2025 Oscar Nominations: Snubs, Surprises, and WTFs

Sean and Amanda give their instant reactions to the Oscar nominations announced this morning, including their takes on what films are running hot and which ones seem to have cooled off over the past few months (1:00). Is ‘Emilia Pérez’ the full-on front-runner? Will recent stories about the use of AI in ‘The Brutalist’ sour its chances in the big categories? Plus: They check in on the state of the Big Oscar Bet from September, when they attempted to predict the nominations and winners in 11 categories (1:07:00). Then, Sean is joined by the director of ‘Flow,’ Gints Zilbalodis, to discuss his nontraditional path to the director’s chair, the unexpected mass appeal of the film, how he found his particular animation style, and more (1:16:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Gints Zilbalodis Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellini. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again. Follow The Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:40Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends who support whatever you're into, like re-watching a director's entire catalog in the lead-up to their latest release. And like those friends, State Farm is there to help you feel supported by helping you choose the coverage you need. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you.

• 1:22Sean Fennessey?

  So you can check coverage off the list and spend more time debating movie rankings. Go online at statefarm.com or use the easily accessible app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 1:40Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fantasy.

• 1:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 1:42Sean Fennessey?

  And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the 2025 Academy Award nominations.

• 1:49Sean Fennessey?

  We will talk about the brutalists.

• 1:51Amanda Dobbins?

  That was the AI version.

• 1:53Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, God. We will talk about that. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Gints Zilbalodis, the Latvian animation director who was twice nominated this morning for his movie Flow in the Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature category. I talked with Mallory Rubin about this movie at the end of last year, one of her favorite films. It's about a cat, of course. It's a beautiful treatise on surviving. We are also surviving here on The Big Picture. I hope you'll stick around for my conversation with Gints after we talk about the nominations. But let's talk about those nominations, Amanda. Headlines from this morning. Amelia Perez has 13 Academy Award nominations. I wouldn't say worth surprise.

• 2:34Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 2:34Sean Fennessey?

  But when you put it in context with all of the films that have gotten 13 nominations, the second most in the history of the Academy Awards. It's interesting.

• 2:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Would you like to read the rest of the 13 nominations?

• 2:47Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, I'll cite the films that it now sits alongside in history. That includes The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Who Is Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Shape of Water, Mary Poppins, Chicago, Forrest Gump, Shakespeare in Love, Oppenheimer, From Here to Eternity, and Gone with the Wind.

• 3:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Some, some great films in there.

• 3:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, not all great.

• 3:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, Chicago.

• 3:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, mostly great, or at least mostly historic. And so this is at least a historic thing. This is the most nominations for an international feature at the Academy Awards. Something that I think is very indicative of where this award show has been going for the last five or so years. In addition, 10 nominations for The Brutalist, 10 nominations for Wicked, six nominations for Enora, eight nominations for A Complete Unknown. Broadly, your takeaway from what these nominations mean at 7:41 in the morning.

• 3:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Been up since 5:30.

• 3:44Sean Fennessey?

  I am same.

• 3:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, here we are. Mostly what we expected. And, and I guess I think they're okay nominations just because they've validated my predictions. You know, like, that's the mindset that we're in right now. I mean, that's true.

• 3:58Sean Fennessey?

  Crusades, Amanda, has returned.

• 4:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You feel the same way. Don't put me on an island with that.

• 4:04Sean Fennessey?

  But there were surprises. It's not that they were without surprises, but for the most part, this went where we thought it was gonna go.

• 4:09Amanda Dobbins?

  So Amelia Perez, still incredibly strong, the brutalist, quite strong, a complete unknown, strong.

• 4:17Sean Fennessey?

  Stronger than I would have guessed two months ago, that's for sure.

• 4:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Absolutely. And Enora, like, hanging in, but I don't think that's gonna happen, you know? But we, but-

• 4:26Sean Fennessey?

  We should talk about it.

• 4:27Amanda Dobbins?

  We've been there for a little while. That's true. Now, now that we know the 10, we can get into the science of ranked choice voting, which, like, gets very intense.

• 4:34Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly.

• 4:35Amanda Dobbins?

  But it does seem like it's Amelia Perez versus the brutalist.

• 4:40Sean Fennessey?

  I think so.

• 4:41Amanda Dobbins?

  At this point.

• 4:41Sean Fennessey?

  That does seem to be the race. Now, the case for Enora with six nominations, and we can talk about those nominations, but they're the six key ones. They're picture, director, actress, supporting actor, screenplay, editing.

• 4:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:53Sean Fennessey?

  That's where you wanna be, if you wanna be in the Best Picture race.

• 4:55Amanda Dobbins?

  That's where I wanna be.

• 4:56Sean Fennessey?

  It's where I'd wanna be as well. Obviously, we really like Enora. I had felt like Enora was the Best Picture winner since I saw it in August. 13 nominations for Amelia Perez is hard to look away from. That's a, that's a very large number.

• 5:08Amanda Dobbins?

  It is.

• 5:08Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of these films, though not all, did go on to win Best Picture that got that number. You know, movies like The Shape of Water and Oppenheimer in recent history have done it, and so that's very notable to me. That being said, it's a divisive movie.

• 5:20Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a divisive movie. It also occupies the Netflix spot, and Netflix has had a lot of 10 and 11 nomination Best Picture nominees in the past few years that, like, still have not made it there.

• 5:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Famously, The Irishman went 0 for 10. Maestro did not do as well as it would have liked. Roma did not do as well as it would have liked. A lot of these movies that get a lot of nominations often fall short. I'm interested. I would say that the public internet reaction to this Amelia Perez windfall has been very negative, but we know that filmmakers, actors, musicians, love this movie. They have been celebrating this movie for months.

• 6:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 6:01Sean Fennessey?

  Ever since it premiered at Cannes. Greta Gerwig's jury at Cannes gave it prizes, so...

• 6:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Don't, don't point at me like that. Listen, I wasn't-

• 6:09Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just, I'm just noting that that's where this all started.

• 6:12Amanda Dobbins?

  They also gave Enora the Palms, so it's like, okay.

• 6:15Sean Fennessey?

  Um, yeah, I think-

• 6:18Sean Fennessey?

  It's mostly chalk in terms of our expectations with a handful of surprises. I think it's probably important to note that continuing shifts towards both international filmmaking and a sort of more audacious filmmaking style. There were a couple of very exciting surprises. For example, you predicted Nickel Boys in Best Picture.

• 6:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 6:36Sean Fennessey?

  I wasn't sure that that was actually going to happen.

• 6:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And it happened.

• 6:39Sean Fennessey?

  It happened, which is tremendously exciting. My, one of my favorite movies of the year. I know you've just had a chance to see it, so we'll get a chance to talk about it in a week or so on the podcast. 13 nominations for Emilia Perez, but also five for The Substance from a French filmmaker. It's a, you know, technically an American film in English, but also a deeply French movie. And then I think the real stunner of the morning, in my opinion.

• 7:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:02Sean Fennessey?

  Is I'm Still Here in Best Picture.

• 7:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 7:04Sean Fennessey?

  The Brazilian film. And also Fernanda Torres getting in at Best Actress.

• 7:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 7:09Sean Fennessey?

  So Fernanda Torres won at the Globes.

• 7:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 7:12Sean Fennessey?

  Did that Globes win push I'm Still Here forward in a way that it otherwise would not have? Because in the past, we've sort of said, eh, the Globes, don't take them too seriously. They're televised, but maybe they don't have a big impact on the race.

• 7:23Amanda Dobbins?

  In the past, we've said that, but we've also said as the race and the Oscar season and culture at large gets, you know, kind of more spread out and more unpredictable. Any sort of bellwether, any sort of ceremony trophy given out does have the power to push something in front of people. I do also just want to say the Brazilian contingent, very powerful.

• 7:46Sean Fennessey?

  Very powerful, indeed.

• 7:48Amanda Dobbins?

  And international, you know?

• 7:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, yes.

• 7:50Amanda Dobbins?

  So I do, they're dedicated and their hard work paid off this morning.

• 7:55Sean Fennessey?

  Two foreign-born directors in the Best Director race, which is becoming a trend pretty consistently here. That is one of the more high-minded branches of the Academy. They.

• 8:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Medium.

• 8:05Sean Fennessey?

  Well, they didn't nominate Edward Berger, which I guess is one of the sort of significant snubs. To me, shows a real weakness for Conclave. I've been holding on to my. Maybe Conclave at the last minute take.

• 8:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I don't think that that's gonna happen. But now we can just be like happy that we had Conclave.

• 8:22Sean Fennessey?

  We had Conclave. It was a good movie. We that we had fun watching.

• 8:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Good memes, you know, and it's still, we can make Pope jokes, but you know.

• 8:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. The other thing is that all the Best Director nominees this year are first time nominees, which I think also indicates shifting tides at the Academy. Plus, a lot of bold faced names that you might expect to see at the Academy Awards historically are not here. For example, Angelina Jolie not nominated, Nicole Kidman not nominated. Daniel Craig, not always an Oscar contender, but certainly a very famous person, not nominated. This is a, this, these award shows are different now. They are much more, for lack of a better phrase, critically minded. How that washes with Amelia Perez, I don't totally know.

• 9:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I don't know. I really, it's, it remains the big mystery. I know I've been saying like, I would like to have someone who is actually enthusiastic about Amelia Perez, come on the show. I would say that like, you know, I've had the occasional, I'm trying to be as kind as possible, random person on the internet volunteer. But even the very kind, respectful, random people on the internet are just like, I like it. And that's cool, but I would actually like a filmmaking like defense of here is why this works. And here is why this is, in my estimation, good.

• 9:40Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And I don't, I haven't found that person yet. I don't know where that person is.

• 9:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I feel like the movie is actually waiting for its big moment. And I'm wondering if SAG Ensemble is going to be it. Because if that, so the SAG Ensemble nominees are Enora, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Amelia Perez, and Wicked. All five of those movies are nominated for Best Picture.

• 10:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 10:03Sean Fennessey?

  We've seen moments like the Parasite moment, when that cast got recognized and there was a sense of joy and exaltation. They were being celebrated at the Golden Globes together, but this would be a slightly different spin that I think would push forward the like, is Amelia Perez actually happening story? On the flip side, The Brutalist. The Brutalist, unlike Amelia Perez, has no songs, so. It has a score, obviously, which was recognized. Daniel Bloomberg's amazing score that I've even got you singing now on the show.

• 10:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Can we talk about score now?

• 10:34Sean Fennessey?

  If you'd like. It's awfully early in the episode.

• 10:36Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but it's not because I do think I have already heard from multiple people this morning about the Challenger snub. And you mentioned Daniel Craig not being nominated for Queer. The broader theme is that the Academy turned its back on anything related to Luca Guadagnino.

• 10:50Sean Fennessey?

  Tough morning for Luca.

• 10:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Which, to me, is just silly. And I do also think the number of people I've already heard about, heard from about Challengers and Challengers not being nominated in Original Score, despite winning the Golden Globe. That seems like a mistake.

• 11:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it certainly undercuts what we're talking about here. The nominees for Original Score this year, not the worst batch I've ever seen, but not necessarily an inspired batch. The Brutalist, Conclave, Emilia Perez, Wicked, and The Wild Robot.

• 11:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, clears the way for Daniel Bloomberg and The Brutalist, which is, that's a great score. I've seen the film. Guess what? I've seen The Brutalist. Good movie.

• 11:28Sean Fennessey?

  We should definitely talk about that a little bit now, and I think we'll talk about it maybe more in depth. I do want to talk about the AI thing because people have been asking me about the AI thing for, ever since that story broke, including a fine young man at Legoland where I was over the weekend.

• 11:41Amanda Dobbins?

  So you told me this. Can you give me the demo on this gentleman?

• 11:45Sean Fennessey?

  He's gotta be mid-30s. I would say kind of a core Big Pick listener.

• 11:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 11:48Sean Fennessey?

  Mid-30s dad.

• 11:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 11:50Sean Fennessey?

  Who loves the cinema.

• 11:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 11:51Sean Fennessey?

  Who was waiting in line for a ride at Legoland as I was.

• 11:54Amanda Dobbins?

  What kind of rides are there at Legoland?

• 11:58Sean Fennessey?

  Emotionally intoxicating. No, they're rides for little kids. They're rides for like kids between the ages of like three and nine.

• 12:05Amanda Dobbins?

  So like spinning teacups and stuff, but not?

• 12:07Sean Fennessey?

  But made of Legos.

• 12:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sure.

• 12:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, essentially. Anyway, that man wanted to know what I thought of the controversy as it was breaking in real time. Hadn't really gotten all the information at that point as I was traversing Carlsbad for 48 hours. Nevertheless, you know, The Brutalist score, as you said, in a good position to win. I think The Brutalist is in a good position to win in a bunch of categories here. It's probably the biggest threat to Emilia Perez. I can't help but feel like... Where Conclave and even Enora once was in my mind, A Complete Unknown is slowly, slowly, slowly creeping up.

• 12:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:42Sean Fennessey?

  You know, we got, of course, Timothy Chalamet. We got Best Adapted Screenplay for Jay Cox and James Mangold. We got James Mangold in Best Director, which also happened at DGA. Very rarely do DGA and the Oscars match, and I believe they did match this year. And-

• 12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Monica Barbaro.

• 12:58Sean Fennessey?

  And Monica Barbaro, which is-

• 12:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is great.

• 13:00Sean Fennessey?

  One of our favorite nominations this morning.

• 13:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, that just like that works out.

• 13:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 13:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you're right, it's creeping. I mean, it's, it's a really, really crowd pleasing movie. I, I put it on for my almost three year old and he was wrapped. And it is, and well made performances, it's comforting.

• 13:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 13:18Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 13:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 13:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, it's familiar to a large group of people, but still good. And so I think like the walk hardness of it all that the internet really loves is, is not really a problem for most people.

• 13:34Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed.

• 13:35Amanda Dobbins?

  And you do need a throwback nomination. Like, just kind of like a movie that feels like an Oscar movie.

• 13:40Sean Fennessey?

  Hundred percent. It is the most standard of the films that are here. It does make a few creative choices in terms of like where it charts Dylan and how it portrays Dylan that is different from, say, Walk the Line.

• 13:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 13:52Sean Fennessey?

  Which I appreciate about the movie itself. And I think, I think actually voters are literally responding to the specific choices that were made in the movie that differentiate it from past music biopics. But to your point-

• 14:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I think they're just kind of responding to everyone looking beautiful and playing Dylan's songs and you just kind of like fix it on the screen. I mean, I watched it, you know? Knox was just like, who's that? That's Bob Dylan. And then just didn't look away.

• 14:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 14:16Amanda Dobbins?

  He did also start asking for like a Rolling Stone like two minutes into the movie. And I was like, well, you've isolated the central tension here.

• 14:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, there is something primal about that movie. You're right. And I think it is scratching that feeling of what old Hollywood does, for lack of a better phrase. But um, eight nominations is more than I would have guessed even two weeks ago. I didn't, I didn't have Mangold in for my nominations.

• 14:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't either, yeah.

• 14:39Sean Fennessey?

  So that reveals something kind of fascinating. And in a year where there is really no favorite, despite Emilia Perez having all these nominations, and to your point about ranked choice voting, you never know. We really never know. That's a movie that, as you say, makes people happy. And so if it gets a lot of number two and number three votes, that could help.

• 14:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I guess, so let's, let's go through it.

• 14:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 15:00Amanda Dobbins?

  They're gonna be the people who have Emilia Perez at number one.

• 15:03Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:04Amanda Dobbins?

  What is their number two?

• 15:07Sean Fennessey?

  Enora?

• 15:08Amanda Dobbins?

  It could be The Substance?

• 15:10Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe The Substance, yeah.

• 15:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, because it's just in terms of like going for it international.

• 15:15Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm. We should say that The Substance got five Academy Award nominations, which is fucking crazy. Somewhere Frank Henenlotter and Steve Yuzna and David Cronenberg are wondering how thi- this monument to body horror that was built on their shoulders is being celebrated in this way. It is amazing.

• 15:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Because it's pop.

• 15:36Sean Fennessey?

  It is, but it is so gross.

• 15:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it's like, it's really gross, but you can also just forget about the last 40 minutes of it, you know?

• 15:46Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yeah.

• 15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  You, and, and I think in the way it's been cannibalized in the, in pop culture, like lots of references to it, but not to the last 40 minutes.

• 15:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 15:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Even though they are like ultimately the, the point of the movie.

• 15:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Elisa Sue Monstro, yeah. God bless her. May she rest in peace.

• 16:04Amanda Dobbins?

  So I get it.

• 16:06Sean Fennessey?

  So Enora, The Brutalist, The Complete Unknown Conclave, Dune Part Two, Emilia Perez, I'm Still Here, Nickel Boys, The Substance and Wicked. These are the Best Picture nominees.

• 16:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:15Sean Fennessey?

  By far, the most surprising one is I'm Still Here. The second most I would say is Nickel Boys, though many people did have it in and we had it in at various times over the last few months.

• 16:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 16:22Sean Fennessey?

  Conclave and Dune Part Two now seem to be relegated to a like, congratulations on a nice year for your movie.

• 16:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:28Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe you'll win one or two below the line.

• 16:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. We liked, we liked seeing it.

• 16:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 16:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, Dune, Dune Part Two, I don't even know if they like that. Dune Part Two seems real grudging across the board.

• 16:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. How many nominee nominations did Dune Part Two get?

• 16:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it got production design. I want to say it got sound.

• 16:45Sean Fennessey?

  Sound, visual effects, cinematography and production design along with Best Picture. So five nominations for it, which is less than it got last time, though some key below the line nominations. And that cinematography category is just like cool, just full of grand artists.

• 17:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Sean Fennessey?

  And so Greg Fraser, who I believe won for Dune Part One some years ago, maybe he didn't, I have to double, double check that. But, um, it, it is not really competing for Best Picture. And Denis Villeneuve did not get Best Director, which we knew was going to happen, but. Not ideal.

• 17:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Not that he didn't get nominated?

• 17:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, not ideal.

• 17:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Because you think, because you want like a more popular include, you know, representation in Best Director, just because you think Denis-

• 17:29Sean Fennessey?

  He's a great filmmaker?

• 17:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 17:30Sean Fennessey?

  Working at the highest levels of his capacity in the Dune films?

• 17:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:34Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 17:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, yeah.

• 17:36Sean Fennessey?

  Jacques Audiard is there?

• 17:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, sure. But, you know, what are, what were we gonna do? I think Denis is still working. I think he still has, has time. Still not my favorite Denis movie, so that, that's okay with me.

• 17:49Sean Fennessey?

  That one wasn't nominated either, so, you know.

• 17:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I know.

• 17:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's, it's not getting any better.

• 17:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, that's true. What's up with all the Letterboxd love for, um, En Sundays?

• 17:59Sean Fennessey?

  En Sundays?

• 18:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, En Sundays, you know, I don't know, like, how much-

• 18:03Sean Fennessey?

  It was widely acclaimed when it was released.

• 18:04Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's a good movie, but it like shows up as like top five Letterboxd all the time. It's like really, really, really-

• 18:12Sean Fennessey?

  I mean-

• 18:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Big on Letterboxd, if you will.

• 18:13Sean Fennessey?

  Letterboxd, like The Academy, is very international. And a lot, if you look at the highest rated, the top 250 that they have-

• 18:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's, it's often, there's lots of Japanese films, Edward Yang films are always near the top. So I think it's probably a reflection of that.

• 18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, that's cool. Good movie.

• 18:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 18:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Again, I-

• 18:29Sean Fennessey?

  Very upsetting movie.

• 18:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe like, maybe number five on my Villainov list, but-

• 18:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's right around there. It was, it was his, his sort of major-

• 18:38Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's like number one on a lot of-

• 18:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it was his pre-Hollywood breakthrough.

• 18:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:42Sean Fennessey?

  So, and maybe it's like there's just some cool points to really liking it as well?

• 18:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 18:46Sean Fennessey?

  Given, given this performative Letterboxd thing that we know, we all know is happening. Anything you want to say about Wicked? I mean, Wicked, 10 nominations, you pointed out mostly in craft categories. So of course it's two lead performances, Cynthia Erivo in Best Actress, and Ariana Grande made it into Supporting Actress.

• 19:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Best Picture, obviously. It did not get adapted screenplay, which we had both predicted. Instead, that spot went to, well-

• 19:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You had put Sing Sing as the fourth and I had put Nickel Boys as the fourth. Anyway.

• 19:19Sean Fennessey?

  And they both got in.

• 19:20Amanda Dobbins?

  They both got in, which is wonderful.

• 19:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Frankly. It's eligible in score and there in score instead of Challengers, which is one of the great outrages.

• 19:28Sean Fennessey?

  This sucks.

• 19:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that's just like.

• 19:30Sean Fennessey?

  Crummy nomination.

• 19:31Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, production design, costume design, all of, all of sound, all of those things, it's represented. It feels like people really admire it and that they went for it, but it's probably not gonna win much is what, is my guess now.

• 19:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I wonder. I mean, I think it has a chance in costumes.

• 19:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. All the popular dresses were very good.

• 19:52Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I think if the film were shot and lit differently, it actually would have had a really good case in production design because it was all practical sets that were built. It's not CGI, but because of that odd decision to backlight and the way that the colors graded, doesn't, those sets don't look very good.

• 20:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I'm so mad.

• 20:12Sean Fennessey?

  So that's an interesting one.

• 20:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Shout out to Mitch at the Academy Museum, who's a Big Picture listener and was standing, he was at this, the color exhibit. This is what made me think of it. Where Dorothy's shoes are. He was watching over Dorothy's shoes. And that is a great exhibit about how color is appropriately used in films, not, like, unlike some other movies.

• 20:33Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Mitch.

• 20:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:34Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for all your work protecting Dorothy.

• 20:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Shout out to people who understand what color should look like.

• 20:39Sean Fennessey?

  You mentioned Sing Sing. Sing Sing not in Best Picture.

• 20:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:42Sean Fennessey?

  I did have it in Best Picture in my predictions. I thought it was gonna get across the line. It, it did get in at screenplay and when that happened, I thought, okay.

• 20:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:50Sean Fennessey?

  We're good. This is, I think it's gonna happen. And then Clarence Macklin, you know, that was one of the first nominations announced this morning. He did not make the cut for Best Supporting Actor. We'll talk about that category momentarily. So it feels kind of weak. Also, A Real Pain didn't make Best Picture. Now, you've been one of the few A Real Pain semi-detractors out there.

• 21:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Not a semi-detractor. I think, I think this is appropriate.

• 21:13Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 21:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it, it did get a screenplay nomination. And Kieran Culkin was nominated. So I think right now we're at the appropriate level of recognition. Come Oscar night, we might tip back over into a little too much. But, but this is, this is good.

• 21:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 21:31Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a good movie, an interesting screenplay.

• 21:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, I'm interested to hear what you have to say about Guy Pearce in The Brutalist, and also when you see, if you have not yet seen The Apprentice, because now I feel like you have to watch it.

• 21:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I watched The Apprentice on, uh, January 19th.

• 21:45Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, okay.

• 21:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, at the night, you know, just to get ready for the day. And then I went to The Brutalist on January 20th.

• 21:51Sean Fennessey?

  Wow. So that was- Big hillbilly elegy on the election day vibes there.

• 21:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I did think of you.

• 21:56Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay. So, not what Sing Sing wanted. I genuinely just think that they bungled the Sing Sing thing, and it should have just come out in October or November, and this would have been a little bit of a different story. I think they could have just hid that movie after Toronto for a long period of time, and then given it a traditional fall release. The fact that Nickel Boys did get nominated in Best Picture indicates that, you know, with Sing Sing, like, people couldn't watch it on VOD, it wasn't streaming anywhere, you had to go to screenings, but yet, anybody who did watch it, found a way to make an emotional connection to it, at least people that I've spoken to.

• 22:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 22:29Sean Fennessey?

  So it's a bit of an, it's an odd miss, but you, you can see exactly why it happened?

• 22:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. The, the other piece of it is that that is an A24 film, and I do wonder how much of A24's awards resources got shifted to The Brutalist, um, with, with success. And whatever you think of that marketing campaign, and I'm excited to talk about, talk about it with you, it worked.

• 22:52Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, so successful.

• 22:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it was so successful, so smart by them, and obviously, they got a tremendous amount of nominations, and now it's a frontrunner. So, I think that's a shame.

• 22:59Sean Fennessey?

  I think you're right. I think that actually is the most significant thing that happened, which is that, but they had already had the August release at that time, and it was like, did they know at that time that they were-

• 23:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Even before Venice, like, I get it, yeah.

• 23:11Sean Fennessey?

  It was weak, and they needed an acquisition, or, I don't know, but it's an interesting turn of events, because that's a movie that, especially with this Academy, I would have thought would have done a little bit better. And I, and it's, Coleman Domingo did get nominated, rightfully so. Macklin was the, the, the performance I preferred of those two.

• 23:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too.

• 23:26Sean Fennessey?

  So, that's too bad. It, it, Supporting Actor is very, very competitive this year, and there's a lot of really good performances, so it's a tough one.

• 23:32Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's not competitive. I mean, the, the spots were competitive. It's a foregone conclusion to Kieran Culkin. Which I don't understand.

• 23:39Sean Fennessey?

  They're full of very admired performances, though.

• 23:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 23:41Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like Yur Borasov is the big breakthrough. And then you've got a bunch of actors who people are like, that guy's the best actor. Like Guy Pearce, Jeremy Strong and Edward Norton. You know, this is Edward Norton's fourth nomination.

• 23:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 23:52Sean Fennessey?

  He's not won before. Guy Pearce is having this like, why was he not, you know, Cary Grant?

• 23:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 23:58Sean Fennessey?

  Renaissance going on right now.

• 24:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Great questions.

• 24:00Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and of course Jeremy Strong, who's got multiple Emmys and who is widely admired by his colleagues.

• 24:07Amanda Dobbins?

  He's very good.

• 24:07Sean Fennessey?

  He's, he, well, he is very, he is very good.

• 24:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Good performances by him and by Sebastian Stan.

• 24:12Sean Fennessey?

  Um, nevertheless.

• 24:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Really annoying movie, but whatever.

• 24:14Sean Fennessey?

  Um, that's interesting. I can't wait to talk to you about it.

• 24:17Amanda Dobbins?

  It's just like, I don't need it. You, I mean, you and Brian said it best. It's like, yeah, like I get it on a number of levels. And also, I don't really care.

• 24:24Sean Fennessey?

  Well, then let's talk about best actor in Sebastian Stan.

• 24:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 24:27Sean Fennessey?

  Because he was nominated.

• 24:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 24:29Sean Fennessey?

  Not for A Different Man. I think the movie that we both prefer of his two performances. This does feel a little bit like a combo acknowledgement.

• 24:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course.

• 24:37Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like we all settled on The Apprentice here, but that this is for a year in which he had two very challenging and interesting performances. And that left Daniel Craig on the outside in this race. I'm okay with that. I, you know, queer to me, I'm, I'm very mixed on. I, I really don't know what's going to happen in this category. And I guess it is somewhat related to the brutalist AI discussion that we can have.

• 24:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 24:59Sean Fennessey?

  But I, it really does feel like a, like a death race between Brody and Chalamet.

• 25:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I would agree.

• 25:05Sean Fennessey?

  Although Chalamet's not winning a lot. Like Brody was on a bit of an unbroken streak.

• 25:10Amanda Dobbins?

  But just like a complete unknown, it's climbing, you know? And like SNL's coming this weekend. He's, he's working hard. He's really good. And as the enthusiasm for that movie and that kind of old fashioned performance grows, I think he's, he's got a real chance.

• 25:29Sean Fennessey?

  I think he does too.

• 25:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Here's my question. Do people outside of America care about Bob Dylan?

• 25:37Sean Fennessey?

  He's an international artist, but not the way that like Queen is. You know, where Queen kind of translates to every language. I don't think he's quite at that level. He's certainly much more of an American institution.

• 25:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 25:51Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think that really matters, though, because I think actor transforms and learns to do something he didn't know how to do before is a tried and true Oscar playbook.

• 26:00Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true, but I think as, as the Academy has grown, I mean, I like Robbie Malek did win for that, but as you said, Queen, international. I guess Renee Zellweger also won for Judy Garland, but Somewhere Over the Rainbow is like, you know, the, the movie song of, of a lifetime for everyone. So.

• 26:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's a movie about Hollywood royalty.

• 26:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:24Sean Fennessey?

  Queen is a, you know, that was like going to a rock concert, they seen that movie, whether you liked it or not. Bob Dylan is slightly more esoteric, but he is iconoclastic and iconographic. You know, like there is something about seeing that silhouette in the movie that I think is very powerful and I think voters are drawn to it. And plus, Shalhoub is just, he's got a tremendous amount of young movie star charisma. And Brody's already won before.

• 26:52Amanda Dobbins?

  But it, it, it does feel a little bit also like the Leo thing where it took Leo so long to win.

• 26:59Sean Fennessey?

  Could be.

• 26:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And for not his best movie or performance.

• 27:01Sean Fennessey?

  What would you equate this performance for Shalhoub? This is also, by the way, Shalhoub's second nomination because he was also nominated for Lucasfilm.

• 27:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Call Me By Your Name.

• 27:12Sean Fennessey?

  Call Me By Your Name, thank you.

• 27:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. But was not nominated for Dune, which would be his Titanic. So then he's nominated here for, was Leo nominated for Catch Me If You Can? I mean, very different, The Aviator, was he nominated for The Aviator?

• 27:28Sean Fennessey?

  Let's take a look at his nominations. Worth, worth scouring.

• 27:32Amanda Dobbins?

  But again, The Aviator in terms of.

• 27:34Sean Fennessey?

  What's Eating Gilbert Grape was his first.

• 27:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sure, that's the Call Me By Your Name.

• 27:37Sean Fennessey?

  And then The Aviator was second.

• 27:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so this is The Aviator, yeah.

• 27:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Blood Diamond was third, which is your favorite.

• 27:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah. An incredible episode of the rewatchables. If you are looking for a way to just escape the world.

• 27:52Sean Fennessey?

  The Wolf of Wall Street, The Revenant, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Of course, it took him Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I would argue that him getting Passover for Wolf of Wall Street and Django is bizarre. And then ultimately, they gave it to him for Revenant. But you know, you could have made the case that The Aviator is a movie. It isn't our favorite Martin Scorsese movie, but it's a very accomplished movie. He's really good in that film.

• 28:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:14Sean Fennessey?

  He's a little young to be doing some of the things he does in that movie, but you could make the same case for Shalhoub.

• 28:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. But so that indicates to me that I like, I don't really know if it's gonna happen.

• 28:23Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 28:24Amanda Dobbins?

  But I mean, we'll talk more about The Brutalist and about Brody. And about that, and that Golden Globe speech also, which, you know, he did have the opportunity.

• 28:34Sean Fennessey?

  He did.

• 28:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And I don't think he totally nailed the speech.

• 28:36Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I think that there are other issues that they're gonna have to contend with in that respect. Let's carve out 15 minutes to discuss that at the end of this conversation. Supporting actress, this was also one of the most competitive categories because there were so many contenders. I was convinced that Jamie Lee Curtis was getting in.

• 28:51Amanda Dobbins?

  So was I.

• 28:52Sean Fennessey?

  And she did not get in.

• 28:53Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 28:53Sean Fennessey?

  Daniel Dedwiler also did not get in.

• 28:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:56Sean Fennessey?

  Margaret Qualley also did not get in. The nominees for Supporting Actress are...

• 29:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Monica Barbaro, which does give credence to your alphabet theory because she took the question mark spot with that B.

• 29:10Sean Fennessey?

  On the other hand, Isabella Rossellini getting recognized does not.

• 29:13Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but I predicted it for the list.

• 29:16Sean Fennessey?

  You did.

• 29:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't realize this is her first nomination, which when you think about it, makes sense. But she's Isabella Rossellini, so she's just like in the firmament.

• 29:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Amanda Dobbins?

  You assume that she's been there. Really, it was just her mom?

• 29:26Sean Fennessey?

  She's cinema royalty and also I don't think this was a factor at all because of when voting closed. But a lot of people are rewatching Blue Velvet right now since David Lynch passed away. And obviously, her performance in that movie is tremendous and very upsetting and very powerful and kind of like etched into movie history.

• 29:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 29:42Sean Fennessey?

  So it's not shocking to see her there. I had her as an alt. Ariana Grande, we mentioned already. Felicity Jones for The Brutalist. Some people were predicting would miss. I know you're probably gonna have some strong opinions about that character. And Zoe Saldana, who's almost certainly gonna win.

• 29:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:56Sean Fennessey?

  This category.

• 29:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:57Sean Fennessey?

  Not a lot, much like in Supporting Actor, not a lot of tension or heat in this race. We were just kind of waiting to see who made the four or five spots.

• 30:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Who gets to show up.

• 30:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. So it's okay.

• 30:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I don't really have any other notes.

• 30:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Jamie Lee Curtis will probably still be there because she's an Oscar winner and a member of the Academy. So she'll get to have a nice night out.

• 30:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that's right. Maybe she'll even present, you know, could be.

• 30:20Amanda Dobbins?

  She loves to be in the mix.

• 30:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, she's a cheerleader for the for the industry. Actress in a leading role. We mentioned Cynthia Erivo has already made it. This is her second nomination. Carla Sofia Gascon with her first nomination for Emilio Perez. Mikey Madison, also her first nomination. Demi Moore with her first nomination for The Substance and Fernanda Torres for her first nomination. Some, what is it, 27 years after her mom, I believe, was nominated for Central Station. So Fernanda Torres, you seen that movie yet?

• 30:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm pissed off because.

• 30:56Sean Fennessey?

  Now you gotta watch it.

• 30:58Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, I was gonna watch it anyway because it's nominated an international feature and I think, I mean, I do think Emilio Perez will win there, so, but it's it's a contender. But I I thought I had it locked up where I would have seen everything that was nominated.

• 31:13Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. This is the one you haven't gotten up.

• 31:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and so, and you know, so I picked The Apprentice for that reason.

• 31:18Sean Fennessey?

  Smart.

• 31:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 31:20Sean Fennessey?

  You didn't, you did not believe in Fernanda.

• 31:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I went to see Hard Truth instead and I'm incredibly glad I did because that is an absolutely amazing movie. I was absolutely, I was bowled over by it. I can't wait to talk to you about it. I think Marianne Jean Baptiste should have been nominated and that's one of the, you know, I haven't seen, I'm still here, so I can't speak to Fernanda Torres. And we try not to do the taking away, snub, whatever, but that's just a loss. That was an incredible.

• 31:45Sean Fennessey?

  She would have been my pick to win.

• 31:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:47Sean Fennessey?

  I, Hard Truth was completely shut out. I had it, I think, in original screenplay as well. And the Academy, you know, over the years has really liked Mike Lee's movies. We haven't had an opportunity to talk about him too much on the show because I think he's only released one film in the last seven years. But yeah, Fernanda Torres is clearly in that spot that at least I'd been holding for Marianne Jean Baptiste. And you've mentioned the Brazilian contingent is very strong. This movie is resonating with people. It did not really resonate with me. It is a very important story and it's obviously deeply important to the history of Brazil and tragic in so many ways. The actual movie itself, I didn't really connect with, but it is clearly connecting with lots and lots of people.

• 32:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I will also say, I saw Fernanda Torres at the Debbie Magazine Best Performances Party. She looked very stunning and she, very elegant. I'd like to age like that if I could. And also, you know, was like there in the mix. So I, she's campaigning.

• 32:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, of course, of course. Absolutely.

• 32:47Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, that's allowed.

• 32:48Sean Fennessey?

  For the longest time, I thought this was a very easy Mikey Madison, Angel New Best Actress coasting win. And now it just feels like it's Demi Moore.

• 32:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:56Sean Fennessey?

  And that's just over.

• 32:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's, that's nice.

• 33:00Sean Fennessey?

  Is there gonna be like, any surprises in the major categories?

• 33:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Actor? We're not totally sure.

• 33:07Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's a bit of a coin flip. I don't know if it'll be a surprise. We're getting a little bit in the acting categories because of the number of precursors that we now have and the level of visibility.

• 33:18Amanda Dobbins?

  This happens, this happens every year. So even.

• 33:21Sean Fennessey?

  More so in the last three, though. The last three years, I think going back to Everything Everywhere All at Once.

• 33:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:27Sean Fennessey?

  It was kind of pretty clear after SAG what was gonna happen.

• 33:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but that, SAG was pretty late and it flipped. I think we thought on nominations morning that it was gonna be Cate Blanchett. And then once Michelle Yeoh won at SAG, we were like, oh, it's Michelle Yeoh.

• 33:40Sean Fennessey?

  And same for Jamie Lee Curtis.

• 33:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:42Sean Fennessey?

  But then like that, that was a kind of concretizing of a potential narrative.

• 33:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but you know, we're not there yet.

• 33:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. That's true. Um, okay. Any other critical surprises to you? I thought September 5th in original screenplay was a bit strange. It's a movie that I like.

• 33:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I like it too.

• 33:57Sean Fennessey?

  You know, very like well-made, modest venture. Um, I interviewed Tim Felbaum, that'll run on the show next week. The, the writer and director who's nominated here. Uh, very competently written screenplay, very unflashy. We've often cited this category as the cool category. This is where like, the most interesting and transgressive movies usually go.

• 34:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 34:19Sean Fennessey?

  No challengers.

• 34:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Disappointing.

• 34:22Sean Fennessey?

  No hard truths.

• 34:24Amanda Dobbins?

  No hard truths. No A Different Man, which I was never gonna happen, but like, was a cool screenplay.

• 34:29Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of a bummer.

• 34:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I, I don't, I don't really get it. It's a little bit like the. I call this like the Belfast category, which is like, fine movie till it wins Best Picture, which it didn't, you know? But I was just like, I kinda liked it. I'm like, very accomplished.

• 34:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 34:45Amanda Dobbins?

  But I'm not totally sure what's going on here.

• 34:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. There's A Gentleman Six and A Lady Seven, and September Five is A Lady Seven. Good movie. I liked it. Four nominations for Nosferatu. As they were going through the nominations, you texted me and I was feeling exactly what you texted me.

• 35:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I was like, oh, this could happen.

• 35:03Sean Fennessey?

  Which is like, oh, man, is it really happening? It got in at cinematography, as I suspected it would. It got in at costume design. It got in at, was it production design as well?

• 35:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Believe so.

• 35:14Sean Fennessey?

  What was the fourth nomination where it got in? I can't even recall.

• 35:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Cinematography?

• 35:17Sean Fennessey?

  Cinema- no, we said that already.

• 35:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Production design, costume design, and...

• 35:23Sean Fennessey?

  Makeup and hairstyling.

• 35:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, well, yeah. I mean, I haven't. I'm going tomorrow.

• 35:27Sean Fennessey?

  Makes sense, yeah. When you see the film, you'll understand. There's something very prominent related to Nosferatu that is very good in makeup and hairstyling. Didn't make it. Didn't make the cut in Best Picture. Did you see that Robert Eggers will be making a new film called Werewolf? And that movie, that film is spelled like this. W E R W U L F. And I believe there's an umlaut over the U.

• 35:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Cool.

• 35:52Sean Fennessey?

  It's coming on Christmas Day 2026.

• 35:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it really?

• 35:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 35:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's a nice tradition that you guys have going.

• 35:58Sean Fennessey?

  It's really...

• 35:58Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 35:59Sean Fennessey?

  It did feel a bit like, AI, tell me what Robert Eggers will do next. A little bit like, this is deeply unsurprising. I'm sure I'll watch it and like it, just because I enjoyed Nosferatu. My favorite nomination of the day is Soundtrack to A Coup d'Etat, which is a documentary that I've talked about a couple of times on the show. That is incredibly exciting. I told you that all the docs are streaming, but I don't think Soundtrack to A Coup d'Etat is streaming yet.

• 36:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. So you lied to me before 7 a.m.?

• 36:29Sean Fennessey?

  I apologize. Is that the first time that's happened?

• 36:32Amanda Dobbins?

  We have nothing if we don't have trust, Sean.

• 36:35Sean Fennessey?

  It was just a mistake. That's all that it really was. I was very happy to see that. I don't know. Any other, anything else really blow your wig back about these nominations?

• 36:45Amanda Dobbins?

  No, they aren't holy cow levels of nominations because we have discussed everything. They're like pretty good for what I think was a strange year at the movies. And we've got some good stuff. And I would say that Mary Anne Baptiste is the only and challengers being the real disappointment. And also in challengers, like kind of an opportunity to bring in a different audience, because that was also a real pop moment.

• 37:14Sean Fennessey?

  That is the last thing which we touched on briefly with the Globes is, you know, not a lot of people have seen most of these movies. I don't, it's not the worst thing in the world, but at a time where the Academy is making a lot of decisions, like we just saw the decision to not air, thankfully, the original song performances.

• 37:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 37:34Sean Fennessey?

  Which we should talk about very briefly. That's in an effort, I think, to just have a more streamlined show. And to get the show under a certain amount of running time, which I don't personally care about, but to also focus the attention on the movies, I think, as much as possible. We also saw in the announcement this morning that there's going to be a lot of efforts towards acknowledging and supporting Fire Relief and Fire Relief funds and acknowledging people who've been affected by everything that's been happening in Southern California. Janet Yang and Bill Kramer talked about that this morning before Rachel Sonnen and Bowen Yang presented the nominations. So it may be a more stately and quiet kind of Academy Awards.

• 38:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, they're also, they are bringing back the Fab Five presentations where, you know, five previous winners, winners, right?

• 38:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Give kind of like an individual tribute to the nominees before they are announced, which was divisive.

• 38:26Sean Fennessey?

  Not my favorite thing.

• 38:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked it, but I agree with you that it's like the energy comes down. I want to thank everyone who got in touch about the original song decision and thought of us. That was really nice.

• 38:39Sean Fennessey?

  It was nice.

• 38:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's wise, just because you can't live up to I'm Just Ken ever again. Like, maybe that should be the last performance of all time.

• 38:46Sean Fennessey?

  It showed a tremendous amount of foresight in knowing that it would be impossible to live up to that.

• 38:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:50Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think that this is a permanent decision. I just think that this collection of five nominees is not a great one. I wonder if some of the Amelia Perez nominees were not comfortable performing. And if they were not, that might indicate that there was no reason to do it anyway, because those are the only really standout songs that are nominated here. We've got an Elton John song and a Diane Warren song and, you know, a lot of songs.

• 39:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Excuse me, Elton John, don't say it like that.

• 39:13Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean? That song is fine.

• 39:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, but it's Elton John. You know, you don't have to be like, we've got an Elton John song. Like, people don't want another. We need another Elton.

• 39:21Sean Fennessey?

  He's not nominated for Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters. He's nominated for Never Too Late.

• 39:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I, listen, I haven't heard that song, but that's okay. It's still, it's Elton John. Just like, put a little bit of respect on it.

• 39:31Sean Fennessey?

  I'd like to know your take on the documentary Never Too Late, which I watched.

• 39:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 39:35Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and I wish I didn't. I wish I didn't.

• 39:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm trying to remember which podcast that you did while I was out, where you said that you were gonna try to, your critic friends were encouraging you to watch fewer movies and enjoy the movies that you see.

• 39:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 39:48Amanda Dobbins?

  And I, I would just, I-

• 39:50Sean Fennessey?

  I watched three films yesterday.

• 39:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:52Sean Fennessey?

  In theaters.

• 39:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 39:53Sean Fennessey?

  So, that was, I'm not really living up to my-

• 39:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I watched one film yesterday with a member of your family.

• 39:58Sean Fennessey?

  That's, oh, that's great. That was great.

• 40:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it was very, very sweet.

• 40:01Sean Fennessey?

  I wish I was there, honestly.

• 40:02Amanda Dobbins?

  It was, it was very cute.

• 40:03Sean Fennessey?

  Um, that's sad. Uh, I guess all we imagine is Light Mist Across the Board, which when it was not submitted by India, it was obvious that it was not gonna get into international feature, but there was a push to try to get it into the spot that was ultimately occupied by I'm Still Here. And so it shows you that that thinking, that strategy, I think, is very good, generally speaking. Um, international feature is not exactly what I thought it was going to be. I guess we should mention it very briefly, particularly because Flo got in there.

• 40:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:32Sean Fennessey?

  And I suspected it would as it started gaining steam just only recently. I didn't really think, I would not have guessed that a few months ago. Um, but it's I'm Still Here, The Girl Within You, you know, Emilia Perez, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and Flo. That's another category that feels fairly easy to predict. Animated feature, your favorite category? You've seen zero of these movies?

• 40:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I have seen Inside Out 2.

• 40:51Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, you did? That's right, we did a pod about that. Um, that was the highest grossing movie of the year?

• 40:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I do know that.

• 40:56Sean Fennessey?

  Flo, Inside Out 2, Memoir of a Snail, which has just got major Amanda energy.

• 41:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I did predict it. That was in my big Oscar bet, thanks to Griffin.

• 41:03Sean Fennessey?

  Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance, Most Foul?

• 41:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I also predicted that, thanks to Griffin.

• 41:07Sean Fennessey?

  Did you?

• 41:08Amanda Dobbins?

  And David. I shouldn't leave David Sims out of this.

• 41:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, please don't. You're also cheating in the big Oscar bet by consulting them. And then The Wild Robot, of course. Wild Robot versus Flo.

• 41:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it cheating if you're very open about it?

• 41:21Speaker 03

  Actually, real quick, hang on. You did not predict Memoir of a Snail. You did get Wallace and Gromit, but you did not choose Memoir of a Snail.

• 41:27Sean Fennessey?

  Did I?

• 41:28Speaker 03

  No.

• 41:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I loved Memoir. I loved the title Memoir of a Snail. What did I?

• 41:33Sean Fennessey?

  Turns out I did. I have no recollection. At the end of this episode, we will go through where we stand with our big Oscar bet, which we made in September. It is probably laughably in shambles, but we will find out very briefly.

• 41:45Sean Fennessey?

  Documentary feature film, really quickly. We'll talk about these films a little bit more as the season goes on, but Black Box Diaries, No Other Land, Porcelain War, Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat, and Sugar Cane. I believe three of those films made their debut, maybe four of them made their debut all the way back at the Sundance Film Festival.

• 42:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 42:03Sean Fennessey?

  Which starts this weekend.

• 42:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 42:05Sean Fennessey?

  And is loaded once again with documentaries. I'll be attending virtually. You're actually going to Park City for a couple of days.

• 42:10Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm going for one night only, 18 hours. Yeah, to see one film.

• 42:15Sean Fennessey?

  What about two films?

• 42:17Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm going to see Opus.

• 42:19Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 42:20Amanda Dobbins?

  And then I'm coming home.

• 42:21Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Well, so you won't be watching any docs. I encourage people that like documentaries and want to follow this race closely to start at Sundance, because this has been happening more and more. And also, this branch is very idiosyncratic and very serious. This is a very serious collection of five films. One other thing that jumped out to me. This is like a fairly, forgive this word, but a fairly progressive collection of movies. And I think if you're looking for a rationale for why the Academy is leaning into all of these films, most of them, I don't want to say they're like a rejection of the current American moment, but they feel responsive to it. And if you're wondering why 13 for Emilia Perez, if you're wondering why a movie like Enora is getting recognized, if you're wondering why a movie like A Complete Unknown,

• 43:06Sean Fennessey?

  which hearkens back to a time of social wherewithal.

• 43:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 43:14Sean Fennessey?

  I, I.

• 43:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Which has, to the times there, a change and is like the emotional centerpiece of the film.

• 43:20Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I think it's fairly, maybe so obvious as it's not even worth pointing out, but this feels when, a lot of times you hear like the liberal Hollywood Academy, but like this feels like a meaningful representation of it in terms of the kinds of stories that it wants to say it showcases. And also, a lot of stories that are not a lot of people have seen.

• 43:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the documentary branch in particular is always very esoteric and very purposeful about rejecting.

• 43:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Kind of the mainstream.

• 43:49Sean Fennessey?

  Celebrity.

• 43:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Often Netflix.

• 43:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 43:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Sponsored.

• 43:53Sean Fennessey?

  No, no Netflix documentaries here.

• 43:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 43:55Sean Fennessey?

  That which is unusual. They usually get one in. Daughters was one many people thought would get in this year and did not get in.

• 43:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I think we both did that for the Oscar red. So, but I would agree across the board. I mean, you could even lump the Apprentice nominations within that of kind of.

• 44:07Sean Fennessey?

  Hundred percent.

• 44:08Amanda Dobbins?

  The Academy trying to respond to the world at large through the films and the performances and the perspectives that it is, it is honoring.

• 44:17Sean Fennessey?

  One hundred percent agreed. Any other thoughts? We'll have time to go through some of these other categories over the next five or six weeks.

• 44:23Amanda Dobbins?

  So we didn't finish going through our ranks choice.

• 44:26Sean Fennessey?

  You want to do that?

• 44:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Mental exercise.

• 44:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just, yeah. So if you've got.

• 44:30Sean Fennessey?

  You're talking about what we, where we think things stand? Cause we're just gonna do this again in like a week.

• 44:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 44:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Like it's, we got up at 5:30 in the morning. Like what else are we doing? Let's talk.

• 44:40Sean Fennessey?

  Can I tell you something? I accidentally set my alarm for five, not realizing it was 5:30.

• 44:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, really?

• 44:44Sean Fennessey?

  So I've actually been up since five.

• 44:45Amanda Dobbins?

  So I woke up at 5:25 because I have that old person thing now. It's like when you're like going to a, when you have a flight, you wake up every hour.

• 44:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It just changes in your 40s. You don't know, and then it just changes. You're just, you just, you gotta pee 19 times a day. You just wake up at 4:47 a.m. for no reason and you can't go back to bed. No one told me about this. Okay.

• 45:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's, it's so true, you know? It's just every day it's more and more true.

• 45:15Sean Fennessey?

  I used to sleep till 11:45 a.m. routinely.

• 45:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, me too.

• 45:19Sean Fennessey?

  Just remarkable what happened in my life.

• 45:20Amanda Dobbins?

  It was incredible.

• 45:21Sean Fennessey?

  Best picture.

• 45:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:23Sean Fennessey?

  Number 10 is probably, I'm still here.

• 45:27Amanda Dobbins?

  So, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're doing it for everyone. I.

• 45:30Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, you want to, you want to just do.

• 45:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I want to game out the ballots for, you know what I mean? So if someone.

• 45:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 45:36Amanda Dobbins?

  What do you mean?

• 45:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Cornacki over here. Let's go. Let's go.

• 45:41Amanda Dobbins?

  That would be great. I would love to have more Steve in my life, but I did not tune in on an election night for obvious reasons.

• 45:46Sean Fennessey?

  We gotta turn this into your big board. We gotta get you to be able to move contenders up and down.

• 45:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I mean, that would be fun.

• 45:52Sean Fennessey?

  Zero in on the counties.

• 45:53Amanda Dobbins?

  That would actually, that would be great.

• 45:55Sean Fennessey?

  What is Hancock Park saying about Emilio Perez tonight?

• 45:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And writing a bunch of things. I mean, I think I would be great at that, but I also meant like, let's bring actual Steve.

• 46:05Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, you want Kornacki to be a part of this?

• 46:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:06Sean Fennessey?

  Has he ever done Oscars content?

• 46:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think so. He does some Super Bowl stuff, because I know he's a football guy.

• 46:12Sean Fennessey?

  He does, yeah.

• 46:12Amanda Dobbins?

  He's welcome anytime.

• 46:13Sean Fennessey?

  Steve, come through.

• 46:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:15Sean Fennessey?

  Holler at us.

• 46:15Amanda Dobbins?

  But no, so if you put Emilio Perez as your number one, what's your number two as a voter? Not you, an Academy voter.

• 46:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I think it's Anora.

• 46:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:28Sean Fennessey?

  It could be Wicked, if you're like a musicals person, and that's sort of the showmanship of the movie.

• 46:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:34Sean Fennessey?

  You know, and also the lack of self-seriousness at times. I think there's something whimsical about both of those movies, so that's a kind of a sort of story that you like.

• 46:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Is there any world in which it is The Brutalist, because you're just European?

• 46:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

• 46:49Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 46:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 46:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And I don't know, like, what-

• 46:52Sean Fennessey?

  This is a common criticism of the Academy, is that it is very Western Europe focused.

• 46:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. So that's, that's kind of, and that is sort of a European perspective on America in some ways. Not totally.

• 47:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, Mona Fastvald is Scandinavian, and she's the co-writer of the movie.

• 47:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I think you're right, that it's probably either Anora or Wicked, and then The Brutalist is in like, your top four for Emilio Perez, or is it?

• 47:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 47:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Because, I guess what I'm trying to get at is like, are they polar?

• 47:23Sean Fennessey?

  An artistic achievement, yeah.

• 47:25Amanda Dobbins?

  However, you put Brutalist at number one. I don't think you're putting Emilio Perez at two or three.

• 47:32Sean Fennessey?

  I also think you're putting Anora.

• 47:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I do as well.

• 47:34Sean Fennessey?

  This is why, this is my case for Anora.

• 47:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:38Sean Fennessey?

  This is a lot of number two and three votes. Very few people hate Anora.

• 47:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. But could there just be enough? Okay, so-

• 47:47Sean Fennessey?

  Love it. I can see the sparks coming out of your ears.

• 47:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's do the math. Okay, so- Number one, you're just gonna keep Emilia Perez at number one if you're voting again and again. Brutalist stays at number one if it's number one in your ballot.

• 48:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 48:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And Nora stays number two and number three. I just, I'm just trying to. Who gets there first? Is it, I don't know if it's Enora.

• 48:12Sean Fennessey?

  I think this is the opportunity to talk about the brutalist story from last week because that story, which does have-

• 48:19Amanda Dobbins?

  identifies it as a firm runner because-

• 48:22Sean Fennessey?

  It's an, I mean, it's an attack. It is very clearly a coordinated attack. I don't know who it is from. We can speculate. I'm not gonna do that right now. It doesn't mean that what's in the story is not true because it obviously is true.

• 48:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 48:32Sean Fennessey?

  And we can talk about the ramifications of that as well. But that story didn't just pop up out of nowhere.

• 48:36Amanda Dobbins?

  No, of course not.

• 48:37Sean Fennessey?

  And that's something that is a tried and true Oscar tactic over the last 50 years. Harvey Weinstein was the most successful and demonic practitioner of the tactic of the, uh, I don't know, the, the, the campaign smear, I guess, would be the best way to describe it. So there's a story on a website called Red Shark News, which I know you have bookmarked at home, about the usage of artificial intelligence technology on the film The Brutalist. There were two instances of which it was used. The story, I still don't totally understand how it was reported, but one of the people who was interviewed for the film was David Jansko, who is the editor. And in that story, he talked about the ways in which AI technology was used to

• 49:21Sean Fennessey?

  kind of mold and shape and quote unquote, correct some of the pronunciation in Hungarian that Adrian Brody delivers, I believe, off screen whilst reading a letter in a two-minute segment of the movie.

• 49:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 49:34Sean Fennessey?

  And then the second usage was that an architectural consultant used Mid Journey, which is a generative AI technology, to craft architecture designs, like blueprints, that appear at the end of the film. The production designer, Judy Becker, then took those blueprints and then had an illustrator redraw them and I guess add to and redefine their designs. This is arguably the most hotly contested, argued, debated issue in all of Hollywood right now, in all of like the internet, in all of the creative arts. And it's extremely complicated. One, great job on that campaign smear because this made a ton of headlines over a long

• 50:19Sean Fennessey?

  holiday weekend.

• 50:20Amanda Dobbins?

  If it's chef's kiss in terms of just old school Oscar elbowing.

• 50:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, they got a lot of attention for this story, at least on the internet. And I, my takeaway is, is this is not going to have a big and meaningful effect on the awards race, except maybe in best actor. I don't think that this necessarily damages the film's chances as best picture, but.

• 50:42Amanda Dobbins?

  That's.

• 50:43Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 50:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, sure, sure. And I understand that the actors' branch is a particularly concerned, and listen, rightfully to a degree, group of people when it comes to AI.

• 51:00Sean Fennessey?

  Likeness is very important to them.

• 51:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, of course.

• 51:03Sean Fennessey?

  And there is language in the recent SAG deal that disallows this. Now, obviously, this work was done in this movie with the agreement of the actors who participated. This isn't something that was just done. Now, the speculation is that one of the reasons that it was done is that this is a low-budget movie that, and this is a cheaper way to accomplish work. That's obviously something that threatens a lot of people in the industry because it is frankly cheaper to use AI to accomplish stuff like this. In my opinion, the language, molding, shaping, to me is ultimately a non-issue. In the interview, David Jansko, who is Hungarian, talks about the difficulties of nailing the Hungarian language if you are a non-native speaker.

• 51:45Sean Fennessey?

  And that level of complexity to me is another, just another use of technology that can be helpful. This is also a technology that is used all the time. It was used in Emilio Perez this year. It was used in The Killer last year. If you read David Fincher or Steven Soderbergh talk about what AI can do and how they feel about it in this respect, it's becoming, if not industry standard, very common.

• 52:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And in this case is at least being used as support and enhancement as opposed to replacement. Obviously, there's a precedent issue that is alarming anytime you talk about AI.

• 52:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 52:18Amanda Dobbins?

  But in this case, it is being used at least for like an assist.

• 52:25Sean Fennessey?

  And also being done with consent from, from the actor.

• 52:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 52:28Sean Fennessey?

  Which I think is meaningful. That being said, it's much easier to skew this one in a talking point about how that's not Adrian Brody giving the performance.

• 52:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 52:36Sean Fennessey?

  That I think ironically, I guess hurts him more than the second thing, which I think is more insidious and complicated.

• 52:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I do as well, though, I have to confess, I, I don't really know enough about the practice of architecture to know how these modeling programs are used and like whether they were used for many years before in architecture and now they're just like called AI because it's the hip thing to do.

• 52:59Sean Fennessey?

  That's, that's a great point and it's kind of the key point, which is that we just use AI to describe everything.

• 53:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:05Sean Fennessey?

  If you watch movies that have effects technology from Weta, for example, which works on Avatar, works on the Lord of the Rings films, Peter Jackson's company, they've been using machine learning technologies to evolve how VFX works in Hollywood for a long time. Is it exactly the same as ChatGPT or Mid Journey? No. Is it using technicians to deploy a lot of those tools? Yes. Is it taking away from a specific living person right now? Not really, but it has obviated a lot of jobs that previously existed in Hollywood. This is like a story of technology and continuum. It's not one about one guy saying, I'm going to use ChatGPT to write my screenplay. So.

• 53:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but, but on the other hand, this, the production designer Judy Becker, who is nominated for The Brutalist, um, and, and has a very challenging job in realizing buildings that are a central plot point and also metaphor.

• 54:06Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 54:06Amanda Dobbins?

  In the film and has to do that on a budget where you can't actually, I mean, spoiler alert, they, they didn't, they didn't make the damn building, you know? And, and it's not, um.

• 54:17Sean Fennessey?

  Well, this was used very specifically for the sketches that we see at the end of the film. During a kind of, um, during, during the epilogue.

• 54:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but. But the case for her Oscar and for the her achievement and the work that she did is about conceptualizing and presenting these buildings on film that are true to the script and represent something about the film's ideas and the character.

• 54:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 54:44Amanda Dobbins?

  And what it's trying to communicate on like five different levels, architecturally, metaphorically, you know, historically.

• 54:51Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 54:52Amanda Dobbins?

  So, you know, if like there's a computers involved in conceptualizing what turns out to be for better or for worse, like a central part of the movie, like those are material to what's going on.

• 55:08Sean Fennessey?

  I think you have to actually dig deeper into it. One, I wish they hadn't done this. I don't think it's a good thing.

• 55:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:13Sean Fennessey?

  I don't want it in my movies. Um, I think it is the slipperiest of slopes and extremely hard to navigate. That being said, this happens in a lot of films. Many times it's happening and you don't know what's happening. Um, if this was not revealed in an interview, we would not know.

• 55:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 55:33Sean Fennessey?

  Steven Soderbergh talked about this last week with the Daily Beast. It's interesting. I don't know that I fully agree with him, but he has been fairly hardline on this. And the examples that he uses is as a writer, that he sees not a significant difference between utilizing a tool like this, a generative tool that is gathering all of the available information in the world versus you watch movies and you cull ideas from those movies and you use them and you process them and you put your own stamp on them. He, what he says is that AI cannot do what I can do because of my life experience. It can regurgitate.

• 56:09Amanda Dobbins?

  True.

• 56:09Sean Fennessey?

  Elaboration of what has come before, but it cannot humanize it. You could say that that is him merely protecting a kind of technocrat overlord approach. You could say that as a filmmaker, he is someone who has always favored the ceaseless push towards technology forward decision making. And if you look at his movies in the last 10 years, they are made with evolving technologies. In this particular case, the thing that we don't know and may never know is what happened between.

• 56:38Sean Fennessey?

  An architect consultant.

• 56:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 56:41Sean Fennessey?

  Asked Mid Journey for some pictures and then those pictures appeared in the movie. What did Judy Becker do? What did her illustrators do? How did they evolve or change those things?

• 56:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. I guess we also don't know the architect asked for pictures from Mid Journey in this one instance. Do architects do that all of the time, you know? And it's like, are we living in a, in a world where someone's vision then does get sketched out for a number? You know, is it, is it an assist or is it, is it creation?

• 57:14Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I understand.

• 57:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Can you even use the word creation when it's, but you, you understand what I'm saying.

• 57:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I did. No, of course. I mean, film is such an iterative medium. It is so, every movie is connected to the movie that came before. And it is also one that is about the continuing flow of developing technologies from, you know, black and white to color, from silent to sound, from film to digital, from practical to CGI. Like this, there are always old roles that are eliminated and new roles that are created, old technologies that are removed. This movie is a really bad movie for this to be the case for. Because it is a movie that in the marketing, in the way that the filmmakers have talked about it,

• 58:00Sean Fennessey?

  it is very much a, a, meant to be a celebration of the individualist creation. The idea of a person with an idea amassing a team and executing on that thing. So anybody who says like, this movie should be disqualified because of its intentions and its story that it's telling and the way that it got there in this specific case. I, I understand that.

• 58:23Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a, it's a little bit dramatic.

• 58:25Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's dramatic. I would also say in, in this, in this debate, if you are an absolutist, if you draw a line in the sand around artificial intelligence technology and say, I won't watch this movie, or I will not respect this movie, within 10 years, you will not be able to watch movies. And so.

• 58:42Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 58:43Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if, I'm not saying that's a good thing. But that is what is going to happen. And so how do we find a way to understand and accept where an industry is going? And then where artists will have to follow the industry in this particular case? And if this is a watershed moment or not, I don't think so.

• 59:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I don't think it is. I mean, I think it's just, it's another, uh, outside the, like meta textual moment for this movie, which is fascinating in terms of the, there's the conversation about the movie. And there is this very, very intense, ongoing and filmmaker fueled conversation going on outside of it. And it's like, so I have a little bit, you, I mean, I don't know if I respect the campaign, but it's just, it is so in response to three months of what has been going on. And it's brutal and just hits the target exactly.

• 59:40Sean Fennessey?

  Totally.

• 59:42Amanda Dobbins?

  So, but it, it does seem, specific not to the film, but to the conversation about the film and, and the, what it means to be a filmmaker and things that, I don't want to say they've invited it, but it.

• 59:58Sean Fennessey?

  Of course they have.

• 59:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it, it does really feel a piece of the argument that people have been having for three months. And I, you know, it's one of those things where it feels very, very relevant now. And I think that conversation and all of this stuff outside the movie are the reason that it has so many nominations and that it's a front runner. Like they've, they've played their hand really, really well. Like in 10 years or 20 years, when talking about the movie, I, for, for a number of reasons, whether it's because AI is in everything or because the movie exists outside of this, this campaign in this moment, it, it doesn't really matter.

• 1:00:36Sean Fennessey?

  I, I tend to agree with that. Um, whether or not it like takes away from my enthusiasm for the movie is a lot of something a lot of people were asking me, which like, not really, but I really don't like that they used Mid Journey. And I wish that that hadn't happened. And it feels like one of those things where like, did Judy Becker even know that the consultant was going to do that?

• 1:00:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:00:55Sean Fennessey?

  And if she did, why did she decide to accept those drawings? And how much did she change them? And it's, it's, they're such small, but perfect vessels for the debate, you know?

• 1:01:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:01:06Sean Fennessey?

  It's kind of overwhelming. The speech technology thing, I, I, I continue to like. If Timothy Chalamet wins, a part of me will think that it's because some of this factored in.

• 1:01:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, because they used that.

• 1:01:18Sean Fennessey?

  Actors will say, like, you shouldn't do that to your performance.

• 1:01:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, OK.

• 1:01:22Sean Fennessey?

  That is the thing. They're saying, like, he's not actually speaking Hungarian throughout the entire film. It's not entirely his performance. It has been kind of massaged with this technology.

• 1:01:31Amanda Dobbins?

  To me, if that happens, that's also evidence that people just aren't, like, watching the movie. Because it's such a small, it's like...

• 1:01:39Sean Fennessey?

  It's a tiny part of the film, and he's, you know, say what you will about the movie, like, he's a fucking amazing in that movie.

• 1:01:45Amanda Dobbins?

  It's incredible. And it's like, I mean, it's like a three-plus-hour movie, and that's...

• 1:01:51Sean Fennessey?

  And he's in all of it.

• 1:01:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and that's like two seconds of something of a pronunciation. I don't really get it. I mean, I think you're probably right that in terms of how this affects the voting categories, like, that's stickier. But that's kind of dumb.

• 1:02:06Sean Fennessey?

  Anything else about that? I don't know. I think I said what I felt like I wanted to say. This won't be the last time AI comes up on the pod, that's for sure.

• 1:02:15Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:02:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I think you did a good job. I think...

• 1:02:21Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, can I add one thing?

• 1:02:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Sean Fennessey?

  I saw a movie, the movie The Night of the Fires, I saw Eno, which I was kind of hoping would be nominated here. It's a documentary about Brian Eno. And it's a generative documentary. It uses an artificial intelligence, but the artificial intelligence that it uses is called only from the filmmaker's previous work. And so when you sit down to watch it, it's pulling from, I think, hundreds of hours of interview and archival footage from the life of Brian Eno. But every time you watch it, it's different. So tomorrow, if you search for the film online, you'll be able to stream it over a 24-hour period. It's playing on a loop, but every time this hour and 40-minute movie plays, a different version of it plays. It's a movie that is using these technologies, but is using them in more contained and constrained ways

• 1:03:10Sean Fennessey?

  to more deeply focus on the kind of story it wants to tell over time. If that's, is that confusing? Am I making myself clear?

• 1:03:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, every time anyone has described this film to me, I'm like, I just, my eyes glaze over, but, you know.

• 1:03:22Sean Fennessey?

  In other words, there may be one focus on a period of time where Brian Eno worked with David Bowie, and then there might be one sequence where it works on his time working with you two. Sometimes those things may be swapped, or maybe neither of them will appear and something else will appear.

• 1:03:36Amanda Dobbins?

  OK.

• 1:03:37Sean Fennessey?

  But it is all a part of this larger story of like his... His life and the way that he sees creativity. It's basically a choose your own adventure for filmmaking, but you don't get to choose. The film chooses, the algorithm that is used, that is deployed, the software that is deployed is choosing. This is an interesting example of this technology that is defined by the people who have made work in the past that are making this movie, not the entire history of documentary. I don't want to eliminate the possibility for stories like this by saying like, throw out the baby with the bathwater and all AI stuff. Like, it is a tool in terms of filmmaking and film editing. It can be interesting. It's not good when you just say to a robot, give me this.

• 1:04:20Sean Fennessey?

  And then that's all you make because that is, that is what will lead to humans being replaced like in full across filmmaking.

• 1:04:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:04:27Sean Fennessey?

  What we really care about, movies ultimately, is our human connection to them and the way that stories make us feel as people. So it's just a very nuanced and complicated thing to sort through. And I've been trying to sort through it for months.

• 1:04:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. The only other thing I would say about the brutalist. For me, what's interesting about the second claim, the architectural designs or whatever, is, is less precedent, though I agree with you, it's really important and I don't want to watch AI crap for the rest of my life. Even though I, again, I feel like I do all of the time, whether it's in a Marvel movie or, you know, whatever Princess Sofia bullshit I watched with your daughter, um, which is just the-

• 1:05:06Sean Fennessey?

  Sofia is very powerful. Sofia the first you're referring to.

• 1:05:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Sofia the first, yes.

• 1:05:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Not made with AI, made by animators, but okay.

• 1:05:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it just like, it looks like such computer garbage.

• 1:05:18Sean Fennessey?

  This is the problem.

• 1:05:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:05:19Sean Fennessey?

  Computer animation is not AI. It looks like AI because we see AI animation and it's still crude. You're just talking about a somewhat crudely animated TV series on Disney+.

• 1:05:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it just, like, I agree, but then that is what's being fed it, you know? It just-

• 1:05:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:05:35Amanda Dobbins?

  The general like denigration of standards.

• 1:05:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, because, because we're relying more and more on computers or accepting what computers can make.

• 1:05:46Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 1:05:47Amanda Dobbins?

  As, uh, as a form of art when it is not. For me, but anyway, that's, that's all important. But for me, what's interesting or complicated about the brutalist stuff is, you know, how the, the AI drawings-

• 1:06:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Are used in the film and what that use says about how the film is executed and what it does and you know, both where they're used in the film is quite interesting and we'll talk about it, but also it is a movie about building things and they are working with a small budget and can't build everything. So how do they choose to execute this and what can they do? What can't they do? What works? What doesn't work? Do you feel like the limitations of it? So I, you know, no one will talk about that, but that to me.

• 1:06:36Sean Fennessey?

  We will next week on the pod.

• 1:06:37Amanda Dobbins?

  We will.

• 1:06:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's an important part of this.

• 1:06:40Amanda Dobbins?

  But that's not, that's not the buzziness of the claim. The claim is just about, you know, now all computers are going to do everything for us, which is also bad. It's bad.

• 1:06:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, bit of an overstatement on what actually happened, but this is Oscar campaigning in 2025. It's just as it was in 1995, as it turns out. That was a sniper hit, though.

• 1:07:01Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, it's like, it's really good. And because it's like, because it's about computers and it's not anything truly, it's ideological rather than ugly. Yeah, it's, it's beautiful stuff. I mean, it just, you know, a tingle, it makes you tingle a little.

• 1:07:16Sean Fennessey?

  This is really, that's your pleasure center is.

• 1:07:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Good for them, you know, like bring a little drama.

• 1:07:20Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay. Any, any closing thoughts?

• 1:07:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I like the Oscars.

• 1:07:25Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, me too. I'm looking forward to them. Conan O'Brien will be the host.

• 1:07:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 1:07:28Sean Fennessey?

  Very exciting. Great choice. I'm very happy about that. And hopefully he will bring some levity to what will at times be a serious ceremony.

• 1:07:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I also trust him to, to walk the tonal line of what you need to do here in terms of not being too glib or too, you know, laudatory, but also trying to provide an escape and also trying to provide work for everybody, which is, I think, the main thing here.

• 1:07:51Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed. Uh, let's talk about our big Oscar bet very quickly. Bobby Wagner. We, when was it? It was before Amanda went on leave, September 10th, something like that?

• 1:08:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Early September.

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  September 16th.

• 1:08:04Sean Fennessey?

  16th. So on the 16th of September, we predicted the nominees and winner in, was it all categories?

• 1:08:11Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:08:12Sean Fennessey?

  12 categories?

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  One, two, three, four. Fourteen categories.

• 1:08:17Sean Fennessey?

  Fourteen categories of the twenty-three. We did not predict best documentary short because we are cowards.

• 1:08:23Amanda Dobbins?

  That was the funniest part of-

• 1:08:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, you didn't do the shorts and a lot of the below the line, technical categories you did not do.

• 1:08:29Amanda Dobbins?

  The, um, the presentation this morning was done by Bowen Yang and Rachel Senate. And Rachel said, and they, you know, they brought a, maybe we didn't go to sleep last night, energy to it, but they looked great. And then the only time Rachel Senate like really broke was after reading the documentary short, uh, titles. And she just was like, this very serious, very serious subject matter. And then-

• 1:08:52Sean Fennessey?

  She did say yuck by Charlie XCX, which was funny.

• 1:08:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:08:55Sean Fennessey?

  That was amusing. Uh, Rachel Senate, I love you. Thank you.

• 1:08:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay, Bob. So how, how did we do?

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  You did not very good, but I guess good for the time that you did it.

• 1:09:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you. Thanks.

• 1:09:07Speaker 03

  Cause we did it a lot earlier this year.

• 1:09:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:09Amanda Dobbins?

  No shortlist.

• 1:09:10Speaker 03

  Many of these things were not out. No shortlists, no, like you hadn't even seen The Brutalist at this point, yet you were heavy on it. So like, this, this was kind of really flying blind here.

• 1:09:22Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:09:22Speaker 03

  Um, and actually I just double checked. Sorry. It's only eleven categories. So out of a possible sixty points, so five for each of the ones that only get five, and then ten for the best picture nominations. Out of a possible sixty points, it is a thirty to thirty tie.

• 1:09:38Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:09:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 1:09:39Speaker 03

  Between the two of you.

• 1:09:40Amanda Dobbins?

  But out of a possible-

• 1:09:41Speaker 03

  So you're both batting five hundred.

• 1:09:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Out of sixty, wow.

• 1:09:44Sean Fennessey?

  We got half right.

• 1:09:46Amanda Dobbins?

  That's bad.

• 1:09:47Sean Fennessey?

  Four full months before the nominations were announced. For almost four and a half months.

• 1:09:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I mean, I don't accept, uh, a score of fifty percent in any, in any walk of life, you know?

• 1:09:58Sean Fennessey?

  I can't imagine what you were like in high school.

• 1:10:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it was awful.

• 1:10:02Sean Fennessey?

  It must've been a tough hang. You turned out so well.

• 1:10:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I, it wasn't my fault.

• 1:10:07Sean Fennessey?

  But you're like, I'm competitive, but you're like, I gotta be right. Which is a different thing.

• 1:10:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Excuse me. Excuse me.

• 1:10:13Sean Fennessey?

  Excuse you.

• 1:10:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not the only person at this table.

• 1:10:17Sean Fennessey?

  Um, no, it's true. I didn't care about grades in school, though. And I think I sense your grades.

• 1:10:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I vividly remember the first test I failed.

• 1:10:25Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, really?

• 1:10:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, which was in, uh, which is calculus senior year. I, you know, you get to like limits and some other. I mean, my brain just doesn't work that way, you know? And I got to that point and I was like, okay, we will, we will no longer be pursuing this. But yeah, that sucked. I failed that test.

• 1:10:42Sean Fennessey?

  So thirty out of sixty.

• 1:10:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Failed the AP exam, though. Don't worry.

• 1:10:45Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I didn't take AP math. I was not good at math. Um, uh, what best picture? What did we have? What were our best picture nominees?

• 1:10:52Speaker 03

  Uh, well, so you had six out of ten correct and Amanda, you only had five out of ten correct.

• 1:10:57Sean Fennessey?

  Intrigued. What were they?

• 1:10:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I did the room next door. That was tough.

• 1:11:01Speaker 03

  That's true. Uh, you both had Gladiator two in. That did not get nominated.

• 1:11:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:06Speaker 03

  Sean, you had Saturday Night?

• 1:11:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I remember that one.

• 1:11:10Speaker 03

  You both had Blitz. You both had Sing Sing.

• 1:11:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 1:11:14Sean Fennessey?

  We were so young.

• 1:11:14Speaker 03

  And I think that, oh, Amanda, and the other one you had that didn't get it was Piano Lesson.

• 1:11:19Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:11:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:21Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I felt pretty good about that, too, coming out of the festivals. That movie just got completely blanked today, too. No Daniel Deadwiler.

• 1:11:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:27Sean Fennessey?

  It's too bad.

• 1:11:28Speaker 03

  Now, notably, the, the, by our rules, you get an extra two points if you predict the winner as well. So the winner is worth three and getting a nomination right is only worth one. So out of a, a potential eleven correct, Sean, you still have eight winners in contention.

• 1:11:43Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:11:44Speaker 03

  And Amanda, you have seven winners still in contention.

• 1:11:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:11:47Speaker 03

  So you could get fourteen more points and Sean, you could still get sixteen more points. So upside, Sean, you're like slightly ahead, but depending on what actually wins.

• 1:11:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How different are we in the?

• 1:11:59Sean Fennessey?

  In the winners.

• 1:12:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, in the winners.

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  There's a lot that you overlap on, like best picture you overlap on. You're different in director. Same on actor, same on actress.

• 1:12:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Who do we have in director?

• 1:12:10Speaker 03

  Supporting actress. Uh, you had Sean Baker and Sean had, had, uh, Brady Corbeil.

• 1:12:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:12:16Sean Fennessey?

  That's a tight race.

• 1:12:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:19Speaker 03

  You know, same on. The wild robot you both predicted for animated feature. So yeah, so there's a lot of overlap, but there's still some possibility depending on, I think it hinges on director mostly.

• 1:12:31Sean Fennessey?

  How many did we each get right?

• 1:12:33Speaker 03

  And supporting actor as well.

• 1:12:34Amanda Dobbins?

  This is when you find out that I placed the AI story. Just kidding, I didn't do that.

• 1:12:42Sean Fennessey?

  I believe the author's name was Adrian Pennington. And I was like, is that an AI name?

• 1:12:46Amanda Dobbins?

  That sounds made up.

• 1:12:48Sean Fennessey?

  What, uh, what, what were our nominees for documentary?

• 1:12:52Speaker 03

  Documentary?

• 1:12:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, these were, this was awful.

• 1:12:55Sean Fennessey?

  Category to predict. Did we get any?

• 1:12:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Sean, you got two out of five and Amanda, you only got one out of five.

• 1:13:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I can't believe I got one.

• 1:13:05Speaker 03

  The one that you got was sugarcane.

• 1:13:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:13:10Speaker 03

  Which Sean, you also got, and then your second one was No Other Land. You both predicted Daughters to win, so you're kind of out of contention on that one.

• 1:13:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, thanks so much.

• 1:13:18Sean Fennessey?

  Tough one.

• 1:13:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, well, that's interesting. It's so tight.

• 1:13:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we, so we never.

• 1:13:24Sean Fennessey?

  We gotta do that in like November. We can't do it in September. Maybe we should keep, maybe, you know, my, my, my friends at the Gold Derby podcast, they do one in March. They do one immediately after the Oscars.

• 1:13:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's fun.

• 1:13:35Sean Fennessey?

  They make their one year. I don't want to steal their idea, but that's a great idea.

• 1:13:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:13:39Sean Fennessey?

  To just like the flying blind predictions, which is amusing because we think we know what's going on, but like, I would not say that The Apprentice was really on my radar at this time last year.

• 1:13:48Amanda Dobbins?

  You saw it at Telluride, right?

• 1:13:50Sean Fennessey?

  I did, but I wouldn't, I wasn't like, this is an Oscar movie.

• 1:13:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, a lot of things felt different in September.

• 1:13:54Sean Fennessey?

  It's very true.

• 1:13:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we could do it again in September.

• 1:13:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, all right, cool.

• 1:13:59Amanda Dobbins?

  It's funny.

• 1:14:00Sean Fennessey?

  Great.

• 1:14:01Amanda Dobbins?

  What are we gonna, what are we gonna do for the winner this time? You never really collected on that debt.

• 1:14:07Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. If I win again.

• 1:14:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:10Sean Fennessey?

  You have to pose in front of my physical media library and we post it to the big picture social media feed.

• 1:14:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that is punishment, so, okay.

• 1:14:19Sean Fennessey?

  And you have to say, it's so beautiful in here.

• 1:14:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay, yeah.

• 1:14:23Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think?

• 1:14:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, do I get to, do I get to pick things to take home?

• 1:14:28Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, well, it's more of a lending library than a store, but we can talk about it.

• 1:14:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. You just got so uncomfortable. You're like, no, give them back to me. Give them back.

• 1:14:39Sean Fennessey?

  Collection's getting strong these days. I don't know if I can give anything up. I'm feeling good about it.

• 1:14:43Speaker 03

  Are you gonna film her like the Joker in The Dark Knight when he has the hostage videos and you're just behind the camera like squealing?

• 1:14:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm the guy with the, with the phone stitched into my chest, but it's a Blu-ray of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

• 1:14:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm just gonna immediately start rearranging everything, you know?

• 1:14:57Sean Fennessey?

  That actually-

• 1:14:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, is that her costume?

• 1:14:59Sean Fennessey?

  Is that, is that what you want to do if you win? Just spend two hours rearranging?

• 1:15:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Just like color coordinating, throwing out the ugly ones. Not this, not this.

• 1:15:09Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, that actually is giving me a panic attack. Um, okay, this was fun. We will be back, uh, next week where we'll talk about this more, but we'll also talk about completely different movies, dumpy worry movies. So, uh, let's go now to my conversation with Gins Zilbeladis.

• 1:15:35Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:16:15Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:17:40Sean Fennessey?

  Very happy to be here with Ginz Zilbelotis, director of Flow. Ginz, I was reading about your previous film, Away, and the fact that you made it all by yourself. Is that accurate? Literally alone, just you?

• 1:17:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, the credits are very short. It's basically my unofficial film school because I didn't actually go to a film school. So I thought I would do that film. And my goal was to eventually work with a team. But I didn't want to do it the traditional way, which is that you start in a studio in kind of a lower job and then gradually grow and get the opportunity to direct. But I just wanted to start. And I made that film from the age of 20 until 24. And yeah, so I learned about writing and directing and animation and doing the music and sound. Of course, it's not perfect,

• 1:18:37Speaker 05

  but like, that's the best way to learn is by making these things. And of course, I didn't become an expert in these fields, but I think I learned the basics. And this allowed me later to work with the team and I could understand what everyone's doing.

• 1:18:52Sean Fennessey?

  I was wondering specifically about who you felt you needed for a team as you developed Flow and what kind of talents you needed to surround yourself with? Because obviously, directing, as we usually understand it, is about delegation and entrusting your department heads. And there's all, you know, it's a managerial role in many ways. But when you made your first film all by yourself, how do you figure out how to do those other parts of directing?

• 1:19:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, a way I would maybe describe that I was the filmmaker of that film, but I wasn't really a director. There was no one to direct. And so the difference is that when I have an idea, I can just make it. I don't need to explain it to anyone. And that can be good, because then you kind of go into a more, I don't know, cinematic direction. Like, but it can be difficult, because like, when you have to explain things, then they get challenged and tested, and you have to actually articulate everything. And then everything has a reason. So with Flow, I think that's a big difference, that everything is more polished,

• 1:20:02Speaker 05

  because it's gone through many kind of tests by having me explain it to people hundreds of times. But I also tried to find a balance with Flow as to not to over explain certain things. It was important that there are like some things left for interpretation. But yeah, it's about finding that balance where things are explained, but also open. But yeah, going back to your question, it's, yeah, I, there were certain things that I felt easier, that were easier for me, and certain things were harder. Like, I really enjoyed designing the camera, and the kind of, in this case, it's a virtual camera,

• 1:20:42Speaker 05

  but it's still the same principles, you know, just lens, the lens size, the focal length, the everything. So I really enjoy kind of blocking these scenes and creating the layout and telling the story through that, because especially when there is no dialogue, that is like the main way of expressing everything. It's not just like decorative, it's really like the bulk of the storytelling. I really enjoy doing the music, even though in a way it was my first time doing the music. I've never studied it, I don't play instruments, and I don't read sheet music.

• 1:21:22Speaker 05

  So I started by, I did it on an app on my phone at first, which is kind of like riding a bicycle with your like safety wheels on, which doesn't allow you to make mistakes. So I learned the basics using that and then I graduated to a professional software, but still it's all electronic music. But I love that because it's so fast compared to animation. You get instant results and it's very impactful. Like, like you can create a piece of music and it has more impact on the final film than some, something that an animator would work on for months, which is a bit unfair. But it's the way music works that it can kind of really dominate everything.

• 1:22:05Speaker 05

  And, and yeah, so I didn't feel like I was great at actually animating. So on Flow, I was very happy to really delegate that. And I didn't animate any of the characters and we had a great team. And also on Flow, I didn't work on the sound. Uh, we, we had like people much smarter than me doing that. But with the music and the camera, I did want to be involved. Uh, with the camera, I did everything, but with music on Flow, I ended up collaborating as well with another composer. So I would do the initial sketches. Um, and it's important also for me to do it myself because I write these sketches really early while I'm writing the script.

• 1:22:46Speaker 05

  Uh, usually music is the last thing you do, but for me, it starts with the music and then everything is built around that. So I do these sketches and I edit the film using my own music instead of like temp music, music from other films. Uh, and this allows me to, yeah, integrate the music into the film. It's not like overlayed on top. It's really guiding everything. But once I've done, done that, uh, we brought on another composer, Richard Zegib, who is a lot more experienced than me. And he would really like add more layers and depth to everything and make sure it's all cohesive. And then he recorded it with real instruments and orchestra. And it was, I think the best of both worlds where I am very hands-on and involved, but it's also very collaborative.

• 1:23:31Speaker 05

  And once Richard came on board, I wasn't precious about kind of like preserving everything I've done. It was very kind of back and forth process.

• 1:23:41Sean Fennessey?

  Given that there's no dialogue in the film and you are looking for collaborators, animators, co-composer.

• 1:23:49Sean Fennessey?

  Can you describe what the script looks like? And what it is that you're sharing with them? Are you pitching the idea to them? Or are you handing them a screenplay and saying, "Here's what the story will be"?

• 1:23:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, with Flow, it was actually the first script that I've actually finished. On a way, I just wrote an outline and basically improvised it visually. And I could do it because it was a micro-budget film and there wasn't as much oversight. But because Flow had a much bigger budget, still much smaller than most US animated films, but still bigger than my micro-budget film. So we needed the script for funding purposes. And so, yeah, I worked with the co-writer, who also later became the main producer. And so, yeah, the script is only 35 pages, which is about one page per two minutes. Usually, it's one page per one minute.

• 1:24:45Speaker 05

  But in this case, there is no dialogue, so the text is more dense. There's less white space. But the whole story is pretty much there. Because I think writing is really like figuring out the structure and the motivations of the characters and the whole kind of relationships they have. And the dialogue is just the last thing you add. And so, this is pretty much the same as any script, but you don't just add the dialogue at the end. And it's quite similar to the final film, but it's not exactly the same. Because so when the script was finished, only the financiers would read it and the producers, but no one in the crew read the script. Instead, after finishing the script,

• 1:25:30Speaker 05

  I start making the animatic, which is like, or it could be called previs. It's like the rough edit of the film. And instead of creating storyboards, which is a typical way of making animated films, where you draw everything, I would just do this in 3D. I create a 3D set, and I can explore it with the virtual camera. It's like location scouting in live action, where a director comes on set and discovers ideas. So it's very improvisational and spontaneous, and there are many happy accidents. And so, I create these shots in 3D. And a reason for that is because I need to...

• 1:26:13Speaker 05

  I move the camera a lot and I have these very long shots, some of which go for almost five minutes. So you can't draw that, you have to do it in 3D. So I do design this whole film and edit it with the music. And this is what we show to everyone on the crew. Because I think it conveys the emotion a lot better than the script does. The script is really, you get the all the beats, the action, but you don't really sense the more kind of intense emotion, which you can't really describe with words. It's more kind of... The reason for making this film is because I need to kind of express these feelings I have, but I can't really do it any other way besides making this film.

• 1:26:58Speaker 05

  Like, this is my way of kind of expressing some more deeper things. It's very therapeutic as well. I don't know exactly what I'm expressing at first, but I find it and discover it on the way. And so, yeah, I think with the music and the lights and the motion, we can express these things that the script couldn't.

• 1:27:22Sean Fennessey?

  Can you tell me a little bit about where the idea came from then? Obviously, you had something calling to you to express yourself. And you also have a cat, I believe. I don't know if the cat was the pure inspiration for it, but like, where did it come from to make a story like this?

• 1:27:38Speaker 05

  Well, I had two cats growing up. Currently, I don't have a cat, but yeah. When I was in high school, I had two cats. And I made a film back then, a short film, about a cat who's afraid of water. So it's the same concept, but it's quite different in terms of presentation. But yeah, so I made a bunch of more short films. And then I made my first feature. I had this opportunity to work with a team for the first time. And I wanted to tell a story about this very experience of how I'm learning how to collaborate and how to trust others, which I'd never done. And I thought a cat would be a great protagonist for such a story

• 1:28:23Speaker 05

  because they're very independent and that could be its start of its character art. So I revisited that concept I started when I was 15. So I've been with this story for half my life now. And I added a bunch of more characters. I also added a dog, which is inspired by two dogs I had.

• 1:28:46Speaker 05

  And these other animals, so in the short, it was really about the fear of water. But in Flow, the feature version, I'm more interested in the cat's fear of others. It's really all about the relationships they have and everything is really built around that. And so, and it was also important that these characters are, all of them are kind of relatable. Or at least we understand them. So none of these main characters at least are good or bad. They're both good and bad, each of them. Which was important, that each of them have their own kind of journeys and character arcs. Which is quite complicated to do without dialogue and in this confined space.

• 1:29:27Speaker 05

  And so there are a lot of limitations in terms of storytelling that, that actually, yeah, it's challenging, but also that can be good. Because in animation, you have endless opportunities. You can, you can do whatever you want. So it can be great to have some limitations. It gets you going at least.

• 1:29:46Sean Fennessey?

  The environment is interesting to me, too. It's hard to place where the story is taking place, when it's taking place. Is it even taking place on Earth? There's certainly a post-apocalyptic kind of feel to what's transpiring. Where, why did you decide to make those choices? And also not necessarily explicate all of those things at the same time?

• 1:30:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I think of this place as like an alternative universe. So we did study real places and took references to make it feel grounded. But we made our own kind of architectural styles. And, and my goal was it for it to feel kind of timeless. That there are no modern day buildings, there are no cell phones. So it could be set at any time. And hopefully this will make it relevant in many years as well. It will stay fresh. But yeah, we look, we looked at places in Southeast Asia, in Central America, also in Europe, and Tibet, and Nepal, and, and. Combine them and made something new.

• 1:30:49Speaker 05

  Uh, but because there's no dialogue, this uh environment is really telling the story. It's not just decoration, so. So uh great, the great thing about designing everything ourselves, we can do what is necessary for the story. We're not constrained by existing places and. And and yeah, so it's all there to kind of express what the cat is feeling. And uh and yeah, it's I wanted it to feel like an adventure, the whole story. So uh I wanted it to feel like we've never seen these places, just as the cat hasn't seen them. Uh, so that was important, that everything is kind of seen from the cat's point of view.

• 1:31:29Sean Fennessey?

  I've read that animating water sequences is incredibly complicated. And that's an essential part of the story that you're telling. Can you just talk about your experience trying to accomplish that?

• 1:31:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, in any kind of film, whether it's animated or not, uh they tell you to avoid water. Because it's so hard to control. Uh, and also, well, maybe in this case, it's not as big as a problem. But uh they also say uh to you should avoid using animals. But yeah, so we had.

• 1:31:58Sean Fennessey?

  And children too, I think that's the third one. So you didn't have to worry about children in this one.

• 1:32:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, but yeah, animals are also tricky. Um, but um water is complicated because uh there's no one way of doing water. There's uh, there's a river, there's a lake, there's a storm, there is a puddle. And each of them require completely different types of tools and systems that need to be developed. And usually in in like bigger VFX heavy films or animated films, there are dozens of people. Like their whole department of doing all that. We had just two people doing all the water effects. Uh, and despite like most of the film being set in water. Um, and uh, yeah, the complicated thing is that you need to understand the physics, the technical part of it. Which I really don't understand myself.

• 1:32:48Speaker 05

  But these people also need to have a very good eye and uh ability to tell stories. Because water in this film is also helps us to understand what the. Cat is feeling, it's like a metaphor uh for its feeling. So when the cat is afraid, the water is very scary and aggressive. And then as the cat learns to trust others, the water calms down. Uh but but yeah, I wanted you to be inside this water. So the camera goes in and out of the water within a single shot. Uh and that was important, that it feels kind of tangible and you can feel its wetness uh and you feel very immersed in this world.

• 1:33:25Sean Fennessey?

  It's incredibly effective um and fascinating because it feels somehow both realistic and otherworldly. So the way that you've pulled that off is amazing. I can't believe how successful this film has been. You know, it's it's it's done really well at the box office. You know, you I I wish you the best with the Academy Award nominations tomorrow. Are you stunned by the way that the film has been received? Are you surprised? Like, how are you feeling about the way that this, you know, relatively micro-budgeted animated film with a small crew has found its way into the world?

• 1:33:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm still, yeah, I am stunned and it is crazy. Uh it's quite unprecedented. So. Uh while we were hoping to have a a festival release, um we were hoping to get like some distribution. But yeah, this is a challenging uh kind of pitch because it's it's hard to compare it to something. And you're always asked to compare it to some something and because it works both for kids and adults. So it's it's people see it as neither in this case when you're pitching it. I think it actually does work for kids and adults. So that's, I think, part of the appeal that kind of helped it break out of that.

• 1:34:41Speaker 05

  Festival circuit, kind of art house films, and that there are families coming to it. But uh but yeah, in terms of the the whole uh visual style and everything, it's unlike most animated films. I think that's also what helped it to be noticed because it feels like we shot it in this very kind of almost documentary way. But also with these long takes, which is quite unexpected. And and and yeah, I think we just started in Cannes Film Festival, which was also a huge deal for us. Because they almost never select animation in competition. And then everyone really took notice and we got like distribution, because we only got distribution after Cannes.

• 1:35:25Speaker 05

  And then, and then all these festivals and, and so I've been traveling pretty much since Cannes in May for seven months now, which has been pretty exciting, but also very exhausting. But it's a very good problem to have. And, and, and yeah, also in terms of Latvian films, this has been incredibly successful. And because, yeah, like here, we're the number two film of all time in the Latvian box office and on our way to being number one very soon. Uh, which is like, uh, we also don't typically watch these kind of independent animated films. So it really came as a surprise to us as well. But I think this has shown that there is an appetite

• 1:36:09Speaker 05

  for different types of animated films. Uh, and now that there are like these free tools that we use, uh, so we made it with Blender, which is a free open source software. We can have these smaller studios, uh, taking bigger swings and trying out new things. Uh, uh, and I'm sure we're gonna see more of these films because this has shown it can be successful. So, uh, I'm sure that people will like follow this path. And, um, hopefully it's, it's not like the same type of, like they don't copy it, like just being stories about cats. Like this means the all kinds of independent films. You don't have to like very directly copy this.

• 1:36:53Speaker 05

  Um, but, but yeah, uh, and also like, yeah, it's a very young team. Like we were all very new to this. Uh, I think the lack of experience helped us kind of discover some new ways of dealing with things and finding new solutions. And so, so yeah, that's, I think, part of it.

• 1:37:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's an amazing accomplishment and the film is beautiful. So congratulations. Um, Gins, we do end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what is the last great thing they have seen? Seems like you're a cinephile. Have you seen anything great lately?

• 1:37:25Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, well, this is kind of sad, but I've been rewatching some David Lynch films. And so, yeah, I watched Lost Highway, which I actually hadn't seen before.

• 1:37:37Sean Fennessey?

  What did you think of it?

• 1:37:38Speaker 05

  Uh, it's, I thought it was really amazing. Like, uh, it's, uh, I don't know, it's, I was, um, there is this, I don't know, it's really hard to describe, but yeah, and that like, I love when, I've been also listening to David Lynch interviews now, and he's been like reluctant, uh, explaining what his films are about. And I've been very inspired by this approach as well. That's why I'm also very, I, I hope the film speaks for itself, uh, in my case. And I think in his case as well, you can, you shouldn't really try to describe it. You should really embrace the ambiguity and, uh, it's just an experience that I really loved.

• 1:38:20Speaker 05

  And, and it's very kind of dark, but also naive in some ways at the same time, which makes it the darkness feel more dark and the lightness feel more light and, uh, which feels very relevant, I guess nowadays as well, with all of these extreme emotions. Uh, uh, and yeah, so I loved The Lost Highway.

• 1:38:42Sean Fennessey?

  Beautifully put. Gins, thanks so much for doing this. Good luck with the film going forward.

• 1:38:46Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:38:55Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks to Gins Zilbeladis, thanks to Jack Sanders, thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Amanda. Next week, a brief respite from the Oscar race and an acknowledgement of Dumpuary. So here's what's on the list, Amanda.

• 1:39:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I think some of these are unfair as, well, I understand that it's, it's not necessarily that they're bad. It's just that the studios have put them in January for a lack of...

• 1:39:17Sean Fennessey?

  We are not dumping on them.

• 1:39:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Confidence.

• 1:39:19Sean Fennessey?

  They are, they have been dumped into January.

• 1:39:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:39:23Sean Fennessey?

  And we are reflecting on their dump status.

• 1:39:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:39:26Sean Fennessey?

  So we're going to talk about Better Man. We're going to talk about One of Them Days. We're going to talk about Flight Risk,

• 1:39:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:34Sean Fennessey?

  Wolfman.

• 1:39:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:35Sean Fennessey?

  Back in Action.

• 1:39:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:39:37Sean Fennessey?

  And Presence, Steven Soderbergh's new film. And Soderbergh will be on the show.

• 1:39:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:39:43Sean Fennessey?

  And I did ask him a question in your honor.

• 1:39:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 1:39:46Sean Fennessey?

  And he did answer it.

• 1:39:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm really excited. Did you cite me when you asked it?

• 1:39:50Sean Fennessey?

  I did.

• 1:39:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:39:51Sean Fennessey?

  He also said your name out loud.

• 1:39:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Oh, all right. Well, I did just like get a little palpitation right now. Like, this is why I don't do the interviews and I'm like a little stressed out now, but I'm excited for this.

• 1:40:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, well, tune in next week. We'll see you then. Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee

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