The Big Picture - The ‘Vice’ Backlash and the Oprah Bounce | The Oscars Show (Ep. 112)

Episode Date: December 27, 2018

We examine and dissect the backlash against Adam McKay’s ‘Vice,’ starring Christian Bale as Dick Cheney (0:55). Then we touch on ’Black Panther,' ‘Mary Poppins Returns,’ and ‘Cold War’ in Stock Up/Stock Down (32:53), before closing out with a Best Picture race odds breakdown (59:43). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. After a three-year hiatus, Bill Simmons is back with his NBA trade value rankings for the 2018 and 2019 season. You can check that out, as well as our year-in-review articles wrapping up everything 2018 on the site. Also, throughout the holidays, we will be sticking to our regular podcast schedule, so make sure to tune in to your favorite shows as usual. Happy holidays from The Ringer.

I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the Oscars. Amanda, it is Christmas week. Viewers at home, listeners at home are hopefully bundled up with their families, watching Netflix, maybe going to the Cineplex, maybe illegally streaming recently released films, though hopefully not. We, of course, are here in a podcast studio making a podcast for those listeners and viewers. And we're here to talk about one movie and one movie only, not really, just kidding. It's called Vice. Amanda, give me your first impressions of Vice Adam McKay's portrait of Dick Cheney, former vice president, secretary of defense, congressman, general evil figure in American history. Go.

I'm very in on this movie. Me too. We saw it for the first time a few weeks ago and walked out being like, huh, okay, that was a lot, but positive. And in the interim weeks, reviews have come out, some of them not quite as positive as our reactions were. But the more I think about it, and then I actually rewatched it again last night, legally, thank you very much, had a screener. I am really into this movie. I think it's really effective and interesting. And it's not always capital G good,

and we should talk about that. But I think it really works and kind of has that instant, maybe not classic, but reference point part of the pop culture vibe that's very hard to pull off. And I really like it. And I think we're also underestimating it for awards season. I agree with you on all accounts. There's two ways to talk about this movie. There is what we like about it and what's interesting and what's effective and not effective. And then there is the reception to it and how that affects, I don't know, the critical consensus and then also award season, as you said. Just generally speaking, I think that this is, though not subtle, a very fun and unpredictable movie, even though the structure of it seems obvious.

You know, it is not a traditional biopic. It spends its first hour essentially on the first 50 plus years of a person's life. And then the second hour essentially on, I don't know, a period of like one to two years inside of an administration. Is that right to say? Yes. And I thought that that really worked. I watched it a second time as well. I think the first hour has more twists and turns and is a little bit more unpredictable and therefore more fun, but maybe not as effective as the second hour, which is

where I feel like the movie really kicks into high gear. I don't know necessarily that this should have been a miniseries. I feel like we keep having these conversations about whether these things should be like expanded into six hours. Would it have been better at eight hours? But I feel like some of the criticism was that this movie maybe didn't go deep enough into what was bad about this person. Yes, that is certainly the criticism. I don't agree with it at all. And I reread some of the more hysterical reviews last night that were like, oh, my gosh, it really lionizes Dick Cheney. And I'm kind of like, I don't know what movie you're watching. And but I think one of the major feats of this movie, and again, this is interpretation

and it's just mine, but that when you're making a biopic about any historical figure, just because of the form and the nature of the form and how we all receive feature films, you are in danger of lionizing the person, making them sympathetic, making them someone to root for. I've said this before, but we have a whole podcast hosted by Shea Serrano called Villains, and it's about how the bad people in a movie are always more interesting just because they're in a movie. And I think this movie avoids that trap, and it uses a lot, a lot of tricks to get around that idea of the hero as a hero. Lions attacking other animals and weird cut-ins and the heart and a voiceover from Jesse Plemons. I mean, there's like a lot going on, but it's very clear that this is a not good person and that the movie does not sympathize with them. And I think

if you're sympathizing with it, then like perhaps look into your own processes of how you watch movies. I'm not sure. I think some of this is the hangover from what I thought was a very effective trailer for this movie, which was set to the killer song, Man, which is a great song and obviously makes Dick Cheney seem like kind of a peppy bureaucrat. And I know why they did that. I mean, it's meant to be an arch trailer. It's meant to show the kind of contrast between somebody who is dull and quiet and kind of groans through his speech set against this incredible Brandon Flowers vocal performance. And it's satire. Like very clearly, this is in the vein of like being there, Dr. Strangelove, these sort of over the top, ridiculous conceits around interesting, complicated figures who are ultimately either not good or representative of something bad in society.

I never for a second thought that the movie was lionizing him. I thought that I think I find that to be a fascinatingly weird criticism of it. I think there is also a lot of people are fixating on Christian Bale's performance. Right. Which is astonishing which I mean and some of it is just he really looks like him the physical transformation is really remarkable but he also has a mannerism and the voice like it's it's a great performance but we are kind of trained especially during Oscar season okay great actor playing great man that that wins Oscars that's what we focus on.

You know, we just saw it last year with Gary Oldman winning for Winston Churchill. A lot of the same reviews talk about how this wastes a great Christian Bale performance, which I think is interesting and is kind of fixating on the more, you know, traditional way of looking at a movie. But I don't understand that. I think it's using the performance

in order to kind of turn the way that we normally watch these movies on its head and to make us engage with how we watch history as much as how we watch an Oscar movie. I agree. I mean, they're part and parcel. You can't separate the two and say, well, this performance is amazing, but everything else happening is a mess. I think the thing is, is that, as you said, McKay is kind of fast cutting a lot. It's a very antic style that he, I don't want to say he necessarily developed this during the big short, because there's kind of a lot to say about Adam McKay's style. And I'm talking to him on the show next week. So I'm sure we'll get into some of that there, but just to kind of foreground it,

this movie is not afraid to kind of put its finger on the nose of the idea that it wants to say. So there's one scene memorably where Alfred Molina plays a waiter in a restaurant and he's reading the menu and the chef specials and seated around the table are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, the sort of cadre of inner circle White House figures from that period of time. And the things that he's reading are things like extraordinary rendition and waterboarding and all of the terrible things that we understand that that administration did

during its time in power. And it's very smirky. And it's a bit. It's a high-level bit. It's an anchorman scene in a movie about Dick Cheney. And that's what Adam McKay does now.

He has taken some of the ethos of anchorman, of Talladega Nights, and particularly of movies like The Other Guys, which was sort of the Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg cop comedy that was also a very not so subtle indictment of the financial crisis that was coming in America. And he has started to integrate it into the tropes of recent historo nonfiction. You know, the big short, obviously based on Michael Lewis's novel about the housing crisis in America. This is an even broader palette, if you can say that. And he borrows some of those tricks from The Big Short, particularly characters looking into the camera and explaining a complicated idea. There's a lot of time spent in this movie on the idea of executive power

and what it means to grab power. And there is like phraseology used that I guess could be considered confusing and feels a little bit redundant from what he does in the big short. But also, I think kind of animates our understanding of a figure who otherwise is kind of blank. Yes, my main takeaway from the rewatch is just how wonky this movie is in the policy fact nature of that word. And I think it's great. I mean, you know, it really makes things like, it's funny, like extraordinary rendition, this word that we all know. I mean, do we? Not really. But this is making that into a pop scene that a lot of people will know and remember if they, even if they don't remember a New York Times article about it. And it's funny how much of this

pretty nitty gritty stuff from, you know, the terror memos to Halliburton to all of the legal theories to Antonin Scalia, who comes back and forth, just makes it into it's basically like more advanced schoolhouse rocks. And maybe you don't like that, but I think it also really does work in the context of the movie. And it's remarkable that he can make a lot of people sit through that. I think it's really does work in the context of the movie and it's remarkable that he can make a lot of people sit through that I think it's an achievement I you know I understand why people don't want to do that um and I understand how at times it can feel a little almost SNL-y but no one else is doing that certainly not many of our news organizations no I definitely came out of the movie feeling like wow he he took a swing like I really appreciate it we mentioned this a couple of weeks ago on the show.

One, most biopics are absolutely terrible and dull. At the very best, highly formulaic. This movie is not formulaic in any meaningful way. It may ultimately become the second chapter in a McKay formula, and we won't know that until five or 10 years from now if he keeps using this style to tell similar stories over and over again. But for the time being,

there's just no other movie that is like this. So I find that criticism a little bit strange. I think also there's something to how quickly it'll become a reference point and a point of conversation. And this is anecdotal, but you and I saw it a few weeks ago. And then I remember we wound up in a conversation a couple of days later about politics, which was a nightmare conversation, except I think we referenced this movie 10 times. We kept being like, oh, it's just like this. Oh, and there's this scene in this and there's this scene in that. And number one, the value in illustrating

those sorts of things, your mileage may vary on that, but the fact that it can do it so instantly and you can just feel it as you're watching it. I don't think we'll talk about Dick Cheney without thinking about Christian Bale as Dick Cheney. And that's part of the reason to cast Christian Bale in that role. And that's part of the reason that it is a performance that we're talk about Dick Cheney without thinking about Christian Bale as Dick Cheney. And that's part of the reason to cast Christian Bale in that role. And that's part of the reason

that it is a performance that we're talking about. But that's not everyone can do that. I think that some of the fear of the lionizing comes from that, too. Because Christian Bale, in the eyes of many people, is Batman. You know, he is a heroic figure for those of us who are not interrogating some of the ideas of moviemaking. And so that's an issue. The other thing, too, is usually when an actor like Christian Bale comes along and plays a part like this, and we've heard this from people like Daniel Day-Lewis playing like Daniel Plainview, they do their best to understand and humanize those figures because it makes them easier to play. It's fun to play a villain, but often it becomes cartoonish.

And this is a rare case of a movie where the movie is solely focused on a person that we understand to be bad. He gets a couple of redeeming moments. Yeah, I was about to say we should talk about the whole Lady Macbeth thing. Because there is an interpretation of this movie where he's the nice guy who just wants his daughters to be okay. Or not the nice guy, but his concern is his daughters as much as his ambition. And it's Lynn Chaney as Amy Adams, orams as lynn cheney who is animating this whole journey and you know casting amy adams in that role is also a choice because it evokes all of the other roles that she has played where she's just the mean woman behind a great or not so great

man as the case may be it feels like a total sequel to the master yeah performance i will say i was a little surprised that she took the part because it feels so similar to The Master. You know, that concept. And frankly, I know very little about Lynn Chaney. Lynn Chaney is not a person I had thought about much at all in history. And this movie does a lot of work, not necessarily to give you her full life, but to give you some of her life to show you how she was raised, what she believes in, the things that she did on the campaign trail for him that I don't understand, the kinds of conversations,

some of which I think are imagined, some of which are taken from biographies of Chaney and show the dynamic in their relationship. Because in the first 20 to 30 minutes of this movie, Dick just kind of seems like a simpleton. He's a big drinker. He's working on the power lines. He doesn't seem to have a lot of ambition.

He seems like he's going to drop out of Yale and kind of flunk out into Wyoming middle, lower class society. And she's used as the kind of the, I don't know, the power surge to get him going in life. Whether that's accurate or not, I don't know. And then obviously the relationship that he has with his daughters is vital to the movie. Obviously, you know, one of his daughters, Mary, is gay. His other daughter is involved in politics. His support for his gay daughter early in the film is essentially the only truly sympathetic moment in the movie, though I thought very well handled. And then later, a kind of rejection of that moment signifies like essentially like a true turn, like a true evil dark soul in this figure which I find

really fascinating I don't know necessarily that it is the most subtle portrayal of the of that dynamic I suspected that it's a much more complex thing inside their family yes I mean none of this movie is subtle like literally none of it and and you know I think's probably, subtlety is not something to go for here. But I think a valid critique of this movie is that everything is actually much more complex than it's being portrayed on the screen. Certainly that relationship and certainly the last turn. Can I tell you what I think is driving people

to criticize this movie so aggressively? Sure. And we're talking, you know, we're kind of strawmanning here. You can go check out Rotten Tomatoes. The movie has like a 60%, 65% fresh score. And the reason it has a score like that is because I think Todd McCarthy called this his movie of the year. He definitely did because it's in every single trailer.

Right. And a lot of other critics have been very negative. I would encourage you to seek those out. I think some of the criticism is very valid. I think Adam McKay's ultimate premise is to not underestimate just how terrible that run from George W. Bush's administration was and how destructive and brutal and murderous and detrimental to American life it was. And we're in a time of extraordinary political outrage, and we are in this moment where every day it seems like our hair is on fire. And there are a lot of reasons for that.

Some of it is clearly the administration. Some of it is clearly the way that media operates in 2018. And I think that Adam McKay is trying to say, slow down. This is really bad. We know it's really bad, but let's not forget this very recent history and how terrible it was. And I think that that was a big part of the big short as well. And obviously that sort of famous coda at the end of the big short about water and the sort of coming water crisis. I think about that all the time. It really haunts me. Very upsetting moment in recent movie history. And he seems to have this sense of sort of context and recent history and why those things matter to us. And I think that a lot of people,

maybe some of these critics, maybe not, maybe viewers who will see the movie don't want to be told it's not that bad right now. That doesn't feel powerful. And I don't know if this movie is necessarily a warning or kind of a nudge in the ribs to say, like, calm down a little bit. I guess you could take it in both ways. But it does feel like that is driving some of the anxiety and frustration that people have with the movie. I don't disagree with you. My sense is that, and it also got a C-plus cinema score, which doesn't really mean that much for a movie that is this formally unusual, I guess. It is really all over the place, even though I do think it comes together at the end. But for me, I think it's also that people don't want to be told in this way. I am sensing a lot of rejection of the maximalism of this moviemaking.

And to an extent, the way it is so, it has an idea. It's very clear about what it thinks and it's going at it five different ways. And it is, I think it's like the refined version of the Homeland Conspiracy Board in many ways. And as someone who, you know, references and makes those boards like that all the time, it does speak to me. But I think people expect this type of message to be delivered in a very self-serious and, you know, we have to fix it sort of way. And it is, I mean, it's an angry movie. It's not totally controlled. It's a rush of emotion.

And I think people are kind of rejecting that. Yeah, I want to talk about that idea a little bit. Specifically about this movie and then maybe some other movies that are in the race right now. So this is a very, very partisan movie. Perhaps the most partisan kind of big studio movie star movie to come along in a long time. And this has been an interesting year for movies like that. Black Klansman, sorry to bother you. There have been movies that have had very cutting satire and big critiques of films. This is really just not fucking around in terms of saying like, I am a liberal American,

Republican policy over the last 45 years essentially destroyed this country. That is really ultimately the core thesis. And it's an interesting choice for somebody like McKay, who definitely had one of the broadest audiences imaginable for his hit films. I mean, Anchorman is a true uniting force among a certain generation in a big way. If you have spent any time in a college dorm in the last 20 years, you know just how frequently that movie is engaged with and repeated. Obviously, the big short had a lot of ideas and is political in a sense, but I don't think anybody has really like a kind of a political sense of the housing crisis and the

2008 crash. You know, there were obviously things that Republicans did and Democrats did that complicated those issues or made them more difficult to understand or divided us in some way. But for the most part, that was a we're all in this together moment. And that movie attempted to help us understand more specifically why it happened. This is different. This is, like you said, very angry and very pointed and very partisan. And I think that that's a really interesting risk for a filmmaker to take. It feels like a, it's such a cliche to say it feels like a movie from 1972, but it really does feel like a movie from 1972 where filmmakers were just like, fuck it, these are my politics. And the lack of ambivalence and ambiguity is brave is not the right word, but is like is a real choice. Yeah, I've seen people compare it to it's this is the closest we've gotten to liberal fox news in the clarity of viewpoint and uh commitment and who gives a shit

and obviously fox news is uh a theme in in vice itself which you know it is a risk in some ways it feels like less of a risk now than it would have even five years ago, certainly during the Obama administration when we were all kind of hoping, bringing things together. And now, I mean, anger is quite common in certainly on Twitter and on the Internet. But I think it is filtering into we're more used to a partisan point of view in our in the same way that the culture is kind of splitting up into a bunch of mini cultures. It makes sense.

I guess it's a big risk in terms of trying to get millions and millions and millions of people to come see your movies. But I don't know. Was that the goal of this? I don't know. I mean, it depends on what reports you read. There are reports that this movie cost $60 million to make. There are a lot of famous people in it. It's evident that McKay shot a lot of film.

Given the way that it's constructed, you can see. I'm kind of fascinated to know what the original shooting script of this movie looks like. And if it's 300 pages. Because he's doing so much cross-cutting work. And he's using so many different sources. And telling the story, you know, at different periods in history. That this was evidently a, at least moderately expensive. And so, you know, when you spend a lot of money on a movie, you hope that you can make that money back. Whether it can make its

money back, I don't know. I mean, it made $5 million on Christmas day, which is pretty good. It's not as good as the 22 million that Aquaman made. So, you know, Aquaman, as you may have heard on this podcast, kind of delightful, if weird. Typically, political films like this, when they're pointed, aren't terribly successful. Let's talk a bit about a few of the others. On the Basis of Sex was also released this week. This is a biopic, a more classical biopic. You look so nervous right now. I'm not nervous. I'm clenched. On the Basis of Sex is a portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, of course, a member of the Supreme Court. And, gosh.

Yes. You want to talk about this? Some important details. The script was written by her nephew. That's right. Daniel Stiepelman. And the film was directed by Mimi Leder. It was originally supposed to star Natalie Portman, and that didn't work out.

So now it stars Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Armie Hammer as her wife, Marty, which we'll talk more about. I wanted to talk with— Did you purposefully say her wife, Marty? Oh, no. Sorry. But you know what? So I did that. I did that in another podcast this week where I called it—

I mean, it's one of the genius parts of the movie. Yes. Clearly their real life relationship and the way that their roles have been reversed. Her husband, Marty. I'm sorry. I wanted to talk about a piece that Alison Wilmore, who's a critic at the BuzzFeed, wrote this week. And it was about all of the girl power movies of 2018 and kind of all the movies, Ocean's 8, On the Basis of Sex, that were marketed as women finally in the movies. We get to go see ladies doing great stuff. And

what a hollow feeling that is. I think it's a great essay. I really recommend it. And she talks about also some movies that didn't feel that way, like Widows. And that was one of the main appeal to me of Widows, which is the great Oscar travesty of this year, in my opinion. But she does talk a lot about On the Basis of Sex, which is a hokey, traditional biopic. I mean, there are some parts of it that are just like deeply sentimental and cheesy. I gotta say I loved it. And it shouldn't be in the Oscar conversation and it won't be. And it was like watching a throwback movie made in the 90s that makes you feel good about yourself. It doesn't hurt that one of the movie's main ideas is how great would it be if Armie Hammer

were your husband and cooked? And it really seems great. Like that is genuinely, that is genuinely something that they're thinking about. And I was like, wow, it would be dope if I were, you know, a lawyer changing the status of women in America and also Armie Hammer cooked for me. I'm in. You do like, you have a soft spot for not just Armie Hammer, which is well documented on the internet if you want to find it, but kind of a traditional biopic. You know, you like Walk the Line. You like The Queen. You like these movies that are not necessarily the most searching portraits, but put beautiful people in positions to play historical figures and show the kind of the power of their historical charisma. Yes? Yes, I do. There's something, you know, it's a familiar

genre. It's like a rom-com for me. I will say also the one thing that I thought, well, actually, there are two things that I thought were genuinely interesting about On the Basis of Sex. One of them was that it really just is the great man movie, but turned into great woman. I have sat through so many great man, traditional, what some critics seem to want of Dick Cheney movies. And, you know, I like some of them. I don't like of the others, but I could tell that they were playing with that idea right down to the Armie Hammer, like supportive husband character.

And I thought it was charming. I watched this movie with my wife and she cried about five times. I did too. And it was a perspective setting moment for me where I was like this movie, one, I saw the documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, RPG earlier this year, which was a pretty big box office hit. Yeah.

And that movie captured most of the information I felt like I needed. And, you know, I think that's a complicated movie. Yeah. I want to talk more about that. It doesn't always work. But particularly the case that On the Basis of Sex focuses on is the centerpiece of the film. And I basically knew every hit that was coming. And I'm already kind of interested in the Supreme Court. I've read like three Jeffrey Toobin books about the Supreme Court. I follow

it fairly closely. So I have some awareness of her life. You know, the thing I don't have is, as a man, the perspective to see like how powerful it is, specifically what she did and how she did it. And it's very notable to me that she liked the movie a lot, Ginsburg, and had one note. There's a scene in the movie where she's sort of giving her final arguments. This is great. And she stumbles a bit upon her words. And when I was watching the movie, I was like, that's weird because I don't think that she did that in real life. And then went home, popped open the cut and found that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was like, I like this movie a lot, except I never stumbled over my words. And, you know, the documentary portrays her as this fearless kind of Jedi of legalese. Her mind is so powerful and the way she, you know, constructs arguments is so, is truly like a generational talent. And we hear

that about people like Scalia all the time. And it took a little bit longer for us to hear it about people like Ginsburg, but now that is sort of happening. She famously was like, I think 98 to 2 approved to the Supreme Court, some ludicrous number by the Senate. It's interesting for me to shut up and be like, okay, I know why this is powerful, even if I don't think this movie is good. Yeah. Listen, Vice is the better movie and Vice should, this is an Oscars podcast and Vice should be nominated for Oscars. And I don't think on the basis of sex should, I don't think that that diminishes my enjoyment of it. And what's interesting to me about it, I will say like, I, like your wife, teared up several times. It is still remarkable just to actually see

what it was like to be a woman, like even in the 70s, in my mother's lifetime when my mother was going to work. And, you know, that has not been solved by any means. But when you actually kind of see it and are put in that world for a couple of hours, I do find it pretty astonishing or just kind of moving. I will say also, and I'm glad you brought up RBG, a documentary that I watched after seeing On the Basis of Sex and really did not like, because I think that it really, really leans into this sort of, yay, girl power, notorious RBG, BuzzFeed lists. I mean, there are literally BuzzFeed lists in the documentary, No Shots to

BuzzFeed, where Alison Wilmore also published this essay. But I found it, even though it contains actual interviews with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is an icon, kind of reductive and kind of simplistic. And what I liked about On the Basis of Sex was for all the hagiography, there is a 40 minute window when they're just going through a case. And they really do illustrate kind of how the legal stuff comes together and what she was doing. And I think they actually, in the fictionalized movie, explain her legal maneuvering better than they did in the documentary.

You can at least watch it happen. It's obviously dramatized, but I thought, and you know, she didn't stumble, but I thought it was exciting. I walked away with an understanding of, wow, okay, this is how it works. This is why she was so important. I wish it had been more nuanced. But, you know, I wish that of pretty much everything. You're also a daughter of lawyers, I realize. That's true. That is true.

We should note that. And I wonder if that's a factor in your appreciation. And there is a very strident feminist young daughter figure in this film. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Maybe a young Amanda Dobbins. I mean, maybe. The point where, I mean, that scene when she tells off the two guys who are heckling her, you know, the catcallers.

And then the movie, like, falls over itself for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be like, you're already liberated. I mean, that's kind of the problem of the movie in a nutshell. She didn't need to say it. We already saw it. It really is hammering things home, but that's fine. You know? Yeah. I mean, just one little final note on this is Felicity Jones is literally one of my favorite young actresses miscast. It's just not, she shouldn't be trying to do that accent. It doesn't work. I think that she actually lacks kind of the pluck and sort of like steely overconfidence of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Something that comes across in the documentary, I thought, is that she's like pretty arrogant in an appealing way.

And I don't think that, I don't mean that as a criticism. I think it's, you kind of have to be a person like that to get to where she is. And that's part of the lesson of the movie is you kind of have to be like, no, I'm right. And that can be powerful. And Felicity Jones is like just a little pixie-ish for that, for me. She's reluctant in the movie.

And I think part of that's a choice because, again, it was the 60s and the 70s when you couldn't be quite as forthright. But, yeah, I agree. It's not—I think that the right person in this role probably would be in the Oscar conversation, and I don't think Felicity Jones is. Let's talk about a couple more movies like this. We've talked about Green Book and Black Klansman quite a bit throughout the show. It's an interesting year for political movies in general. And I'm fascinated, and I don't know the answer at all. And I wonder if you have a sense of how much the Academy wants to lean on some of these ideas, or in an effort to kind of run away

from the divisiveness of this show, they'll lean more towards Black Panther, something that is a bit less complicated. A Star is Born obviously being the obvious example that won't split people, you know, because Green Book has not been as successful at the box office as many people thought it would be and also has come under crazy fire in the last couple of months. It is that classical movie where like many people are saying they got their facts wrong and it has created a storm cloud over the movie. Black Klansman is, I don't think, as controversial per se. I don't think there's very many people, not as many people publicly writing for the KKK

and trying to show their side of the story, though there are some if you go out there on the internet. But it obviously ends with this extraordinary footage from Charlottesville around the anniversary of the terrible events that happened there. And, you know, it's not a feel-good movie. It's a comedy that turns into a very pointed sociopolitical drama at the end. And I'm very curious to see if movies like Vice, On the Basis of Sex, Black Klansman, Green Book,

if they don't get as much love because there's a desire to kind of make this, as always, a kind of showbiz show. What do you think? Well, I think it'll be more that they split the vote. Because the Oscars historically love this type of movie. Or specifically, they love a movie that can make them feel good about caring about politics. And also that it's also that also confirms their own worldview. And I think for a while we thought that Green Book would be that movie, which would be tough. And it seems like maybe Vice could be that movie because it confirms a liberal worldview,

but is not quite as problematic. It's unconventional nature, though, makes me think it won't. Right. You know, but I just think there are several movies, I think Vice, Green Book, and Black Klansman that could fit under the umbrella of, I need something that's relevant to today, or I need something that explains America right now. I kind of don't know how it'll shake out, and I don't think we'll know maybe until the nominations, because, you know, not to spoil too much of the Golden Globes, but Vice is the most nominated

film of the Golden Globes, and I think it is because of that. Like, we need to explain this moment in America right now to a bunch of international journalists. I think that people will vote in that way in some capacity. It may just be in the actor categories, and then they'll lean traditional for best picture. I don't know. I feel pretty strongly about Amy Adams and Christian Bale. I think most prognosticators think that they'll be there.

Whether McKay gets there for script or director or it gets a Best Picture nomination, I think it will get a Best Picture nomination. I could be wrong. Maybe what kind of business it does will dictate some of that. We'll see in the coming weeks. Before we get to the next segment, let's take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor. Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by NHTSA. Everyone knows about the risks of driving drunk. You could get in a crash, people could get hurt or killed,

but here are some surprising statistics. Almost 29 people in the United States die every day in alcohol-impaired vehicle crashes. That's one person every 50 minutes. Even though drunk driving fatalities have fallen by a third in the last three decades, drunk driving crashes still claim more than 10,000 lives each year. Drunk driving can have a big by a third in the last three decades. Drunk driving crashes still claim more than 10,000 lives each year. Drunk driving can have a big impact on your wallet, too. You could get arrested and incur huge legal expenses. You could possibly even lose your job. So what can you do to prevent drunk driving?

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And we're going to talk about Black Panther because there's a Black Panther push happening right now. We're almost a year away from the release of Black Panther originally. And someone has come around. Who's come around to ride for Black Panther, Amanda? Oprah! Oh, man, I was so excited when I saw this. Yeah, speak on it. Okay, Oprah hosted a party, just a screening, just to boost Black Panther and talk about how great it was.

She gave a speech. She said that she, I just want to read this part of the speech. I just wanted to say that when I first saw Black Panther, I sent an email to my friend, Bobby, that's Bob Iger, just in case anyone is wondering. Incredible. And said, hi, Bobby, just saw it. It's worth everything I've heard and more. A phenomenon in every way, on every level. Makes me tear up to think that little Black children will grow up with Wakanda forever. It's game-changing. It's pride-making.

It's dazzling. It's phenomenal. That was my personal review. Wow. This is worth a lot of money. I mean, you can't pay for this. That's just Oprah talking about her friend Bobby and how Black Panther is the most important year of 2018.

I can't even talk about how great that is. And I love this. Let's have Oprah campaigning until February 24th. If this just becomes a let's talk about what Oprah said podcast, I would be thrilled. So much better than anything else we've got going on. I'm not so sure I agree with you about that. I find this to be a very fascinating thing.

I wonder if Oprah has the same pop cultural might that she once did. Obviously, she is kind of the doyen of the book club and she has launched many people into surprising and unusual and in the case of maybe Jonathan Franzen, unwanted fame and fortune. Black Panther doesn't need that. black panther is is maybe the number two phenomenon at the movies in 2018 it's it's credibility as an awards season contender is undetermined it's unknown right now and i don't really i kind of don't care what happened with the critics and i don't care what happened with the golden globes relative to black panther i don't really think they're very predictive specifically of this movie.

This is a new one. I was reading this week on Gold Derby. There's a piece about whether Michael B. Jordan will be nominated. And it's essentially just collates a lot of reviews and a lot of criticism in recent months of his performance in the film, which has been divisive for some people

and not divisive for others. And the clearest comparison point that was made was Gene Hackman in Unforgiven playing Little Bill. And, you know, we were talking about Dick Cheney as a villain. Obviously, Killmonger is a great recent villain in movie history. And that feels like something that could clearly happen to me. Whether there's like a Black Panther best picture wave, Oprah or no Oprah, Bobby Iger or no Bobby Iger, I don't see it. I don't know why I don't see it, but I don't. I don't totally see it either.

I think that this really helps because, you know, whether or not, however many people are watching Oprah's network, I think Oprah saying a movie is important to how we raise our children still has a tremendous effect on a lot of people, including people in the Academy. It's freaking Oprah. Like, there are not that many people who, you know, just make anyone tense up. But I think Oprah still is one of those people, especially for a lot of the older voters. And so I think there are a lot of Academy people who are maybe not taking Black Panther seriously. Like, oh, whatever. It's, you know, comic book movie.

And now you have a very respected person in the industry saying, no, this matters. You know, I don't think it'll win unless there's some sort of weird preferential ballot whatnot, which you never know, especially this year. Could happen. You know, I feel great about this. Oprah has been campaigning a lot. Like, obviously, her Golden Globe speech last year was extremely— it was so effective that people are now wondering if she'll run for president. I don't know how I feel about that.

She was obviously campaigning in Georgia for Stacey Abrams. That's a great video. I feel this is the least complicated version of all of it. Let's just, like, have Oprah do Oscar campaigns. It's entertaining for everyone. There's really no harm. I'm good. I support it.

I'm curious what she thinks of Avengers Infinity War. I'm sure she hasn't seen it. You think she's checked that one out? No. That's also... She won't be at Endgame? No?

I'm good with Oprah just dipping in and being like, this Marvel movie matters and you don't have to see the others. That's a message I can support. What about Captain Marvel? Will she ride for that? First film co-directed by a woman in the Marvel Universe? First female superhero in a Marvel film? Here's the others. That's a message I can support. What about Captain Marvel? Will she ride for that? First film co-directed

by a woman in the Marvel Universe? First female superhero in a Marvel film? Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Where does it end, Amanda? Did you happen to see

the thing about Oprah and the chicken without salt? I have no idea what you're talking about. Okay, there was a viral video last week that was an old clip of Oprah

and she had some woman on her show with an award-winning chicken recipe that had no seasoning. And you can watch Oprah react in real time and be like, this is terrible, but I'm not going to say anything. Oh. Oprah doesn't endorse things that aren't good. I see.

Oprah is only endorsing things that she thinks are worthwhile. She has earned the people's trust. Tune in next week for this episode of the show where I show you all the things Oprah has endorsed that are not good over the last 30 years. Let's keep talking about stock up, stock down. Obviously, Black Panther stock is way up given the Oprah assignation. Let's talk about best actress. You and I and Julia Littman talked about Mary Poppins Returns last week on the show, a movie that I think we had mixed feelings on. It seems like America has mixed feelings about it as well. It is certainly not a flop, but it is certainly not a phenomenon. And Disney historically in making these sort of live action remakes or sequels or reboots or whatever you want to call them,

has managed to make big, big news and money around these movies. This one feels a little quieter. I'm not so sure that maybe Emily Blunt is an auto fill-in on Best Actress now because of that. What do you think? Yeah, I agree with that assessment generally. I think that it's less sure than it was last week. Two things. Number one, this movie is probably more of a long tail burn than, say, Aquaman.

Because it's a lot of four-year-olds going to the movies. And you can't just take a four-year-old to a movie on Friday afternoon. You have to plan ahead. And I think Even Greatest Showman is an example of a musical that over weeks and months made a lot of money, even though it wasn't an instant hit, and also even though many of us were baffled by it. I just want to say, don't taunt Aquaman, okay?

Okay, sorry. Aquaman is very special. That's fine. The children can't go see Aquaman. No, your? Okay, sorry. Aquaman is very special. That's fine. It's just the children can't go see Aquaman. No, your point is well taken. I think you're right. This absolutely could have major legs. Yeah.

The other thing that I would just point out, and this is a very small indicator, but the shortlist for a lot of Oscar categories were released last week. And Best Song shortlist was released. There's only one A Star Is Born song, which is an outrage. Criminal. And there are two Mary Poppins songs on the short list, which would just indicate, I mean, it's a different, it's different criteria, obviously, but that is some indicator that Academy voters

are taking it slightly more seriously than, say, URI did. Yeah, and I think Mary Poppins Returns will push for a lot of technical categories. It'll push for production design. It'll push for costume. It'll push for a lot of those categories because a lot of that stuff is really incredible. And when you work on a Rob Marshall movie and when you work for Disney on a film like this, you're usually working with

sort of the very best in class. So I think it'll get love there. Emily Blunt, I don't know. I think the one thing that we all kind of agree on universally when we talked about the movie last week was that she's awesome and that she, an incredible year for her with A Quiet Place and there's obviously just a lot of love and affection for her there's a phenomenal video of her and John Krasinski that the Hollywood Reporter made last year uh last week that she's there on the cover of the magazine and they're just sort of freestyle answering questions I mean they're just really really good at being cool and famous they're they're like the classic, I'd like to hang out with those two couple in Hollywood right now, right? Yes.

People like movie stars. Even the Academy likes movie stars. And you can kind of see that as an investment, and we would like to make sure that this person is the real deal going forward, we will give her this nomination. I can see it. I think it's still in play. Let's talk about another movie star.

Her name's Nicole Kidman, and I'd like to talk about her performance in Aquaman. Just kidding. She's in a movie that opened on Christmas Day. It's called Destroyer. It's the latest movie from Karin Kusama, who will also be on this show later this month. Check that out. I liked Destroyer,

and I liked Nicole Kidman's performance. It is in a traditional class. I thought Adam Neyman wrote very well about this on the site. The sort of a woman dirties herself up, uglifies herself for a performance. Charlize Theron in Monster is definitely the most famous example of this. In Destroyer, Nicole Kidman plays a hard-bitten Los Angeles cop.

We see her in sort of two phases of her life. One, as a young undercover police officer and essentially the big sting that she's working on. And then later in her life, after something has gone terribly awry and the choices that she makes to further complicate her life in i guess she's in her 50s in the movie it's a very dirty grimy 80s style crime thriller to live and die in la is the movie that it most reminded me of. I get the sense that you were not as into it. You know, I liked it. It was a real L.A. movie.

I think Karan Kusama makes great L.A. movies. The actual Nicole Kidman performance, it does fit into the archetype that Neiman wrote about, which is woman dirties herself. It also fits into a subgenre called Nicole Kidman wears a wig. And I'm quite familiar with this type of performance now. And, you know, I think it's part just because she doesn't want to get her hair done all the time. So she just wears a lot of wigs. And some of the wig performances are better than others. I've seen three wig performances this year because she wears one in Boy Erased and then she wears two wigs in Destroyer. And I think I said to you my review is when the Nicole Kidman wig performances are competing with each other. It's a little, it's too meta for me.

I can't really invest in the reality of the character. And I think this was an interesting case where there was like too much Nicole Kidman meta text for me to invest in her performance. That's an interesting idea. I don't want to undersell the wig that she wears in Aquaman or the crab claw hand that she wears

in that movie either. So a lot of prosthetics work from her this year. She also has a broken nose memorably in this movie and she's famous for her nose work after the hours.

Yes, sure, yeah. That meta-text idea is really interesting. I think that it's a little hard to watch Nicole Kidman now at this stage of her career. Great actress though she is and not feel like you're watching Nicole Kidman try something new and do a thing. In Boy Erased, I think she's very good, but she's doing a voice.

She's doing an accent. And I'm like, okay, you're doing the accent. It's a good accent. It's not even a bad accent. It's just you're doing a thing. And I don't think of her necessarily as a showy performer, but she shares something with Charlize in that she's still just so incredibly beautiful. She's in her 50s and she's an overpowering, glamorous movie star that transformation feels like the performance. It feels like the conversation is happening while you're watching the movie. And it's a little

hard to get away from that. And then maybe in some ways it takes away from the movie and maybe in some ways it makes the movie work. You know, I think it's kind of remarkable. Adam also noted in this piece how authentic she seems as like a 25 year old cop. You know, like you don't think so? I wasn't going to bring this up. I mean, and I don't mean to,

Nicole Kidman is wonderful. I was like the age, I didn't buy that. I'm sorry. All right, I did. Okay, that's good. She plays opposite Sebastian Stan and we're meant to believe they're contemporaries. Yeah, they didn't quite get there. And in some ways, I like that they didn't try to euthyfy her too much.

They were just like, you have suspended disbelief the other way for so long that you can suspend disbelief that she is 20-something. Yes. But I was suspending it. Kidman's been nominated for a Golden Globe. It'll be interesting to see if she... Weirdly, I could see a world in which she or Blunt are kind of on the outside looking in. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about Bird Box.

Okay, you're going to be talking solo because I watched Working Girl instead of watching Bird Box. We don't need to talk about the movie Bird Box, which is on Netflix right now. It stars Sandra Bullock. But I want to talk about the Bird Box effect and what it means for Roma. Okay. So just hang with me for a second here. I get the impression that a lot of people watched Bird Box.

You know how I know? Because I'm on Twitter. If you just put Bird Box into Twitter, there are so many memes and tweets. I don't know if you've caught up on this at all. It's kind of extraordinary. And I don't know if these are Netflix bots or if these are real people who are like, I'm going to check out this movie

of Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes, and John Malkovich. Maybe they are. I mean, that movie does an interesting thing that I think the Fast and the Furious films do, which is like, let's just take nine cool people and put them together.

And maybe they're liked by different segmented audiences. And then we'll get a lot of different people to watch the movie. I am almost certain of this and there will be no way for me to ever prove it, that like five times as many people have watched Bird Box than Roma. I would totally believe that. And I don't think Bird Box is very good at all. It's directed by Suzanne Beer, the Danish filmmaker who is an Academy Award winner.

And there's something so interesting about this big play to get Roma to Best picture, which we'll talk about a little bit later in the show, and a movie like Bird Box dominating the service. I'm completely speculating here. But if you look at the way that people engage with culture in the world, we know that A Star is Born and the kind of memification of A Star is Born gave it legs. It gave it a life. Black Panther, Get Out, these movies that became internet sensations went on to great success. Mary Poppins Returns does not have this and does not have that weird phenomenon feeling. I'm playing a very loose pseudoscience here, but there's something so interesting to me about Bird Box doing really well because it's just bright all over again.

Last year was bright and this year it's Bird Box. Yeah, that's true. Though I think some of it is that the meme thing is right and Alyssa Bereznack wrote a great piece for us about how memes can make things a success now, make movies a success. Obviously, A Star is Born, there was a lot going on there. But I think you're right. I do think also that some of it is just Bird Box is a movie that you'll just sit down and watch on Netflix and be like, why not? You know, I think we asked last week people to let us know how they were watching Roma, what the experience, how it was going. And we've had a good amount of people on Twitter. And I would say like people from The Ringer stopped by my office just to let me know. They put their

phone away. They sat down. They watched Roma. They really liked it. They made it an event, but it's not a loud thing, obviously. And you don't have to make it an event to watch Bird Box. You're just like, oh, this popped up on my Netflix, and I don't feel like surfing around for an hour and a half, and I'll watch this thriller, and we'll see what happens. If I don't like it, I'll turn it off. It just, that's home, that's really passive, easy home viewing.

I get it. Can I make a confession? Yeah. I just wanted to have home. That's really passive, easy home viewing. I get it. Can I make a confession? Yeah. I just wanted to have this segment because I wanted to say Bird Box like 11 times. So watch Bird Box or don't. I think what you're saying is right, Amanda. You can watch this movie passively.

It is kind of dumb, kind of effective at times. Yeah. I'm still kind of blown away that the two movies Sandra Bullock made this year, Ocean's 8 and Bird Box. I mean, yes. That's a real bummer to me. Let's talk a little bit about one more movie that was released last since we spoke. It's called Cold War. I feel like I've said this twice now already,

but I'm going to say it one more time. I had the director of this movie on the show. That episode will come out later this year. His name is Paweł Pawlikowski. He's a Polish director, though he was raised in England. Some people may know him from Ida, which was his Academy Award winning film from 2015. Ida is a beautiful story about a nun who discovers love and Christ and jazz. And this movie is basically about his parents and their love affair in Poland and elsewhere in the Soviet Union in mid-century, mid-20th century. What'd you think of this movie? I really liked it. Yeah, it's good. It is 90 minutes, which is, I think, both a selling point and something really interesting about it.

I don't want to spoil too much, but it is quite, it's both austere and pretty sexy. Two very attractive leads who really like each other in a certain way. And it is very abrupt. And that's part of the point. That's part of filmmaking. I don't really want to spoil too much about it. But when it ended, I was like, huh, okay. And then have thought about it since. There are some amazing scenes. There's too much Polish folk singing for my particular taste. Just a warning. A warning I wish I'd had.

Starts with about 10 to 15 minutes of acapella Polish folk singing. So once you know that. You got to power through that. It's not even that you have to power through it. It's like I really thought I was going to see like a sexy romance. And then it was just like people in a field singing in Polish for a long time. Yep. Often like two different songs simultaneously.

So now you know, and maybe you'll just experience it the way it was meant to be experienced. I've thought a lot about it. I have not seen it again. And it's something that I would like to watch again, kind of knowing the actual parameters of the movie, that it is brief, that you are supposed to be watching for certain things. But I think it's great it's also one of like a million great foreign films this year it's kind of the most stacked category which is why i wanted to talk about it yeah i mean let's talk about some of those contenders

along with cold war i mean paul blakowski obviously had won in this category before i think he's a deceptive a lot of people thought he was kind of like an ingenue when he won for EDA. But in fact, he's been making films since like 1993. He made one of Emily Blunt's very first films, My Summer of Love, in 2006. He's made English language films. And it's interesting that he has returned to Poland to kind of make his great works. And you're right that he cast Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot, who are these incredible movie stars. But, you know, we talked about roma a million times roma's going to compete in best foreign language film that's a lock and then in addition to that

we talked about cold war i think capernaum which wesley morris talked about on this show a few weeks ago uh shoplifters which you and i both adored burning the korean film that right there is five there's more though. You know, there's a movie called Never Look Away, which hasn't been released in America yet. And it's directed by Florian Henkel von Donnerschmark. And Florian is the director of The Lives of Others, which is also a Best Foreign Film winner. I haven't seen that movie, so it's kind of hard for me to say anything about it, but it's nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Globes because apparently the people in the Globes have seen it. That's Germany's entry. And then just last night I watched The Guilty, which is the Danish entry. Have you seen the movie

Phone Booth starring Colin Farrell? No. Are you familiar with the premise of that movie? No. So someone calls Colin Farrell on a phone booth and says, if you move, I'll shoot five people, stay on the phone with me. And then the whole movie takes place with Colin Farrell on a phone booth and says, if you move, I'll shoot five people. Stay on the phone with me. And then the whole movie takes place with Colin Farrell on a phone. Sounds like Chris Ryan's dream. It's one of Chris's favorite films of recent memory. The Guilty Gun has the same premise. It's slightly more austere, but I thought it was a very interesting film.

And there's a few others that are kind of in the mix here, but that's seven contenders that are pretty legit. And I think a lot of people, more people than usual have seen Roma. Cold War, of course, is an Amazon co-production. So, you know, the film came out on the 21st of December. I have heard that it's going to come to streaming very soon. And that would be an interesting thing for this as well. If it finds its way to streaming within the span of three or four weeks, that's a pretty big deal for this. I don't know. Why do you think there's just such a boomlet here? It's funny. Isaac, our engineer, and I were talking about this before you arrived.

I was late for the record. It's fine. It's okay. It's the holidays. It is a really good year. I have seen four or five of the movies you just listed, and they're all excellent. It's also pretty rare that I've seen four or five of the foreign films that are in contention at this point in the awards season.

And it's not just because I'm doing an Oscars podcast. It's because they have also been in conversation more. They've been on year-end lists. They have been winning awards beyond the foreign film. I think some of it is just the accessibility, which is kind of the flip side and the positivity of like, we've talked about it. Roma is on streaming. Anyone around the world can see that, which is, it may not be as many people as Bird Box, but a lot of people will see Roma who may not have had access to it. And I think that that is true for all the foreign

films of, you know, you used to, maybe you would encounter a critic saying, oh my God, like Cold War or Shoplifters was really amazing. And you have no way of tracking it down. And you can pretty easily now. And that's great. I mean, I don't mean to be like the booster of, you know, film and streaming services and everything's going to be fine because it's obviously quite complicated, but it's hard to not see that as an upside. It's definitely easier than ever. I mean, it's easier than ever, but it's hard to not see that as an upside. It's definitely easier than ever. I mean, it's easier than ever, particularly for us living in Los Angeles.

Shoplifters was just playing at the Arclight for three weeks. I mean, that's a pretty cool thing. It reminded me a lot of going to Film Forum or something when I was living in New York and the ease of use that you had there. I think if you live in Ohio or North Dakota or even Washington State or Texas, it's just much harder to see these movies. But something like Cold War coming to the streaming service quickly and Roma being available day and date is wild. I mean, it really does change.

And maybe there's a case that kind of film literacy and the willingness to watch more foreign films will grow. Maybe not. I mean, I tend to think that that's going to continue to atrophy because of the second screen thing we've been talking about over the years. But I don't know. We'll see. It's a very exciting category. We'll definitely be talking about it more as the year goes on. I love the idea of Roma not winning there, but potentially winning Best Picture and kind of what that means just historically as a tidbit. Let's hit one more thing and stock Up, Stock Down. This is an Oscars podcast, and we are hosts of an Oscars podcast, but the Oscars does not have a host. It is December 27th, and the Oscars does not have a host. So less than two months, there'll be a show, which will be the third most popular television show of the year.

No host. They hope. They hope. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the central problem here, right? Yeah. So Amanda, what are they doing? What's happening? Well, I guess they're floundering in their own mess that they made. Some of this is just the Kevin Hart thing was such a fiasco from all sides. Who would want to take this job? Who would want to step into the

mess? Who would want to deal with the academy and its expectations? It was already a thankless job. And now it's even more thankless. And they don't seem to have anyone with a vision about what should happen, or they don't seem to have a consensus on what the vision should be. And I don't know. I think that the conversation point around this won't help you in your career no matter what has poisoned a lot of this too. I was listening to Bill Simmons, our boss, and Brian Curtis and Jason Gay on the Sports Reporters on Bill's show earlier this week, and they were just talking about the fact that there's just no upside. Jason Gay might have suggested that somebody like Beyonce would be a great person to do this. But it's like, Beyonce's not going to do this. Like, Beyonce, there's no upside for Beyonce to do this. And then their secondary recommendation was Jennifer Lawrence, who famously hosted a couple of episodes of Jimmy Kimmel.

She was very charming. That sounds fun, I guess. But, like, Jennifer Lawrence is a huge movie star with a lot to lose. There's no, and we saw how James Franco and Anne Hathaway were received about five years ago, not well. And I don't see somebody of that stature and status coming to the table. Kevin Hart did feel, complications aside, like a good compromise.

He was the right level of famous. He had the right level of social media imprint. He was a comedian. Replicating that experience, I think, is going to be really tough in the aftermath of this. I think so. I think also the mentality think, is going to be really tough in the aftermath of this. I think so. I think also the mentality of we have to find the most famous person to get the highest ratings as possible is just that's not going to help anybody because that's not going to happen. You're not going to find someone that is suddenly going to give you a huge amount of like there aren't 30 million people who are like, oh, wow.

OK, Jennifer Lopez is, you know, hosting. Oh, Jennifer Lopez would be great. Good idea. Yeah, I'll watch. Maybe 2 million, but not 30 million. Nothing to turn around the fact that the way we watch television has changed so dramatically that live event ratings are going down. I mean, that's just a reality. And so I think you have to start thinking differently.

Make it a good show, you know, hire someone who can actually handle all the responsibilities of hosting or at least some of them. Maybe you hire a few people, cater to the movie people, cater to the people who actually care. That's what you're going to get at this point. You're going to get 20, 30 million people who actually do care as opposed to 50 million idle viewers. It's just the nature of the business. That being said, I do think that one underrated aspect of hosting this year is this is the first year in many years in which two $200 million domestic movies are most likely going to be nominated for Best Picture.

So you've got a Star is Born, you've got Black Panther. Whenever that happens, the ratings are up. Now, obviously, live event viewership has completely changed in the last five years. I fully acknowledge that. But if you look through the course of the ratings of the show since about 1995, the years when avatars come along are the years when the ratings spike. And there is an opportunity here to tell a different story, to say our viewership went up to 40 million this year. And instead of down and down and down, they've been down at a rate of about 15%

over the last three years. Through no fault of Jimmy Kimmel's, it was largely because many people just didn't see Moonlight and they didn't know what they were tuning into. And while Jimmy Kimmel was a great host, he's not Beyonce. He's a person you can see on TV

literally every single day. And so there is a unique opportunity for a person with, you know, maybe not a lot to lose, but a little bit to lose to step in and do this and get a big audience. I could be wrong. I just, I feel like there's going to be a spike this year. There might be. I think Black Panther is excellent and deserving of an Oscar. I think it's essential to the Oscars in the film industry that it be nominated. I do not think it will matter in ratings. And I mean, I might be wrong, but I just kind of think that the people who actually care about Black Panther as viewers and people who went to the movies are often small children, by the way, who aren't allowed to stay up and watch the Oscars.

But I don't know that even that investment in getting a Best Picture nomination transfers to wanting to sit through a three-hour show. I agree. And this has nothing to do with the kind of emotional or filmic point of view, but if there's a Roma sweep of any kind, it's like a disaster for the show. That's going to be a very hard story for the TV show to tell. So, you know, let's go to our next segment of the show because it's sort of in keeping with what we're discussing. This is the big race. We're going to talk about Best Picture. This won't be the last time Best Picture is the big focus, but everything's out now. There's nothing left to be released in 2018. So let's kind of look at the odds and where things stand

now that Vice is here and Beale Street and Destroyer and also Aquaman, which I think will be contending as well. Amanda, in our notes here, you've written, these odds are wild. Yes. This is a screenshot from Gold Derby. Let's run from five to one. Number five, Black Panther,

is at 10 to one odds to win Best Picture. Number four is The Favorite at 17 to two. Number three is Green Book at eight to one. Number two is Roma at 15-2. And number one is A Star is Born at 11-2.

Why is this wild to you? Well, if you do just a little bit of math, you'll realize that they're very close. They're very close. Everything is extremely close. Yes. And I think also I was just scrolling through the Gold Derby for the next five. They're all kind of in the same range vice is 12 to 1 beale street is 21 to 2 uh black klansman is 19 to 2 they're all within a small range which is

not usually the case that we have aquaman i'm still scrolling okay but heman rapsi is 40 to 1 though yeah yeah okay we're gonna have to talk about that. Yeah. Yeah, I think part of the reason these are really close is because nobody knows anything right now. There's no nominations. Right. You know, nobody ever really knows anything. But this does still feel weirdly, even though these odds are close, this order feels like chalk to me. This is what I would have guessed two months ago, and this is where we are. Which is, maybe we'll invert the favorite in Green Book at some point.

And maybe Oprah and Bobby Iger will be able to boost Black Panther a little bit. But this has been A Star is Born in Roma. I think it will be A Star is Born in Roma. The campaign in the next two months will be fascinating to see. I think you're right. What's so interesting though

is that we basically just spent a whole podcast not talking about those two movies. Yeah. Which is a little bit because they were released a while ago and we were focusing on other things but they are the favorites but they're not in the conversation right now at all and i don't want to we'll talk more about the golden globes but the golden globes will be entirely inconclusive because of their very strange foreign film rules and also because half the movies are competing in comedy and half the movies are competing in drama. I agree that this order seems right.

I do think that it is just way less settled or obvious than it usually is at this point. I agree. I agree with you. I don't yet know. I think that that's a good point about the Globes, about Rome essentially being not present at the Globes in any meaningful way and what that will mean for the kind of the conversation around it, whether it takes a dip because of that or not. Let me ask you a question. Yes.

Do you think more people on Earth have seen at least 30 minutes of bird box than people have seen a star is born? Yes. That's fucking crazy. I mean, this is nuts to me. I went home. My family lives in Atlanta. We normally go to a movie on Christmas night. And my dad, despite many text messages and despite being an avid film watcher, has still not seen a star is born. And I was like, this is great. Christmas night. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take my whole family to a star is born. We're just going to do this. Guess what was not showing in Atlanta? A star is great. Christmas night. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take my whole family to A Star Is Born.

We're just going to do this. Guess what was not showing in Atlanta? A Star Is Born. They'll probably put it back in theaters. They will. But, you know, they miss it. And it was just, it was so clear to me. Then I tried to get everyone to go see Vice.

And instead they chose to watch The Mule. But I was saved at the last minute because The mule was so loud in Atlanta on Christmas night. Twist. But it just illustrated to me that I have a lot of friends in New York who have not yet seen A Star is Born. Isaac, our engineer, not to air him out, he has still not seen A Star is Born. Shame on you, Isaac. As a musician, you should know better. But people don't go to the movies.

People just don't leave their homes. And so if you can click a box and watch Bird Box, yeah, I get it. The way that we do all of this has changed so dramatically, even in the last two years. I don't know. And that is kind of why I think, I don't think Roma will win, but I think that everyone who is voting against Roma as the future of cinema is just kind of deluding themselves. Click a box and watch Bird Box. Love it. Let's use this as an opportunity to pivot

to a look ahead to next week. So next week we'll be previewing the Golden Globes in full, sort of in full, I guess, as much as we can for a silly award show. Ahead of that, you know, you mentioned Bohemian Rhapsody. Is it sitting in the top 10 right now? Maybe top 12. If Bohemian Rhapsody by chance wins

best musical or comedy at the Globes, I think it starts to rocket up the odds a bit. And I'm wondering if we're ever really going to have the Bohemian Rhapsody conversation because people really love the movie. It is a huge, huge hit. Like I said this last week. I'm saying it again. I can't even believe how big this is. I was thinking about it a bit relative

to Rocketman, which is the Elton John kind of musical recreation movie that is happening next summer starring Taron Egerton. And they're clearly watching closely every move that Bohemian Rhapsody has made to make money and draw attention to this film. Do we have a Bohemian Rhapsody has made to make money and draw attention to this film. Do we have a Bohemian Rhapsody problem? I still want to believe. This is silly. But I still philosophically would like to believe that we as a human people, but also the Oscars are able to tell between a hit and a good movie. And some hits are good movies and some hits are enjoyable to watch, which I think you can put both Bird Box

and Bohemian Rhapsody, despite its many problems and both production-wise and in terms of the actual quality of the movie, which is not good, but also has queen songs. I would like to think that the Academy can differentiate between the two.

I mean, that's giving them far more credit than they've ever earned. But we have, you know, the thing is, is that we have Black Panther, which is both a hit and good. And it would be nice. And we also have a musical in A Star is Born that is less of a hit, but still a hit.

I mean, very, very successful movie. Very successful movie and also good. So, and I would also like to think that we don't take the Golden Globes that seriously. I almost think that the Bohemian Rhapsody winning in musical comedy for Golden Globes hurts its chances because people are like, really, this is enough. Intriguing. You know, I've just ascribed a shocking level of common sense to several voting bodies that have never shown common sense. So maybe we do, but maybe we don't have to have

the conversation yet. There's going to be a lot of intellectual quagmires that come with the Globes. We'll talk more about that next week. Until then, Amanda, thank you. Thank you, Sean. Thanks again for listening to this week's episode of The Big Picture, which was brought to you by NHTSA. Everyone knows about the risks of driving drunk. You could get in a crash, people could get hurt or killed, but that still doesn't stop everyone. You could get arrested,

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