The Big Picture - The Snubs and Surprises of the 92nd Academy Award Nominations | The Oscars Show
Episode Date: January 13, 2020Sean and Amanda break down all the surprises and snubs (RIP, 'Uncut Gems') among a complicated collection of Oscar nominations, including the overwhelming support for 'Joker,' 'Once Upon a Time ... in... Hollywood,' and 'The Irishman' (1:43). Then they discuss whether the Academy has a persistent problem with diversity, snubs for long-rumored nominees like Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé, and a solution for the Oscar telecast's lingering issues (21:30). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Hey, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network.
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I'm Sean Fennessey.
I'm Amanda Dobbin.
And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the Academy Awards.
They're here!
Amanda, the 92nd Oscar nominations have arrived.
How are you feeling bright and early on this Monday morning?
Yeah, I don't love it. I don't love it.
I don't love being here this early.
I was saying to you before we started recording,
and I just feel like a disclosure before we get into this podcast.
My outlook at this hour of the morning
is never the best.
We're going to be flying fast and loose.
That's what happens when you record
at 7.30 in the morning.
We're going to do our best
to not make any mistakes.
Some mistakes were made by the Academy.
However, we'll be talking about some of them,
the snubs, the surprises,
some of the nice things that happened
with the nominations this morning.
It'll be a robust conversation about what will be happening on February 9th at the Academy Awards.
Yeah, there are some good things.
Absolutely.
And some happy things.
Absolutely.
And some baffling things.
Where do you want to start?
Should we start with the big pictures, big picture?
Let's do it.
Okay.
This is a problem in the big picture.
Do you know what I mean?
Maybe we'll start with the most honored movies.
That seems like the safest place to start.
First and foremost, first and foremost, Joker comes to us with 11 nominations.
Now, were you surprised by that?
No.
I wasn't either.
Let me tell you something about Joker.
People in the Academy love that movie.
Actors, they love it.
Directors, we learned clearly, they love it.
Crafts people, they love it. Composors, they love it. Directors, we learned clearly, they love it. Craftspeople,
they love it. Composers, they're in. Up and down the board. And you've only got one acting nomination for this movie, for Joaquin Phoenix. So you can see how it's diversely spread across
the entire voting body. Any significant takeaways from Joker being the leading vote getter,
so to speak, in this race?
I didn't expect it to be the leading nomination.
I think I expected that to go to 1917, which is a little bit recency bias.
And also just because I expected 1917 to grab every single technical nomination because it is a technically accomplished movie.
So Joker winning the nominations thing is not what you want.
It certainly changes the narrative, maybe.
I mean, it'll change what we talk about this morning.
I don't know how much it changes the results on Oscar night.
It's interesting how, as you prepared to speak about Joker,
you pulled your hair back into a ponytail,
resignedly.
People know what I think
about this.
And I want to say
right here and right now
it ain't going to change.
I think that this is
an intellectually bankrupt movie.
I think it is
the emperor's new clothes.
I think that anyone
who thinks that this movie
is better than Parasite
or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
or Little Women or Uncut Gems
has bad taste
and doesn't know things about movies straight up.
And we can do that for five weeks or we cannot.
I don't really have the energy to do it for that long.
Yeah, I don't think that that's,
I don't think we'll be negotiating that
until the movie potentially wins Best Picture,
which, you know, not always is the most nominated film,
the likely Best Picture winner,
but sometimes it does happen.
It tends to happen with noisy movies
like Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King.
Joker is kind of a noisy movie.
This is a billion-dollar movie.
And having this many nominations,
having this kind of box office,
having this kind of awareness,
and having this kind of admiration
from the screen actors,
that's a pretty significant thing.
So if we saw a Joker Best Picture win on
February 9th, I wouldn't be shocked. I don't know if that's what I'm ready to predict at this point,
but I wouldn't be shocked. I wouldn't either. And in a lot of ways, it makes a huge amount of sense
in terms of the Academy has refused to acknowledge comic book movies or superhero movies for years. The Academy has been trying to update itself,
to reward new types of movies,
to be current, to be younger.
And that at the end of the day,
the Scorsese cosplay, look, it's tiny Batman movie,
winning Best Picture, would be an Academy-esque thing to do.
It's true.
And it would be one year after Black Panther, which sort of ushered in, I think, a lot of these conversations.
What else has been honored here?
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Parasite and The Irishman.
You've mentioned those 10 nominations for each movie.
I don't think a huge surprise there.
For Once Upon a Time in the Irishman, Parasite is six.
Excuse me.
Once Upon a Time in the Irishman have 10 as does 1917.
Let's just talk about those first before we get to Parasite.
Okay.
I think that is, this is kind of standard operating procedure. What we've got here is three people who made films who have been hugely recognized in the past.
Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, and Sam Mendes. As you said, the recency bias of 1917 is creeping in.
I spent all weekend thinking, is 1917 the presumptive frontrunner for best picture? I don't know if I still feel that way right now. A couple of little chinks in the armor that we'll
take a look at to identify whether or not that's still the case. Any big time takeaways from the
10 noms for all three of those movies? We are taking some things for granted. I know that I'm
taking some things for granted. It's fantastic that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood got 10
nominations. It's fantastic that The Irishman got 10 nominations.
Great movies.
1917, very impressive movie.
We're going to talk more about it later this week.
It is less surprising that it got 10 nominations.
You know, I saw someone on Twitter describing this as a real, like,
Wars and Cars years, which every year at the Academy is.
But I thought that, you know, that 1917 is the war part of that.
But a very well-made movie. So that's good. We shouldn't immediately jump to all of the griping, even
though I certainly have. And the reason I did that is because Joker got 11 nominations and I just
like really don't want to talk about it this early in the morning, but there are great films that are
being recognized. There are. Among them is also Parasite and Little Women, both of which pulled in
six nominations. Yes!
Which is interesting.
I'm not surprised by either of those
things, but it is a credible accomplishment.
And I think that a lot of people
in a kind of film Twitter sense
are frustrated by some of the Joker recognition,
but Parasite
getting six Oscar nominations is
insane. There is no precedent
in 91 consecutive Oscar categories, or excuse me, 91 consecutive Oscars for something like this
happening. So I take some solace in Parasite's success so far. I do too. It was my favorite
film of the year, or was it? Yeah, I think I put it at number one. I don't know. It's very early.
It's definitely up there.
And I put it on my decade list.
No, this is an amazing film.
And Bong Joon-ho being nominated for Best Director, that's very exciting.
And you are completely right that it has become such a, quote, lock, or we were so sure of it that we are not kind of rejoicing, especially in the parasite of it all.
Little Women is the same way.
There are kind of a couple notable omissions in the Little Women nominations that maybe put a slight damper on it, which we will talk more about.
But, you know, it did get nominated for Best Picture, thank the Lord.
That was the one where I was just going to not show up this morning.
Yeah.
So there's something interesting about the Parasite nominations to me. One is that
the film was recognized in both Best Editing and Best Production Design, which are, you know,
crafts categories. And on the one hand, that's kind of impressive and shows a broad sense of
support amongst the Academy. No acting nominations for the movie, though. No Song Kang-ho, none of
the other actors in the film were recognized. There's maybe a case
to be made that this is a kind of acknowledgement of like a film mastery, but maybe not the same
kind of Hollywoodized star mastery that a movie like The Irishman or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
receives. I'm not sure where I fall on that. I think that this does feel like progress to me,
to some extent. The little women thing, you make a fair
point, which is that on the one hand, it's obviously a brilliantly made movie with wonderful
performances. It's great that it's nominated for Best Picture as well. The absence of Greta Gerwig
in the Best Director category is something we'll talk about a little bit more here and kind of what
that means. It's kind of dangerous to draw mega conclusions from the Academy Awards. There's only
8,000 people in this group and a lot of them are old and weird. So you can't, we don't, this is, even though this is the sort of the definitive
document of movie history in terms of achievement, it is one of the wonkiest award recognizing bodies
in the world. Academy President David Rubin noted that what makes this special is that this is the
people who make movies voting on what is the best movies.
And that's part of what makes the Oscars great. That's part of what makes them kind of terrible
is because there's an insularity to some of this. The parasite recognition is something that makes
me think maybe this isn't such an insular body anymore. Maybe there are a lot of international
voters. Maybe this is changing. Maybe the way that we look at international movies is changing
in our American culture. I think that's certainly true.
And I do think that the Academy trying to change itself and how we talk about the movies has evolved enough that we were starting in a place where we expected Parasite to be nominated.
We expected Little Women to be nominated.
We were talking about whether Uncut Gems would make an end and the fact that we're all kind of bummed out about the fact that uncut
gems got snubbed which it you're maybe you're not supposed to use the word snub in that context but
let's use it no i use it i always use it okay it got snubbed uncut gems was snubbed and that
i think that that in does indicate some some progress some change some a different lineup
than we would have had five years ago and a different approach
to the movies. On the flip side, we can only address the world that we live in. And I do feel
because we've been having these conversations for a while and because it was such an exciting year,
in a year that has Parasite, The Irishman, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Uncut Gems,
Little Women, The Farewell. What am I forgetting?
I mean, all kinds of movies.
Sure.
But, you know.
Avengers Endgame.
Okay, sure.
Shazam.
Great.
There you go.
Detective Pikachu.
Well, that was a snuff.
This does.
I can't help but feel that this is a disappointing configuration of that list of movies.
It's not totally disappointing, but there is just something of, we got our hopes up enough that you're kind of like, oh yeah, this is still the Academy.
And there's still going to be lots of nominations for the more traditional types of movies.
Yeah, it's a little bit, it's a donut with a little bit of sour milk in the frosting.
You know, like, it's still a donut.
It's still sweet. It still a donut. It's still sweet.
It still tastes good.
It's still exciting to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Parasite, all these great films recognized.
There's just something a little sour about it.
And we'll talk more about that as we get into the snubs of the day.
So, Little Women, along with six nominations, also six nominations, Marriage Story, which is a little lower than I would have guessed three months ago.
We've just stopped talking about Marriage Story? Yeah. One of the best movies of the year. What happened? I don't know. Noah Baumbach
just blown off the radar for best director, even though I think his directing is wonderful in the
film. We talked about categories like best editing on our predictions podcast, potentially for this
movie, not recognized there. It did get recognized in the obvious places. Adam Driver, Scarlett
Johansson, best picture, best screenplay. I still think it has a chance to win best screenplay, but I don't know. You see results like this and maybe it
doesn't. Maybe it's run and weak. Laura Dern is still likely to win in the best supporting
actress category, but not a terribly strong showing for Marriage Story, which I guess is
a slight disappointment since we both really love that movie. Yes. Again, it does seem like
a lot of the movies that have very athletic, aggressive filmmaking techniques, very showy cinematography and editing and just kind of like capital D directing and capital F filmmaking cleaned up.
And Marriage Story is a chamber piece in a lot of ways. I do like, for the sake of Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig's relationship,
that neither of them were nominated for Best Director. Both of them were nominated for Best
Picture, and both of them were nominated for Screenplay in different categories. That's what
you want when you're in an equitable marriage. It's great. I was very nervous about how this
would shake out for the two of them before we went on this journey, and I'm rooting for both
of them. Love those movies. Two of my favorite movies of the journey. And I'm rooting for both of them. Love those movies.
Two of my favorite movies of the year.
So I'm happy for them.
I'm happy for Harold.
I'm bummed for Marriage Story more generally
just because it seems like we're just going to,
Laura Dern will win and that's it.
Let's go to surprises
because I feel like what we just talked about,
I wouldn't say was a fait accompli,
but I wasn't stunned to see, say, Joker get 11 nominations. I wasn't stunned to see Parasite
even get six nominations. So, you know, it was cool to watch. First surprise, three nominations
for Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker, which is not a good movie. Now, granted, these are all
below the line. John Williams, who we talked about on our last podcast, earned his 52nd nomination, which is absolutely ludicrous.
No, it's not. It's great.
It's impressive. It's not ludicrous insofar as it's crazy that the Academy did that.
It's just crazy that one man has received that many nominations.
Respect John Williams, okay?
Okay, I respect him greatly.
The two popes came through after all. Did not get nominated for Best Picture, but it did get nominated for four awards, which is pretty surprising.
Including both of the co-leads, really, even though Anthony Hopkins was our supporting actor and Jonathan Price was our lead actor.
A little bit of category fraud there.
Any two popes thoughts?
We still have not talked about the two popes in any detail on this podcast.
Do you think we will?
I don't know.
It's weird that the two popes turned out to be the new The Wife.
No, I literally said that in September.
It's crazy.
Poor Jonathan Price.
I will.
I've been treating him like dirt
for years now on this podcast.
I was just very happy about Antonio Banderas.
That was probably my happiest nomination.
Every year, there's one thing that happens
where I'm like, ah, that's good.
That person deserves that.
I think Antonio Banderas
deserves that. And Pain and Glory is a wonderful movie. It made me want to watch it again,
seeing him get recognized here. I just have good feelings about it.
Just also thrilled for five weeks of Antonio Banderas out and about in the world. And I'm
very pleased with all respect to Taron Egerton, who ran a great campaign. He really did.
Truly the Michael Dukakis of this awards campaign.
But I think that he had done all the campaigning he had in him.
I'm not really sure what the next five weeks would have held.
So, you know, apologies to Taron Egerton.
I'm thrilled to be wrong about that one.
And I'm thrilled to have Antonio Banderas in my life.
Taron Egerton will have to calm himself with vast sums of money and good looks.
I think he'll be okay in the long run.
Rian Johnson is an Oscar nominee.
Great stuff.
Great stuff.
Shout out to two-time Big Picture alumni, Rian Johnson.
Knives Out, not as much love as maybe we thought it might get.
It did not get recognized for Best Picture, which you predicted on this podcast.
I think that was your wild card, was it not?
That it would not be recognized?
I predicted it, that it would be nominated, and my wild card was that it would not be
nominated.
Correct.
Well done by you.
Thank you.
Greta Gerwig now has three Oscar nominations.
She does not have two Best Director nominations, but she does have three Oscar nominations
at a very young age, which is very impressive and very uncommon for a woman.
Again, I do not want to overlook what seems like progress. Is it enough progress? No,
it's never enough progress in the world. But this is a good thing. She will get over the
mountain. I'm quite sure of it. The Academy loves her. You think she's going to win?
I don't know. I don't have a good feel for the adapted screenplay category,
though I did correctly predict the five nominees. So did I. Congratulations. Thank you.
How many did you get right, by the way?
65.
Oh, did we match?
Yeah, which is very cute.
Speaking of equitable worlds between men and women on podcasts,
let me just say Ad Astra is an Oscar nominee for sound editing.
This is exactly why I do not predict sound editing on this podcast
because I don't know where this came from.
I think the sound in Ad Astra is wonderful.
I don't know if that's like the number one the sound in Ad Astra is wonderful. I don't know if that's like
the number one thing about it
that occurred to me
as I watched it.
But hey,
James Gray,
Ad Astra,
well done.
Florence Pugh.
Yes.
I believe my note here
says fuck yes.
Yeah.
Nominated for Best Supporting Actress
for Little Women.
She, of course, is...
Is she my number one right now?
Is she my favorite?
Only you can decide that.
Yeah.
Let me think on that.
We'll come back to it.
I'm pretty excited about this one.
This is good.
Obviously, you talked at length about what's so great about her performance on her Little Women podcast.
Tremendous stuff.
I also just have to say in terms of there's a lot of Little Women promo content in my Instagram feed right now, in my Explore tab.
You watch one video and then suddenly it's just every single junket that they've done together.
And they're all very good,
but Florence Pugh, really shining in those junkets.
She can just turn a very awkward question
into a three-minute soliloquy about snails
and you're just like, what's happening?
She's got great verve.
But also, I will keep watching this.
Huge fan of hers.
Yeah.
Honeyland, two nominations.
There we go. Honeyland, two nominations. There we go.
Honeyland has more nominations than Ad Astra.
Yeah.
Honeyland has two more nominations than The Farewell.
Yes.
Pretty weird.
It's nominated in both International Feature and Best Documentary.
Honeyland is a good movie.
Sure, yeah.
I have no problem with it.
It's from North Macedonia.
This has never happened before.
This is the first time that a movie has been nominated in both International Feature and Best Documentary.
What that portends for its chances in either category, I don't know.
I suspect it's going to get blown off the board by Parasite and Best International Feature.
But maybe this indicates a lot of support and a lot more people will see it in Best Documentary.
We'll have to wait and see.
I'm Standing With You was nominated for Best Original Song. This was from the wait and see. I'm Standing With You
was nominated for Best Original Song.
This was from the film Breakthrough.
Have you seen Breakthrough?
I have not.
I have not either.
I forgot about this,
but this song is written by Diane Warren.
I know.
I did too.
And I was like,
this is very stupid.
As soon as I saw Diane Warren,
I was like,
oh, of course Diane Warren got nominated.
What was I thinking?
This is Diane Warren's
11th Oscar nomination
and this is the fifth
in the past six years. So we made a grave error. That being said,
if you and I had both realized that Diane Warren was going to be nominated in this category,
I'm not sure that the song I would have eliminated would have been Spirit by Beyonce,
but we will get to that in a moment. Scarlett Johansson has joined the two-time Oscar nominee
in the same year club, which you predicted. I did predict this.
And, you know, I'm not really mad about it.
I know that Scarlett Johansson is a figure of some ill repute
amongst the literati in the world,
but I think her performances in both of these movies is quite good.
And it's interesting to see the names that she joins here in this group.
There's only been 10 people in the history of the Oscars
who have been nominated twice
in two different categories in the same year.
Faye Bainter in 1938,
Teresa Wright in 1942,
Barry Fitzgerald in 1944,
then Jessica Lange all the way in 1982,
Al Pacino in 1992,
Emma Thompson and Holly Hunter in 1993,
same year,
Julianne Moore in 2002,
Jamie Foxx in 2004,
and Cate Blanchett in 2007.
Almost all of these people, I think seven of the ten, won an Oscar in one of the two categories.
Do you think Scarlett Johansson will win an Oscar?
I don't.
Sad.
Well, a bit.
You never know, I guess. But I kind of, we'll talk more about Best Actress, but if there is an upset there,
I don't foresee it being Scarlett Johansson.
Ooh, intriguing.
I look forward to your takes.
Should we talk snubs?
Yep, it's time.
I'll tell you what, I did not see Jennifer Lopez
not getting a nomination.
And I don't know if I was foolish
or the Academy is foolish or both.
Someone noted on Twitter this morning
that the Academy does not like pop culture,
which I thought was an interesting way of describing
a handful of the quote-unquote snubs this morning.
What do you think about J-Lo not being there for Hustlers?
This is just a real you blew it situation.
Do whatever you want, but they have for 91 years and counting or 92, I suppose. I think that this is just not fun.
It just displays a real lack of imagination and is probably when you put all the snubs together,
there is a certain strain of taste that is not represented in the academy.
And pop culture is one way of putting it. Fun is another way of putting it. Stories involving women
is a third way of putting it. But unfortunately, Jennifer Lopez hits all three of those.
I just kind of find it baffling. This is one of the only snubs where
they kind of had to go out of their way in order to not include her. And a lot of these,
a lot of these nominations to me feel like the result of, it was a very compressed Oscar season.
There wasn't that much time. People just kind of scrambling and checking boxes and relying a bit on kind of traditional Oscar narratives and taste. But it's so easy
to check the Jennifer Lopez box because she's been nominated for literally everything else.
So people had to really want to say no to Jennifer Lopez. And they can live in that world,
and I'm living in mine. Yeah, I would say it appears that it's Kathy Bates really who took her spot,
the presumed spot that she was going to have.
Kathy Bates, obviously a great actress.
I think she gives a great performance in Richard Jewell.
She already has an Oscar.
I guess the support for her was deeper than pretty much anybody I could see.
I guess a handful of pundits had this pick,
but almost no one had Jennifer Lopez on the outside looking in. I think that
there's just a lack of respect for her. That's really all that it is. They see her as a celebrity
and not as an actress. And this confirms that to me in many ways. Not that Hustlers is the seventh
seal. It's not the most important film that's ever been made or anything like that. But it's
an entertaining movie that did great business. A lot of people saw it and a lot of people loved it. There is a hive,
certainly, of hustlers' admiration. And I'm sure that there is some kind of ingrained bias
happening here about stories about women, about a woman of color, about a celebrity who is a sort
of multi-hyphenate, you know, who is a singer and is an Instagram influencer and is married to,
or is soon to be married to a
professional athlete. And all of these things I think somehow may have coalesced to work against
her in some way. It's unfortunate. Do you think anyone in the Academy knows who Fiona Apple is?
Like, do you think that even the fact that- Anyone? Any living human?
I mean, I'm just, I'm asking the question. I do. I can find one or two.
I'm wondering whether just her entrance even hits with the Academy in the same way that it hits for us, just because it's different reference points.
Yeah, I think if we did this vote again in five years, it would taste a little different.
You know, it's also a recent period piece, and recent period pieces are not going to play as well to 60-somethings in the Academy.
Yeah.
Nevertheless, so here's a whole bundle of snubs for us to break down. So obviously Hustlers has not been recognized here,
but other films that were not recognized at all
that have been running all throughout the season.
Dolomite is my name.
Nothing.
Not even Ruth Carter for best costume design.
The Farewell.
Bupkis.
Rocket Man.
Crashdown.
Uncut Gems.
Completely shut out.
I can't say that I'm stunned by this, but it feels very, very purposeful.
It feels very designed.
Does this feel purposeful,
or does this feel like kind of unconscious biases and taste made more apparent by a rushed awards season and by, you know, the option of if you have The Irishman and you have 1917, that kind of more.
It's a Scorsese mobster flick and an epic war film.
I think there's usually only one spot for movies like this, maybe two.
And I just think Parasite ate the conversation. I think Parasite ate one spot for movies like this, maybe two, and I just think
Parasite ate the conversation. I think Parasite ate the conversation in almost every category here.
I think it overwhelmed movies like The Farewell. It overwhelmed movies like Uncut Gems.
It even overwhelmed movies like Dolomite Is My Name, which had significantly more star power
and the mega Netflix machine behind it, and it couldn't conjure any love. You know, notable here
is just one nomination for A24.
Throughout this whole thing.
And the one nomination that it got was for Jaron Blaschke for The Lighthouse.
Yeah.
Which is, I did pick that.
Which is just insane that that happened.
Why?
Because, you know, people like showy black and white.
It's real, like, more is more.
You're right.
That's what it is. and that is a theme through
a lot of these nominations it is but that is a small movie and for ford versus ferrari to not
be recognized in that category and for a24 is one nomination to be in i mean that is one of the
strangest movies of the year a movie that i love and probably have not given enough attention to
from a personal perspective but we did name a segment essentially after the movie on this podcast. Tricky stuff.
Other snubs.
No Beyonce.
No Spirit.
Spirit's not good.
Who cares?
They don't really seem to care about the Lion King and or pop stars.
So, fine.
I think Beyonce will be just fine.
I do too.
I think she'll actually be back at the Oscars.
I agree.
I think she will win an Oscar.
Potentially with a better song.
Frozen 2.
Okay.
To Frozen 2,
I say deuces
because as you may have heard
on this podcast,
that movie makes no sense.
We don't just have to recognize
an animated movie
because it's popular.
In fact,
it's better if we don't.
Do I,
am I excited that Claws
from Netflix
was nominated in its place?
I don't really care.
Claws was fine.
It wasn't that bad.
I Lost My Body,
that's a great movie.
Toy Story 4, that's a great movie. Toy Story 4,
that's a great movie.
The only thing here
is that I had seen
literally one
of the animated films
and now I've seen
none of them.
Oh, sad.
And quite frankly,
I don't know if that's
going to change.
You got to step it up
and watch Toy Story 4.
I know that you don't
want to watch animated movies,
but Toy Story 4
is legitimately
one of the best movies
of the year.
Like, when am I
going to do that?
When am I going to sit down
and be like,
today's the day that I'm going to watch Toy Story 4?
This podcast is not called Amanda's Planner.
This podcast is called The Big Picture.
You know, like, tell me the situation
when I, a grown woman with a job and responsibilities
and, you know, other commitments and personal interests
and goals, I'm going to be like,
what I have to do today is watch Toy Story 4. Do you know what the Academy says to your personal interests and goals. I'm going to be like, what I have to do today is watch Toy Story 4.
Do you know what the Academy says to your personal interests and your goals?
I do, Sean.
Fuck your personal interests and your goals.
I'm extremely aware every year and in every category.
Okay, so we're completely content with Frozen 2 being absent.
Atlantics is absent from Best International Feature.
A slight surprise here.
I thought this was a big surprise.
Yeah, well, it's questionable. I mean, Sen I thought this was a big surprise. Yeah, well,
it's questionable. I mean, Senegal does not have a huge history. I think the Netflix
provenance of Atlantics made people think that it was kind of a lock moving into that race,
that it was replaced by Corpus Christi, which is a film that I've still not seen,
which I'm going to watch immediately because I need to know what it's about to understand that
category a little bit better, even though there's an expectation the parasite will sweep through.
Apollo 11 being ousted from Best Documentary is genuinely shocking to me.
Me too.
What happened here?
I guess they just went for capital I important movies.
I guess so.
We did talk about the kind of, you know, what a
movie has to be to get into this category. And I will say The Edge of Democracy, which we did not
talk about, which comes from Brazil, is a wonderful movie. Our colleague Noah Mulally is over the moon
for that movie. He's recommended it to me a hundred times. I've seen it, but he was just like, I can't
believe how great that film is. But no One Child Nation here.
Yeah, that is one of my most, I know I didn't pick it, but that's my most disappointing.
And again, again, I'm sorry to say it, but in terms, we picked like a lot of, quote, serious movies.
But the one that is featuring things that women go through.
And, you know, and the power of One Child Nation is that it talks about how that policy affects everyone and not just women.
But it's pretty harrowing.
And that doesn't fit in the serious movie conversation
in the way that some others do.
Just pointing it out.
It doesn't.
American Factory has been my pick for this all along.
It remains my pick for this category.
We'll have to wait and see.
One thing that is a little bit tricky to discuss here is,
will there be an emergent Oscars so white campaign in the aftermath of these nominations?
Now, Cynthia Erivo was recognized for Harriet here.
But most of the nominations are lily white.
I suppose Antonio Banderas for Spain is not an English-speaking nomination.
Yes.
But we don't have Awkwafina here.
We don't have Lupita Nyong'o here.
We don't have Song Kang-ho here.
We don't have Eddie Murphy here.
We have Dolomite and Farewell completely shut out.
Do you think that there will be a noisiness around this conversation?
Yes. Both because there is a noisiness around a lot of things, but also because this is an issue.
I think we were all we were having this conversation before it happened because we were all so nervous about the fact that there would possibly not be any nominees of color.
And we've talked a lot about the best actress conversation.
And you and I both did this where we had four women,
four white women who we expect to be nominated.
And then one category that I think we each picked different women of color who were not nominated.
It's kind of a turnstile among three women.
And that's a bummer.
And also to the extent that prognosticators and podcasters play a role in that, then we played a role in that as well. But I would also point out that Cynthia Erivo was nominated for playing a former slave, which is another Oscar narrative, which is that people of color often only or films about people of color are often only nominated for portraying, number one, slavery,
but also situations in which they are disenfranchised and in a real, not a situation of power or empowerment.
So even there, the nomination is kind of playing into some sticky stuff.
So I think we will continue to keep talking about it.
I don't think that's a bad thing.
No, it's not a bad thing.
And it's smart the way that you positioned it because if you look at, well, personally, my choice between watching The Farewell or us or Harriet again, I'm not watching Harriet.
I'll never watch Harriet again.
I just don't think it's a very strong movie at all.
Awkwafina and Lupita Nyong'o are giving two very different kinds of performances, neither of which are steeped in that kind of historical nature that you're describing around Harriet.
One is very empathetic and kind of quiet, especially given the sort of persona we know that Awkwafina has publicly.
The other is sort of more outsized than the kind of performance you usually get from Lupita and Yango.
One is heavy genre.
One is sort of indie coming of age story.
Two categories that, you know, the Oscars historically does not really mesh with.
You don't see a lot of coming-of-age stories getting love here.
You certainly don't see a lot of genre stories getting love, especially in the best actress category.
So it's not shocking that Cynthia Erivo is here.
I chose Awkwafina because, one, I had hoped the Golden Globes speech would have boosted her a little bit.
And two, in my heart of hearts,
I think I knew Cynthia Erivo was probably the frontrunner
given all the things you described,
but I just didn't want to see it.
We let this happen every year.
We think it's going to go in this direction,
and then it doesn't.
The same is true for this other snub,
which is there are no women
in the Best Directing category this year.
I think the only legitimate candidate
in terms of having a chance to be nominated
was Greta Gerwig.
We've already talked about her nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
You know, perhaps anticipating the storm to come, the press notes shared by the Oscars took pains to note that a record 62 women were nominated representing almost one-third of this year's nominees.
One-third is not half.
It is one-third.
It's also one-third once. Like, actually, spare me. Yeah. So that is not half. It is one-third. It's also one-third once.
Like, actually spare me.
Yeah.
So that's not ideal.
The chains of progress are going to take a long period of time
to become equitable and maybe even overwhelm the equity.
But things are not even in that respect.
Did you catch Issa Rae saying congratulations to those men
when she announced the Best Directing category?
I did.
And it was appreciated.
That has become a running thing now.
Remember when, was it Natalie Portman?
It was Natalie Portman.
Who, at the Golden Globes, the all-male nominees.
And Greta Gerwig.
Yeah.
Right.
How are we going to do it?
Yeah.
You know, I don't know what to say.
I'm not surprised.
I think that women
represented a significant bump at the box office in 2019. At the end of 2018, I wrote about how
absolutely bizarre it is that there were fewer female directors in charge of significant feature
films than there were 20 years ago. That changed this year. Little Women is a hit. That's exciting
to watch. I don't think that the Academy is there yet a hit. That's exciting to watch.
I don't think that the Academy is there yet.
No.
That's my sense of things.
No.
I think it's only five women
in the history of the Academy Awards
that have been nominated for Best Director.
Five women?
Yeah, I think it's more surprising to you
than it is to me.
I don't think either of us
even picked Greta Gerwig as a wild card.
And I do think,
I think it's a bummer.
I kind of get tired
of talking about it. And I think that my larger disappointment about these nominations is not
actually from the Greta Gerwig snub in directing, though that's a bummer. But it is in the trends of
the rest of the slate and that you can just kind of tell that
the movies about women are made by women we're just not taking it seriously and and and that's
me interpreting interpreting a list of things and that's me putting a spin on it and you may
interpret it differently and that's fine um but and and and maybe that is also some coincidence, you know, that it's just kind of 1917 gets made and is such an achievement.
And then Joker is whatever Joker is.
And so the there are more movies that appeal to that more traditional type of vote.
And so things like The Farewell don't edge in.
We always knew that the farewell
was going to be a long shot.
The picks that I made for the farewell
were from the same, like,
I hope this will happen,
which, shame on me.
But-
Shame on me too.
I had two nominations predicted for the farewell.
And again, I knew in my heart of hearts,
I knew in July when the movie came out,
I was like, you know what?
The Academy does not like movies like this.
I don't know why, but they don't. Yeah. But you look at things as a
whole and to me, it's less surprising that there's no female director nomination because I know what
types of movies that this voting body takes seriously. Shall we go to Hark? Sure. I have a hark. Great. Hark!
Hark!
Triton!
Hark!
The Oscars needs a play-in game.
Do you know what I mean when I say that?
Like the wild card game?
Yeah.
Well, not exactly.
Then tell me.
In March Madness, in the NCAA tournament,
they have instituted two playoff games.
So sort of play-in games.
So games between two contenders who are lower seeds that have to play an additional game
to get into the big tournament.
I think Best Picture would be greatly improved,
and there would be a significant amount of enthusiasm
for the award show if they gave the public a play-in game.
Pick five movies not nominated by the Academy.
Let the people vote so there can be one nomination added.
Now, that doesn't mean that people get to vote on Best Picture.
It means they get to choose one nomination.
You can choose nine every year.
The 10th spot goes to the people.
Now, how do we do this?
The answer is I don't know.
There's no way to do this
without fraudulent activity and bots taking over the process, but there can be a way. I trust the
Academy and their $800 million museum and their coffers full of billions of dollars. You trust
the museum that still is not finished. Before we get into what a terrible idea this is on like
five different levels, you're trusting the Academy who can't build a museum.
The only reason I'm doing this is not to memorialize a film
into Oscar history.
I'm just trying to put more energy
around the Oscars
because the Oscars needs energy.
So if you take five movies
and you let them be the,
maybe it should be the five
that did not get the sort of
the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th,
and 14th vote getters
go to a public vote.
This is honestly a worse idea than popular Oscar.
Oh my God.
What?
I come here with creativity and you throw it in my face.
Why are you opening it to the people?
Why is democracy a part of this all of a sudden?
No.
Do you know why this is a terrible idea?
Tell me.
In addition to, you know, the fraud and that the Academy will spend all of its money trying to fight bots.
And then that's a whole thing.
Just technologically speaking, I don't think the Academy is really there.
But perhaps you have seen various audience polls that we do on The Ringer, at the website The Ringer.
And we put things to a vote.
What was your favorite movie trailer?
What was your favorite movie?
What was the best TV show of the decade? All of the results are great. Everybody who listens to and reads The Ringer, and we put things to a vote. What was your favorite movie trailer? What was your favorite movie? What was the best TV show of the decade? All of the results are great. Everybody
who listens to and reads The Ringer is wonderful. Thank you to everybody who's consumed the content
that we work hard to make here. Whatever Amanda is about to say is null and void. I have suggested,
I think everyone else can draw their own conclusions. I am, as it is well known within the Ringer offices, when it comes to declaring the best of things and making lists, I am anti-democracy.
I am all about a small group of intelligent people setting standards for everybody else.
And, you know, just because the Academy sets the wrong standards every damn year doesn't mean that I'm just willing to open it up to everybody. That's chaos. Okay, counterproposal.
Okay. Nine Best Picture nominees, and then the Academy calls me and they say, Sean,
what else should we nominate? And I say, Thanos. I am inevitable. I really hate giving you any sort
of power or telling you that you're ever right,
but I would honestly prefer you picking the 10th nominee to giving it to the public.
If you had a 10th nomination this year, what would you choose?
Yeah, let's put Uncut Gems in. Why not?
Let's put Uncut Gems in. That's what I say. This has been Hark.
Let's go to the big race.
Well, mama, look at me now.
I'm a star.
The big race is all of the races.
So let's do some more takeaways.
Based on these nominations,
do you think the Academy needs to make any significant changes to the way that they conduct their voting,
the way that they organize their body?
Do they need an overhaul in any way, based on what you've seen here today? Yeah, I got my own hark. any significant changes to the way that they conduct their voting, the way that they organize their body?
Do they need an overhaul in any way based on what you've seen?
Yeah, I got my own hark.
Age limits.
Let's go.
Oh, wow.
65 and out.
Wow.
Bye.
65 and out.
That means Mark Scorsese wouldn't be able to vote.
What in the world?
I don't know.
You're asking me to bring some content.
I bring some content. I bring some content.
This is some ageist nonsense. Yeah, it is some ageist nonsense.
Wait till you're 65.
We're going to run this clip back.
You want to know what's some ageist nonsense?
These entire nominations.
Go away.
Okay, boomer.
Bye.
I'm out.
This is your helpful feedback for the Academy.
Yeah.
I mean, also that way maybe we wouldn't have to wake up at 5 a.m.
If this isn't like old people hours, then I don't know what is.
When we did our Golden Globes nominations reaction show, obviously the hark was related to the time at which these nominations are announced.
I still have not heard a good reason why this is not a primetime special.
I cannot for the life of me understand why this is not a primetime special.
There's free money on the table.
Why do I have to watch the nominations on Twitter?
That's insane.
I agree with you.
Okay.
I mean, it's outdated, right?
I mean, again, this is the Academy not updating itself,
being run by old people who still wake up early
and then watch morning shows, you know?
And the cycle has changed, guys.
Do you think these nominations are good for the telecast?
Do you think there's going to be a huge interest
in the Oscars this year?
We touched on this a little bit last week.
No.
Because I think that, obviously, a huge number of people went to see Joker and paid a lot of money for it.
And maybe they have a vested interest in Joker taking over the Academy.
And maybe that means a lot to them um that the
comic book movies and that this you know towering artistic achievement or whatever the hell you guys
think uh actually be recognized by this group of people but for me it doesn't really seem like the people who are really, really into Joker as a culture-dominating force
kind of care about these more traditional benchmarks or also can be satisfied by anything.
So I don't know. I can't imagine. Do they watch a lot of live TV? Are they going to sit through
three hours of an awards show for their thing to win?
Well, I mean, the only thing that drives more interest than pleasure is displeasure.
Why do people listen to Mike and the Mad Dog every day?
It's because they want to disagree.
They want to be angry.
So I could see a world in which fans of the movie Joker tune into the Oscars to see if Joker wins because they're interested in the film and they're interested in the conversation around it.
And then when it doesn't win, it's one more machine apparatus to get angry and frustrated.
I mean, that's essentially what the movie is about.
The movie is about a kind of discontent, a kind of isolation and not getting what you
want feeling.
So that would be a, I don't know, a nice bow tied upon the Joker campaign.
I really don't know. I still think the ratings will be down this
year. I don't know how down. There are some big movies here, but not very many big movies. Last
year, Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born, Black Panther, that's as big as Oscar movies get. That's
in that titanic realm of more than a few $200 500 million dollar earning films joker's really the
only mega hit here and so we know of well you mean related to like something like the irishman
yes though i would assume that not more than half of the people who started the irishman did not
finish it there's no way to know that, but I don't know
if the interest,
the sort of cultural interest
in that movie is as high
as it was in something
like Black Panther.
I think that's probably true.
Or Bohemian Rhapsody
for that matter.
So we'll see.
The other thing
that's a big problem
with the Academy right now,
and I don't really know
what to do about this,
is there's such a presumptive
foregone nature
to all the acting categories now.
And it's because there's so many award shows and there's so much conversation and dialogue.
We got a surprise last year with Olivia Colman.
That was exciting.
But for the most part, doesn't it just sort of feel like the races are locked up?
It absolutely does.
I watched the Critics' Choice Awards last night.
Please review that.
I have to say it wasn't the most professional award show that I've ever seen.
A couple of notable things.
They did, they showed so many of the categories just during commercial break.
And then they just kind of put like a title card on the screen for both screenplay, original
and adapted screenplay, cinematography, editing.
Not ideal.
Song.
It was like Greta Gerwig and Quentin Tarantino won for adapted screenplay and original screenplay
respectively.
Didn't see that at all.
You know what?
They have an award for the best young performer, which is very cute.
And Julia Butters was nominated and both of the kids from uh jojo rabbit were nominated i can only remember archie
yates's name because he's my favorite but also roman griffin roman griffin davis who's the star
of jojo rabbit anyway i was thrilled that archie yates was nominated but um roman griffin davis
won and they don't show that they don't show a small child accepting an award on a TV show. What's that about?
Sad.
Yeah.
Wait, Roman Griffin Davis beat Julia Butters?
Yes.
That's shameful.
But can I tell you—
That is shameful.
But can I tell you something?
Shame on these critics.
So Once Upon a Time in Hollywood won Best Picture.
And Quentin Tarantino was there and Julia Butters was there because she was nominated.
But Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio were not there.
And so when they went to accept for Best Picture, Quentin Tarantino made Julia Butters speak.
And she held the trophy.
And she was just like, Quentin made me come up here and say thank you.
So thank you.
Hi.
And it was very cute.
So she did get her moment because Quentin Tarantino understands what people want from an awards show, but the Critics' Choice Awards do not.
Anyway, we brought this up because it was chalk in the acting categories. Joaquin Phoenix won,
Renee Zellweger won, Laura Dern won, and Brad Pitt won. Brad Pitt did not even show up and he still
won. And it is feeling like those are going to be the four at the Oscars. And that
is pretty boring. I have to be honest, even though Brad Pitt is my number one guy forever.
I look forward to his speech. I can't say I really look forward to the acting races,
and that's four eighths of the interest I have in the Oscars writ large. It's really unfortunate.
I don't know what they can do about that. I don't know how they can change that. I mean, obviously it hurts when you have a few sort of foregone
conclusions like Laura Dern and Brad Pitt have never won before. Joaquin Phoenix has never won
before. Those are three people who have been recognized a lot over the years who are thought
to be the best actors of their generation or the best movie stars, depending on how you feel about
them. And so it's kind of obvious,
given the machine that they work for,
the fact that they are, you know,
both Laura Dern has got a Netflix campaign behind her.
Brad Pitt's got a Sony campaign behind him.
Joaquin Phoenix has got a Warner Brothers and a billion dollar movie machine behind him.
And he is running.
My man was on 60 Minutes.
My man got detained with Jane Fonda
protesting climate change. I'm out here for Joaquin Phoenix. I really don't care about the movie, but that's my guy.
How much romantic fan fiction have you written about Joaquin Phoenix this year so far?
None.
We're 13 days into 2020. Do you have troves of...
No.
Wow, you just got all flustered.
He's out here doing the important things.
He's talking about the threats to our planet
and wearing the same Stella McCartney suit
throughout awards season.
And I just, I'm here for it.
I don't mind that he's going to win.
Also, I just have to say the amount of Brad Pitt content
that I've consumed because Brad Pitt,
who said he was not running, is running.
Running very hard.
And is doing so much charming stuff that that is the shining light of award season for me.
I'm thrilled for those two guys and thrilled for them to keep campaigning.
I also really love Laura Dern.
And I'm excited that she's going to win an Oscar.
And I love Marriage Story. And I'm excited that she's going to win an Oscar. And I love Marriage Story.
And I wish her speeches were slightly less Hollywood-y.
But what can you do?
She's the scion of Hollywood.
She is.
She is.
What can you do?
She is who she is.
I like the Baby Yoda bit.
So that's good.
She's got something to go with her.
It's the Renee Zellweger one.
With Renee Zellweger, it's a wonderful actress.
It seems like a very charming person. Brid jones diary hugely important to me anyone who says that she is
miscast i'm i'm not interested in that it worked for me in bridget jones diary that was almost 20
years ago and now she's winning for a movie that i literally no one has thought about since the 10
of us saw it in sept. Like 10 people saw it.
That's an exaggeration.
I'm on the record about this.
I remain confounded by the Renee Zellweger thing.
Confounded.
We just, we agreed that it was Renee's award to lose.
And that means that Saoirse Ronan, for example,
is not aggressively competing in the category.
I just do not get it at all.
I need someone to explain it to me.
I think about this stuff all the time.
I can't figure it out.
I sort of, I didn't understand it,
but it made sense to me
in sort of a path of least resistance sort of way
of people just being like-
Is Saoirse Ronan so difficult to vote for?
What are we talking about here?
No, I'm voting for Saoirse Ronan
in all walks of life,
okay? But not just in Best Actress. But in the sense that it's been a very fast award season,
people haven't seen everything, there's check-in boxes. And this happens, especially in the acting
categories, is that things get decided very early on and people just check yes. But these nominations today, people went out of their way
to not do things that have been being done, like Jennifer Lopez. So if you're not going to check
the Jennifer Lopez box, then you don't need to check the Renee Zellweger box. I completely agree.
We got to find some solutions for this because it is actually hurting the Oscars, in my opinion, to make this so presumptive. What happens next year? We've got four weeks before the telecast.
It's only four weeks?
Yeah, I mean, it's February 9th.
Wow.
So four weeks before the telecast.
Okay.
And voting doesn't start for another two plus weeks. Maybe we'll have some of the nominees on this podcast
to talk about their impressive work or not impressive work. I don't know. I doubt I'll
try to book anybody who did not impressive work this year. The campaign is so, so tight.
It's so truncated this season. I wonder if that means there will be some weirdness. I hope there will
be for the sake of our conversations, at least. Do you mean weirdness in the next four weeks?
Well, I think more likely what it means is the weirdness will result in a lot of the,
you know, easy to predict stuff that you were just underlining about the voting categories.
I think a lot of obvious stuff will ultimately end up winning. I could be wrong.
I could be wrong.
I think in the future you will never see another February 9th Oscars date again.
I think we'll be.
I think the dates may have already been set actually now that I say that.
But I suspect they'll all be in the 20s in February.
I think that is the case for 2021.
But if that makes for a less interesting ceremony, that's bad.
Do you have any reckless predictions
you want to make?
One month out?
Probably. And this is wishful,
and I know that we spend a lot of time being like,
you shouldn't make wishful predictions, but
I could see an actress shake up.
I guess it
would be ScarJo in that
context. For best actress?
Well, no, because she's going to cancel herself out.
That's what I think.
And then I guess it will be Judy.
I can't predict Saoirse because that would be too great.
And I don't believe in that.
And I just don't think that people are taking Little Women seriously enough.
I think we got to look out for Todd Phillips.
Okay.
Really? I think we do. I think it've got to look out for Todd Phillips. Okay. Really?
I think we do.
I think it's going to be Bong.
So,
at the Critics' Choice Awards,
there was a tie
for Best Director.
Yes.
Which is a joke to me.
What does that even mean?
There was a tie?
Yeah, there were, yeah.
Let's have a runoff then.
Vote again.
Okay.
Survivor rules.
I have a few notes
for the Critics' Choice Awards.
That's just one of them.
Okay? So, the tie was between Bong Joon-ho and Sam M rules. I have a few notes for the Critics' Choice Awards. That's just one of them. Okay?
So the tie was between Bong Joon-ho and Sam Mendes.
I don't know.
Todd Phillips coming in over Taika,
who got a DGA nomination but did not.
Once again, the DGAs did not match the Oscar nominations.
This happens all the time.
I don't understand it.
I'm confused as to how this continues to happen,
but it continues to happen.
There's a lot of support for Joker.
That's something we're going to have to keep our eyes on.
Yeah.
Do you think it could be a split of
Sam Mendes for 1917 for director
and Joker for best picture?
Would you think it could go the other way?
At the risk of being rude,
that's a total hellscape end result
in the year in which Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
and Parasite and The Irishman are nominated.
That is not what I want as a human.
And I like 1917 and I like Joker.
I actually think those are, relative to Academy history, and I know you don't like Joker, but relative to Academy history, those movies are not bad compared to a lot of bullshit.
Like, compared to Green Book, compared to Driving Miss Daisy, like, there's been some really horrifying shit that has won Best Picture.
Even still, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Parasite, Irishman,
even Marriage Story to some extent, even Little Women.
Those movies are really good.
Yeah.
I mean, that's why it's going to happen,
because it's always, there are lots of good movies that are nominated,
and the broad appeal stupid movie always wins.
How exciting.
If you're interested to hear more about 1917,
please stay tuned to The Big Picture on Wednesday.
Amanda, Chris Ryan, and I will be talking about that film,
what makes it so interesting,
why it's such a big part of the Oscar conversation.
And we'll also be talking about the life's work
of one great man named Roger Deakins.
The king.
And then later in the week,
Amanda and I will be back
and we'll be talking about our most anticipated movies
of this year.
Positivity.
We're bringing positivity
into 2020.
Thanks for listening
to The Big Picture.
We'll see you soon. you