This Had Oscar Buzz - Class of 2022

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

An annual ritual returns! We are here to welcome the This Had Oscar Buzz Class of 2022! Off the top of the episode, we celebrate friend and former guest (and, spoiler alert, next week’s guest) Pamela Ribon on her Best Animated Feature Short nomination for My Year of Dicks and lament the To Leslie episode … Continue reading "Class of 2022"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada, water. the best animated short film. The boy, the mole, the fox and a horse. The Flying Sailor.

Ice Merchants. My Year of Dix. and an ostrich told me the world is fake and I think I believe it. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast with a whole year of dicks. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died and we're here to perform the autopsy, except this episode we are doing our annual autopsy on, an entire Oscar season. It is the class of 2022. This is your commencement speech. May I have attention of the class? Yeah. I'm your host, Chris Fyle. I'm here, as always,

with my ostrich that told me the world is fake. Joe Reed. We just got to get this out of the way because I'm probably going to be a sour puss this episode more than I would like to be. So I wanted to start us up off the top. We have to thank, not thank you. Well, thank for her service. Yeah, thanks. Yes. Friend, former guest, and now Oscar nominee, Pamela Ribbon. Pam.

nominated for Best Animated Short for My Year of Dix. I can't tell you. Pam is obviously a longtime, wonderful friend of mine. And we'll also go ahead and spoil it. We won't spoil the episode. But we have Pam on next week. She's going to be here next week. The conversation we have speculating that.

she could be a nominee. I'm so glad, not only just so happy for her, but I'm glad that we won't have a sad episode where... The serreality of it, where we recorded an episode with Pam just before the nominations were announced, and it will be released just after the nominations were announced. And in the interim, I was kind of petrified that we were going to jinx Pam's nomination. I had a good feeling. Yeah.

Because, like, listeners, it's maybe one of the most joyful episodes we've ever done. Enterprising listeners can try to deduce what movie we're talking about. But, like, I was just in that call, like, on top of Pam being incredible, just like, I mean, if she was, like, you know, doing Q&As for this movie or interviews for this movie. Did we mention it's my year of dicks? Did we mention that? I, I, just to, just, if we haven't, she's nominated. My Year of Dix, my Year of Dix. Best animated short in My Year of Dix.

the movie that made Riz Ahmed pause and chuckle. And if I ever in my life made Riz Ahmed pause and chuckle, I would die contented. I really hope that at some type of party, or I don't know, maybe Riz Ahmed will go to the nominee luncheon just for shits and giggles, that Pam gets to meet Riz Ahmed and be like, hello. I have faith in this to happen. I also just think that because of that moment

and because the title is so distinctive, I think, I'm hopeful, too, that, like, at things like the nominees luncheon, like, people will want to, like, you know, come up to Pam and talk to her. And who, you know, listen, we got to get back in. Clearly, Kate Blanchett's got an opinion on a movie called My Year of Dix, and I just want to know what that ends up being. I guarantee you, Pam, if you're listening, you are going to get high-fived by Jamie Lee Curtis at some point between now and March 12th is on there.

say just a big old high five i can see it coming so listeners when the shorts are playing at a theater near you go out and support them not just pam short in the uh animated uh short lineup but also the short support the documentaries and support the shorts support the shorts t m uh go support go supports pam i can't talk this man it's because you're so just support your Sheportes-Shortch. Sheportch with Pam. Now you're just Elizabeth Ashley. I guess that really was me, Elizabeth Ashley.

And then I lost 25 pounds in only 12 weeks on the ultra-slim-pass plan. That's all I've ever wanted out of this podcast. You're discombobulated because we've been through a week of Oscar nominations. I'm sure by Monday when this episode airs, there's going to be a whole level that we aren't even able to unpack today as we're recording this episode. This is the thing. If you're, if you're tuning in to hear us,

uh, unpack the Andrea Roseboro to Leslie's situation, we can't yet, because we don't know what the fallout of all of this is. Things are developing. I, yeah, much like our class of 2021 episode was our House of Gucci episode.

Indeed. Indeed. Indeed. This is our to Leslie episode, which we're throwing this episode out to Wesley. because I would have loved for our first 2022 movie to be to Leslie. Like, we could have talked about this

in a way that's fun and, like, it's... Yeah. Because, like, when the nomination happened and the context of how it happened, it just... It was a, like, I wouldn't be excited for an Troy or Isboro nomination. And, like,

I just wasn't excited. It's a fucking bummer, man. Like, the whole... The way everything shook out. And now that there's this whole... thing going on where the Academy is reviewing it and everybody has already convinced themselves that her nomination is going to be rescinded. Which it won't. I doubt it will.

It won't. Like, I mean, and even if it does. Like, egg on our face if by the time this episode, it's rescinded. But it won't. Like, even if it does, people, like, people assume that either Danielle Deadweiler or Viola Davis is going to get slotted in instead. First of all, it's not how it happens. People have already forgotten

alone yet, not alone. I'm willing to bet the gay have not forgotten. So, yeah, well, when we talked about the Andrea Riceboro Flash campaign, when Mitchell Boprey was on for after hours, we were in the thick of it, we were having fun with it. It was a good fun time. I think had the nomination happened in a vacuum, I still would have been like, this is some wild shit. All I ever want out of the Oscar nominations.

It's cool that, you know. Also, in the interim. I had watched the movie, it's not a bad movie, and it's a good performance. I think it's quite a good performance. I haven't been able to watch it yet, but I hear it's a good performance, but from people like us who are familiar with her work and, like, think that she's amazing, they're like, it's not like it's a top five Andrea Reisborough performance. Like, so it's pretty good.

I will say. Arbitrariness of it. I think it's pretty good, and I can see why actors would really like it. But as soon as it happened, and of course, you know, I keep my little nerd list, which is alphabetized by actors. So by the time, Anadarmus, see, here is, okay, so here's my experience, this is the nerdiest thing. I'm following down my checklist, Cape Blanchet, Tar, top of the alphabet, check. The next nomination read is Anna da Armis.

On my list, Anna da Armis was listed below Viola Davis and Daniel Deadweiler, alphabetical. And so I checked off on it, Armas, and this is how quickly my mind goes when I go through these. I immediately was like, oh shit, because I was like, Deadweiler, no, Davis, no. But then my mind was like, maybe they're alphabetizing it differently because it's de Armas, like, you know what I mean? Like there's a space there. Right, like, it's a mic or a mac. So, right. So in my mind, I'm like, all is not lost.

This could still be fine. Their alphabetizing could just be different than mine. And then the next name read is Andrea Rysborough. At which point, my brain goes in 12 different directions, one of which being, holy shit had happened. one of which being, oh no, Daniel Deadweiler and Viola Davis were snubbed. And my next thought immediately was like, oh no, the discourse is going to be such a fucking nightmare for the next several weeks. I mean, like, I let's at least unpack like the sense in the nominations because this is why it's like so much of what we have to talk about today is a fucking bummer and it sucks. And like I would point our listeners towards Robert Daniels's great piece in the LA Times for,

like all of the shit that like why this sucks and what it kind of represents and I mean like all of our listeners like we love you guys and like I'm happy that you're enthusiastic that we get to talk about nope at some point but like I don't want to do an episode on nope I want nope to get nominations like sure I know that we have this moment every time we do one of these things where it's like we don't want to do a hustlers episode we want Jennifer Lopez nominated and it's like The other thing, though, and I appreciate you shouting out the L.A. Times article, which is well worth a read. The thing with this stuff is it is both broad in scope and yet also incredibly situational, right? The same year where Viola Davis and Daniel Deadweiler are snubbed, we have a record year for Asian actresses and Asian American actresses.

We have nominations for Angela Bassett, a break. through nomination for Brian Tyree Henry. Like, there are, there's, everything is very situational. And this best actress category specifically is incredibly situational with a lot of moving parts. One of, you know, only one of which is this Andrea Rysborough campaign. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, and I think the, the trends of this, I think, I can look at it, I can silver lining it a little bit with the caveat that

all we want because here's my whole thing is you can't legislate taste you cannot legislate taste you can't try as we might we can't force people to have the taste that we wish that they did and to prefer the films and performances that we wish that they did all we can ask for is a plethora of opportunity and a plethora of films that represent a diverse set of talent and points of view and whatever and the fact that there were a lot of lot of movies in the ecosystem of award season this year that did represent that we had a lot of choices, right? Women, we're going to talk about a lot of them in this episode.

And in addition to movies like Black Panther Wakanda Forever, which got nominated, and everything everywhere all at once, which got nominated, and Causeway and things like that. I think the fact that this year, it shook out that there were so many movies. featuring black talent and black filmmakers that fell short, but were still very much part of the conversation in general. A. Sucks because so many of them were really good. Nope. And that's what's so great about Robert Daniels's article because it's like, it's so widespread. Like the thing that I keep getting hung up on is St. O'Mare not getting in international because it's like movies especially that are featuring black women were everywhere and like

pop and like it's it is incredibly frustrating but again the situationalness I come back to which is like international feature is wonky every year and it's wonky in its own way every year but I also feel like as much as it sucks this year this lineup in the international feature could not reflect a more basic taste it's not a great international features I say that is not having seen most of the movies yet but I trust your judgment. But the thing, just to close the loop of what I was saying, though, is the fact that there were so many movies on the outskirts of this Oscar race is at least encouraging to me if we can keep that kind of volume going forward, we're not going to have, like, again, taste is subjective and taste is situational. we're, if we can keep having the volume of movies in play, this isn't going to happen every year.

I, like, I, I really, really don't. I would say it's less, it's not taste that you can't legislate, but, like, they have to look at their, the Academy at large, I think, should look at their behavior. Because, like, I think, this is partly why Best Actress, like, is so for, like, I understand, people who don't understand or follow or know, you know, the Academy procedure for the nomination process. But, like, when you look at that best actress lineup and you look at Ana da Armas next to Andrea Reisbro, it reflects, like, two of the worst Academy behaviors that it's like, you're probably never going to get them to change that, but you can get them to

change the movies that they're considering in that way. And if they did, they might have gotten in either and Viola Davis. Daniel Deadwire. Sure. Because Ana da Armist to me reflects a nomination that is always going to happen even if they don't nominate the movie.

The set in stone nomination. Years ago that she would be nominated for that performance. And it reflects tendencies like, you know, overvaluing people who play real people over, you know,

over determining who the breakthrough ingenue is going to be that kind of a thing. I agree with that. She's nominated against Michelle Williams who also had the same thing happened to her for the same person.

Right. For playing the same person. Yes. And then Andrea Reisborough, it reflects, you know, we're going to nominate the people who are our friends, who, you know, maybe we share an agent, like, that type of thing that feels like, this is my thing about the Andrea Reisboro thing. That's not what a grassroots campaign. That's not grassroots. Like, it's business as usual. It's just a movie that didn't have the ecosystem behind it.

I don't, I don't entirely agree with you there. I think the thing with the two, I think how, when I hear, like, grassroots campaign leading to a nomination, I think more of, like, what happened with Drive My Car, which, like. Okay, but you say that because it originated from critics and people in our sphere. And it was this, like, kind of slow build. Like, I think, I don't know. I think the Andrea Reisborough thing could have happened at any time in the past, and this just happens to be the first time it happened.

Even in Rebecca Ford's great reporting in Vanity Fair, like, she gets a quote from a publicist. This is like, yeah, this is not abnormal. People have tried to do this before. This just worked. I'm looking at it from the perspective of the people who put in the work to make these movies. And you run up against the brick wall of, we don't have the funding, we don't have the support from our studio, we don't have the ability to get in front of people's faces. And like the specifics of this and the specifics of the sort of like phone tree, Mary McCormick,

Francis Fisher, you know, copy paste, overly determined like your mom and her sister's email chain before Christmas kind of a nature of all of this, right, is weird and it looks uncool and it looks, you know, lame. But I also feel like if the impetus is the artists themselves and their fellow actors taking a increasingly unwieldy financial and promotional situation for their movies into their own hands and being like well if the studio doesn't have money to

finance this campaign then we're going to run our own whip operation exactly you know what I mean it's just like we are going to whip the votes ourselves and ultimately votes and nominations and stuff like this equals

attention this more people are going to see to Leslie now for good or ill than they were going to before and yeah i'm sure it's vod business like quadrupled what the box office take was while the campaigning and ultimately for good or ill i think that's i think that's ultimately good because more people should see more movies more people should see more and like it's it's not the only movie that this should happen for this just happen for so many other movies but like that's why we do what in terms of the academy is like like good on them for getting them

to actually watch this movie if they actually did before voting for her. I'm not so convinced they actually watch blonde before voting for her on Adharmus. Because, I mean, we were stupid to think that, you know, the movie itself would prevent that nomination for most of the season. It, you know,

that it didn't matter if they saw the movie or not. I will say, and I think I shouted it out at the time, when the Golden Globe Awards happened and both Gerard Carmichael and Colin Farrell gave kind of like defiant statements of support for out of da armas his performance i was like yeah i was like oh that's the temperature that's what's going on okay and like that gave me a lot of pause so yeah um let's let's talk about the current situation though there is an investigation happening with the

academy that rules were broken in terms of how this was campaigned this has happened in the past you know the alone yet not alone situation that nomination was rescinded because that nominee the nominee who was a member of the board of the branch was emailing people in the branch saying listen to and vote for our song that is against their rules like if you want to say it's barely different

than you know sending out a screener I understand that perspective but the rule is the rule and then you also have there was someone else that I saw that I had never heard of before that had a similar investigation but also the one

go back to is Nicholas Shardier, one of the producers on the Hurt Locker, also is emailing, asking for people to vote. Yeah. And that was after the nomination, too. I thought it was something along the lines of him saying, vote for us, not Avatar. But he was, he, I could be wrong about that, but he was emailing. And he got his, I guess, nomination, he was taken off of the Hurt Locker nominee. But Hartlocker didn't lose its nomination.

Here's the thing. I don't understand how it would work for an actor, even though Andrea Rysbrough is a producer on the movie. I don't think anything that we have seen suggests that Andrea Rysbrough was contacting people and saying, vote for me. To the contrary, everything I saw was say, was in support of the movie trying to get people to see the fucking movie. Right.

Like, we know what it means when it happens during this season, but, like, if the rule is you can't say vote for my movie, I don't think she did that. And, like, we're both in agreement that nothing's going to come of this. Right. The only, the one thing is, honestly, and we've joked about Francis Fisher before, it does feel like Francis Fisher was the tone-deaf one. Because the Francis Fisher part of it is really funny. Francis Fisher getting so intense about this and legitimately being thus far that we've seen the one person to actually be like, here's how. how many first place votes we need to make this happen. Here are the actresses. She named

Cape Blanchard and Michelle Yeo and Viola Davis and Daniel Deadweiler and being like, these four are locks anyway. There's rules against members talking about the competition and such of like who could be not. Yeah. It seems like Francis Fischer actually did broke a rule. However, I had never heard that that was a rule or read that that was a rule. And I'm willing to bet that she didn't either. How is Francis Fischer going to know? And it's not like she's being nefarious. It's just like Facebook mom behavior. That's what I, literally, that's

what I was saying before. Yes, it's Facebook mom behavior. It's 100% Facebook mom and honestly, feminism, Facebook mom, like we could have that debate. It's separate because I think it's just funny. I do too. Mrs. Fisher might be the person getting in trouble having nothing to do with the nomination.

Also, like, it just has to be said if they broke the rules and this nomination hadn't happened, nothing would have been heard about them breaking the rules. And also, I think nobody stepped in at the time to say, hey, you might be breaking a rule because no one thought the nomination was going to happen. And then also, no one intervened while it was happening to say, hey, guys, we might be breaking a rule.

And this is why you have PR teams and campaigns behind actual award strategies. And you have award strategies. because they will tell you you can't say this you can't do this like it almost feels like registered lobbyists right like awards PR campaign teams

feel like registered lobbyists who will follow the letter of the law and like do it and like but to me that seems like no purer a system you know what I mean like the system that it is now

doesn't feel any purer and it's a system that has benefited you know a great many people here's the other thing that I'm just going to say to our listenership, to people out there. Because the tenor and the tone of the conversation about this is irking me in as much as it's turning Andrea Rysborough, this actress who has done nothing but, like,

give really good performances in largely small movies. This, like, meme factor of, you know, trash actress who has taken, you know, something that doesn't belong to her, whatever like that. And now she's sort of like shorthand for this level of like, to me, annoying vitriol. And I think a lot of it comes from the fact that most people had no idea who this woman's name was. And she's only really known to this sort of like cadre, specific cadre of like people who

are really into movies and actresses and like kind of like deep. down the rabbit hole. And all I want to do to, you know, the wonderful, particularly, like, aggressively tweeting homosexuals who may be in our listenership is, imagine that this happened on behalf of like Mia Goth and Pearl, who y'all love so much. Okay. But, but most people don't think about that movie the way you and I think about that movie. Most people really love that. And if this happened on behalf of Mia Goth and Pearl and that nomination happened, you'd have been death dropping all the way to the bank. So it's like, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just perspective is what I'm saying, you know what I mean?

Right. I hear what you're saying and who you're trying to speak to. I mean, I will say, if I'm going to vent about something, the level of people who see as many movies or more than we do and write about movies, et cetera, that I have seen performatively being like, I've seen so many movies where I didn't even realize that was Andrea Reisbrose. or... I saw this movie, and I thought that was Andrea Reisborough, and it was someone else. You are telling on yourself, you do this professionally. Yeah.

Maybe keep that to yourself if you can't tell who it actually is. Or you don't look something up and see, oh, this is the castles of and Andrea Reisborough's in it. Yes. We all joke about Sienna-Miller face blindness, and we've all had a very fun time with it. And, like, I have once or twice not recognized Sienna for a while into a movie. It's not something I should be particularly proud of. And it's also like, at some point, it does become, as you say, performative, right? It becomes, uh...

Performative, but not a joke, where it's just like, I've just seen so many straight men that are like, oh, well, I don't even know who she is. And it's like, it feels like it's a comment on her as an actress and a comment on the movies she's in. And it's like, we get it. She doesn't do stuff for you. Right. Shut up. Right. I agree.

So all I'm just, I'm begging for a little perspective, be less annoying out there, everybody. Just be a little bit less annoying, is all I'm asking. That's all. And we'll see as this develops. I think we both agree that there will not be a nomination rescinded. We are also in agreement that, like, everybody's talking about how so many people are going to try to do this next year. And it's like, this is never going to work for anyone ever again. I almost hope.

Now that it's worked for someone, it's never going to. If everybody tries to do this next year, for one thing, it'll be a wash because, like, if everybody's doing it, then nobody has an advantage. And the other thing is, everyone's going to get so annoyed by all of the text messages and chain Instagrams or whatever. Like, they're going to absolutely, like, you're going to reach a saturation point real quickly. Well, people are just going to tune you out.

And I think that'll be the end. of it. I think at the most this is going to end up, because I think the Academy has egg on their face, and so they are going to now make some cosmetic changes to the rules, and that will be the legacy of this. They're going to... It shouldn't be that they have egg on their face, though, because of this very small movie. Like, you can talk about how connected it actually was in actuality, but, like, I don't know. Like, you know, if it's supposed to be celebrating all of cinema and all of the ecosystem, do you know how many more? movies are made at the level of to Leslie that never get any eyeballs. So it's like, why not

take the opportunity to, I don't know. I agree. Now that we're here. Right. Exactly. Now that we're here, at least, you know, maybe this will get people to see this movie. Anyway, we should get into the actual class of 2022 because I think it is a unusually, I think in the couple of years past, especially dealing with, you know, pandemic years. We were sort of struggling to fill out a list of movies that we wanted to you know, even talk about. We have like annual categories that we do every year. Yeah. And

I've realized at this point of us doing this for what, five years now that we could maybe revise these names. It's funny that they all still have very like 2018 names. Which is like kind of fun, but I don't know, maybe...

Tradition is important, Chris. Listen. If the Oscars teach us anything, it's that tradition has value. Okay. I do like the categories, but also as we talk about the categories, I have like winners and all of these quote-unquote winners, but also like runners-up in a way that would allow us to talk about more movies because there really are like upwards of like a couple dozen movies that are worth at least mentioning. And I think in the years ahead, we are going to have a sort of bumper crop of really interesting podcast episodes to talk about. So if you thought we were, the well was drying up. That we will try to not be like, it's a bummer that we're here talking about it. Right.

We'll get over it. Ultimately, I was just listening to our Hustler's episode recently. And I was like, for a movie that none of us wanted to have to, you know, be eligible, we had a ball talking about that one and did our widows episode and stuff like that. So, like, you know, we compartmentalize. We soldier on. All right. So let's get into some. some categories.

Let's do it. Our first category will spare some schadenfreude. It is our cake memorial prize for happiest miss. The movie we are most happy is not an Oscar nominee. I think we're probably going to be in sync on this one. This is a movie that I was sort of bracing for a surprise, but how surprised could I have been a nomination for this? and that is the sun. I was bracing myself.

I knew I would. I was bracing myself for Hugh Jackman to crash the best actor party and really annoy me. I was over the moon happy that Paul Muscal got the perceived fifth slot in Best Actor. That was After Sun's only nomination. If After Sun had made this list of Class of 22, I would be real annoyed. and I'm glad that the sun did. I'm not relishing doing an episode on it, but it will force me to watch the movie

because I thus far have not. It's the rare movie in this age of everybody has an opinion and you'll find a contrary opinion on just about anything. I have not seen a single person take up the cause that the sun is good, actually. And that's rare. I have. Have you really? Oh, okay. I have. And I was like, you don't have to do this. Like, who is this for?

Hugh Jackman is never going to fuck you. You have seen this movie. It's as bad as they said. It's the worst movie of 2022. Yeah. See, this is sort of, this is, this is the more common opinion. That's so much so that I would say, and I'm sure because I literally just, the words that just came out of my. mouth, our listeners would want us to do this movie. Yeah. I would really not relish watching this movie again. This is why I didn't watch it the first time. I was waiting for, in one way or another, to have to.

It's hard to even dogg on in like a ha-ha funny way. It is not the collateral beauty all around you. It is, it's time. Listen, we are going to end up having to do it, though, Chris. And you're just going to, we will honor your sacrifice. Nice. Well, you give yours, and then I'll talk about my runner-up, because your choice might end up being mine. I'm probably going to make you mad at me with my backup choice. My backup choice is the menu. I understand that it is a movie that a lot of people like. I feel like it wasn't funny enough, certainly wasn't scary or thrilling enough, wasn't biting enough to really be much of anything. And I think, I thought,

Well, I had similar issues between this and infinity pool, but I also had other... We'll talk about that on it. Yeah, I haven't seen an infinity pool yet, yeah. I don't really think that this was a movie that was much of anything. Hong Chow has a few good lines in the movie. And yet I still feel like there wasn't enough of her. There wasn't enough developed with her. I was surprised that it was originally supposed to be done by someone by Alexander Payne.

because, like, as far as satire goes, it's not, there's not a lot of there there to this movie, I thought. And, like, I understand a lot of people had a good time with it and maybe came in with lower expectations than I had. But, like, I don't know if it's really, say, it's not that I don't think it's saying anything special. I don't think it's really saying anything. See, I think there's nothing but there in terms of, like, social satire. I think that's kind of all it's doing. I like the menu. I don't like it as much as some people like it.

Every time I talk about the menu, I'm like, I like it. And then I go on for 10 minutes, sort of like picking apart the things that I didn't like about it. It's one of those. I thought you liked it more than that. No, I think, you know, I think it's a good time. And it's a movie that ended up reaching a audience that it's not like it didn't make a ton of money. But I feel like more people that I know saw it in a way that, like, were, you know, reaching out to see something. beyond just the, you know, the blockbuster and stuff like that.

So I'm glad it reached an audience like that. I think most of the people I talk to who are not super, super, super, like, hardcore into, you know, movies and, like, and critics and stuff like that, tended to really like it. I, like you wish it were scarier. I wanted it at some point to just sort of, like, kick in and actually be a real horror movie rather than, like, a movie of, like, a movie of ideas. I do wish the cast had all had gotten more to chew on. I did think it was pretty funny. I thought the comedy was not my problem with it. I think it has some interesting ideas, and I wanted more from it.

But I didn't hate it. A solid B-minus kind of a movie for me. All right. Let's move along then. Well, I just want to throw in my, my, because we probably won't get a chance to talk about it in my other category. Oh, yeah. My runner up here was the good nurse. For mostly, I think the good nurse is a pretty...

Specifically for that nomination. Right. I think the good nurse is a pretty good movie, and I think Eddie Redmayne gives a good performance in it. But I'm glad that he didn't get that nomination just because I'm glad that other people did. And ultimately, I'm happier knowing that Brian Tyree Henry, for... Causeway gets in for that nomination instead. But, like, I'm not an Eddie Redmayne hater in general. I think The Good Nurse is a pretty solid movie, especially for, like, a Netflix movie

that tends to, that, you know, the implication there was just like, this is just another one of those, like, throw it in a bucket and no one's going to hear about it anymore movies. Yeah, it looks like a real movie, whereas a lot of Netflix movies look like dog shit Netflix movies. Yeah, yeah. So I think Redmayne's good. I think Chastain's good.

I think it's a solid little movie that I'm fine with not being an Oscar nominee. Yeah. Yeah. I guess if we're throwing out more, another one of my follow-ups to this would have been Moon Age Daydream, which made that documentary shortlist, and, like, Brett Morgan is, like, I feel bad saying this because Brett Morgan is notoriously, like, the snobbed at last minute there within this branch in that category.

Moon Age Daydream is, I understand what people thought they got out of it. I felt kind of the complete opposite of, like, people were like, but this isn't, you know, standard musician biopic. It's different. It's like, it's like, okay, so there's some swirling imagery in it. It is only him speaking. But I was like, this is still pretty standard music biopic fair in a documentary, just because they do it a little differently.

didn't make it any more interesting. And, like, the more I thought about it after I left that movie, I was like, this kind of falls apart for me. Every time I would hear people talk about Moon Age Daydream, all I would want to do was recommend they watch Todd Haynes' Velvet Underground documentary, which I loved. I mean. Which I loved and which I would have loved to have been nominated last year. Yeah, Velvet Underground is fantastic and does the opposite of, like, the standard

music biopic documentary type of thing. Yeah. Don't love Moon Age Daydream, and I love Bowie. Yeah. All right. Let's move to the next category, though. Yes. Speaking of Pam, this is not only our to Leslie episode.

This is our, you know, let's celebrate Pam Ribbett episode. In 100%. As will next week be. The justice for slaughter race for our saddest miss. The movie that we are most sad was not an Oscar nominee. I mean, yes. No secret for me, and I will be stealing yours. it is nope.

I think it is a fucking bummer that, and it sucks, and it's shitty, that we are having the same conversation again about a Jordan Peel movie. Us, I can kind of understand more. Yeah, though, like, if you look beyond the Lupita performance in that movie, which is like mostly what we talked about

as a potential nominee in that episode, like us is a more violent movie. Like, I don't understand how nope doesn't have a nomination somewhere. I really thought that it would happen. Like, why is it not a visual effects nominee or a sound nominee or a cinematography nominee? Everybody behind this movie, it is like the most talented and incredible craftspeople working in Hollywood. The movie is shot by Hoyt von Hoytima. That nomination not happening is crazy to me. I've mentioned this before. The Oscars have nominated movies like Twister that, like, this movie belongs somewhat alongside of.

So it's like you can't really say genre for this movie. Because, like, Independence Day got Oscar nominations. Armageddon got Oscar nominations. You know my theory for costume design, where movies that are about costumes have a better chance of getting nominated in costume design. This is a movie. Anna Harris, you will always be famous. This is a movie about cinematography and at least a little bit of a way. and I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory that I saw batted around this week

that, like, Nope hit too close to home, and Hollywood producers didn't like what Nope was saying about the movie business, so they punished it for it. I'm like, I don't think that's it. I don't think it's that deep. I feel like it's kind of the opposite, and, like, this is one of the things that really depresses me about this movie and, like, makes me happy that the menu is not rewarded, is like, I feel like everything has to be so obvious about what it's doing and nope is incredibly subtle and it's nuanced and it's like it's been unpacked to shit so like everybody talks about

it's satisfying to unpack it. It's not on the surface of that movie. Like what that movie is about is not like shove down your throat and beat into your head with a hammer. Yeah. And I feel like that's what people want right now and that's what's getting rewarded. And I find the lack of appreciation for nuance to be depressing. The other thing is, and this is a thing that you and Katie and I have talked about in group text. I should just say talked about in group like we're in group therapy. I think that would be funnier to refer to it. That group chat is kind of like group. We discussed this in group. In this year where one of the dominant narratives, especially when you look at

the Oscars, is this sort of rise of not even rise of but like triumph of really interesting maximalist movies everywhere all at once avatar the way of water elvis top gun maverick even though neither of us really liked that one very much i think it would have been appropriate and like an interesting to include nope which is a summer blockbuster movie that ends up being as much of a critique of maximalist filmmaking as it is a satisfying summer blockbuster movie and like that nope would have fit into this year's narrative so well that it that it irks me even more even more and like i'm already irked because just i think nope is one of the best movies of the year and and it irks me i tend to be pretty

sanguine about the oscar nominees like in terms of like good movies get in movies that i wish we're in we're not. This is the way it goes. You know what I mean? K-sara-sara. And yet there are a handful of movies every year in performances where I'm like, but this did everything that it should have done. And also it has the benefit of being like one of the best things in the entire year. And a movie that we're going to be watching for years and years and years and years and years. Like, I agree. Yeah, I think. Not so sure we'll be saying that about Top Gun Maverick. Like, I'm sorry. I agree. You know, I agree with you on that. My choice for this was also Nope, but since you said it, I will, I had some strong runners-up, I will say.

One of them on a smaller level is White Noise, a movie they didn't really love, but I really wanted that original song nomination to happen for the LCD Sound System song. It really would have, as much as like the rug and the Big Loboskey, it really would have tied that category together. It really would have rounded it out in a really fun way. Also, you mentioned earlier in this podcast how much you wanted Saint-Omer to be nominated for an international feature. I agree with you. I really was impressed by that movie, and I thought it definitely deserved. My choice here, though, if you're going to take Nope, will be, she said, a movie that I tended to like a good deal more than most people did. I know that movie definitely does have its fans.

I don't want to say that, like, I'm the cheese who stands alone or whatever. she said has its fans and I am one of them I think it's one of those movies that sat with me pretty well it's a I think I know you don't like the beginning parts of the movie I think it's an engaging sit I think it kept me really engaged I think it does really

smart structural things in the way that it like seeds itself to its one scene supporting performance You know what I mean? People are talking so much about the Samantha Morton performance and the Jennifer Ely performance. I would also throw in, I think, for a cameo that sometimes feels uncanny Valley, my feeling with she said is when it veers into talking about the sort of like bold, bold face name people in it,

like the names we all know, it can sort of feel sort of an uncanny valley where it's just like, it's weird that we're watching a movie that's talking about, you know, this in specific and this way. But I think Ashley Judd actually carries off her performance as herself quite well. But anyway, I think the way the movie... I thought her inclusion in the movie was a mistake. I can see... Well, I can see that being the case, but I think... Especially because she's the only one.

So it... Sure. Like I said, it's totally odd, but I give her a lot of credit for doing that. But I mostly, when I talk about the movie sort of like... seeding itself to its supporting players. I'm talking about Samantha Morton. I'm talking about Jennifer Ely. And I think it does weave in process in a way that I find very satisfying.

I think it's a, I think it's a movie that did pretty much what I wanted for that story. And it's, you know, probably not on my top 10 list, but I think it's a really, really solid movie. it easily made my top 25 and uh i was bummed especially in a year where screenplay is adapted screenplay was riding real thin real real thin that we couldn't find a space for she said top gun mavericks nominated all quiet on the western front top gun maverick um i'm glad that living got nominated but like the fact that they're reaching for something as small and sort of off of the map as living even though like Bill Nye did it. Yeah, but as soon as I, that was never not going to happen.

Kazu Shiguro is one of the greatest living authors ever. I don't disagree. That nomination was never in jeopardy. But all I'm saying is it's, it's irksome to me that they couldn't find a space for she said in Adaptive Street. But it makes me feel like that Oscar voters really wanted to just sort of like brush that movie aside and I have to think about it once it bombed. And I don't love that.

Anyway, that's my pick. I would also, before we move on from this category, like to, shout out the inspection, a movie that no one seemed to really, I always felt like I liked it the most and it was never really going to like make a top 20 list for me, but like I felt for a movie that is so pointedly and purposefully playing down the middle, almost like, I don't think it's playing to the academy or academy sentiments, but like it's right in the wheel. else of what they appreciate. Yeah. And I think, you know, if that movie had managed to stay in the conversation at all, it could have had a really better shot with the Academy because, like, I don't know. I see intention in that movie's playing down the middle.

And I think it pulled it off in that way, even if, you know, maybe it doesn't make for a better movie. But there's things about the movie, too, that I think, you know, it's a weak spot in the movie, but I'm so happy it's there. namely a lot of the gay shit. Yeah. But also, like, Gabrielle Union, I thought was tremendous and, like, has always had that level of performance in her and has not been given the opportunity.

And she's a fucking legend in this business. And she should have had more of a foothold in the sporting actress race than I think she ultimately did. By the time that, like, that movie opened, it was already forgotten. And, like, she was in the conversation at the beginning of the season. She got the Indy Spirit nomination. and it ultimately didn't work out. Jeremy Pope would have been an incredible best actor nominee.

This is the thing. We don't really talk about, because everybody sort of took Brendan Fraser's nomination for the whale as a given, that we don't talk about. The whale is, they dumped that movie to focus on the whale. We don't talk about that movie, that nomination sort of like taking anybody else's nomination because nobody thinks about it as like a fifth slaughter.

But like that is 100% the nomination that, that belonged to Jeremy Pope. In my opinion, I also feel like if that happens, we still preserve the tremendous stat that this acting lineup is 16 first-time acting nominees, which I want to shout out because I wrote about this for Vanity Fair. And I spent so much time going through Wikipedia and IMDB trying to cross-check this. Also shout out to Lily, who also, Vanity Fair is fact-checker who helped me fact-check it. And it was a beast first time since 1930.

the 9th Academy Awards was the last time that 16 first-time nominees were nominated. Those were the first nominations of, among other people, Gary Cooper. And that basically doesn't count because the Oscars are so new at that point. Sure. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You're only going for eight previous years of history there. But that was the first year that Gary Cooper was nominated, the first year that Spencer Tracy was nominated, the first year that Louise Rainer was nominated. It's an interesting, it's a very, very fascinating. year. I also, this was also the first best actor lineup that was five first time nominees since 1930, I want to say four, when there were only three nominees per best actor. Clark Gable for it happened one night. Shit, I'm trying to remember. It was Frank, I think it's Frank Morgan, the guy who played the Wizard and the Wizard of Oz was one of the nominees. Clark Gable. And then, oh, William Powell for the Thin Man. So that was the first time that best actor was all first-time nominees. So, um, interesting stats. And, and, and one thing I do want to

shout out this year's Oscar nominations for is that makes for an exciting year. With 16 first-time nominees, it's just, there's a, the energy, I imagine is going to be really, really exciting at that Oscars. Yeah. That people are there, you know. I bet that the month ahead, at least for all those first-time nominees. How fun. How fucking fun. And some of the the ones that weren't first timers are people like Angela Bassett and Judd Hirsch, who it's been like multiple decades since they've been nominated. So like that's right. It's part of the reason why I think Kate Blanchett isn't going to win because she's the only previous winner nominated. Yeah. She's not winning, guys. That by the way, did I tell you when

that last happened? Only one previous winner in an acting lineup? When was that? The 1996 Academy Awards, Diane Keaton for Marvin's Room was the only previous winner and that not lineup. That was the lineup where Francis McDormand wins for Fargo. I remember you mentioning this on, you were just on Little Gold Man talking about some stats, so listeners

should go and listen to that. Indeed. Yeah. All right. I also just want to take two seconds. I understand no one likes this movie. But I just think

that it is so fucking stupid that all season Wendell and Wild struggled to show up any... I'm not surprised. Any animated feature nomination that it got anywhere feels like a fucking miracle. Because, like, a Netflix animated movie

that I had never seen anyone talk... I'd seen people, you know, predicting it as a possibility, but, like, I've never seen anybody talk about their feelings about this movie, the Sea Beast, which all respect to everyone involved with the Sea Beast. But, like, Netflix really screwed Wendell and Wilde.

And I understand that that movie was a lot for a lot of people. This is the thing. And, like, Henry Selleck doesn't have an animated Oscar. Well, yes. And that movie, I think that movie's gorgeous. I have a lot of fun, even though it's throwing a lot of shit at the wall. The thing about Wendell and Wilde is, for one thing, like, Netflix shoved it aside in favor of Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. Honestly, probably the right call.

because, like, it's Guillermo del Toro, his name is in the title, like, that you're obviously going to have a better chance of succeeding. It's not like that Pinocchio is any less weird than Wendell and Lott. It's not, but it has Guillermo del Toro's name in the title, and I think that makes it a better bet for Oscar. Here's the other thing, though, is a movie like Wendell and Wilde is weird, and it's also, though, and the blank check guys had a really, really smart time of it talking about this movie. Go and listen to their episode on Wendell and Wild, if you're listening to this, after you're done listening. to us. It's a movie that's very weird. It's also incredibly overstuffed with plot. And I think for a movie like that, it really benefits from the four walls and two doors of a movie theater where you're in there, you're focused, you don't have any distraction because it's a movie

that will give you, you know, reasons to drift or to like, you know, if you like look away and check your messages for a second and you look back and you're like, what's going on? I'm lost. What's happening? And it's just like you need to be in that experience. I think it should have been nominated too. I am in no way surprised that it wasn't. I think it should have won. Oh. I'm going to

resent Netflix for a while. I... And this is not to slight Guillermo Deltora or his Pinocchio movie. Like, I fully understand and endorse it being nominated. Blah, blah, blah. This should be the winner. I am a... We're talking about the art of animation.

Oh, on an art of animation respect, yes. On a film respect, I am a Marcel the Shell loyalist and always will be. Sorry about it. No, I'm not going to be a bitch about it. You seem to want to be a bitch about it. It is a fine movie. I don't understand this level. Isabella Rossellini rules in that movie.

It's a wonderful movie. I think the movie is fine. It's a wonderful movie. All right. What's next? The Dr. Louise Banks Award for Most Surprisingness. All right. Here's where I talk about the woman.

Who do you have? The Woman King. Because, like, it just, not only the fact, and we'll talk about Viola Davis in a second, because I have some stats on that, too. It's not just that it would have been the perfect movie. I talked about the year of maximalist movies, right? It would have been the perfect companion to that as well. This is a movie that goes big. This is a movie that has energy.

this is a crowd. It harkens back to so much old Hollywood style. It made money. It drew audiences. It opened too early in the season. But in this year where, and this is another thing I talked about on the Vanity Fair podcast, this was an incredibly, this was the best picture lineup that really spread it out across the calendar. There are movies that opened in the spring, like everywhere all at once, in the summer, like Elvis and Top Gun. Like this movie spread it out across the calendar. So I don't think you can talk about that as like a valid excuse for why the women came. didn't the other thing is the woman king was up until nomination morning a contender or at least a fringe contender in so many categories i think it was going into the night i think it was probably sixth place in a lot in a lot of categories like i going into nomination day picture and director seemed like long shots but possible i think uh gina prince bythwood certainly showed up on enough best director lists that i thought it was possible viola david seemed likely. I think if you were looking at the

craft categories, costume design, I'm shocked that this didn't make it in costume design. Okay, so I feel like in the past year, people have really gotten on board, at least online, or the online gay circles we run. People have really gotten on board with

the past Oscar ceremonies that have treated the best costume design category like a fashion show, where they do a full fashion presentation. This was the movie I most I wanted to see you do that, even if it maybe wasn't, like, my winner for costume design, it might have been, actually. Yeah. But, like, cinematography, sound, I don't know if it made the sound shortlist, it should have.

I don't know if it made the makeup shortlist, but it should have. Score. Score, film editing, all of it. Like, and I imagine, I think you're right. I had the same thought. This was probably sixth place on quite a few categories. The thing about Viola Davis is, and we talked enough about their Andrew Risberg thing, and I'm not going to delve into that again, except to say that Viola Davis now joins a, one of the reasons why people, like Francis Fisher maybe, thought she was a lock, was she had gotten every precursor. She was nominated by the Golden Globes, by the Screen Actors Guild, by the Critics Choice, dubious as they are, by Bafta. I went before we recorded this morning and went through just the 2000s. At some point, you go back far enough and Critics' Choice becomes like two nominees a year, and it's, you know, not worth investigating. But,

Right. People who were nominated for SAG, the Golden Globes, BAFTA and Critics Choice, and not nominated for Oscar. It's, it has happened before. It does happen. What did I say? It's like 10 times in the last 20 years. So on average, like once every other year. It does happen. Happened twice last year alone. Lady Gaga for House of Gucci, Katrina Balf for Belfast. Both were nominated for all four of those precursors were not nominated. Also happened with Timothy Solomon. for Beautiful Boy in 2017. Amy Adams, speaking of Dr. Louise Banks, Amy Adams for arrival in 2016, Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler in 2015. Three times it happened in 2013, which I think is truly wild.

Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips, Emma Thompson for saving Mr. Banks, Daniel Brule for Rush, all of those in 2013. Marion Cotillard. This is my thing, because I said this to you and Katie, my thing about the Andrea Reisborough thing is like, yes, is a different case of it, but like

the kind of surprise stealth, like, out of nowhere nominee, isn't that uncommon? It's starting to feel like we get one every year? Well, let me just finish... Not like people should just be going out and predicting that like these are happening, but like, you know... Let me just finish

this list because there's only two more names. Yeah, keep going. Mary and Cotillard in Rustin Bone, a movie that like, we really should do at some point because like it's an interesting, it'd be an interesting movie to talk about, I think, and she did get all four of those precursors. And then Tilda Swinton in 2011, four, we need to talk about Kevin.

So, like, it's a pretty prestigious list, right? Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, you know, Tilda Swinton. Like, that's, it's not like it happens to schmose. You're talking about a lot of people that I think when voters are, you know, filling out their ballot. You're talking about a lot of people who either have Oscars already or people probably think are safe. Yes.

I think that's, I think that's, I think that's, I think there's a lot that goes into why they would have thought about that about Viola and maybe they should have still considered her. I think some of, yeah, I think if you're looking to, like, taxonomize this list, right? It's the people who people think are safe, like your Tom Hanks's, your Amy Adams in a rival, like your Marion Cotillard, I think everybody thought was like a given for Rustin Bone. Then you have people. She more kind of falls into the category of she has an Oscar and a semi-recent one.

Also that. And then I think you get certain ones that are like, maybe this isn't as good, this movie isn't as good. this movie isn't as good as, you know, as warrants a nomination, which I think Saving Mr. Banks qualifies there, beautiful boy qualifies there. And then I think you get some that are sort of like semi-grotesques like Lady Gaga and House of Gucci and Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler and even I would say Tilda and we need to talk about Kevin where voters are like, maybe I don't like that movie. Maybe that movie kind of like, you know, turns me off in a way.

The Academy wasn't going to watch that movie. So I think it's no shame for Viola Davis to join that list of actors. I think it is a, you know, strong and proud list of actors. I'm not glad that she does. I think it's a tremendous movie, but I will really, really enjoy doing a whole episode on Packing the Woman King, because I think it's really good. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a shame. I think, like, we talk about loving our, you know, movie star nominations, and she would

have been such an incredibly worthy one. Yeah. Plus, it would have put her, like, I had, for that very, Fair article where I was doing the stats and milestones, I did a little pre-research. And, like, there were so many things that would have been, that Viola Davis would have attained with this nomination. She would have moved into, um, wait, did I still have, do I still have my notes anywhere? I might have, let's see. No, I think I just wrote over it. It's too bad. Um, but there were some, there were some landmarks that Viola Davis, would have hit had she been nominated for the Woman King. And just in general, like, I am somebody who feels like our greatest actresses should be nominated, you know, six, seven times throughout their career. You know what I mean? Like, it's good. She's still firing on all cylinders. There is zero doubt that she's going to get another best actress

nomination. I think it's good that Cape Blanchett has eight career nominations. I think that is befitting an actress of her stature. And I think somebody like Viola Davis deserves to to reach that level as well. Mm-hmm. All right. Yours was the Women King as well, or did you have any alternates? I mean, that was the one for me. So, obviously, I should say Danielle Deadweiler in Till here, though, like, I think,

specifically if you're talking those two actress nominations, you know. Till is sort of the opposite of the Woman King, though, and that, like, it wasn't really in contention for anything except Daniel Deadweiler. But it's surprising that it never was. I mean, the reasons are. are unfortunate and obvious why it wasn't, but, like, that could have been a costume design nominee. Sure.

That could have been, you know, a screenplay nominee. I also, though, I don't feel like that movie was... My perception of that movie's reception was a lot more mixed and muddled than a typical Oscar nominee. Well, because, like, the movie is half... By half, it does somewhat of the standard biopic thing. But then, like, maybe another... 50% of the movie, and it's not like, you know, the first half of the movie is this and the second half of the movie is this, but like, Shinonia Chakwu is an very interesting filmmaker to

me in terms of, like, taking what, a movie that you expect to be one thing and go, digs really deep and creates these, like, sonic, you know, psychological experiences out of them that, like, I, I think this. movie also does something like that, you know, a lot of people were sharing when the nomination didn't happen, the testimony scene that's all done in one shot that, like, I think that is very atypical of what a lot of movies like Till do, you know, that are period biopics, and that I found exciting, maybe that created, maybe that type of, you know, stepping up outside of the box made people not understand what that movie was going for.

I would also say, if my answer is not the Woman King here, I would say white noise by default because what I really mean is the underperformance of Netflix, where it's like, really their only movie significantly in the race is all quiet on the Western front. Which overperformed to a degree that obviously shocked me. we've talked about it. It didn't shock me. I was more so shocked that I thought it could have done better.

But it doesn't feel like Netflix was ever pushing that movie in a way. Like it was clear, it was like their fifth priority, maybe. Their sixth priority throughout most of the season. You weren't surprised once you saw the short list, though,

but weren't you at least a little surprised? Like none of us were saying when this movie was at TIF, oh, we should see that movie because this is going to be a, you know, a big player for Netflix. Like, it was a surprise.

They also programmed that movie at, like, 10 o'clock at night at Tiff. And it's like, no fucking way am I watching that at 10 o'clock at night. I mean, I kind of felt that before the shortlist, I was like, something's going on here. But I wasn't like, this is going to be the top Netflix movie at that point. But when I saw those shortlists, I was like, absolutely it's their chance now. And, you know, what other, what other, they have three nominations that are not, um, it is. Glass Onion. They're too animated and then it's the screenplay for Glass Onion.

And I think that's it. Because they're not in the documentary race, right? They're not in the shorts. Yeah, I think it. I thought they were in the shorts. Did they get blanked on the shorts? Oh, I meant animated shorts. Sorry.

of what I'm saying it's not including the shorts that I'm not positive on I think looking I think this is something we were talking about as far back as the summer was looking ahead at Netflix and just being like oh their roster is on characteristically weak given how they had been averaging two best picture nominees for the last like three years or whatever right I like a lot of people were hoping that they would put more of their oomph behind Glass Onion, a genuine crowd pleaser. I think now looking at the fact that Glass Onion ends up leaving this year's Oscar nominations with exactly the same fate as Knives Out did, which is one nomination in screenplay, given the fact that of everything that happened with like box office and how it was pulled from theaters and it wasn't given a chance to have a full, robust theatrical run, can we make the safe claim that

Netflix didn't do shit for Glass Onion and that like, if the idea was, well, you're going to Netflix, they at the very least have like a more successful awards apparatus. And it's like, well, you did the same for them. I think they're probably happy with what they got out of Glass Onion because

Netflix has made it so clear that what they care about is they care about the numbers they pull on their platform. Oh, I'm sure Netflix is happy. They got that. but the thing I think that gives the movie cultural significance is like a lasting longevity and like it's hard for movies on the platform to have a longevity and like obviously they got the numbers they want so they're probably not complaining about it but the thing about these you know you saw it with bird box you saw it with bright you saw it with whatever these movies that play right at the Christmas window on Netflix they get these huge numbers right away because everyone's just sitting at home and then a week later, people move on. Well, but this is why...

That's why Glass Onion underperformed at the Oscars, because by the time voting was happening, people moved on, and Netflix probably didn't do it. I'm not surprised that Netflix is happy with how this worked out. I'm saying, are you, I'm disappointed if I'm coming at it from Glass Onion's perspective. If I'm the producers of Glass Onion, is that, like, maybe, maybe...

When they clearly could have had more. Maybe they don't get the funding. to make the sequel that they would through, you know, Lionsgate or whatever. That's fine. But like, ultimately, what good did Netflix do for Glass Onion that another... I don't think Glass Onion is better for having a bigger budget, too.

Well, yes. I think... I think Glass Onion is the word of mouth theatrical success that it is no matter who's putting it out. I don't think Netflix manufactured that. I don't think Netflix cultivated that. I think that was a function of Knives Up being a very

popular movie that was a very rewatchable. movie that sort of built over the last few years. And I think that audience and that enthusiasm and that sort of like memeability would have happened no matter what, no matter who put it out and probably would have been enhanced by a longer theatrical run. So all I'm saying is, I'm sure Netflix is perfectly fine with what Glass Onion did for them. If I'm Glass Onion, I'm not so satisfied by what Netflix did for me. And I do feel like that type of lasting cultural.

Longevity is going to make the third movie less of a big deal. Oh, I disagree. I think it was, I think even with the shortcomings of Netflix, I think Glass Onion was such a big deal, even if it was for a shorter duration than people think. I don't think, like, Netflix isn't Bird, or Glass Onion isn't Birdbox. Like, people haven't forgotten that movie. Like, that movie has sticking power, and I think the third one will be just fine. I mean, it'll be just fine, sure, but, like, I don't know if people are going to be as excited as they were for Glass Onion, like, I think the anticipation and the, you know, hugeness is not going to be as significant. We'll see.

We'll see. All right. All right. Moving right along to the Unforgetable. Wait, hold on. I'm scrolling back up because I was on the list. No. The Unfinished Life Prize for Most Forgettable.

Most forgettable. I forgot the title of that. that J-Lo movie that we've done a whole episode on. What's your pick for this? My pick is a movie that, you know, we, we who are intensely paying attention to these things always have to re-learn the who gives a shit about test screening results about movies.

And, like, the studio handled this in a way that primed this movie to be the most forgettable. 13 lives. Ron Howard's, which we had heard early on had these astronomical test screening results. They were going to release it during the Thanksgiving window and we were like, oh, so Ron Howard might be back. United Artists is positioning this movie to do really well

and we've gotten whispers that people apparently really love this movie. Unceremoniously, and a lot of people didn't even know when it happened, they switched to this movie is going to drop on Amazon in August and no one watched it when it was on there and then you would see things throughout the season

like Paul Thomas Anderson saying that it was his favorite movie of the year and then it showed up on the visual effects short list and I was kind of of of the mind I didn't ultimately predict it but I was like 13 lives is going to be one of those weird random nominations.

If it weren't... I was going to Deepwater Horizon. If it were any category but visual effects, yes, I think ultimately the visual effects in 13 Lives

just don't seem visual effecty enough to do it. We're talking so much about Colin Farrell and when people are like the four Colin Farrell movies this year

and people are like, what? What's the four? Here's what I'm going to tell you. It's 13 lives. 13. No one watched it, but... I watched it.

13 Lives is a good movie. It's the best movie that Ron Howard is made in a dog's age. It's a good Colin Farrell performance that deserves to be mentioned along with his other ones. I like it better than him in the Batman. And in general, people love to talk about, like, this is a movie for your dad. And they talk about that as a compliment, right?

That's why All Quiet on the Western Front did well. What were the dad movies this year? Because even Top Gun is a little too silly for your dad. We tend to feel, and I don't think we're wrong to feel. this way that like a healthy movie economy includes plenty of movies for your dad, right? Because like that's your meat and potatoes. That is your

mid-budget, you know, you know, watch it in a theater or like re-watch it at home, whatever, when it's on, you know, VHS or DVD, like a classic dad, you know, dad formats of your. All lazy boys should be

given like five free DVDs. Like when you first got, when you first bought DVD players and they gave you The Matrix and like four other fucking movies. I think The Mask was one of them. Yeah. And all lazy boys should come with like, true grit. Yes, yes.

True grid is like the concierge tier, right? That is your like, your tippy top. That's the good one. 13 Lives is an incredibly good dad movie that dads didn't watch this year because nobody watched it this year because Amazon has absolutely just atrophied the ability to distribute movies. Like, they genuinely don't know how to do it anymore. And...

Well, in this year, they're trying to commit to doing, what, a dozen movies or something with exclusive theatrical runs. I'm so worried for all of them. I'm so worried for all of them. Like, they really have just lost the ability to do that if they ever had it, except they did have it because, like, Manchester by the sea happened.

But they did it with partners. But anyway, Justice for 13 Lives, it's a better movie than people think. Like, it got the reputation of being junk because Amazon treated it like it was junk. And it's not junk. It's a good movie. Mulesh Foreman said exactly that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, what's my pick? What's your pick? What's my pick for the Unfinished Life Prize? Mine is a movie I like considerably less than 13 lives. David O. Russell's Amsterdam was such a disaster and then completely forgotten in the wake of other movies, better movies, that also nobody saw, right? Like, Amsterdam failed so spectacularly.

And then the fact that on the heels of Amsterdam, nobody saw she said, nobody saw the Fablemans, nobody saw Babylon, you know what I mean? No one saw bros. Right. And so I think probably to the benefit of everybody involved in Amsterdam,

which I don't think is like the shittiest, most awful movie ever, but like, it is a failure. It did make me believe that purgatory exists, though. It's a movie that, like, with a cast that big, I'm going to enjoy one or two performances. I genuinely had no,

not no idea what was happening in it, but also just I had no emotional investment to carry me through where this movie was taking me. I just saw Sundance movie last night that made me feel the exact same way. We'll talk about that in our Sundance bonus. I was just like, my profound emotional reaction to that movie was disengagement, which is not what you want.

I was just profoundly not engaged. Do you mean disengagement or dissociation? No. I don't mean dissociation. I mean, I was in general, like, just not plugged into this movie. That was what this movie did for me. It made me feel very, very not invested in what was happening. And I think...

Everybody's doing a goddamn bit and none of the bits are working. Yeah, that's the thing. Amsterdam is kind of... I liked the part. Here's what I will say. writ large. I liked the... parts where they sort of flash back to

Christian Bell, John David Washington, Margot Robbie as like friends in... Oh, I mean like if you describe the experience or what Amsterdam is trying to do, I want to watch that movie. That sounds great. Like when the fans

of Amsterdam came out, was Richard Brody one of them? I was like, that sounds great. To me, you're describing what the movie is trying to do not what it actually pulls off. I agree. I agree. And I think it's going to be ultimately very, very easy to forget that. And A, because I don't think there's going to be a ton of people who will make it, you know. Sometimes you make it hard to forget a movie by the fact that there are partisans of that

movie that will really speak up. And I think even the people who liked Amsterdam liked other things better. You know what I mean? They're just like they're not going to take the time to badger you about Amsterdam and about how good it is because it wasn't. So my runner-up is one that I didn't see, so I can't. you know, make any claims about it. But it's really, the Oscar campaign, such as it was for emancipation, really did feel like a ghost out there. Like, is this real? Like, even the people

who would, like, try and talk about, like, everybody sleeping on emancipation and you're all going to have egg on your face when this movie ends up being. And I'm like, do you believe this? Or does it make you feel good to make it to posture like everybody else is missing the boat on something. Because like... It felt a little, like, click chasing. It did, right? And ultimately, like, this movie kind of didn't exist. You know what I mean? It kind of, you know, just didn't have a presence. And I think there was, you know, a half-heartedness

on the part of Apple. And obviously, like, the Will Smith aftermath of King Richard didn't help. But I, like, I think if that slap never happens, I think Emancipation probably has a similar fate. Yeah. I also want to throw out a movie that people are going to be like, what are you talking about? What is this? Mothering Sunday, which ultimately got to release this March or in the spring. Was that a virtual tiff movie?

After it was supposed to come out in 2021. And it was supposed to be like sexy romance costume drama of that Oscar season, got the most indifferent reviews in that movie's festival run. and Sony Classic's drop kicked it into the next year, never to really be seen or heard from again. It is a movie that has a lot of full frontal nudity from Josh O'Connor, so there is that. There is a cameo of Glenda Jackson, and my apologies to anyone that this grosses out, my X-rated joke about that movie when people had asked me about, how is Glinda Jackson in it? I would tell them that Ejaculate has more screen time than she does in the movie, and I am not kidding.

Oh, God, okay. Just really a non-starter of a movie. Colin Firth and Olivia Coleman are in it, and they are really trying. My memory of Mothering Sunday is that it was at the same virtual Tiff that Benediction was at. And, like, people were talking about Mothering Sunday

for, like, half a second, and then people saw Benediction, the people who did see Benediction. Benediction, by the way, a movie that I can't even talk about. We'll do an episode on Benediction at some point, but like it was never even enough in the conversation for me to have it on for any of these awards because like it I mean like talk about justice for slaughter race like good critics just sticking up for that movie and it wasn't maligned felt like we kind of got it to the ceiling that we could get that movie to because like roadside barely even released it like I feel it made a dent yeah on a lot of critics top tens because it was on Hulu for a while. Terrence Davies is just not going to...

Justice for Terrence Davies. He's just not, it's just not going to be an Oscar type of guy. Reminder that we are a Davies Babies podcast. Benediction, one of the best movies of 2022. One of the best movies of last year. And like a movie that really grows with you as you sit with it, Jack Loudon should have absolutely been a best actor nominee. I had initial issues that I was like, Jeremy Irvine is so bad.

Yeah, you have a weird thing about the Jeremy Irvine. That he, you know, is a detriment to the movie. I think that's maybe a little bit true, whereas I thought it was really true when I first saw the movie. He's not a problem for me. Like, it's, I think... Not a good actor. Benediction is a hard one to place in one of these categories, but I'm glad that you bring it up. Listeners, go watch Benediction on Hulu.

You will not regret it. Especially if you are of gay and sad experience, as Joe Reed has put in. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But also, it's not, it is, it is a sad movie. But, like, I think the thing that a lot of people, me included, want to impress upon people is it's also very fun. There is some, like, real, real enjoyable gay bitchiness in this movie. And it is tremendous. Yeah. Yeah. All right. What's next. So our next category, which I believe is our last category, we can also shout out some more movies if we want to once we get past this. But it is the welcome to Marwin Prize. for our most anticipated episode. Joe, what movie do you most look forward to talking about on the podcast?

Well, I'm going to shout out our good friend, Katie Rich, because she has multiple times now asked us to do an episode on My Policeman, which we will, and she's asked us to do it enough times that we are probably going to conscript her into being our guest on it. So, yes, we'll do it my Policeman. Also, shout out to our listeners, who we have gotten plenty of people asking us to do an episode on Don't Worry, Darling, that we are just going to have to do that.

Like, we are absolutely going to have to unpack all the... I mean, they need some distance between them, too, because how do you talk about one without talking... I mean, you could talk about Don't Worry, darling, without talking about my policeman. You can't talk about my policeman. What if we do our first ever double episode, first ever double episode, we do my policeman

and don't worry, darling, at the same time? That would be fun. That would be funny. We'll see how it goes. would be a great guest for that. Maybe that's our first double guess. We'll also invite Des Mois. We'll invite Ms. Flob. Okay. I thought about having the Northman for this, just because I want to mention the Northman. Northman, one of the rare movies... Nicole Kidman on my bow. Oh, by the way, in fact, this will be a good... All right,

the Northman will be our excuse to take a little bit of a break and talk about the Vulture Movies Fantasy League, because we are doing it live. Oh, yes, here we go. Um, Vulture Movies Fantasy League, obviously, uh, a points bonanza for the Oscar nominations, because we had a Gary shout us out that they wanted it known that they were, I forget, I apologize, I forget what your, uh, team name is, but they were the highest ranking person who did not draft all quiet on the Western front. We salute. Which is, yeah, all quiet on the Western front from the double whammy of, um, Oscar nomination Hall and BAFTA Hall has really, really shot up the ranks in the last two weeks for

Movie Fantasy League, and because it was a $3 buy, basically anybody who has Alquine on the Western Front on their roster is doing pretty well unless you really shit the bet on everything else. Unsurprisingly, everything everywhere all at once was our top overall point leader, although I will say

Banshees of Insharon right there behind it. You know what I mean? 230 points. Those two movies ended up outpacing all quiet more so than the nomination tally would suggest because they had more nominations in the top

categories, which were weighted more heavily. The reason why the Northman made me think about this, though, was there are movies, and you looked at this even on Oscar nomination day, were like what are some of the movies that

like got, if not their first points of the season, like some of their rare point totals of the season. Like, I'm scrolling down the list here. Like, obviously, our beloved Mrs. Harris goes to Paris, which only got nominations, I think, for Oscar and Movies for Grano's Awards, maybe. But... Bardo, Empire of Light.

Bardo is a good one. Empire of Light. Well, Empire of Light has subfted nominations. But, like, in general, Empire of Light does not have a whole lot of nominations in general. Bardo's a great example, though, of that. Um, the highest profile movie with zero points throughout the entire award season, I think, is the Northman. I guess I want to dance with somebody also. Um, the Northman, zero points.

I want to dance with somebody, zero points. Emancipation will throw in there too, zero points. Um, I would have expected somewhere at some point, some awards. entity to throw a nomination to the Northman for something. Cinematography. The score deserved it. The score. The costumes are lack they're up. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of craft. Movies for Grown Up Best Supporting Actress, Bjork. 100%. Like, there's a lot of craft going to that movie. That is a movie that, like,

had complicated reactions, but it's not like it was like even a love it or hate it. I think a lot of people really liked that movie. It got really tied up on Twitter. with people thinking it was a white supremacist movie because of his haircut. It was so stupid. Truly, they ruin everything, those people, the white supremacists, fuck those people. Get out of my movie. Sometimes I think these things start as a joke that people who have no sense of humor

can't tell that someone's fucking joking. Yeah. Well, and it's also the fact that, like, you have cadres of people whose only purpose is to make other people angry and annoy people. And, like, even, you know what I mean? Like, they don't have to actually mean. what they say anyway. The Northman is surprising though because it's like there's not

a lot of sets but they built those sets you know like I I think there are plenty of craft excuses to nominate the Northman if you don't even want to talk about things like the Northman has no business being as boring as it is that movie is so boring I don't think it

I liked the Northman I don't I rewatched it because I was like do I want to put this somewhere on my ballot and I ultimately was like Nicole Kimman should be on people's ballots. I was going to say that, yes. And the score is tremendous. But I was like, if we're watching, I was like, this is watching, paint dry. And partly because, you know, never mind, we don't have to get it to it. We don't have to kick the Northman when it's down. I just want to say, it's a zero pointer throughout the entire season,

which is pretty rare. Like, usually something will get something. So, obviously, we spent this whole episode of the of our podcast talking about the Oscar nomination, so we don't need to, like, linger too much. So I want to talk about the leaderboard a little bit. And the sort of the quirks of it, I still think it is fascinating. I believe when I tallied it up, only two rosters in the top 20 have everything everywhere all at once. That in general.

That's surprising. People who, because it was such a, it was an expensive movie, it was $60, it was the second most expensive movie to the Fablemen's. And in general, it's been by far, by a large margin, the biggest scoring movie of the entire year. Right now, it has amassed 1,170 points. The next closest, I believe, is Banshe's Vinasharon with 940. I think even with the box office points tallied in and factored in, I don't think Avatar or Black Panther approach that. But the thing about everything everywhere at once is, There were people who, instead of picking that, what they could have, you know, for around that same cost, maybe picked Banshees and Tar and Elvis, and I think those three movies together make up that difference and then some.

But here is what I will say is now we are getting into the part of the season where fewer and fewer movies are going to get points. It's only going to be the movies that win things, they get points. And I think here is where everything, everywhere all at once really could start to run away. with things, and you're going to see less and less points for things like TAR. Or, I think Banshees still, Banshees could win several Oscar nominations, but Banschies could theoretically win maybe one Oscar. You know what I mean?

I think there's a scenario where it wins zero, but that would be very strange. It would be, I don't even know if I would say very strange. They kind of need to rally that campaign around a certain aspect. I think screenplay and actor are your two strongest cases, but neither one of those is a lock. I won't, but certainly best picture isn't a lock. They're not really locked for anything, and I think everything everywhere all at once is locked for at least a few of those things. And I think that's where if you're a roster that's sort of hanging on at the top of the charts right now, but you don't have everything everywhere at once, watch your back is all I will say. I think there's a zero, at this point, I mean, things could change.

I think there's a zero percent chance of the Oscars having either Tar, the Fableman's, or Banshe's. One of those walking away with zero Oscar wins. Yeah, I think that's right. I think your X factor, though. I think it's the Fableman's. Maybe. It's very possible. Justice for the Fableman's, a great movie.

Boy, talk about a movie that, like, that's the one where I get the most annoyed, where when people sort of like not even don't like that movie but sort of like mock that movie as like self-evidently terrible and I'm just like you're ignorant I've seen none of this I see it more than I should

and just talk about how it's like over sentimental which like you only watched the trailer that's my only explanation for that if that's how you think I kind of want to talk about the Elvis points though because I floated to you and I may be sticking

by this. Not that any of my overarching bets have really... Yeah, we should talk about the bets at some point. All-Quiet thing. I think Elvis has a real shot at pulling a dune and, you know... Okay, well, you can have one or the other, Chris.

Either All-Quiet on the Western Front is the, you know, all-encompassing threat that you, you know, had hyped it up to be going into nominations or Elvis is going to win a Dune number of Oscars because I feel like I don't know if it's going to get six like Dune did but I think Elvis is going to get off the top of my head right now Elvis is getting four Oscars. Tally them up for me. Austin Butler. Best actor. Yeah.

Costume design and production design. Catherine Martin does not miss. I will say Catherine Martin especially when it's you know you bet against Catherine Martin at your peril. Yes. Right. And I think it's getting the makeup one. What else is in makeup? Sorry, I'm scrolling down to makeup. What else could win? Here's what, all right. I am living in deep, deep fear that the whale wins best makeup.

I mean, I don't know if there's going to be generosity to throw a win behind that movie if it's not Brendan Fraser. I also think, like, that movie... To me, no one has really come out and, you know, tried to, I don't think that movie is much of a threat, or you would see this to win that category. There is clear visual, there is clear digital tinkering going on with that makeup job. To me. But has that been a detractor for that category in the past? Recently, yeah. Okay.

All right, that was an open-ended question. I genuinely was asking. I would argue yes And Elvis is the only best Picture nominee in that category, right? All Quiet on the Western Front. Oh, okay. And, I mean, maybe All Quiet on the Western Front is the spoiler there,

and I ultimately don't think All Quiet on the Western Front has a... Cinematography is also the... Cinematography and makeup, Elvis is winning one of those. Well, I will say if Elvis win cinematography, Mandy Walker, who is a cinematographer, will become the first woman to ever win the Oscar for Best Cinematography, which would be pretty rad. I'm kind of... Elvis could win both of those, but maybe All Quiet will win one of them, but Elvis is winning at least one of those. It's really surprising that Top Gun Maverick was not nominated in cinematography after winning a bunch of those prizes, and of course, like, it being a Best Picture nominee. And it's like, the thing about that movie that, like, people talk about is the visuals.

I think that there's aerial photography. I thought that movie looked fine. It's weird that it's a screenplay nominee and not a cinematography nominee, though. It's just deeply weird. And like categories have different, you know, I think cinematography was much more competitive this year than adapted screenplay.

I get it. The one I'm kind of rooting for there, I would love to see Mandy Walker win. Without Hoyt van Hotuma nominated for Nope. I would love to see Darius Kanji win for Bardo. That was the nomination that we was like, Bardo, why is Bardo nominated? this year. Bardo looks tremendous.

Bardo looks tremendous. Like anybody Poo-Pooing that nomination get bent. I'm sorry. I'm a fan of that movie. You're a fan. I liked it better than I thought he would, but I'm like, I'm maso menos a little bit on Bardo. But Darius Kanji is a tremendous cinematographer.

Only his second nomination, I think, ever. And let me look that up. But Bardo looks tremendous. Darius Conji has been nominated needed for Evita. I did not remember that. And then Bardo is only his second nomination, but, like, has done the cinematography for a bunch

of, like, James Gray movies, Lost City of Zed, recent movie of ours. He did the cinematography for A Moore. What other movies? The Beach, Danny Boyles, The Beach, which has its problems, but looks amazing. Seven. A little movie called Seven, which looks pretty good. goddamn good and was pretty goddamn influential as a visual object. So, yeah, I'm kind of riding for a bardo win in cinematography.

Oh, the one thing I wanted to say about Elvis was, if we did not have a best picture frontrunner that was textually about jumping between timelines as often as everything everywhere all at once does, I think Elvis would be a big contender to win editing. But, like, if there is a lock of locks, everything everywhere all at once is winning best film editing. Elvis did get a six.

Sound nomination, too, right? Which that category does love music movies. Well, the thing about sound is it's a very recently combined category. And those categories, when they were separated, had two sort of distinct preferences. Sound mixing. And it's up against action movies and all quiet on the one front of front. Sound mixing valued musicals and also water, like underwater stuff, which makes Avatar, a contender. sound effects editing was bang bang shoot shoot bullet effects you know like bullet sounds like it really

loved gun battles so if you combine them then you have all quiet on the western front avatar elvis and top gun maverick all sort of like being the kinds of things that the sound branch really likes so i think that's actually nobody pays attention to sound because whatever but also this is my other thing and people don't talk about this enough the oscars are the only televised award ceremonies that put these awards on television. And that's the one that everybody wants to get rid of because that's the one where everybody

goes and makes their popcorn and goes to the bathroom and like John and JQ public don't give a shit about sound, you know, winners. It's a category where you can win your party poll. That is true. And also like for people like us who are like really into it, all of a sudden now it's like that's one of the most interesting categories

on the ballot to me because I think it's incredibly competitive. I was predicting everything everywhere there because they they've gotten on this run of nominating Best Picture Frontrunners that you maybe wouldn't think would be nominated there, but they didn't go forward. But because, again, I return to the idea that this is like the year of maximalist movies,

four of those five nominees for Best Sound are Best Picture nominees because there were a lot of very big, very movie, capital M movie movies nominated for Best Sound. Otherwise, I think you probably would in another year have gotten everything everywhere at once nominated for Sound. Anyway, As far as the points go for a vulture movie game, obviously, I think we can all predict that if you have picked everything everywhere for your team, you got some points coming to you. However, all I'm saying is if you drafted Elvis, I think that is a possible stealth player for some end of the game.

Well, and if you look at the top ranking teams, the top, now I'm just sort of like going through the top five at least. I'm trying to think of how far I have to go down. Okay, five of the top six teams all have Elvis on their roster. So that could end up breaking well for them. That could help offset everything everywhere all at once wave. Now I'm Steve Kornacki here being like, there's votes coming in for everything everywhere at once, but Elvis voters stay in line. Yeah, if you want to go check out where your team stands in the Vulture Movies fantasy game.

And by the way, this has been kind of. a delight and a joy for me to experience all this season. We are by no means done. We are going to be going. Points will accumulate. As a trivia and statistician. One million percent. Points will obviously accumulate through Oscar nomination night and then we'll find out who our winner is. You can go to Vulture. Sorry, you can go to moviegame.vulture.com and click a link to a landing page where you can see where your team is. Do a little control F search. You can see where the other standings are. I want to make the point once again. that I am riding right now in second place among vulture staff to Nate Jones.

I am barely more than 100 points behind Nate. And Nate does not have everything everywhere all at once. So what I'm saying is he doesn't have Elvis either. The system is rigged and Joe Reed will win amongst Volta. Well, I mean, like talk about a victory that means nothing where people are just like, yeah, like Joe who like helped design the game is in first place. Like, you know, big fucking surprise. here's what I will say I may have designed the game

but I was still dumb enough to draft devotion and Lyle Lyle Crocodile so like some of us don't know everything even if we help design the game all right yes go check out the Vulture

Movie Fantasy League and we will seamlessly transition back into the what did we say the welcome to Marwin Prize for the most anticipated episode because my real choice for that award Chris

is the bones I'm so excited to talk about the bones just because we'll call them the bones and all. No, I am excited to talk about for that because we'll do silly voices. But also, I quite like this movie.

We'll do the pirate voices the whole time for the bones. I quite liked this movie, and you loved this movie. And I'm excited to hear you talk at length about why you love this movie. Ohio Cinema. There you go. I think the thing that

I love about it frustrates a lot of people in that, like, it could be symbolic of something. It could also be symbolic of all of those things. It could be symbolic of none of those things. I think it's symbolic of none of those things, but representative of all. Not to, like, be, like, a dork and, like, fan out about somebody's letterbox review, but, like, I really, really liked your letterbox review of Bones and all.

It really made me think about that movie quite a bit when you talk about the things that that movie is talking about. It made, like, the letterbox, like, top five liked reviews of the year or something, and someone had to tell me that because I didn't, I didn't try that. The thing about letterbox, this is just word salad. I just posted word salad and people like that. No, it's more than word salad. It's very insightful. It's very good. I think there is an aspect to letterbox where it's like, why is this my one letterbox review that like has way more likes than everything else for me. That's after son for me. And my review for afterson is literally, all it says is we as a culture must allow

Paul Mescal to dance. And like that is like, I just think people agree with you. I think so too. but, like, why to that degree? You have spoken a great truth. Like, we as a culture do need to just let Paul Meskell dance. Why do I think, I think it's mostly just a testament to the fact that, like, people kept discovering After Sun throughout the year. And one of the more satisfying experiences of watching people I know and friends of mine and people who aren't as plugged into movies as we are, Discover After Sun has been

very, very gratifying and makes me believe. in award season because it's like it really does feel like that movie's showing up on things like critics lists and you know, top tens and Paul Muscal getting Oscar buzz and ultimately an Oscar nomination

has helped that movie reach a water audience and it deserves it. What is your pick, Chris? Can I pause for a second? I hate to do this but I'm going to die if I don't go pee. Go pee, go do it. I've been in pain. Um, sorry for my individual audio that will have the sound from me being.

No, I'm just, I'll be right back. Well, I'll play, but I'll play like Tijuana Brass or something like that. What are What are you doing? What are you doing? I put on Herb Alpert Spanish Flea to have cold music while you were doing that. Oh, okay. I do love her by Albert. Tell us why you, why that's the one you want to do an episode on most, like,

Bones and All? I think genuinely I want to, I want to unpack with you what your feelings are about this movie because I think you have a really good take on it. I also, I mean, twist my arm to talk about Timmy Chalame, who I have stopped, I have decided I'm just going to stop feeling bad and apologizing for how much. I love Taylor Russell, too. Someone posted. What a weirdo. What a fun little weirdo. Someone posted to you a video that's like, she's so weird, I love her.

And it's just her at a Q&A talking about, like, going and swimming in a creek or something while filming the movie. But it's like three minutes long. Also, I'm eager to take up the challenge of, like, how many different things I can compare Mark Rylance's performance to. I said initially that he is part of the Rose the Hat Cinematic Universe, but I think there's more to unpack there. I think in general, what I mean, the obvious thing. thing that everyone says is that he's the family guy pedophile. Oh, God. Which is not wrong, but, like, I think only compliments his performance.

I'm still kind of flummoxed. Not flummoxed. I was expecting a better-than-average chance that Mark Rylance would show up more than he did in the conversation in terms of Best Supporting Actor. I expected more places to, like, throw a Jared letter. Little Things, House of Gucci style. Like, what? Like nomination.

Nobody kind of rallied around that movie, though. Yeah, it's too bad. It's too bad. All right. What is your pick for the Welcome to Marwan Prize for Most Anticipated Episode? Listen, so many movies that we'll have the opportunity to talk about are just going to be a stone cold bummer.

And to the point where I feel like any movie we talk about this year, we're going to get, like, at some point, we're going to get into the weeds of, like, kind of the bummer. of a lot of this. And, I mean, while this one I don't think would avoid it, the one that I want to talk about the most is dark water. Oh, a movie that I sometimes forget was this year. Not only because it was...

A movie that, like, also forces us to talk about basically the entirety of the pandemic. Well, it was March, right? Because it was pushed around so much. That's the thing is it was released in, I think, March or some maybe April. But also, it was so, into my mind, it's so solid. solidly is associated with not only the pandemic, but like, well, specifically the fact that, like, I was so sure that that was going to be a TIF sensation before the pandemic happened and it got pulled. I was like, this is going to be a movie that we're all going

to talk about and we're all going to like sort of like bug out our eyes about for better or worse, and it was Adrian Line, you know, back at it again with the erotic thriller, and the pandemic ruined a lot. Yeah. I enjoyed my time watching that movie. It's not great, but, like, who slipped bath salts into Tracy Letts' lunch? Whoever it is before filming that finale. I want to buy you a Visa gift card because you deserve to have a little treat.

Tracy Letts going... Tracy Letts, who doesn't want to talk about that movie? Tracy Letts, he's like, I did a draft-down, and then that was a... Literally, literally goes off a cliff in that movie. Like, literally, absolutely, textually does that. Tracy Letts, who has woman in the window and follows it with this. Like, we also have to do a woman in the window at one point. 100%.

But, yeah, it's no question it's deep water. Yeah. Because, like, even if we have to wade into the bleakness of this season, we can have a good time. Well, and it also allows us to talk about just the absolutely bizarre bookend of the year being Anna da Armis. Deepwater on one end and blonde on the other. Doing the most. The movie coming out well after not only Anadarmas and Baddatholic breakup, but by then we had fully. moved on to Benifer part two

and had all invested ourselves. By the way, can I just say, we didn't talk enough about it. I think it's going to be a Super Bowl commercial, so we're going to talk about it. We're going to come back around to it. But the day that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez went to the Dunkin' Donuts to film

that commercial or whatever, and we're like in the drive-through window, like Ben in the drive-thru window, like hand in out Duncan to people and whatever. And Jennifer... Oh, yeah, that's a Super Bowl commercial. And Jennifer there with like her ice cap or whatever in, you know, in her hand. And all I could think of was, and I think I tweeted about this, but like, what an underrated

quality in a person, which is the person who loves you enough to like not only like go along with you on your weird, dumb little, like, enthusiasms, but like credibly feign also in being enthused about that. Like Jennifer Lopez will step into a Dunkin and doesn't look like she's like, she's like put out to be there and doesn't even look like she's like punching a card and being like here I am showing up for my husband or whatever because he likes Duncan more than any human being in this entire planet likes Duncan. Like she genuinely seems like she's happy to be there. And like that is, that's a good partner right there. That is somebody who will make you believe that they

are happy to be in a Duncan in fucking Waltham or whatever the fuck like, you know, Shrewsbury and just super happy to be there. And I love that about her. I think you already mentioned my policemen, especially if we have Katie on for my policeman. What are some other ones you would greatly look forward to? I think good luck to Leo Grand is one, because we both like that movie.

Here's where I sort of go into my greater list of movies we haven't gotten a chance to talk about in this episode yet. What ones would I be in? interested in. Good luck to you, Leo Grand. It will be a fun one. I will really enthuse about that. I'm excited to talk about Chachau Real Smooth because you really liked that movie at Sundance and I wouldn't have expected that from you. And that is a movie that got shit on when it finally made it down to sea level. And I mean, I think it's a fine movie. I mean, I think that's a movie that success at Sundance ultimately heard it because

like, not only was it, did it create a show me atmosphere for that movie, but it also, like, put that movie in a certain type of box. Well, it wasn't just... I mean, I think there's a ceiling to that movie, you know, considering everything about it, but I think it's operating at that ceiling. But it's a movie I would enjoy watching again because I enjoyed watching it the first time. But also, like, you mentioned that, like, that's a movie that was sort of done in by its own Sundance Buzz. It was also done in by the Sundance Buzz of its predecessor because it had the unfortunate, uh, occasion of following being like the Apple TV plus movie that happened after Coda because Killers of the Flower Moon pieced the fuck out of Oscar year 2022 and all of a sudden

chat chat real smooth is being like hey like here we are and everybody was like Sundance Apple this one and and Modola Dargis was there to be like fuck no and I mean I hear people on their complaints of Cha-cha real smooth. People got a little smug about Cooper Rief, I will say. Doing too much about that movie in loving it were also, like, not doing that movie. I thought you were saying another thing. I think the people who were hating on it were also doing too much.

I think there was a lot of performative dunking on that movie. I also think there was a lot of performative, like, this movie is transformative. I'm like, it's a nice comedy. Now is my turn to be like, now is my turn to be like I never saw it. of that, because I really, I didn't see any of that. Oh, okay. I definitely did for, I mean, it just, especially

for like what the movie was, it felt a little cringy. Sure. But, um... Are we excited to talk about a man called Otto? I'm not not excited to talk about a man called Otto. For the Rita of it all, if nothing else. For the Rita, yes, talking about Rita Wilson, absolutely.

Yeah. Really thought that she was capable of, well, I did. I mean, I did, but I didn't, because if Mary Steenbergin couldn't do it, then I guess. I think Rita Wilson and Diane Warren were in heated competition for that slot. Diane, unsurprisingly, pulled it out, as she always does. But I think Rita. Diane Warren sent suspicious voicemails to Rita Wilson, telling her she was going to gut her like a fish or something.

By the way, anybody who thinks that the snub for Taylor Swift and Best Original Song means that we will now get to do an episode on where the Crodhead sing, I have very bad news for you. we will not be. That did not have any kind of actual Oscar buzz except for that song. And while we technically could do it, it is way the fuck down the list if we ever do. And I don't think we will. Unless we have a guest who makes a sincere case for really wanting to do it because we love our guests, then maybe. But otherwise, don't hold your breath for the Crawdads, I will say. For the chaos of it. And like, so few things annoy me than when listeners, I love you all, love you all, love you all. when the people are like, well, that never really did. And it's like, you have to understand, we are talking about the lifespan of a movie. One I would like to do is the 355. I mean, you know, I'm not going to say no to the 355. Because when that was initially proposed well before the pandemic, because it took them forever to make that piece of shit, it was like huge prestige.

They, like, announced it at Cannes. And it's like, here's all these actresses. We're going to make this action movies. starring girl bosses, going pew-pew, doing spy shit. Three Oscar winners, right? It's three Oscar winners and, or is it just Lupita and Jessica? Well, it was supposed to be more because Diane Kruger replaced Marion Kotter. That's what it was. That's what it was.

Plus then we'd like talk about... Was it Andy or Cullen, one of the Can I Kick It Gang, was posting in the lead-up to... It was one of my favorite things on Twitter. It was Andy. It was Andy, I remember. It's like, it's been 355 days since the 355 was released in theater. I'm pretty sure it was Andy. Yes. It made me so happy.

Yes. And it's like one day till it's been 355 days that the 355 was released in theaters. It was good. It was a good. It was a good. I want to give you a minute to enthuse about your beloved decision to leave. Oh, I would love to do decision to leave. I know a lot of our listeners love it.

I think that would make for a good episode. It puts me in the uncomfortable position of having to like shit on a movie that a lot of people do. Not shit on. Yeah, but I like when we get to have differing opinions on episodes of a movie. Yeah. Because I don't know. Sometimes I think it's, even if it's a movie we like, it's not always interesting to listen to just two people say that they love a thing. Sure, I agree.

Or to listen to two people say they hate it. Right. You know, so it makes room for discussion. Yeah, I agree. All right. Tongway, the greatest lead performance of this year. Sure. What else?

I love, your list is really, honestly, an Emily the Criminal episode would be very good because I think that movie's awards trajectory was really interesting. One of the other things about me doing the Vulgar. We would end up talking about the White Lotus. See, that's an episode where I would sound like the grouch. Oh, you did not care for Emily the Criminal. I don't understand why

I mean, I think it's fine. I think at every point that it could be more than it than the movie is, I think it dodges that and it stays I think it's quite good. Never more interesting than it. It could be a movie that is way more interesting

than it is. And I think it's blessed to have those two performers in it. As somebody who hasn't seen stars at noon yet, will that be a fun episode for us to do or will that be a slog? I think I mean, if you want to hear me grandstand about that movie, we could talk about that can because actually last year's can is really interesting in terms of...

Oh, you just reminded me, we can do the can pool again. I'm excited to do that again. Oh, yeah, yeah. We'll see how that goes. Sorry, listeners. That's us inside baseball. That's just us doing it so fun. You know, maybe you should make it year-long...

No, fuck no. No. Because triangle of sadness... I need a break. I need a goddamn break. Everyone who drafted... Did I win the can't pool or was I second place? You won the camp.

I won the camp. Yeah, you did. Sweet. Love that. Yeah. Love that for me. And... You won the can't pool because, like, months later, you were like, you still haven't paid me for the can pool.

And I fully thought that I already had. Remember that? Oh, boy. Pay me, bitch. Yeah. Yeah, I love stars at noon. I think you would probably like it more than you'd think you would. Okay.

But, like, I mean, it's a noir. Like, I don't ever feel smart enough to talk about those movies. I also think, like, again, when you talk about, like, buzz in the context of, like, you have to look at the whole picture. We'll drag Katie onto a Stars at Noon episode because she's the one who predicted it. Oh, yeah. In a year ahead, Vanity Fair. I was also thinking of, though, in that vein,

Ticket to Paradise, which, like, at some point, there was no realistic Oscar Buzz, but they're, like, I'm still kind of surprised that, like, neither Clooney nor Julia Roberts got a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance in a Musical or Comedy, a movie that is, like, decidedly pleasant. Old Parker has done better. I will say that. Old Parker has done better than Ticket to Paradise, but I certainly didn't hate it. I haven't seen it yet. Chris, we're not going to do Pearl. I see it's on your list. Neither one of us wants to talk about Pearl.

I just, I put everything in there that was like conceivably an option. We are not doing it. I don't want to watch it again. You don't want to watch it again. I think we're fine. I was just like, this is you, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This, okay, this is also slightly our mini Pearl episode.

Oh, God. Straight men should not be allowed to do what they think is Cirque tribute. It is not good Cirque tribute Everybody that was like It's like It's like subversive cirque I was like

We have John Waters for that This The pearl Is so I'm just gonna make people mad at me Yeah you are When people were like

She's so amazing She really is bold And going for it I was like Fully Maya Rudolph To what end Like I wasn't entertained

I didn't think it was funny that movie isn't even like i don't know if it's trying to be scared i just don't think it does much i just think it's all like it's it's all artifice and the artifice is bad the movie also looks like shit like it also is incredibly predictable movie like you can guess where it's going like miles ahead of everything it does and um i like mea goth in general i think the i do too the the ways people talk about mea goth in that movie i don't feel connected to but um it makes me feel like i'm in the twilight zone yeah like yeah yeah well you don't have to talk about it anymore it's fine um do we want to have is there like one last movie we can

like go out on talking about that like we're excited to talk about katherine called birdie's going to be a fun movie that'll be i would like to have a guest that we love come on and talk about katherine called birdie with us because i think yeah that is in a few years yes in a few years I loved Catherine Called Birdie. Me too. Me too. I had two Lena Dunham supporting actors on my bath. You're crazy for that one. Andrew Scott and Catherine Called Birdie and the incredible Scott Speedman and Sharpstick.

I liked that movie that I have complicated feelings about it. I liked that I was able to bookend my year with Sharpstick in January that I hated so much. And Catherine Caldherty, which I watched towards the end of December, that I quite, quite loved. And my year of, my year of Dix, but also my year of Dunham, and it really just traversed the entire gamut of hate into love. And I guess that's- Catherine Caldarty is really wonderful. Yeah.

And Bella Ramsey, also really wonderful in Catherine Caldarty, is currently killing it on The Last of Us and a high recommendation to watch that. So, I'm just, I'm just biting my time. until people aren't talking about that show. I just don't give a fucking shit. Why? What is your problem? What is your problem with that?

I mean, it just looks exactly to me. I know that I'm probably pissing so many people off, but like it just looks like another retreat of Walking Dead game of Thrones type of TV that I just think is a... No, said, not everything's for everybody, but I will just say I... Yeah. Not everything has to be forever. I have not enthused about the Walking Dead this way. And much as I enjoyed House of the Dragon,

I know. Smart people love Last of Us. There are smart people that think it's amazing. It's quite good, is what I will say. It's just, it is of a vein that I will just never. You will also, if you watch The Last of Us, you will never stop worrying about the eventual fungal apocalypse that awaits us all, and...

Yeah, I'm not a hypochondriac in that way. Oh, see, welcome to... Welcome to this Marwin, right here. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you, after years of very close friendship telling me that you are a hypochondriac? I didn't notice about it. It's shocking to you.

Check every text that I've ever said to. Check every text message. Yes, yes, yes. I will just do a Google search, or not a Google search. Brain tumor? I would just do some type of search within our text history of, you're fine. Of, am I dying, question mark? Yes.

376 results. All right. Let's close this up. Let's shut the book on this for the year. I feel a brain tumor coming on. Listeners, we apologize if we forgot to mention any of the, you know, class of 23 that you,

or the class of 2012, the class of 22, the class of 2020 that you are hoping to hear us talk about, the list mentioned in this episode, is not, you know, definitive. There are other things as well, but at least for now,

that's our episode. If you want more this had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbust.tumbler.com. You should also follow us on Twitter. It had underscore Oscar Buzz. And on Instagram at this at Oscar Buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find you and send you WebMD search results? Don't send me WebMD search results. I will block you and report you. I am on Twitter at Joe

Reed and on Letterbox, also at Joe Reed, read spelled REID, in both of those cases. And I am also on Twitter and Letterbox at Chrissy File. That is F.E.I.L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mievous for their technical guidance. Please member to rate, like, review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher wherever else you get your podcast. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility. So please do send us WebMD results to Joseph Reed, especially the most insane one so we can hopefully trial by fire break that habit, but also send him some love and send us some love with a nice review. That's all for this week. We hope

we'll be back next week for more buzz. Bye. You, it says a win. Everyone's a winner, baby. That's no lie. You never fail to satisfy. Thank you.