'Or winner means it's gonna be a best picture winner, it's just that it was a weird weak year. When you were out and we were ranking,

I feel like the conversations we were having was, we'll put Anura at the top because we're waiting to figure out what actually is going to go at the top. Exactly. Exactly. That was like, it was a placeholder. That's why I'm not like, you know, saying, I told you, I told you. Yeah. Cause I don't know.

If some, if Conclave did rise, I'd be like, okay, like, I guess that happened. White smoke. They think we didn't get white smoke, black smoke. I think you're being too hard on yourself. You know, like you have a job to do and your job is to talk about this for six months a year. You know, so it's like, you have to, you got to make content just like everybody else. No, you do.

And I have felt in the last 24 hours that I've heard from a lot of people who don't do this six months a year, or even three months in my case, thank you so much again, and feel suddenly that they get to share their opinions and you know? Oh yeah, a lot of that, a lot of that.

And I respectfully know a lot of people watching. You start your own podcast. Okay honey? Oh, you're surprised Ariana Grande lost? Yeah? Thank you. Yeah, I heard from a lot of people who are basically like cramming the Oscar movies in the last like week and I was like, you're-

Well, bless them for even watching them. That's true. A lot of people are just like, what's this? I don't like it. Okay. Yeah. I hate that, as you know. Yeah, so whatever. Last observation.

This one actually really bothered me. So I actually thought Conan was a great host. I thought he really walked a great line between not saying, isn't it ridiculous for here, but also getting off some rather sharp edge zingers. I thought that was really great. He starts the war, the ceremony in his monologue, which I thought overall was really good,

saying, okay, fires are bad, politics are bad, everything is tough, but it's okay that we're here to celebrate this moment because we're celebrating the working class artists of film, not just the famous people, but we're here to celebrate the moment because we're celebrating the working class artists of film, not just the famous people, but we're here to celebrate the artisans, blah, blah, blah. And then to watch artisan after artisan get played off the stage

while they're trying to make their speech. I was like, that is not, I mean, this has always been a frustrating thing about the Oscars. I really think, I mean, I know we're moving as, I think you and I are both really excited about it and hopefully Amanda's with us, towards this niche or we love cinema. Do you want that or do you want it to go back to like-

I do, I just don't wanna hear from everyone else afterwards of being like, well, I don't care about this. Yeah. You know? I think that's actually where we're headed is they'll stop caring. Yeah, do the, like either do the work or, you know, take my betting advice and move on.

That's actually, Katie and Becky were very respectful. And they enjoyed, I don't know if I won them any money, which I feel bad about, but they enjoyed Paul Tazewell's acceptance speech. So, you know, and that was a good one. I mean, there were a few artisans who broke through. Absolutely, but I just think overall... And there were some who just rested way too much time. I'm not naming any names, but it happened in the shorts category,

and that's a tough scene. I just think that like when the Oscars historically have, and by the Oscars I mean the, you know, the telecasts, have tried to put these categories during the commercial break or whatever, you know, whatever the case they can do to get further and further away from actually honoring or like collapse the sound categories. Like year after year, they're just sort of getting further and further away from this. So it's one thing to do that.

And it's another thing to make this speech about how why we're here is to honor those people and then to not give them time to talk. I just think that that's something what Conan said from the stage is something that insanely rich and famous people tell themselves. 100%. To feel better about having the most public award ceremony in America, if not the world. You know what I mean? Like, the Nobel is a much more important prize, but 20 million people don't watch the Nobel Prize ceremony. Like, this is the biggest thing like this that we do. Someone was telling me they're like, oh, you know what they're going to do?

They're going to get Bob Dylan to come out and do the meet with Timmy Shalomay. I was like, Bob Dylan did not leave his house. He's not doing that shit. He's not coming to the Oscars. That's why he's Bob Dylan. Yeah, exactly. OK, great observations. One other thing that I neglected to mention, though many people did point it out to me, is no real David Lynch meaningful acknowledgement.

I will say that he got, if it had not been for Gene Hackman, he would have had the final biggest in memoriam moment. They ended with him and it was a lengthy moment for him. So it would have wrapped with David Lynch, this huge filmmaker that we lost. So you're blaming Hackman. And Morgan Freeman, to be honest with you. Okay. Um, Morgan Freeman is an example

of an older star who was there. We didn't point out the fact that, you know, he does represent that Nicholson class. And, you know, I said it to you during the show, I was like, he's 87. Well, I think, and they were pairing, like bringing Goldie Hawn out with Andrew Garfield. Like they paired a lot of like older stars

with younger stars. I thought the Andrew... And Andrew Garfield almost always works for me. And this one didn't. This one did not. Well, I think... It was a little like, I'd like to fuck you, Goldie Hawn. Yes.

And Goldie Hawn wasn't quite on the same page. No. But that's also Goldie Hawn was like, I don't have my reading glasses. So I just, I... He, he, she, she looked great. It was okay. I appreciate what he does generally to bring the energy. He also is like, to me, he was the only non-nominated celebrity there,

like doing the work, putting on a show. You know, we need more of that. He was trying, he was trying. Yeah. You pointed out during the show that Isabella Rossellini was wearing the blue velvet dress. Yeah. Which was very nice he was trying. Um, you pointed out during the show that Isabella Russellini was wearing the blue velvet dress, which was very nice, great tribute, she did not win, so most people just did not see that or even think about it.

The Lynch thing is just like he was nominated for best director twice, like he's not just some guy. He's a significant part of Academy history. So you wanted Margaret Qualley to dance to blue velvet. Um... What song? How do we get her in the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks The Return, It's a good target quality to dance to Blue Velvet. Um... What song? How do we get her in the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks The Return

dancing to his son's band? Yeah, bring out Julie Cruz. Oh, that would have been one. She passed as well, right? Never mind. Don't bring out Julie Cruz. Okay. Very quickly, before we get into the mail back questions, we have a lot of questions. 2026 Oscar predictions. I'm not asking you to do the whole slate,

though I will admit to you guys here that I did do the whole slate last night while I was bored. Okay. Did you? Did you leave that experience joyful, nervous, tired? Like, where were you? You know what it is? I'm committed to the game. Like, I am about this life, and I've always been about it.

So if I decide with 48 minutes on a Monday night at 10, 12 p.m. to dig into my 20, 26 Oscar predictions... Because 11 was your heart out. I just kind of lose all brain function at that time, so I had to kind of squeeze it in there. Okay. But I felt good about it. But I asked you guys to just do one best picture prediction,

one best actor prediction, and one best actress prediction for the films that are coming out this year. How did you feel about this exercise? Seems a little thin on the ground right now. Yeah. OK. So that was my concern, and that's why I asked you how you were feeling, not, you know, some meta-commentary about your job as a full-time Oscar prognosticator.

I listed 26 potential Best Picture nominees. Cool. Just read them. Yeah, why don't you read them? I'm sure I forgot some. And we'll just say yes or no. Yeah. After the Hunt, the forthcoming Luca Guadagnino, Julia Robertson. I don't think it'll happen.

Anne Lee, Mona Fastfold's new movie, premiering later this year. Avatar, Fire and Ash. No. Nominated, but not... Maybe? I'm not saying winner, I'm saying nominated. I'm saying best picture nominees.

Yes. The Bride, Maggie Gyllenhaal's Bride of Frankenstein adaptation. I really want this to be a yes. This is gonna get like screenplay. I mean, not that... Again, it's not deserving, I just think that it'll get crowded out. Because isn't Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein also coming out this year? It is also coming out. We'll get to that.

But that's not real. These are in alphabetical order for the record. You know, Shape of Water was about a fish. Pinocchio is not real. I know, but he was a fascist. I don't know if he caught that. He was not a fascist. He existed in a fascist period in history. Bugonia, the new Yorgos Lanthimos film starring Emma Stone.

Uh, no. No. Lynn Ramsay's Die My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. No, but can't wait. Christopher Borglie's The Drama, starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya. This is the director of Dreams in the Area. Yes. No.

Okay, Joanna says yes, Amanda says no. Eddington, Ari Aster's contemporary set Western. No. Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Jim Jarmusch's new drama drama starring Cate Blanchett, which may premiere at Cannes. No, but that's nice. Okay.

I love Jim Jarmusch. Yeah, of course. Cate Blanchett. I'm just giving you... I'm just listing potentialities. I'm excited about everything that you just said. Okay. Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. Yes.

Nominated. Okay. Chloe Zhao's Hamnet, which is a literary adaptation. Yes. Highest to lowest, Spike Lee's remake of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low starring Denzel Washington. I'd like to say yes. I'd say yes. The History of Sound, Oliver Hermanus' new film starring Josh O'Connor and Paul Meskell about two men in the 1910s.

I'm so excited for this one. Right. I'm so excited for this one. Yes. I'm going to manifest it, yes. You could really see it. Yeah. OK.

Jay Kelly, Noah Baumbach's new film starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler. OK, so I have heard that I've heard rave, rave, rave things about this movie. Have you also heard this? The Sandler campaign, I've been told, buckle up for it. Part things about this movie. Have you also heard this? The Sandler campaign. I've been told, buckle up for, part of the reason that Sandler was there.

So that started last night? Was that, yes. Okay, then yes, let's do it. And I heard it like a while ago. Is it gonna be Cannes? It's Netflix. I think it'll be in the fall, and it's Netflix. So Venice?

We have to go to Venice. Do you wanna come to Venice? Sure. Okay, seriously, I'll write you an app, I'll fill out your application for you. I need people on the ground with me. I hate paperwork. So yeah. It's honestly pretty easy.

Okay, great. And mostly in Italian. You guys can't go to Venice. You don't want to go to Venice? Not really. We would have so much fun. Really, will you come to Venice? Yeah, I really would.

Okay, great. Okay, great, that's nice for you guys. Marty Supreme, this is Josh Safdie's Timothee Chalamet period piece about a ping pong player. No. In best picture. We're doing best picture right now. Best picture. No.

Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind, which is an art heist thriller set against the Vietnam War. No, but I can't wait. Sounds very exciting. Sounds so good. Materialists, which is a new movie from Celine Song, which just got a release date. Were they sending out cakes? A24, if you're listening. Are you not on the cake list? Well, I'm not always, but I don't...

Did they send a cake for this? I don't know. Because the cake was in the picture of announcing the date. I am not casting aspersions on this movie, but I don't think it's going to be an Oscar movie. Have you seen it? No, it's got a June release date, and it's got Dakota Johnson in it.

Joanna, would you like to use this opportunity to apologize to Chris Evans? I would. Yeah, go ahead. Formally, you apologize for the things that you said, and you believe that this movie with Celine Song can be. Show it to me first, and then we can talk about whether or not I need to be issuing apologies to anybody.

I believe in Celine Song. Yeah. I think Chris Evans has made some poor choices and can make some good ones. Dakota Johnson Forever and I'd like some cake. I feel so strongly Dakota Johnson Forever. Thank you. Okay, congrats guys.

When did Passive come out? What was better? 2023. No, but what month? Wasn't it like a weird... It was like May, June. Yeah, yeah. Yes, that's...

Yeah, I know they're trying to redo it. This is a rom-com. It's not a romance. Don't say it like that in my presence. Anora is being called a rom-com. Look, if I'm wrong about this, I'm wrong. I'm just giving you a gut take. One more Dakota Johnson thing. Which was better? Captain America, Red Hulk or Madame Web?

Oh, unfortunately it was Captain America. Oh no. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We got a lot of movies to go here. Of the two low bars. Okay, go ahead. Michael, the Michael Jackson biopic. Oh God.

Is this still, because they got to redo the whole third act? Reportedly. I... Before Matt Bellamy's report about this movie needing to reshoot the third act. Reportedly. I just- Before Matt Bellamy's report about this movie needing to reshoot the third act, I would have said this is a locked and loaded best picture contender. That's not a qualitative assessment.

I have no idea how this is gonna land. I have no idea how this is gonna land. Mother Mary, David Lowery's pop star portrayal starring Anne Hathaway. Anne Hathaway? No. Park Chan-Wook's No Other Choice. Yes.

I feel a Park Chan-wook moment coming. Something that occurred to me. One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson's new film. Leo, yeah. The Phoenician Scheme, Wes Anderson's new movie. No, but it's an outrage. Coming very soon. Two months.

I know, can. Very exciting. Can, yeah. Screenplay. Screenplay, okay. Well, but yeah, but not... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're just doing best picture right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chinese Master B-Gone's Resurrection. Okay, you guys don't have an answer on that one. Derek C. in France returns to feature filmmaking with a new film called Roof Man. It's about a roof man. Who's in Roof Man? I forget who the roof man. Who's the titular roof man? Who's the titular roof man? Who's the roofer in Roof Man? Oh, about a roof man. Who's in Roof Man? I forget who the roof man is. Who's the titular roof man? Who's the titular roof man?

Who's the roofer in Roof Man? Oh, it's Channing Tatum. Is this taking place in the Chris Pine pool guy universe? No. There's a roof man. No. There's a pool guy. There's Spider-Man, there's Batman, there's pool man,

and there's roof man. And there's Roof Man. Yeah, all my favorite superheroes. I'm sorry, you said it's Channing Tatum? Channing Tatum. Is there a man instead of Gambit? And yes, and Lakeith Stanfield and Ben Mendelsohn and Keirsten Dunst. Do love her.

Now, Derek Sey and France for the boys. You know, we do love Derek Sey and France. For the boys? Yes, very much. Yeah, A Place Beyond the Pines is Yeah, Blue Valentine for the girls. is true boy text. It is, it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's a no, but yeah. It is. Yeah. I think it's a no. But yeah. OK. It's a no. I lost my place on my list. Where is it? You can't claim Derek C. in France. I just did.

The Smashing Machine. This is a true life story of a boxer starring The Rock. No. Directed by Benny Safdie. No. OK, no. Sorry Baby, which was a smash out of Sundance that A24 acquired.

Yes. They always get one. That's their one? Well, they always get one Sundance, you know? Yeah, yeah. The Sundance. Well, I guess Real Pain didn't get it this year. This would be the A Real Pain movie.

Not to conflate the meaning of those two movies. Train Dreams, another Sundance movie. Oh, that's the one. That's the one. That's the one. Clint Bentley and Greg Quedar's movie. And Wicked for Good. Yes. Okay, Bobby, we're keeping track of how many yeses they gave.

More than ten. I'll note that in post. Okay, thank you. Did I miss anything? Did you have one that I didn't mention? No. Okay. I feel like Wicked for Good is the easiest prediction here. And we may be in for a wicked year.

We may be in for one. As mentioned about Dune Messiah, Wicked for Good is going to be a darker tale, you know? Does anybody fuck a sandworm in Wicked for Good? Can you confirm or deny that? I won't speak for Elphaba and her choices. Best actor predictions? Chalamet back. For Marty Supreme?

Leo in. For One Battle After Another. Wow. That's also like the substance right there. It is. I had, those were my first two on my list. Yeah. The wild card I'll throw out there is, this is just for a nominee, Matthew McConaughey for a movie called The Lost Bus,

which is Paul Greengrass's new movie for Apple, which is about the Paradise fires and a bus driver who got children out of the fire. That's like a real Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic sort of situation. I think it's not quite that whimsical. No, no, no. Not whimsy. But just sort of like that level of, I could see it happening. Yeah, yeah. Best actress.

Emma Stoneback for the Yorgos movie. Pagonia. Annie Hathaway. Had her on the list as well. My number one pick is Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, which was at Sundance. I didn't see it. But went into tea leaves reading mode.

And there's a big halo around her performance in that movie. On the one hand, yes, but on the other hand, it feels like a thing that you make a big deal of at Sundance that does not track. Could be. This happened to Ciaran Culkin, though. And we saw what happened on Sunday. Okay, thanks for playing that exercise with me. Uh...

Let's do the mailbag, right? Any closing thoughts? Oh, very quickly, Jesse Armstrong has a movie coming, apparently, on HBO. In like two months, six weeks. The creator of Succession, one of the best TV writers of the last ten years. In the wake of Sean Baker's We Need to Go to the Theaters, how do you feel about a Jesse Armstrong movie on HBO? I mean, it's not what I want. It's also where I've consumed most of his work

for the last three to however many years. Yeah, movies are back, but on TV. That's just how it's been. I don't love that. It's not great, but I'm so excited to have a new movie. It's kind of a meh spring. Yeah, it's tough. So for this show's purposes, it's like, all right,

Mickey 17, Sinners, some other stuff, you know? We got to get to May here. We really got to get to May. So if this movie drops in April, it's very exciting for the big picture. We accept. Michael B. Jordan, best actor, Sinners. It's not impossible.

No, it's not probable, but it's not impossible. It seems not likely, given that it's a vampire movie. Golden Globe. Golden Globes. Big Golden Globes vibes. All right, Robert. It's not impossible. No, it's not probable, but it's not impossible. It seems not likely, given that it's a vampire movie. Golden Globes. Big Golden Globes vibes. All right, Robert, hit us with some mail back questions. How did the inbox look? They look good.

I read over 300 emails for this mail back. Well, yeah. Sheesh. And I tried to drop in or respond to as many as possible. So I apologize if yours is not in here. And also we have a 40 minute conversation with one of the masters of international cinema coming at the end of this, so we can't just answer 200 questions. That's true.

I apologize. First question, jumping back to Sunday evening, what snacks and beverages did Amanda and Sean enjoy and Joanna or not enjoy during the telecast this year? I will say this, I heard the food at the at the neon party was a, was a bus. No Bueno? No. Was a bus. Yeah.

Wolfgang Puck on offer there. Okay. That's too bad. Um, we had sushi. We did. We had, you know, me hand roll, which is a downtown fixture that I'm a huge fan of. We now frequently order, you know, me hand roll from, uh, for award show viewing purposes here at the, on the big screen at Spotify, which is fun.

I don't know why you didn't join us. That would have been nice actually. I didn't even think about that. Then again, Amanda and I watching these shows with one or two folks from our video team has become a tradition and it's very weird, but it's sweet. Um, it's like, I saw the video of Amanda prone at one point. I do. There are two like very, very oversized armchair love seat situations,

but at some point you just gotta lay back and relax. Yeah, just let it happen to you. Which is what I was doing. Yeah. Wait, it was Mick Jagger you found particularly offensive? No, it was that I, one of my out on a limb predictions was that we were gonna finally take care of this Diane Warren thing, you know? And it was just then we wouldn't have to talk about it anymore. It would have been so nice.

Which like I should have run the campaign. Let's get this over with. Yes. Yeah, you should call her. You guys should hang out. Next year. Yeah. We didn't snack too much.

I've shifted my mentality on this. I used to over order on Oscar day. A lot of snacks, big meal, you know, double cheeseburger. Nowadays, I want to be relatively light stomached. I agree. I also agree with that. What did you have when you got home? I inhaled a box of Annie's Snack Mix, which is technically my daughters, but not anymore. Not anymore.

And I feel good about that choice. I also had three tall glasses of water. Oh, good. Okay. Yep. And then I had to wake up at four o'clock in the morning to pee because I'm 42 years old. Yeah, it's really tough. You just can't drink water after 7 p.m. After 40. Just something for all the listeners and

all you fine young... Cannibal. ... young millennials and Gen Z. Enjoy that water while you can, guys, because it's not going to work out as you get older. Yeah. I had half a gummy. And then I thought that would help me sleep. Like a weed gummy, obviously. And then I woke up at like four o'clock and was like, hello! We were talking about whether or not you were... I know, I tried it. It did, you know,

because after an Oscar's day or something, you can be a little high energy, you know? A little like jittery. I only know based on the texts I saw that came from you that were in all caps with so many exclamation marks. a little high energy, you know, a little like jittery. I only know based on the texts I saw that came from you that were in all caps with so many exclamation marks. You know, you're trying to keep the energy up, keep it going, but then you gotta like come down.

So I thought that the gummy might help. And I guess it did. I properly dosed. I followed the instructions on the label, but then it didn't really help my sleep. So that's out. It's hard out here. Did you enjoy anything nice?

On theme of low key Oscars, I just did not. I usually do like theme food. This was just like a, just a cash, yeah. All right, well next year we'll try to figure it out. Assuming you're here covering the White Lotus season four in Los Angeles. Okay, what's our next question? Next question comes from Sam.

Sam wants to know what is the next film from Sean Baker? How much bigger does he go? Many people asked us a similar question. Does Sean Baker cash in a blank check now? Does he continue to make films in the same register? What will happen next for his career? He has said specifically that he wants to go smaller, that he is committed to independent cinema

and he does not want to do what your illustrious guess on this podcast has done, which is, uh, go bigger. Yeah. Well, to me, Bong Joon-Ho going bigger after Parasite didn't feel like some kind of rejection. I mean, he'd already made Okja, he'd already made the host. He's spectacle as a part of his proposition, right? He's going bigger for something like Mickey 17, which is not like, I wanna go make a Marvel movie.

Like, it's very, very different. If Sean Baker signed on for Fantastic Four 2, that would be disappointing. Grim. Grim. It would be an objection of everything we understand, yes. But without, you know, I'm really, really excited for Mickey 17. This has nothing to do with that. But like, the fact that Sean Baker's like, I can do it,

I could do more with less. He was also talking about how he was like, going immediately to Florida to interview the kids from The Florida Project, who are now teenagers, like for special features for The Florida Project DVD. And I was just like, that's the movie I really wish Willem Dafoe had won Best Supporting Actor for. But I just love that he's like, I can go down from here. There's one other exciting consequence, I think,

which is just that people are going to go back and look at his older movies. Prince of Broadway is coming out in the Criterion collection at the same week that Enora is coming in the Criterion collection. So they're coming out together, Criterion very smart, to pair those things together, these people will buy them together. And that's a very little scene movie. That's a really interesting movie that has a lot of little strands that when you look through his work, you can see the resonance. So I think it's, the thing is, is it doesn't really

matter how like big or not big his movie is. It's, he's, does a very specific kind of story. And if he moves significantly beyond that, it would be shocking. He's been talking about this. The other thing is like, everybody thought Sean Baker was like 38 years old. He's 56 years old. He's been making movies for 30 years. He does look great. I mean, the thing is, could he cash in? The one reason I guess to do it would be a mountain of money. And he seems very cool and to not care about that at all, which is just another... Otherwise, why would you really do it? He writes, directs, edits, he's just running his own show.

He makes amazing movies, has built a career and a uber over time and can do it all himself without other people bugging him. I think also all of his movies are pointedly transgressive in their themes and in what they portray on screen, and he wants control over that. He doesn't want to be told he can't do it.

So of course he's not signing up to make a movie at Warner Brothers, you know, that would make sense. Right, but there, you know, there's ideas of, can I leverage this to sign a deal with Warner's where I get complete creative control over this? And I like this idea that like, you know, we'll see what he does, where he does it, et cetera, but listening to Tom Quinn's interview on the town, like, and talking about what, like,

Neon wants to do and all of that, I just think that that's a really good interview and a really good support of a filmmaker that they, you know, had a lot of great success with this year, but also really courted for a long time. So yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, let's actually do the Neon A24 question then because of that. Cause I think that's a really good segue, Bob. Yeah, we got this question from Nick.

Has Neon officially taken the independent film company championship belt away from A24? So there's a lot of ways to read this. And I think it's an interesting question. The championship belt is fake. That doesn't mean anything. Yeah. And that's a false way of finding it. And also like, even if it's real, it's a lot of ways to read this. And I think it's an interesting question. The championship belt is fake. That doesn't mean anything. That's a false way of finding it. And also, like, even if it's real, it's like, no, they trade it back and forth at the Oscars

and in the box office and in life. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I fully agree. I think, at least among producers that I know, Neon is hotter. Like, Neon is just a little bit hotter right now because A24 is in the middle of this transition where they are trying to, and succeeding succeeding at being a bigger company that generates more

success. Now, they are going to run into the same thing that every movie studio runs into, which is to try to make bigger movies. Your movies have to get riskier, more expensive, and maybe dumber. Yeah. And so that- More broadly appealing, certainly. Yeah. Yes. And that, so that sheen of cool that they have worked so hard to accumulate over the years

Is slightly under threat if you look though? At say let's just say for the box office last year What do you think this is a game? How much money worldwide? Do you think? Anoramate at the box office? I feel like I should know this. Isn't it something like 50 million? No. Any guesses? I was going to say like 24.

It's $41.25 million. Now, how about this? How much did the Brutalist make at the box office? That one I don't know, but less, right? Guess? Oh, I mean, I'll guess 24 again, just to have a fun time. 41.46. They are neck and neck at the box office.

And I would say for both of those movies, that's a great success if you remove the context of these are the leading contenders for best picture. So both of these companies are doing very well. If you go through 2024 though, A24 had many of its highest grossing movies ever in 2024. Civil War, Heretic, Baby Girl, We Live in Time, and Maxine all cleared $20 million worldwide. I think just one movie for Neon did that and it was Long Legs, which was a crazy success story, but was more anomalous than it was the trend.

So just in that context, they're doing different things. You know, I think they both have two best picture winners now, right? With Moonlight and Everything I Ever Real I Want, and Parasite and now this film. Neon has made this bid to basically buy every single Palme d'Or winner. I'm sure they'll try to do that again this year. They both have great taste. One is like a lifestyle brand. The other is just like, we just do movies.

That's our whole thing. A lot of the marketing for the monkey was literally poking fun at the candle selling for Heretic. I don't know if you guys saw that poster. They're in a little quiet Cold War here that is fun. Can I, so to go back to that interview that Tom Quinn did on The Town, which again, I really recommend, like, he was talking about the campaign effort.

And he was talking... He and Mount were specifically talking about the mailers. And as someone who receives, as do you guys, like, all of the awards he's in, mailers, every year, I look forward to two things, which is the neon box set, because they send it out every year in a physical media, beautiful box set, not just like a random DVD that they've shoved in a random envelope that you get a million of and it's deeply annoying, and the A24 box, the A24 box, which is full of, yes,

like, hair to candles and like weird swag. I have never received the A24 box in my life. I have no idea why. Okay, well... I'm just saying that on the record. Those are just the two... And to your point, we do movies, we do swag. That's what A24 does.

But the swag, unlike any of the other studios that send out something completely random disconnected from the movie or just something really weird and useless, they're like, these are really fun, clever, funny things that are tied to, you know, one year it comes in like a Manari food crate box and like, you know, whatever it is. It's just like, it's like, we know you love our movies. Here's a bunch of stuff tied to our movies. But those are...

Yeah. But those are two like really smart, concentrated efforts. Who blitzes everyone with awards tweets and stuff? It's Netflix. They send you, you're getting a Netflix package every day. It becomes deeply annoying. There are these huge heavy art books. It's all this sort of stuff.

And it's so emblematic of like how concentrated and targeted and clever the NEON and H-24 approaches are. Yeah, that particular aspect of things, they still are just doing very well and they seem to be reaching people in a way that maybe all those Netflix mailers are not reaching people and some of the Netflix films. I don't know.

I think the other thing to consider is that I pointed this out on social media. This is the first time all six major winners and best animated feature and best documentary and international feature were independently financed. None of those movies were financed by a major studio in Hollywood. That is antithetical to the origins of the Academy Awards. They were started by the studios. And so we're seeing a massive shift.

And so now what you're seeing is not just A24 and Neon, but I think particularly Janice Sideshow and Mubi are like real awards contenders every year in addition to Sony Pictures Classics and Focus and all the old hands who are really, who have always been really good at this. You know, Janice just got Flow a Best Animated Feature Oscar. That's a crazy thing that happened. I mean, I know we don't talk about that sort of stuff that much on the show, but there's no precedent for that sort of thing happening in that category.

I don't know what that campaign looked like at all, though. That, to me, all felt like word of mouth, which I guess is like a symbol of good. I think Gintz worked so hard. He did so many interviews. He was so present. But then some of that was also just, that was a very online phenomenon interviews. He was so present. But then some of that was also just,

that was a very online phenomenon also. You know, like it was, and the CAD and the Capybara and I think also like the lack of dialogue means that you don't have to do subtitle, you know, it does travel. Yes, very international kind of story. Yes, exactly. So and accessible. And they made it like very available.

You could see it on, I believe, Max before the Oscar. So and accessible and they made it like very available. You could see it on I believe Max before the Oscar. Like people were into it. So yeah and I think Mubi, obviously Mubi picked up the substance from Universal and if you just look at what Mubi is going to do this year, we mentioned the history of sound already. Bring Them Down is coming out next week. It's or maybe it came out last week and it's coming to streaming soon. It's Christopher Abbott and Barry Kogan in a movie.

Um, Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, The Jarmusch Movie, Magic Farm, Amalia Ullman's next movie, and then The Mastermind is also a movie. These companies, like, they don't have as much money and they don't have as much clout as Warner Brothers or Universal, but in some cases they have a higher likelihood of winning Oscars in the future. So things are just very different. And in that respect, it's fun. A24 and Indiana are going to be fine. They're doing great.

What's next? Okay. We got many, many questions about Adrian Brody's speech. So this one represents that cohort of people. Tim asks, now that it's confirmed that Adrian Brody gave the longest acceptance speech in history, which we did not know on Sunday evening when we recorded, do Sean and Amanda have any second thoughts on it? Most of the online community thought it was scatterbrained and incohesive, Tim says.

Do you have any second thoughts? No, Tim, I don't. This was one where... That was not scatterbrained or incohesive. So funny. Is incohesive a word? Incoherent. Incoherent, which for the record, we did on the podcast. We were like, this was really long.

And he was like getting around on it. I believe the words I used were elongated and self-regarding. So, you know, I wasn't totally praising. And I observed that it took him a very long time. You know, everyone was watching. I think how you respond to it is like how you respond to it, and that's fine. I've been thinking a lot about the broadcast decision to cut to Georgina Chapman as many times as they did, which is maybe like that we could Monday morning quarterback on a little bit.

But no, the main thing that I've been thinking about is I'm just like, oh, so people really didn't see The Brutalist because it's like, you were expecting some energy. Like if you, if you had been... What if The Brutalist weren't accepted in speech? Like if you had been in The Brutalist mindset, if you've been following what Brady Corbett has done, which is another thing, I'm just like, you guys better be glad the director went the way it did. But I was like, oh, okay, so you all are just learning about all of this.

Um, and that's, that's fine. You know, I actually, I definitely think that it works better in the film, The Brutalist, than it did on stage, but, you know, whatever. It's, it's the Oscars. Do you think one should physically toss one's gum before watching The Brutalist as well? That was tough, but I do also, I like that he was like, I shouldn't have gum in my mouth.

Sure. Do you guys talk about this on, do people know that the kids he talked about in his acceptance speech are Harvey Weinstein's kids? Yes, that's what I was talking, yes, that's what I was like. Popsie. I mean, listen, the kids are like, and the kids are blameless. No, yeah, it's just an interesting Hollywood tale.

You can cut to the supportive partner once or twice, but the fourth time that someone is coaching him through an Oscar speech, you begin to remember when she's been at the Oscars before. I would just think twice. to begin to remember when she's been at the Oscars before. I would just think twice. I... Here's what I will say about the speech. There's... I'll repeat some of what I said, but one... I interviewed Adrien Brody during the campaign for The Brutalist.

That's what it's like talking to Adrien Brody. If you listen to our interview, he's incredibly deliberate. He's deeply serious. If you want to say he's too self-serious and a windbag, if you want to use those words, feel free. Like that is how he is and how he always is in my experience. What I was trying to point out when I was, what I was praising in the speech was that he did something that I think good speeches do, which is that they show you what's most important

to the person who won. What was most important to him was his journey, his arc as an actor, as a famous person, as a person who fell, whatever that means, in the last 20 years, and as a person who in his mind came back. All this stuff about like love, not hate, that's the same Jeremiah's we hear at every Academy Awards.

To me, that was like, it was long, but it was the same shit you hear from actors all the time. It took him like a very, very long time to land the plane very softly. And people didn't like obviously that he said, I've been here before, you know, and I get all that. I thought that was kind of amusing. I liked it. The same way I thought the Chalamet,

like I want to be one of the great singers, was amusing, I was like, you don't see this too often. It's nice to see something different. But specifically him talking about like, him pumping himself up in his comeback story, which is in his mind. I mean, Adrian Brody is presumably very wealthy and successful and having a good life. Yeah.

But he's like Wes Anderson, bit player no more, succession guest star no more. I'm leading man Adrian Brody again. And I think what is true about these kinds of Oscars, these kinds of like, where you've been Oscars, is that it doesn't necessarily, ask Renee Zellweger, ask Brendan Fraser, does this necessarily translate to your back baby? No, it definitely does not.

So that all seemed a little like, I'm not sure the point you're making is a true point. He kind of used it as like a, I am committing to myself in front of all of you. It's ultimately not up to him, unfortunately. I mean, that's the thing, it's like the penis and the brutalist are once in a lifetime roles and he just happened to get two. And a lot of people have...

I thought you said something other than the penis. I was like, okay, well, I saw a different cut. Um, I think that... No, I didn't actually. I saw the... You saw the penis cut. I was thinking about, yeah. Yeah, you did. I saw the... You saw the penis cut. I was thinking about... Yeah, you did. Um, I'm gonna move right on past that one. Why is everyone being such a prude this Oscar season?

Come on, House of R. Come on, House of R. What do you mean? A nor-just-one-past picture. I know, and everyone's just been like, can you believe that something is scandalous and so many naked ladies? I was like, it's a strip club. Like, sure, they have sex. Like, they had a lot of sex in Poor Things.

Why, you know, why is everyone just being so uptight? It's fine. They're just bodies. Okay. Thank you very much to Dr. Dobbins for sharing, as an impromptu science corner, for health class. To go back to my earlier, like, let's not play the poor artisans off the stage. When there are, like, people who didn't even get to make their speech

and Adrienne Brody takes that amount of time, that's when I have a real issue. In the whole, I agree with you, but this was at the end of the show. And it was Best Actor. Like, should Best Actor not talk for a longer period of time than the Best Visual Effects team? This is the Academy Awards. I have the next question, Bob. Read the next question.

This is the exact next question, comes from Keely. On the last pod, you both mentioned varying opinions about the allotted time of acceptance speeches. Is everyone deserving of the same time slot, or should more time be given to the big categories? Here's my issue when we slot VFX artists in the commercials or play them off the stage is like, this is the one time they get to be inside of it, out in front of an audience this big, in their lives. Adrian Brody has had this opportunity

and gotten to give many speeches at many awards shows at this point. And this is the one time that those people get to do it. And like- I mean, are we fighting for the democracy of entertainment? Like this is not, it's a show business. Famous people get more. They get more money, they get more time.

Like, this is just how it is. What are we fighting against here? This is like, I don't know. This feels like a very, like, politically-brained thing that finds its way into discourse about meaningless shit. It has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with, like, I just get excited for those people

who have, like, never been on a stage that big in front of that many people. There was a moment on Sunday night, I don't remember which category it was, but there were three or four winners. Maybe it was sound, I'm not sure. And so the third winner just didn't get to speak. And that sucks.

That's what I'm talking about. That just sucks. And honestly, that can be fixed in production. And that is like a telecast, not like in post, but... There's three people on stage, wait for the third person to talk. You make the decision. That should just be the rule. There are people there live covering it. Like, that was a fuck up.

I... My thing is less about, like, should be a lot, a specific amount of time and should... Because then, first of all, that doesn't allow for spontaneity in the moment, and it does get into like weird culture wars that we just don't need to get into. Everyone needs to be prepared.

This is on the winners, is my thing. Like if you're nominated, do your homework, get ready, be entertaining. This is a TV show. I agree. Like it's your moment. We're gonna give you the moment. Use the moment. And I think if everyone used the moment,

then they might not be played off. I would say that that is nice in theory, but you have clearly never won an Academy Award. Because what everyone says is when it happens, you're like, fuck. I can't believe this happened. Sean Fantasy. And then you start freaking out. Let me tell you right now, I would be awesome. Okay. Okay?

Great. I would be awesome. Okay. Great. I would be prepared, but I would also bring my natural warmth and charisma. Yeah, absolutely. Many people are saying natural warmth emanates off of you. And I would say rude things to you live from stage, and it would be incredible. You'd kill. I just think that if our whole idea of which direction the Oscars is moving in, which is towards celebrating edgy, interesting cinema, then your whole like, celebrities get more man attitude.

I'm not advocating for it. I'm saying be realistic. Like be realistic. You think they're gonna make more time for that? You can't make me be realistic. I mean, you could say you wish it was this way, but it's never gonna be this way. It's the Oscars. But we can fight against it. Like, when they put those categories...

Fight who? When we put the categories... When they tried to put the categories in the commercials, which they did, they were roundly shamed into undoing that. So you can shame them into... I'm not advocating that. ...behaving correctly. I... I think that's debatable.

I think whether or not, like, artisans will get the... It's definitely debatable, yeah. Artisans getting equal time to powerful people is not gonna happen. It's just not gonna happen. I have a quick fix for this. With the exception of the very nice Dutch couple, and I... who won, I believe it was live action? Yes. Short? I am it was live action short.

I am not a robot. Yes. Oh yeah. And congratulations to the New Yorker. And then you guys finally won something. But I thought they- After steamrolling us at the National Magazine Awards for 20 consecutive years, now they have an Oscar.

Those fucking bastards. And they, and now that was like a nice moment. And she was like, I know that we're Dutch and we don't say this, but I love you. Good job. That was cute. The other short speeches were, I think, borderline disastrous and often are,

and also always go on so long. So we just, we gotta move that to another awards show. And then we can take the time that we've saved and give it to the Crafts people and let everyone who's nominated speak. Do you think Academy members are listening right now? Not Academy members, Academy governors, leadership is listening right now and thinking these guys know what they're doing and in 2026 we're coming through.

I would personally cut the entirety of the James Bond tribute, and that solves everything. Well, we're aligned on that one. We could have had a lot more time for a lot of other things if we had done that. Okay, Bob, what's next? Okay, important question up next. Sam wants to know, who has the best picture title belt right now?

This is, of course, alluding touding to I think a famous Bill Simmons concept of who's carrying the belt at any moment of who is the best current NBA player and it overlaps year to year so what movie do you think right now is holding the belt of the best best picture? I think it's still Parasite. That's a really good one. The thing is is like is Parasite better than like Silence of the Lambs? That's because in the Belt concept, it's a history. There's a certain posture that you take on when you're about to correct me on the rules.

The posture of a great man. Of some made-up Bill thing. And I just... I've been working for Bill for like 13 years. I love Bill. Bill has made a whole world up that I love living in every day. Was it the last ten years or was it the history of the Academy Awards? Well, the concept is a historical concept. So at some point, you know, you have to say that Silence of the Lambs,

Silence of the Lambs probably lost it to something else, right? You know, to No Country for Old Men or something like that. You know, this emailer did give their... I would not put No Country for Old Men over silence of the lambs, personally. So, as an interesting example, would be close, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't put Parasite over it either. Much as I love one of those in life. How many get to Lawrence of Arabia? I mean, that's the thing is you could go all the way back.

I mean, Casablanca? You could go all the way back. You know, all the cavalcade heads out there. You know, the Cimarron heads. You know, the greatest show on earth heads. I think if you talk to any film... Like, anytime I've interviewed a filmmaker, they almost always have a Lord's Arabia poster

up in their house somewhere. It's a good question. Do you think they'll show it again at the 70 millimeter fest this year? And can we go? Yes. I think they will and I would love to go. I really wanted to,

but I was like nine and a half months pregnant. You were very pregnant. I was like, I can't commit to being. I really wanted to, but I was like nine and a half months pregnant. You were very pregnant. I was like, I can't commit to being anywhere for four hours at this point. My goal is to attend six screenings during that festival. Like, because you know what the lineup is and you've identified the six films, or you're just setting random photos for yourself.

Well, they just program it really, really well. American Cinematheque does a great job year round, but that festival in particular is really great. Would you want to just do 10 years? Would you say Parasite is the number one? Yes. Of the last 10 years, yeah. Yes. I agree.

What's next? You want to do like, let's do three more. Sure. Okay, we got a question here from Kyle. Interesting question, thought provoking. My question is, if we want to see, if we want people to see movies in theaters, doesn't the Academy need to require that these movies be available outside of LA and New York?

Should the Academy raise the minimum threshold to 1,000 theaters so that Oscar-nominated movies get real theatrical distribution, not just token distribution for the Hollywood and New York elite? Yeah, fuck the coastal elites. That's right. Well, this was- No, I agree. This was a- Get Wrecked, Brooklyn podcaster. Yeah, fuck the coastal elites. That's right. No, I agree. This was a...

Get rekt, Brooklyn podcaster. Yeah. You were probably in the Little Gold Men time when I feel like this was a very noisy proposition, right? Like the 1920... Call me by your name. We couldn't, no one could get that one. And I was in, you know, I'm in San Francisco,

so I couldn't, I'm a coastal elite, but I couldn't get to call me by your name. Not quite coastal enough. Yeah, I think that there Francisco, so I couldn't, I'm a coastal elite, but I couldn't get to call me by your name. Not quite coastal enough. Yeah, I think that there was, you know, Spielberg's frustration with Netflix was a period in time. Netflix, I think, particularly with the push from Roma, and that kind of being a real... That was a film where it was like, this movie's gonna win.

And what does it winning actually mean for movies? Started to freak people out a little bit, and so this conversation really kicked up. Now I feel like what's happening is like a major rejection of the streamers. You know, the Netflix, the Millie Prez implosion, Amazon being the butt of several jokes during the telecast. The fact that there's new leadership

with the film team at Netflix. I'm not saying that culturally Netflix is down. They're winning more than they've ever won. It's just, I think the question of like how many theaters a movie can play in, it's... Sony Pictures Classics can't get I'm Still Here into a thousand theaters. They literally can't do that. So that's not gonna happen. That would be financially ruinous

for them to try to exhibit the movie at that level. But should it have more cities that it should play in? Should it have a longer period of time where it plays? I think these things are maybe a little bit more fungible. And isn't part of this issue, I mean, this is a larger issue, not just the Academy requirement, but the fact that because of Netflix, et cetera, so many small art house theaters have shuttered in places.

And there are places where you can't find a theater that would show Sing Sing or something else. If you could make a change like this, what would you make? It's really, it's tough because I absolutely agree with Sean Baker and everyone else who loves going to movie theaters that that business really needs to be saved. But if you enacted this 1000 theater thing, as you said, like literally none of the movies that we like could afford to do it because of the way the business model works.

And a lot of that has to do with the theater model, which is related to, I mean, like intertwined with Hollywood stuff, but like still a separate business with its own things. Correct. So splitting revenues. Yeah. So I just... And then I think the result of, okay,

so if an Oscar movie has to be distributed, if you have to spend this much money to make a movie an Oscar contender, then I think there are movies that don't get made anymore. You know, that's like, which is like the opposite of... It's a good way of thinking about it, yeah. So, so maybe it's... Maybe it's more cities.

Like, maybe that's a good geographic way of doing it. You know. Not a thousand, but like, at least Chicago and et cetera, et cetera. Is that what you mean? Right, exactly, and identifying markets. Not a thousand, but like at least Chicago and et cetera, et cetera. Is that what you mean? Right, exactly. And identifying markets. What about, and I don't know how financially ruinous this would be, what about an Academy

sponsored like once the nominees are announced, all of those nominees go into the theater. That would be interesting, but then is the Academy paying for that? That's what I think they should do. I mean, it's a nonprofit organization, so in order to boost, that would be a clear declaration of boosting the theatrical experience, which in theory they want, but I'm not sure if they can really take a side. They built themselves a whole museum. I know.

You know? Which is amazing, but like, ultimately long-term, wouldn't we be better served putting that money into getting people to reengage in the movie going express? That would be an interesting thing to discuss with... That would be a reason to have the Academy leadership on the show, is to talk about a concept like that, because that's really... It's a good idea. I heard from a lot of people...

Like the way that they put the shorts, they put shorts into the theater. But that's a separate corporation that does that, that I think benefits from that and splits the proceeds with the filmmakers. Anyway, one thing that Brian Curtis said on the press box, actually, on Monday, was that he was responding to Sean Baker's comments in the Best Director speech. And he just told the story that I heard, I saw a bunch of people on social media shared with me too, which is like, it's expensive to go to the movies. I went to go see, he said, I went to go see Dog Man with my family and it cost $50.

And plus parking and some, we've tried to be since like practical about that when talking about it on the show, that it is not cheap to go see movies. One of the reasons why it's not cheap is because for example, second run movie theaters don't really exist anymore. You being able to go see a movie that had been out for four months and pay five bucks to see with your kids. That's kind of gone. That's streaming has replaced that. That's not coming back. I don't see any world in which that framework where you could get like the matinee ticket or just making things significantly more affordable, especially in a metropolis, is coming back.

Plus with movie theaters closing, you got to drive 50 miles to go to your nearest movie theater if you live in certain towns. That isn't what Sean Baker's talking about though. He's not talking to you, Joe movie goer, about how you're not seeing movies. He's talking to movie studios about guaranteeing theatrical exhibition for the movies that they green light.

So it's a shot across the bow with the streamer, sure, but also with like universal 17 day window and how movies just go to VOD after two and a half weeks if they don't cross a certain box office threshold. Seeing Warner Brothers now doing this, maybe not with an official policy, but like companion was available to stream after two and a half weeks and that movie did okay. It's a pretty decent business for a genre movie in January and you can watch it at home now.

So like that thing that he said, I think he more so than us yelling on a podcast can encourage people to make change, but honestly not that much. I honestly don't think what he said. And I know I'm a cynic about these things, but I honestly don't think what he said, and I know I'm a cynic about these things, but I really don't think what he said is gonna like really change David Zaslav and Donna Langley's point of view on the theatrical model. It is David Zaslav, unfortunately.

But at some point it's shareholders of a corporation that has XYZ, which is how all businesses and corporations in this cursed country work, but, or the world at large. But it's, I loved the speech and I thought it was important, but I agree with you that I think it's more effective to people at home, but you can't, the problem is you need to be able to change the emotions of faceless corporations. And that's not really possible. But also change the mindset of so many people because of the prohibitive cost or because of the

frictionless comfort of watching something at home, change people's minds about what constitutes a trip to the cinema movie. Every so many people it's spectacle. Yes, eventization. Yeah. And like, and... I would hope that that wouldn't be the case. It wasn't always the case, obviously, for us growing up. And so, um, but this is, I guess, the moment when we once again say to me, get real.

Like, get real. It's not, it's not gonna happen. I was doing math in my head about how, I think if you tallied up the domestic box office for the movies that we identified as, like like the top five contenders this year, it was still probably less than just what Rain Man made in America. Right, right. Which is the kind of movie that we're talking about. And it's not just that like Rain Man made that much money,

but then like everyone had seen Rain Man and everyone could talk. And you felt like you had to see Rain Man so that you get the jokes and stuff like that. And we are scattered and we're not all watching the same movies anymore. And I sound probably older than Sean did when he talked about how you can't drink water anymore. But you know, it's like. I gotta get all my water in by 4 p.m.

Uh. It's a good thing that you can't be pregnant because it's just like. For more reasons than one. Like you know, but like you just, you cannot imagine the peeing at night situation and how you're trying to like ration your water. It's...

I used to just be able to go right back to bed though. Yeah, me too. Yeah, that's gone. Will you write a parenting book called You Can't Imagine the Peeing at Night? You just, I mean, you really, like... You really, really... It's more of a kid's book. Yeah. I would buy it. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, couple more, Bob. Make them count. I just want to say before I read the next one, I'm not working on this show if Sean is pregnant. Pregnant Sean running this spreadsheet? I'm out. I'm out. I'm trying it off. I challenge all the listeners of the show to remake the poster for Junior, where Arnold Schwarzenegger is pregnant

and Danny DeVito is his... Danny DeVito is his... Emma Thompson is... Emma Thompson is his doctor. Who's his doctor? No, Emma Thompson is the doctor at Bridget Jones. I believe Emma Thompson is the doctor in junior. Is she? Who is... You're thinking about twins. But is is Danny DeVito not in junior? I'm pretty sure it's Emma Thompson. I mean she... hold on, let's see. Danny DeVito is Okay. Emma Thompson is the mother, the non-pregnant mother. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the pregnant man, just like I will be one day.

And Danny DeVito is his doctor wearing a stethoscope on the poster. Okay, so CR is Danny DeVito. No, you are Emma Thompson. Amanda is Danny DeVito. Amanda is Emma Thompson. And I am Arnold Schwarzenegger. CR is Danny DeVito. I'm just reading the plot of Junior, which I guess I haven't seen in 30 years.

This is an Ivan Ruddman film. They made $100 million with the box office. I thought Emma Thompson was the doctor. That's my political brain. She is a doctor. Okay, thank God. Well, it says Emma Thompson, Dr. Diana Reddick. Okay.

Pregnant with content, pregnant with mailbag answers. Okay, the next question. They're all doctors. They're all doctors. Schwarzenegger is also a doctor. Wow. Okay. I'm trying so hard to read the next question. I just want to read it so bad. I'm ready.

Next question comes from Brian. Do you think the tabulations from Oscars past actually exist anywhere, like in a vault or something? Would you support their release at some point in time, like declassified government documents and what time period should that be? This is such a good question. Let's do a heist.

Let's make a movie heist to release all. Like, honestly, let's start pitching this around. A Pricewaterhouse heist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In order to get all the gossip. I actually, I know some people who work for Pricewaterhouse. Not well, but I do know them. Hook us up with that data, or at least those codes

to break into their facilities. I mean, they have to be somewhere, right? At some point it becomes sort of like their data security methods. Like is it, is the hard drive in a safe? Is it like the knock list? Yeah. Do we have to, okay.

Again, put me in Mission Impossible, leaning over on the keyboard, breaking into Bryce Waterhouse Cooper's data set. Just one single drop. Okay, would, should it be like 10 years later? Yeah, I... Release it now. Release it now. Release it now.

We're still waiting on JFK, right? Like, we're still waiting on that? I don't know. It's been 62 years, so... Right, but didn't you say that it was going to happen? No, no. We're not waiting on it. Bill already cracked the case. Like, we know this waiting on that. It's been 62 years, so... Right, but didn't you say that it was gonna happen? We're not waiting on it. Bill already cracked the case. Like, we know this. Bill did it.

What's his latest? Besides the doctors have never wavered. There is... Is he... Is it two bullets? What's his thing? This isn't even the time to... Okay. Sorry. I like the idea of every 10 years.

That would be great. I want it on the show. They gotta do it on the show. I want it after one year. Save the Oscars. Let's go. I want it after 20 years. I'll take it whenever, you know. As a faux historian, I'm interested in all the information I can accumulate.

It would be so interesting to know. Missed it by that much sort of stuff. What do you think is the closest race of all time? God. Um... Moonlight and Lala Lynn? It's the one that springs to mind, time? God. Moonland, Walla-Land? It's the one that springs to mind, right? But maybe it's not.

It would be fascinating if it wasn't. If it wasn't. Trying to think. I think Avatar and Hurt Locker, probably. That was definitely a close one. Really split contingencies of who would vote for each. Definitely a close one. I'm sure there are many races in the 70s that were tight.

But what if it's something random? Like, if it was just... Best supporting actor. No, no, no. Like, what was running against Boyhood or Birdman? You know, one of those years where it's not like... It's not living in our mind as one of, like, the great squeakers. But... Were Boyhood and Birdman running against each other?

Oh, were they? Did Boyhood- Or was Birdman running against Boyhood? Were they in the same, they were the same year and then Boyhood beat Birdman? I believe so, right? No, Birdman won it. Birdman won.

Yeah, I thought Birdman won. You know, Birdman won, but it was against- Oh, Patricia Arquette won. That's right, okay. Well, that one. Or what won the year before? The year before that was 12 years of slave. That's right. Okay, well, that one. Or what one the year before? The year before that was 12 years of slave. That probably was.

Which I think probably wanted to walk. What about the Spotlight year? Yeah. That feels like one. What was the leading contender beyond Spotlight that year? People thought the big short might go. I remember that. They won PGA that year.

Yeah. I remember that very well. Yeah. That feels like the only one that was even close. I guess maybe the Revenant had a lot of support. And then there was the whole Mad Max Fury Road won every single award below the line, but was never going to go. I just had to represent for House of R. Doom Part II, you should have been a bigger contender.

It's very sad. Doom Part II got the like Barbie treatment, right? Where like we made the sandworm jokes that I just can sort of remember. We are using you to get people to care about this program while not actually acknowledging its greatness. I mean, Wicked also. Correct.

Same, same. I thought they actually, very smartly, the producers did a good job with that. They reminded us, these movies are actually nominated here tonight. I thought Ariana Grande dressed as the ruby slipper was one of my favorite You know, it was fine you're out on Ariana. No as as you know, I thought that she should have won supporting that That's right. Yeah, the best performance. What do you guys think about Deadpool?

It's a no for me. Oh, yeah he started, he did a summer salt or something. What did he do? Was Ryan Reynolds not at the Oscars? No, I think they put him back away. He and Blake did SNL 50 and then went back into hibernation. Interesting. Okay, last question, Bobby. Last question, let's send these 10 movies

in the 2025 Oscars off nicely. Of this year's crop of Oscar nominees, which do you expect to revisit over the years? Which of the past few years of nominees and winners have you revisited a lot? From this year? Yeah. And any notable ones from the last couple of years that you found yourself coming back to? I do think Enora. I think weirdly it winning hurts it. I know that that's not... I mean... You know, 12 Years a Slave is a movie that springs to mind. For you.

That's okay. There are some material differences. No, but they're both complicated, traumatic stories. Obviously in different ways and different modes of history, but I think when movies win, they sometimes get mothballed. And I know obviously my experience is different than a lot of other people's, but... I don't think that's true. Like, I think that can be true. For something like CODA, would you say?

But I also think, you know, and Tom Quinn said this in his interview, I'll just keep promoting the town, a great podcast, that it becomes a pantheon movie, and I agree with that. You say it becomes Mothball, but I think forever, Enora will be a best picture winning film. And in a way that it could just sort of diminish to nothing if it hadn't won. You know? Yeah, I mean, there's no objective way to communicate, like, what is thriving and what is not in the...

the cinematic mind of history. Um, but... Not this close to it, but I would say things like... Like Banshees of Inisheeran is a movie that I rewatch way more than everything everywhere all at once, for example, even though I liked that best picture win. Do you want to look at this? Yeah, you just had it up and I was like, I want to move this.

Here's an interesting exercise. This century, what movies have appeared on the rewatchables that have won best picture? A few. Gladiator. Crash, most recently, with Joanna Robinson's. Very deserving. This is my apologies.

When that text comes in, it's really special, isn't it? The Departed, No Country for Old Men, Argo, Spotlight, and that's it. So six movies in 25 years. 2017. The 2017 Oscar, like, Shape of Water winning, whatever.

But Call Me By Your Name, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird and Phantom Thread are all movies that I will watch any day of the week. It's when we started this show. And we didn't really, like... We didn't have, like like the tools to be like, what is going on here? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it was very special. Yeah. Okay. 2019 also, a lot of heaters that we were... 19 is a great, that's the last truly great year in my opinion. Yeah. I think I'm watching Ford versus Ferrari

on a second screen right now while you guys are podcasting. I know it's been true and you got the Irishman queued up, right? Quality films. Quality films. Sean's heading to go watch Jojo Rabbit again after this pod so we gotta wrap it up. It's incredibly rude. I mean, The Brutalist, Nickel Boys,

June Part II, I think you're right though, if only to be like, where do these worms come from? I think it depends on three. If three is good, it becomes Empire. I think generationally, obviously not as big as Empire Strikes Back, but it has all of those qualities when you're watching that movie. Um, I would... Conclave? I'd put Conclave on. I would say the top three outside of Enora are the ones that you just mentioned. The Brutalist, Dune Part II, and Nickel Boys.

Because Nickel Boys has a chance, I think, to be kind of like a cinephile... I agree. Absolutely. ...historical entrant. If you have children, Wicked. No, if you have my child, the complete unknown. You know, I'll just say that's also contingent on Wicked for Good. I think if Wicked for Good is a smash and beloved and wins best picture, it changes it and makes it much more significant.

Because, you know, the history of Oz-adjacent movies that are not The Wizard of Oz, well, up and down, you know, I history of Oz-adjacent movies that are not The Wizard of Oz, well, up and down, you know, I have some affection for them. How dare you besmirch returned Oz? I didn't besmirch it. I like it, but it's quite scary. It gave me such nightmares when I was a kid. Oz, The Great and Powerful, that's your fave? Obviously.

Yeah. The Wiz, you know, people love The Wiz for performance songs from The Wiz on the show. Two Wiz performances. Yeah, that was a you know, people love The Wiz. Rachel Weisz is more... Weisz's performance. ...from The Wiz on the show. Two Wiz performances. Yeah. That was a lot. That was a poor choice, I think, for...

Just for the Quincy... That's not what I would pick for Quincy Jones, is all I'm saying. Agreed. We forgot that we were watching the show and they played the Austin Powers, bossa nova thing. I didn't put together, of course, that's Quincy Jones. Yeah. Yeah.

You know what I won't be rewatching, and I think a lot of people won't be rewatching, is Amelia Perez, and we get to put that to bed. Do we not? That will actually be mothballed into the annals of digital storage. Even though it's the easiest to see of the ten, you know? It will become a difficult trivia question years from now. What did Zoe Saldana win her Oscar for? Yeah.

I mean, it's going to be a good answer to what has the second most Academy Award nominations in a single year trivia question, you know? But what, I mean, what does it mean to get nominated for an Oscar? That's a question I would like to ask you. Do you think it's less meaningful or more meaningful than it used to be? I think it's less. I think it's less now that Netflix has shown that you can sort of buy a volume of nominations. You can't buy a win. Not yet. You can't buy a win. Not yet.

You can't buy a win, but you can buy a nomination. Yes. So, what will you be winning your Oscar for? Ha ha ha! Our heist film. Oh, okay. Yeah, when we steal the tallies of the... Very rare the genre gets best actress. Yeah, well, you know me. We'll have artistic flair.

You're going to be... The actors actors are gonna be like screenwriter. I think screenwriter director. Yeah, ooh, yeah, yeah. And editor. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. It'll be after I'm nominated in the shorts category for the Odyssey R, so...

Um, yeah. But I won't win that one. Do you think your crew will agree that your natural warmth and charisma will pervade the set of your heist film? Or will you say, you can't sit down, no smartphones, no water if you're over 40, like, is that... After seven. No water after seven.

It's a gremlin situation. Uh, okay, well, this Okay, well, this was nice. You guys, thanks for opening for Bong Joon Ho. I appreciate it. Great. Yeah, anytime. Thanks to all the listeners of the show for all the great questions. I feel that the email address is working very well, Bobby.

Thank you for helping out with that. I appreciate it. Now, let's go to my conversation with Bong Joon-ho. Delighted to be rejoined on the show by director Bong Joon-ho and his translator, Sharon. Thank you so much, guys, for doing this. Director Bong, I thought we could start with the immediate aftermath of Parasite and the incredible success, the best picture win, international acclaim, box office success.

Did you feel any trepidation about following up that incredible success with a new film? Now that you're so enthusiastic about it, you've won awards and box office, and you're, it sounds like something crazy happened. Of course it was great, but I actually maintained pretty calm throughout it all. So after the Oscar's campaign was over in 2020, we had the pandemic and the world was forced to go quiet because of it. And in 2020 June, I received the manuscript for Mickey 7 and that's when I started reading and slowly started getting back into the work.

I'm curious about this particular choice. You know, mounting a large Hollywood production of original material is increasingly risky for studios. Did you think about Mickey 17 as what we sometimes call a blank check where you get to take on a high leverage, big scale opportunity because of the success of your previous project?

Now, I got an agency agent in the US around 2006 or 2007 after the monster. I've been constantly offering suggestions for monster genres, sci-fi, and crime thrillers. I always passed that and I developed my own projects. I think it was the first time I was offered this offer. It was the first time someone had offered it and directed it. The reason why I did that was... So I started working with an American agency in 2006 after the host. And since then, I've been getting offers for monster film, sci-fi and crime thrillers

but I've always passed on those projects and this was the first time that I've taken a material from someone else and the reason I took it is It was because of the main character Mickey and the sci-fi core concept itself is interesting, but I was attracted to the human emotions in the concept itself. The production I suggested was also Plan B, and they were people I knew well when I to the character of Mickey. Of course there's that core concept of human printing, but I really wanted to focus on the individual going through this technology and the emotions that his story was evoking. And the project was offered by Plan B, who I was familiar with from working

on Okja. And so it wasn't really about the scale. I kind of wasn't thinking about that. I was only really thinking about the idea and the uniqueness of the story and all the emotions that it would evoke. With a great novel, people often say you can see it in your head while you're reading it. And you're renowned for storyboards and your storyboarding before making films. You know, I know that you usually do your storyboards after you have a script or even a location where you're going to set, but when you're reading a novel, do you find yourself

starting to draw what the film could look like? Storyboards are designed after the space is designed. Whether it's location shooting or set pieces, the space has to be designed to place the camera here. From here to here, I'll set up a track. This is how it's designed. So we're designing a very practical storyboard. I'm going to build a very practical storyboard. I'm going to build a very practical storyboard.

I'm going to build a very practical storyboard. I'm going to build a very practical storyboard. I'm going to build a very practical storyboard. I'm going to build a very practical storyboard. I'm going to build a very practical storyboard. I'm going to build a very practical storyboard. I'm going to build a very practical storyboard. I'm going to build a proper camera, but I want to have images of creepers rolling around like this. I try to draw images that are related to the position of the camera.

To get the actual storyboard that we're shooting off of, I only start that process after all the spaces are designed, whether that is location shooting or sets that we are building. The space has to be designed to know where the camera will be, how long the dolly track will be. So the specific practical storyboarding process starts after the space is designed. But I do start thinking about the image and the sound elements from when I'm writing the script and thinking about the story without considering the camera. For example, the way the creepers move and how they all roll about on the field, that was an image I started thinking of even before the entire storyboarding process.

I was curious about that because the Creepers in some ways feel like if Okja and the host monster had a baby and just felt like it was completely born of your imagination. That's a great idea. Maybe like Alien vs Predator. That's a great idea. Maybe like Alien vs Predator. That's a great idea. Maybe like Alien vs Predator. Baby, Junior, Mama Creeper. Baby, Junior, Mama Creeper. Baby Creeper is very cute.

Junior Creeper is in charge of action. It's like an Amadillo, they roll around like a ball. I've seen a lot of references like that. How will they perform an amazing dance? Like the Yabawi Cup and Ball game. It's like they're playing a cup and and ball with a math game. It's like hiding where the mama is. I had that in mind from the script.

I looked up animal documentaries. We have three different types of creepers in the film. The baby, the junior, and mama. And the babies just have to be adorable. And with the juniors, they're in charge of the action of the script. And so we referenced armadillos because armadillos kind of roll up into a ball. And they also have to show this spectacular mass choreography where they're kind of playing cup and balls with mama creeper trying to hide her.

That was an image that I started thinking about when I was writing the script. I was watching a lot of animal documentaries to come up with ideas. Mickey 17 has some familiar elements from your other films, especially Snowpiercer and Okja. The terrain, the creature elements. Do you ever worry about repeating yourself with some of these things or do you see them more as similarities that are thematic recurrences that are purposeful in your body of work? I was always reminded of how much new things and new things are mixed in my films. I was comfortable with that in itself. For example, there are actors like Robbie, Crafallor, Tony Collette, who are new to the film. There are actors like Steven Yeun or Daniel Henshelaw's second time working with us.

It's all mixed up. I've already done it in Snowpiercer, but this time it's not a train, it's a spaceship. It's a mix and a collision. So I like to think of them as variations. You know, you have variations in music where you have the A bar and then the A dash. So it's always a mix of old and new. I think my films have always tried to do that. And so this wasn't that different from my usual approach. I had actors like Rob, Mark and Tony that I never worked with before and also familiar faces that I was very happy to work with again, like Steven and Daniel Henshaw. So it's always a mix of what's familiar and what is new. We get the snowy fields from Snowpiercer, but this time it's a spaceship and not a train. So I actually enjoy the mix and conflicts that arise from mixing familiar new elements. I found Toni Collette's character's obsession with sauces hilarious.

And revisiting your work, I'm struck by how often people gathering to eat food together, you know, in Memories of Murder, in Parasite, in Snowpiercer, the actual cannibalism. These like setups, people eating together lead to explosive circumstances. There's a great one in Mickey 17. Why do you keep setting these huge set piece sequences around people sharing food? I mean, you're going to have lunch soon too. There's nothing else that we do three times a day, every day. So we eat to live and we live to eat. And I think in that you can project so many things, your philosophy, your taste,

the atmosphere of that society, you can express so much just by the simple act of eating. And you know, if you remember the one of the earliest sequences and the spaceship where they're all in the cafeteria getting served food and getting served really crappy food. And you see Mickey with his plastic tray getting squeezed out this, you know, great glob of porridge and Mickey and the audience realizes that Mickey is totally fucked. You know, thought that this would be a fancy expedition, you know, this great colony expedition. But then the minute you see him getting served that crappy food, we knowette talks about the source. How did the working class feel about that? They studied the source and developed it. How ridiculous is it to say that it is the peak of civilization? So while everyone is eating that crappy food, we have Toni Koles character Ilf just obsessing

over sauce. And the working class characters in the film feel so insulted to witness her obsession. You know, she spends all that time and energy trying to create sauces and declares it as the litmus test of civilization. And it's so pointless to everyone else who's just struggling to survive to have the dictator's wife obsess over something so unnecessary is probably what gives her the license to be a dictator's wife. The movie is very frank and funny about sex, and it's an interesting counterpoint to Parasite,

where you have this sex scene as this kind of inciting incident for Kim. In this case, it felt more like maybe Mickey is seen as like a usable, disposable object in this world. Do I have that right? Is that how you were thinking about the inclusion of that element of the story? When Mark Ruffalo first spoke at the cafeteria, he said that he would control the sex of the entire community. He said that he would make regulations in a legal community.

If you remember Mark Ruffalo's speech in the cafeteria sequence, he declared to everyone that he's going to control sex using legal means and the committee is going to create regulations around sex. When he does that speech, she almost talks about human beings as insects, talking about how we must propagate the species and infest the land. And while he's infesting the land, she's also talking about how we must protect the land. And she's also talking about how we must protect the land. And when he does that speech, she almost talks about human beings as insects, talking about how we must propagate the species and infest the land. And while he's doing that speech, we cross-cut to Mickey and Nasha having sex. But to them, sex is more actually just like making love.

It's not just a print job or a spam baby like Marshall says, he's a real human. Mickey 678, anyway, I think it's a moment of sex that proves love with Asia. So this community itself controls sex by law, or after it arrives, it will do a huge promotion. And the problem of death and life, as I just said, is the problem of Eros. And then, is it Thanatos? The related part of Thanatos is also the death machine. It's reprinted by human printing, And so for Mickey, you know, it's not that that sequence shows that he's just human.

He's not just someone with a job. You know, he's a human living, breathing human having sex with his partner. And so this whole community can try to control that through law. And they talk about putting out this sex enhancement campaign once they arrive. And we see Mickey and Nascha sort of exempt from that and having their own moment of love. And so Marshall is trying to control Eros, you and love, and also thanatos, the way people die and live. They're treating bodies and death as if, quite mechanically, as if it's just, it can be someone's

job to go through that process. And so we have this community and system trying to control the er and tonnatoes of human existence and only Mickey and Nasha who are you know who truly love each other are exempt from that and can manage to you know remove themselves from that and so we see sort of that disparity. And in the climatic sequence you know The Mickey shout, C3, and then bring the baby. Actually, it's coming out of the space planet's body. And at the end, they resist with sex. Mickey and Nasha. So, C3 was part of one of the positions that they invented and assigned to each planet.

And so, in the end, they're fighting against evil and rebelling through sex. You have talked in the past about your admiration for the way Martin Scorsese works with actors and lets them figure out character because of this story. There's going to, there's big performances because these are really big characters. The thing I'm curious about is how do you make sure that the performances all agree with each other? They share the same tone when you have a story like this? It's not like a workshop. But there is one thing. We do on-set editing in Korean industry.

We edit while shooting. You can see the tone of the acting. So when we shoot every day, we can see the flow because someone is editing at the same time. I guess it's all about creating that ensemble, but with films, it's like you have so many characters and they're all spread out in different scenes. It's not like you can bring them all together for a theater workshop. But I think what helps is in Korea, we have on-set editing. And so I have an editor right next to me editing as we go.

And you can sort of see how the scenes and shots cut together and you can see the flow of the tone, performance, and narrative and when you arrive on set, you can sort of watch everything that you shot the day before. And so it's quite helpful in trying to keep or connect the tones together. And I always wonder why they don't do this in the US

because it can be so helpful. Is it because most filmmakers can't not shoot coverage and you don't have many chances to repeat the same lines or acting in the actors' perspective. John Hurtwell, who passed away during the time of the Korean War, commented that I was a bit of a Hitchcockian. I was very happy when I was shooting Snowpiercer, John Hurt was now passed. He mentioned that my method is quite Hitchcockian and I was quite happy and pleased to hear that. Can you talk about reuniting with Darius Kanji?

I was really happy to see this. Why was he the DP on the film? I was very happy when I was working on the film. The world already knows how outstanding he is. I just had such a great time. We always go out to eat delicious food and miss each other. rumbling amongst ourselves and I just have such fun when we're together. We go to eat great food together and I always miss him. Mario's Conj is not the type of person who enjoys VFX. Rather, he prefers classic movies like James Gray's recent movie, Armageddon, or Lost City of Z. He prefers amazing lighting and such. and beautiful lighting, but he met me and saw VFX creatures, and VFX supervisors on the set.

He wasn't used to it, but he seems to enjoy it. He's used to it. very classic films with beautiful lighting. And but for some reason, he just had to work with me and face all these VFX creatures. And he's not really familiar with it. But I think with this film, he actually got the hang of it and started enjoying the process. So when I was working on VFX, I had a good chemistry between Dan Glass, the VFX supervisor, and Darius had a good chemistry. They were very close and they were artists that each loved. So, the VFX team had a lot of discussions with the VFX team about the MAMA creeper's eyes, for example, and how beautiful Darius was, Darius commented a lot on light and color.

I think he enjoyed working on the Creeper. He was a bit unfamiliar with the wooden ones, so I was like, why are you doing this? Our VFX supervisor is Dan Glass, and I think Darius and Dan had a great collaborative relationship as two artists. They had a lot of respect for each other. And so Darius was quite involved in the VFX process, just really appreciating how beautiful the VFX work was and also was involved in determining the light and color of all the shots.

And so I think he had a really great time working with Dan on the VFX of this film. I do remember when we were working on Okja, he was a bit like new to all of it and was questioning why things had to be done a certain way. Do you like that work at this point? I've read in the past that you avoid green screen work as much as possible, but this is a very big production

that I assume required some of it. How do you like working with this level of VFX in a film? So, the creature animation was the focus, but there was not much to use blue screen or green screen. And in Okja, there was a super pig called Okja, and there was a huge green screen in front of it. And there was no VFX like an actor with a sensor on his face running around. It was the same with this Mickey. Strangely, I didn't use a green screen that often. I used it in places like the outer windows of the spaceship. This spaceship doesn't have many windows. So it was fun.

I was lucky that there weren't many situations where the green screen was only on the rooms where actors and actresses were taken monster and with the city backdrop. So, you know, there was a lot of creature animation but we weren't working with blue or green screens. Same with Okja we have the super pig, but it wasn't like we had actors with sensors on their faces just acting off of nothing. And Mickey was the same. We actually didn't really shoot with a lot of green screens. Of course we had some with, when we see out of the spaceship window,

but with this spaceship, we actually don't have a lot of windows. And so we never had moments where, it was just an actor surrounded by green screen just acting by himself and trying to imagine everything in front of his eyes. So we were quite lucky in the sense that we always had a clear sense of what was the environment of the film. The most challenging element was definitely the two Mickey's. We see the two Mickey's together in one shot frequently, and they fight, they have their arms around each other.

There's a lot of interaction, and we couldn't allow, like, not even a single, like, a split second of awkwardness. Otherwise, the story would just completely fall apart. So we were very sort of careful and meticulous with that whole process. Speaking of Mickey, Robert Pattinson is an inspired choice. He's very good at being both goofy and desperate, which Mickey needs to be. with that whole process. Speaking of Mickey, Robert Pattinson is an inspired choice. He's very good at being both goofy and desperate,

which Mickey needs to be. What did you see him in that made you the film, The Rage, and in the movie, Telluride. I know him well. I saw The Good Times and I was like, Oh, he's an actor. That's not all we know. He also directed experimental movies directors of Oter. I watched their film Good Time and realized that Robert Pattinson, we were only seeing very little of him and there's much more to see from him as an actor. And I know that he was doing Canberra Festival directors for tonight.

And that was 18, Mickey 18. That was a crazy bastard. So I thought, I can do 18 well. I replayed the lighthouse in my head and thought it would work. So with this project, I sort of looked back on The Lighthouse and just thought, oh my god, that's 18 right there. He's totally crazy, the character that he plays in The Lighthouse. I think he was my first choice and thankfully we were able to get along. I think he was my first choice and thankfully we were able to get along. I think he was my first choice and thankfully we were able to get along. I think he was my first choice and thankfully we were able to get along.

I think he was my first choice and thankfully we were able to get along. I think he was my first choice and thankfully we were able to get along. I think he was my first choice and thankfully we were able to get along. I think he was my first choice and thankfully we were able to get along. I think he was my first choice and thankfully we were able to get along. I feel like I'm being scammed by the same scammers twice. That's how I feel. I kind of felt sorry for him. And you mentioned that he has this goofiness to him, but also just always like too nice for his own good and always getting the short end of the stick.

He probably hangs out with grifters and let them like take advantage of him multiple times and yet still hang out with them. I kind of just got that sense from Rob. He's really, really well cast. You've mentioned that John Carpenter's The Thing is a big inspiration for this movie. When you say something like that, are you actually going back to look at the film before you start on this film? Or is it just an idea that you have implanted? And The Thing is not necessarily for this work.

It's a movie that's always on the top 10 list or in the list of best-selling movies. It's a sci-fi masterpiece, but I think it's a more broad-minded concept. favorite films list and it's a sci-fi masterpiece that really does deserve that. So actually the films that are specific references for this project and the ones that I revisit specifically for Mickey 17 are actually unexpected, quite surprising. For example, Cabin Coast or The Dancers with Wolves. I brought that up again. I wanted to see how that film handled the bisons and how that groundbreaking sound of the bisons moving as a herd. The same goes for the Japanese characters. They are all gathered in a place where they are isolated. They are surrounded by evil creatures and monsters. They are fighting inside.

The Thing is a case of you're inside the body, but I like that kind of situation. There's a recurring theme in John Carpenter's films, like Assault on Uncertain Street or Prince of Darkness. You always see this group of characters isolated in a particular location and then being surrounded by evil beings outside and monsters and they have this battle inside this very claustrophobic location and the thing you know it's monsters inside their body even but that's like a setup that I really like. Do you see Mickey 17 as a hopeful movie? I think about this after all of your movies. Is this optimistic and hopeful or not? I would say that this is relatively one of my more hopeful movies because I really didn't

want to see Mickey get destroyed until now I've been quite ruthless and being cruel to my main characters but for some reason I just didn't want to do that to Rob. Ever since I started writing the script, I just didn't want to see that. I don't know if it's because my son became Mickey's age. But I think he'll become cruel again in the next film. It's probably because my son is now around Mickey's age. But probably for my next film,

I'm going to go back to being just ruthless and cruel. Rob was very lucky. I'm wondering how Sung Kang Ho feels about this. He actually watched the film at the Seoul premiere. He brought his family to watch the film. He just texted me. Just hold on just a second. Very simple, he does.

Ah. It's disturbingly beautiful. Director Bong, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what is the last great thing that they have seen? I know you are still a cinephile. Have you seen anything great lately? It can be like an old film, right? Do you keep a list? I do have like a little note.

Quite recently I watched Hamaguchi Ryusuke's Agen Zonji Haji Annen Da Evil Does Not Exist? That was so beautiful. And then Wallace Gromit came out on Netflix and I watched the old one again.

And I heard about the new Wallace and Gromit on Netflix so I went back to the old one again. The short one. And I heard about the new Wallace and Gromit on Netflix, so I went back to the old shorts. The long trousers. It was a masterpiece. Yeah, true masterpiece. I love the long trousers. That's a great one. Director Bong, congrats on Mickey 17. Sharon, thank you so much. It's so nice to chat with you again.

Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to Bong Joon Ho. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner. Thanks to Gahow for filling in for Jack Sanders today. Thanks to Joanna Robinson. Listen to you on the Prestige TV podcast covering the White Lotus and Severance and sometimes the pit and whatever.

Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you.

Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. Thanks to you on the Prestige TV podcast covering the White Lotus and Severance and sometimes the pit and What else House of R is a show that I do. I was just going through

You're on House of R. Yeah, you're on the rewatchable sometimes, correct What else the big pick the big picture? Yes, definitely definitely. Ringer NFL show, Ringer gambling show, Against All Odds, you're on, you're on sports card nonsense. It's true. Amanda, you are starting a new politics podcast, which we're really excited about here at the Ringer. I can't wait to hear that. Anything else? You're on Jam Session.

Yes. What else are you on these days? Just trying to keep up with you, Sean Fantasy. Well, thanks for all your service. We'll see you next time.