Final 2025 Oscar Predictions: Who Will Win and Should Win

Sean and Amanda discuss a bit of news about the 2026 movie slate (1:00), then launch headfirst into their final predictions for the 2025 Oscars’ winners, losers, and everything in between (15:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins 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.

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• 1:26Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy.

• 1:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 1:28Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the big picture of Converse Nation Show about our final Oscar predictions. It's almost here. Just a few more days. The Academy Awards, the 97th Academy Awards are happening on Sunday. Reminder, speaking of Sunday, we, we two forty-somethings striving valiantly to make content will be going live on the YouTube platform.

• 1:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53Sean Fennessey?

  To have a discussion at 2:30 PM Pacific, 5:30 PM Eastern Time. I won't be discussing Central Time or Mountain Time. We're gonna talk about-

• 2:02Amanda Dobbins?

  4:30, 3:30.

• 2:03Sean Fennessey?

  Got it. Okay, good.

• 2:06Sean Fennessey?

  We're gonna talk about our predictions.

• 2:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It's an international academy and a big world.

• 2:11Sean Fennessey?

  What is, so New Zealand time, what will we be for?

• 2:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Plus 16 hours, I think.

• 2:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, and Sri Lanka, what time will it be?

• 2:18Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like 16, minus, 24 minus 16 is 8, so, no, but, mm, okay. I can't do that.

• 2:26Sean Fennessey?

  In South Africa, what time will it be?

• 2:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't have my world clock app right now because I put my phone away.

• 2:31Sean Fennessey?

  In Latvia, the folks at home who will be rooting for the film Flow, what time will it be?

• 2:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it'll be the middle of the night.

• 2:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 2:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Based on my understanding of it, you know, it could be 9, 10, 11, the further east you go.

• 2:42Sean Fennessey?

  What about the Parisians rooting for Emilio Perez?

• 2:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so it starts 2:30 plus, I think it's 9?

• 2:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 2:50Amanda Dobbins?

  So, 11:30.

• 2:51Sean Fennessey?

  11:30 PM, Parisians, tune in, we'll be on YouTube talking about what's going to come in the Academy Awards and just some other stuff.

• 2:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:59Sean Fennessey?

  I might have a drink. I might have a glass of brown liquor.

• 3:02Amanda Dobbins?

  You were saying that we're going live on the YouTube platform. What if I go rogue at some point and just go live on Instagram solo?

• 3:10Sean Fennessey?

  Whilst we're on YouTube?

• 3:11Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think probably like during a commercial or something.

• 3:14Sean Fennessey?

  I would welcome that. I think that's great.

• 3:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't have the password, so we'd have to arrange that.

• 3:18Sean Fennessey?

  What about on your personal account?

• 3:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, well, I mean, I guess I could just go on my personal account.

• 3:23Sean Fennessey?

  Is it important for you to have a lot of followers on Instagram?

• 3:26Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 3:27Sean Fennessey?

  Do you not want them?

• 3:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not that I don't want them. I want everyone to behave.

• 3:33Sean Fennessey?

  Not really part of the equation here. You're on social media.

• 3:36Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true. No, I'm just, I'm doing it for me.

• 3:39Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 3:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm doing it because I'm lightly addicted to Instagram. And lightly addicted to buying things.

• 3:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 3:44Amanda Dobbins?

  But, you know, we all have our vices, we're all coping.

• 3:47Sean Fennessey?

  Well, the more followers you get-

• 3:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 3:49Sean Fennessey?

  The more-

• 3:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Free stuff, I guess.

• 3:51Sean Fennessey?

  -influential power you'll have.

• 3:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I do understand that. I'm comfortable with the level of power that I have right now.

• 3:58Sean Fennessey?

  I know that's not true. I can confirm that is not the case.

• 4:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think it reflects well on me to want more, you know?

• 4:05Sean Fennessey?

  I'd like to tell you about my power.

• 4:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:07Sean Fennessey?

  My power was expressed clearly by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this morning, when they announced that on the telecast, they will be showing clips. Did you see this news?

• 4:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I read a very long and verbose interview with the producers, but somehow my eyes glazed over for the clips. I'm happy for you. They also point blank, we're like, it's gonna be three and a half hours.

• 4:29Sean Fennessey?

  Did they say that?

• 4:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, they did.

• 4:30Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 4:31Amanda Dobbins?

  They're like, we know you want it to be three, it's just we can't do it, it'll be three and a half.

• 4:35Sean Fennessey?

  That's great. Why not four?

• 4:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Because we want people to watch. And also because I'd like to go to bed before 2 a.m.

• 4:42Sean Fennessey?

  Well, they'll get to see clips, obviously. I've been banging the drum for clips for a very long time. I'm very excited about that. A lot of great performances this year. I look forward to seeing them shown on television. A lot of movies that a lot of people haven't seen, so I think this is helpful in that respect. I, you know, I don't think, while I do think that sometimes bullying works, I don't think that bullying in this particular case worked. I think what happened is they had announced this plan to have the Fab Five come on and introduce each nominee and talk about their work. And then the Carla Sofia Gascón thing happened.

• 5:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And nobody wanted to do that.

• 5:13Sean Fennessey?

  Who would want to do that? Who would want to come up and advocate for that performance? I think a little challenging now.

• 5:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw that Carla Sofia Gascón will be in attendance on Netflix's dime.

• 5:24Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 5:24Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 5:25Sean Fennessey?

  They can afford it.

• 5:25Amanda Dobbins?

  They, I mean, they definitely can. I just, you know, we have been noting their spending pullback in that area. And so now they are, they're living up to their commitment, I guess.

• 5:35Sean Fennessey?

  You think she's gonna win?

• 5:38Amanda Dobbins?

  What if she does?

• 5:41Sean Fennessey?

  I would say crazier things have happened, but that would probably be the craziest thing that has ever happened.

• 5:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I still think Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.

• 5:47Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, you're right.

• 5:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Is the craziest thing that happened, but that could be, it could be top five.

• 5:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there was a streaker live onstage at the Academy Awards.

• 5:56Amanda Dobbins?

  They announced.

• 5:56Sean Fennessey?

  Moonlight mix up.

• 5:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they announced the wrong winner, but I think that you would get.

• 5:59Sean Fennessey?

  Celine Littlefeather accepting on Marlon Brando's behalf.

• 6:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I said top five.

• 6:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's a good episode for us.

• 6:04Amanda Dobbins?

  The reaction faces, though, if she wins, I think would rival the, like, near classic Moonlight Lala, like, audience reaction shot.

• 6:14Sean Fennessey?

  It would be like the end of the substance.

• 6:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Busy Philipps, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, everyone like, you know, it's a really, really good photo.

• 6:20Sean Fennessey?

  Will Busy Philipps be in attendance this year? Because it probably depends on if Michelle Williams is invited, right?

• 6:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. I don't know. I like Busy Philipps.

• 6:28Sean Fennessey?

  She appeared in the film Mean Girls in 2024.

• 6:31Amanda Dobbins?

  She did, yeah, but she lives in New York now, so I don't know whether she's gonna make the.

• 6:36Sean Fennessey?

  The dividing line?

• 6:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 6:37Sean Fennessey?

  Anyone living in New York is not invited to the Oscars?

• 6:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I assume, like, someone has to fly her in, probably, and then, if she's not promoting a movie, I don't know. I don't, Mean Girls is not nominated at the.

• 6:49Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 6:49Amanda Dobbins?

  At the 97.

• 6:50Sean Fennessey?

  Stunning turn of events. Wait.

• 6:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Oscars.

• 6:52Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to ask you something. I've been thinking about 2026 a lot, right? You're very mad that we're not going to Cannes together this year, right?

• 6:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:59Sean Fennessey?

  You want us to go to Cannes?

• 7:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I do.

• 7:01Sean Fennessey?

  I will go to Cannes in 2026, right? I've said, I'm committed to that.

• 7:05Amanda Dobbins?

  You said that last year.

• 7:06Sean Fennessey?

  I'm committing to it. I think 2026 should be a, maybe not a full bucket list year for the show, but we should change things up. And now I'm like, we've never been to the Academy Awards. I always said I would never go.

• 7:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:18Sean Fennessey?

  But I'm thinking about 75-year-old Sean.

• 7:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 7:22Sean Fennessey?

  And will I go to my grave?

• 7:24Amanda Dobbins?

  What about 100?

• 7:26Sean Fennessey?

  What if I turn 100?

• 7:28Amanda Dobbins?

  No, the 100th Academy Awards. We're pretty soon. We're pretty close.

• 7:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that would be 2028?

• 7:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Sean Fennessey?

  I make no promises on this being here in 2028.

• 7:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Forty-six?

• 7:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'll be 46. I would like to be in Barbados in 2026.

• 7:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I would like to be in Barbados right now.

• 7:44Sean Fennessey?

  So get that Instagram follower count up, and it can happen. It can happen to you.

• 7:47Amanda Dobbins?

  That is really what I want. What I want is to have enough, here's how many Instagram followers I want, that I can get. Like free and or heavily discounted rates at luxury hotels.

• 7:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 8:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Because that's just, the prices are out of reach, you know? I just, it's really, it's too much. I just, have you seen what Rosewood is charging? It's, it's.

• 8:09Sean Fennessey?

  I don't even know what Rosewood is.

• 8:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, you do. It's a chain, you know, they have the, the Miramar in, uh, Santa Barbara. That's like literally right on the highway and costs $5,000 a night for like a starting room. And that's where like Bob Iger had one of his like Disney summits before he came back. And then there's one in Hawaii that I'd like to go to, but again, I'm just, I'm just one woman with not enough Instagram followers.

• 8:32Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not only not in that stratosphere.

• 8:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:34Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not even pining for that stratosphere.

• 8:37Amanda Dobbins?

  You do like a luxury hotel though. Yeah. So wouldn't it be nice to be able to go, they've got kids clubs, you know?

• 8:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 8:45Amanda Dobbins?

  So then you can say, hey, Alice, like here's a nice daycare.

• 8:48Sean Fennessey?

  No, I've, I've stayed at the Four Seasons a handful of times in my life. Every time I had an amazing experience.

• 8:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 8:54Sean Fennessey?

  It's not, it's, it's, it's.

• 8:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 8:56Sean Fennessey?

  A hard pull off. So getting discounts, I get it.

• 8:58Amanda Dobbins?

  That's what I'm saying. Yeah. You, you mentioned Barbados and I immediately went to Resort Life, which is where I'd like to be.

• 9:04Sean Fennessey?

  I think you just have names at your fingertips that I'm not really.

• 9:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Well, there is, there, I, the Rosewood Kona, I'm interested if anybody would like to post me.

• 9:11Sean Fennessey?

  In Hawaii.

• 9:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And I love to post on Instagram. So I just like.

• 9:16Sean Fennessey?

  You will, you will whore yourself out for high quality.

• 9:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I'll host a conference. I will do whatever.

• 9:24Sean Fennessey?

  Settle down, settle down.

• 9:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Do they need a screening room? I will program that shit all summer long.

• 9:29Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 9:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. You know?

• 9:31Sean Fennessey?

  You're, you are available to future partners is what you're saying.

• 9:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So I, but I do have to get more Instagram followers for that. So that can be one of our 2026 goals. Along with Cannes, Venice? Or are you thinking about it for, is it percolating for this year?

• 9:49Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 9:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 9:51Sean Fennessey?

  We were texting about this. What do we think is happening at Venice?

• 9:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, there are rumors. We know nothing.

• 9:57Sean Fennessey?

  We don't know anything.

• 9:58Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, my Italian peers have not looped me in on this yet.

• 10:04Sean Fennessey?

  Peers?

• 10:08Amanda Dobbins?

  But there are rumors that because of the August 9th schedule date for the release of the Paul Thomas Anderson film, and how close that is to the date of the Venice Film Festival, that things might get pushed a little bit, and there might be a Venice debut for PTA this year, plus a new Brady Corby film, possibly, and Mona Fassbald.

• 10:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 10:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe.

• 10:30Sean Fennessey?

  So that's more reason to potentially go to Venice.

• 10:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Obviously, that's where The Brutalist had its big.

• 10:36Sean Fennessey?

  Certainly did.

• 10:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Debut.

• 10:37Sean Fennessey?

  I have to buy a ticket to the Telluride Film Festival Saturday morning.

• 10:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 10:44Sean Fennessey?

  That's when they go on sale. So I'm gonna buy the ticket.

• 10:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 10:47Sean Fennessey?

  Just because if you don't.

• 10:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Then you don't have it.

• 10:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So I'm gonna buy it.

• 10:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I was thinking about just applying for a Venice credential for you.

• 10:56Sean Fennessey?

  That's very sweet.

• 10:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Because normally, you have to have a signing letter, and I always write your signing letter for me, and then I'll write an assigning letter for you, and then we can just send it on our way.

• 11:06Sean Fennessey?

  So in the PTA arc, obviously, we had a show when Licorice Pizza came out, but it was sort of at the tail end of a COVID period.

• 11:16Amanda Dobbins?

  It was.

• 11:17Sean Fennessey?

  And that film was maybe not like the grand scale kind of statement.

• 11:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:22Sean Fennessey?

  It was a much smaller, more personal movie, more episodic. People haven't really seen me kind of go like full crazy Paul Thomas Anderson. This movie presents an opportunity to do so.

• 11:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It does.

• 11:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's a $150 million action epic. Started rereading Vineland, which has been, it's just, every pension book is just a lot of book, you know? After 18 pages, you're like, I have consumed a lot of information here.

• 11:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Especially those of us who aren't regularly reading fiction.

• 11:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 11:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Sean fantasy.

• 11:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, very true. I've written up plenty of pension in my life, but it's been a while since I consumed it.

• 11:54Amanda Dobbins?

  So you started now for an August.

• 11:57Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty much.

• 11:59Sean Fennessey?

  That was part of my thinking.

• 12:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 12:01Sean Fennessey?

  Um, so yeah, maybe Venice is in our future. I don't know. I don't know. I'm, I'm thinking about it.

• 12:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It would be.

• 12:06Sean Fennessey?

  The clarion call of Paul Thomas Anderson.

• 12:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Think about how happy I would be.

• 12:09Sean Fennessey?

  I know, I know.

• 12:10Amanda Dobbins?

  So that.

• 12:10Sean Fennessey?

  The one thing that really bums me out is like, I'm not going for one movie or six movies. I'm usually going for 22 movies.

• 12:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well, you could do that.

• 12:18Sean Fennessey?

  But I can't go for 11 days. And nobody cares about this.

• 12:20Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true. I think you could probably do 11 days in, 11 movies in six days. It just wouldn't, I don't know if you would see every single hit at, or like every single important movie at the Venice Festival, because they do ration them out.

• 12:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Amanda Dobbins?

  One day at a time. Like, I missed Hitman.

• 12:36Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, right.

• 12:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Because it was just, it was too late. And I had to like extend my trip in order to be able to see Priscilla there, which was worth it.

• 12:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Well, we'll come back to that in the future.

• 12:44Amanda Dobbins?

  So where's, where's Venice this year maybe, but Cannes and possibly the Oscars next year?

• 12:50Sean Fennessey?

  Let's just think about it. The problem with going to the Oscars, and maybe, maybe if the Academy is listening to this show, um, is there a world where you could, there's a space for us to record our, our episode immediately after the, the telecast?

• 13:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 13:03Sean Fennessey?

  Um, that's really the thing that we don't have. You know, like our, our friends at the Ringer NFL show over the years and at the Ringer Fantasy Football Show too, have found ways to record on site after the Super Bowl.

• 13:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 13:14Sean Fennessey?

  It didn't make sense to send people to the Super Bowl for what we do at the Ringer on the audio side, but now we have a solution.

• 13:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 13:20Sean Fennessey?

  Can the Academy help us create a solution?

• 13:22Amanda Dobbins?

  We can take over the Johnny Rockets in the mall, directly atop the Dolby.

• 13:27Sean Fennessey?

  It's not a bad idea to build this up. I think it costs a lot to rent that space.

• 13:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I tell you something?

• 13:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 13:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Just absolutely loved Johnny Rockets as a child. I have not been in 30 years, but I listen. Again.

• 13:37Sean Fennessey?

  It's just like a 50's style diner, right?

• 13:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and, and like a, a smash burger.

• 13:41Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, if they're looking for partners.

• 13:44Sean Fennessey?

  You.

• 13:47Sean Fennessey?

  Um, you have a very basic taste.

• 13:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Sean Fennessey?

  When it comes to that kind of dining experience. I say that with no malice.

• 13:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, as opposed to verisim-

• 13:58Sean Fennessey?

  You don't like flourishes. You want something down the middle.

• 14:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I do not have a lot of patience for, um, quote unquote, fine dining.

• 14:07Sean Fennessey?

  Right, high cuisine.

• 14:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think, like, and, and I, I think it relates in a lot of the ways to, to my taste in art and, and film as well, where, where the more yes chef you have in it, and I, and I love seasons one and two of The Bear, but the more I become some sort of like deep psychological. You know, expression of of self and also the more athletic the cooking becomes, the more I'm like, like, yeah.

• 14:34Sean Fennessey?

  You want to just be served what you want.

• 14:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, or I do like more, I like simpler rustic. You know, less fussy cooking.

• 14:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 14:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Fussiness. I just get out of my way.

• 14:46Sean Fennessey?

  Johnny Rockets, I think rustic. I think, I think.

• 14:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that is. This is because I grew up in Atlanta in 1990, you know, and I like fucking.

• 14:54Sean Fennessey?

  Wow. How old are you? Uh, okay. Let's, let's predict Oscars. We have a lot of categories to go through. We have 23 categories to go through today. 2026 is going to be exciting, but let's, let's not let 2025 get away from us. Now, historically, we both do pretty well with our predictions. Um, there's a lot of newcomers to this show. This show's kind of changed and evolved over the years. We're on YouTube. We're, we're soon to be on the Spotify video platform. Hello to everyone who's just joining us. We've been predicting Academy Awards for seven years now on the program. Um, this year is a little bit flummoxing in about five categories for me, and I still don't totally have my head around. Where I, I have a lack of confidence, I think is what I'm trying to say. How do you feel?

• 15:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's brave of you to say that out loud.

• 15:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 15:42Amanda Dobbins?

  And we're proud of you.

• 15:43Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 15:43Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and maybe that can be another one of our goals in 2026 is accepting our emotions. I've been taught that I'm supposed to teach my toddler, like, it's okay to feel disappointment. It's okay to feel nervous. Uh, so it's okay, Sean, to feel nervous.

• 15:57Sean Fennessey?

  That it's okay for you to feel nervous?

• 15:59Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but I do. Um, I feel okay about them. We always get to this point where we think that we know. We think we have a pretty good handle and despite the uncertainty of this year and the changing nature of the race, like.

• 16:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I have a sense, like, there is a trend pattern in most categories. I agree with you that it feels a little less certain and way more likely that a surprise can happen. At this point, I always find myself overthinking it and you're very prone to this as well because we've been talking about it for so long. Like, we're so. Certain or there is among pundits and people who spend too much time on this such a consensus that we start looking for the angles. And I wonder if we're going to be both be a little extra susceptible to that right now because we're prepped for some surprises. So now we're turning over a few more rocks than we need to.

• 16:59Sean Fennessey?

  You're right. What you could do here is you could end up with a 12 out of 23 or 11 out of 23 showing because it feels very coin flippy in five or six races. And then if you take a couple of other chances beyond those races, you might be in trouble.

• 17:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:15Sean Fennessey?

  So let's just talk through it.

• 17:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 17:18Sean Fennessey?

  I have arranged this in a very specific order.

• 17:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 17:21Sean Fennessey?

  Hopefully, it's an interesting order for the listeners at home. The big races will be at the end of this podcast. You'll have to listen all the way to the end. But let's start with three of the feature focused categories. Animated feature film, documentary feature film, and international feature film as a starting point. So the nominees for animated feature film, which we have known for the most part, and even if you go back to our big Oscar bet, we were pretty close on these way back when, include Flow, Inside Out 2, Memoir of a Snail, Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Foul, and The Wild Robot.

• 17:57Sean Fennessey?

  This really feels like a two film race.

• 17:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 17:59Sean Fennessey?

  And those two films, I think, represent two very different ideas of what movies are right now and maybe what they can be. You've got a classic, big DreamWorks production and adaptation of a beloved children's book, The Wild Robot, and you've got this small Latvian film that came out of nowhere, Flow, a wordless, sort of narrativeless exploration of existence.

• 18:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And capybaras.

• 18:24Sean Fennessey?

  Capybaras. We've got dogs.

• 18:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it's like, when I saw the capybara, because I've seen all of these films now, and when the capybara showed up, I was like, oh, okay, and the Oscar goes to Flow.

• 18:36Sean Fennessey?

  Is that how, so that's what you're feeling?

• 18:37Amanda Dobbins?

  And I do, actually. It's a combo of, I think, people, you know, capybaras are an internet meme type thing. But. I'm really going with last year's results where Boy and the Heron won over Spider-Verse. And I, that is obviously a little bit a reflection on the respect for Miyazaki and the international nature of the voting body, but Flo is also nominated in international feature.

• 19:04Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 19:04Amanda Dobbins?

  So it certainly has a voting block. And also, if you think about all the people who are just turning things on for 20 minutes and going about their day. You can, you can appreciate Flo, in which, listen, I don't, I don't condone it, but that is how some people vote. Especially in the, you know, below the line.

• 19:25Sean Fennessey?

  No question. People will vote for things that they don't watch. I, this is one of the single hardest categories for me to pick. And if you told me that the results were 51% to 49%, I would not be surprised. I wrote down Flo yesterday and I'm going with The Wild Robot today. So that's a, this will be a key distinction point between us. I think that The Wild Robot is also very strong. It has nominations for best score and for best sound. It's extremely unusual for an animated film to get a best sound nomination. So that's other branches outside of the animation group that are going for this movie. The other thing to consider, Chris Sanders is a four-time nominee. He's a legend in the animation community.

• 20:07Sean Fennessey?

  His films are now being made into live-action movies like 20 years later. He's really, really well-liked. Flo is fantastic. They're both great. They both, for me, were both like top 25 movies of the year pretty easily. I've devoted a lot of time to both filmmakers on the show. I really like them both, even in the should-win answer. It's kind of a coin flip for me. I like them both. It's a very good category this year. This isn't my favorite Adam Elliott movie, the memoir of a snail director, but that's a good film. The Aardman, Wallace and Cronkite movies are always good. Inside Out 2, okay, it's pretty good. Obviously a huge box office success. But I'm going Wild Robot, and I'm gonna say Should Win Wild Robot.

• 20:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I will go with Wild Robot in Should Win also. Even though I texted you that I don't like how the animals move in that movie. But otherwise, I know from a pure animation standpoint, but everything else is quite beautiful. I cried, you know, I'm a human being, even though the Wild Robot is not. Or really, anyone else in the film.

• 21:07Sean Fennessey?

  She evinces incredibly human qualities, though. Like caretaking, something you're also thinking about every day. I think, this isn't gonna be indicative of anything else that's gonna happen for the rest of the night, but that international thing that you're talking about, if a film like this wins, to me, that will signal something bigger about the animation races in the future, and maybe even this particular awards body, because Miyazaki is Miyazaki. He'd already won before. He is an actual legend. You know, he is like, he is in a conversation the last 30 years for the greatest filmmakers, in the eyes of many people who've worked in the business. Gwyneth Paltrow is like, nobody ever heard of that person until 12 months ago. So, but this is a movie that did well, it can.

• 21:52Amanda Dobbins?

  It won international feature at the Andy Spirits.

• 21:54Sean Fennessey?

  It did. I think it's a really close race. Interesting that we're split. Okay, let's go to documentary feature film. Do you wanna read the nominees?

• 22:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I'd love to. Black Box Diaries, No Other Land, Porcelain War, soundtrack to a coup d'etat, Sugarcane.

• 22:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so you've just caught up with a lot of these films.

• 22:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 22:11Sean Fennessey?

  Anything jump out to you about them?

• 22:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Uplifting as always.

• 22:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's a very dark collection of films.

• 22:17Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, it's tough. And they're all like extremely important issues, but if you do them back to back, as I did, like very heavy stuff. It was interesting to me that a majority of the films, four out of five, are, they're not autobiography, but they are self-filmed and kinda, they are, again, not quite first person, but the subjects are capturing a lot of the footage themselves, and it is being told. Through the lens of of their experience as opposed to as an outside observer.

• 22:54Sean Fennessey?

  I thought this was a very good observation.

• 22:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and I think in some cases, it's not even whether that works better than others. That's just like the style. And I think that all four films are very upfront about that.

• 23:12Amanda Dobbins?

  But it that becomes text in a couple of them in interesting ways. And in a couple, it just is the the way that the footage was achieved. So. But I did think that was notable, especially when, you know, you always talk so much about

• 23:29Amanda Dobbins?

  music documentaries and art documentaries and everything where the the subject is like much more involved now. And that just seems to be the way that documentaries are are getting made.

• 23:41Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's a way that you can authenticate the story. So it does not feel like an outside observer has parachuted into a situation. That used to be something that was celebrated, I think, about documentaries. You would stumble upon something in the world. I don't know. I think of like Harlan County, USA, the Barbara Koppel movie. You know, she was not from those coal mining towns, but she she went and visited those spaces and effectively told those stories with a level of objectivity, but also a passion about the subject matter. These stories, Black Box Diaries, is a story about sexual assault, directed by the woman who was assaulted.

• 24:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 24:15Sean Fennessey?

  Turning her film into a kind of a not almost like a whodunit, you know, like an exploration.

• 24:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Well, she's also she's a journalist as well. So she is investigating and trying to she is she is documenting and like making a documentary as a documentarian who is also the subject.

• 24:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Porcelain War is a film about Ukrainian artists who are, you know, subject to the toll of the war with Russia. No Other Land, of course, is about Israeli occupation in Gaza and the destruction of a space in Gaza. Sugarcane likewise is about indigenous peoples who were, you know, disappeared in the face of this Catholic mandatory schooling circumstance. And then soundtrack to Akudeta is this outside-

• 25:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 25:01Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of like more of an essayistic-

• 25:03Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like Adam Curtis.

• 25:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, idea-focused slice of history.

• 25:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I will say, I liked that movie very much, but it was billed as a Cold War thriller, which respectfully, you can't say that to a John Le Cray, like, stan. And then I sat home and I was like, oh, I see what you mean, but this is, you know, this is, it's not Tinker Tailor.

• 25:24Sean Fennessey?

  No, I think maybe just about-

• 25:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It's very interesting.

• 25:26Sean Fennessey?

  Sort of like the intersecting modes of power related to Lumumba's assassination. You certainly has in the text that thing, but to me, it's more of a music film in many ways. Like the way the music-

• 25:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 25:37Sean Fennessey?

  -was used or abused in the, in the way of like international power. Anyway, um, this is, this is for me personally, even though I agree with you that all these stories are very important, just not my favorite collection of documentaries that we've seen. I think this branch is in a really interesting space right now. It's obviously, it, it seems to be actively working to sort of zag against what the popular consensus is around consumption around documentaries. It seems very mission oriented. And so, No Other Land has probably the film that has made the most noise.

• 26:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 26:09Sean Fennessey?

  It has won a lot of precursors. It is, it's still, it does still not have US distribution, but people are still seeing it. Like it is still being shown in movie theaters, but it doesn't have like a, an actual company that has signed on to be its official distributor. It's also a movie that is going to be very divisive among people in the academy. We saw the aftermath of Jonathan Glazer's speech at last year's Academy Awards-

• 26:29Amanda Dobbins?

  We sure did.

• 26:30Sean Fennessey?

  Where he spoke about this conflict and he angered a lot of Jewish members of the academy. So I find this to be a tough category to predict.

• 26:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. You know, I think, as, as Bobby pointed out, when we first started talking about No Other Land, despite it being about- The most hot button issue, or one of like the most divisive within the economy and in the world at large, political conflicts in the world right now, it is, it is really, I mean, I guess it is political in that anything that has the words like Israel Gaza, Israel Gaza, West Bank, like is political, but it is, it is just a documentation of what is happening.

• 27:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's a human story.

• 27:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and it is, again, it, it has, it is mostly filmed by one of the directors documenting what's happening. I think a lot of it was first on social media and now it's kind of like being pulled together in a, in a narrative way, which is, I think, another reason that you have these, these first person documentaries is because like we're just all on our phones documenting things right now. But, so, I, I know what you mean, but I, to me, it is different even than like the Jonathan Glazer speech in the way that things are presented. It is very much like, here is what happened.

• 27:42Sean Fennessey?

  Right. I am choosing it to win.

• 27:45Amanda Dobbins?

  As am I.

• 27:46Sean Fennessey?

  Somewhat reluctantly, because I don't know how divisive it will be. I know that it's a movie that a lot of people have heard of, and that's essentially why I'm.

• 27:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I know, I completely agree. And it has been picking up every award. And then you just wonder how many other movies people will watch, you know?

• 28:05Sean Fennessey?

  I, let's not be surprised by a porcelain war upset.

• 28:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I would not either. One of the other reasons, and I mean, this, you know, this is all so craven and gross and you're just like comparing like total tragedies year by year. But I'm like, well, last year was 20 years in Mario Kart, so are they going to vote for like a different tragedy this year, which is just like.

• 28:24Sean Fennessey?

  But it is how people think, honestly.

• 28:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. But that's just like, I, I hate myself for having that thought in my head.

• 28:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Uh, it's very silly also to say what should win, but I would choose soundtrack to a coup d'etat, just because I think formally it's a more interesting experiment in trying to tell a historical story.

• 28:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked, I, I mean, all of the issues are important, you know, so again, we're not voting for issues. I, I liked Black Box Diaries as a. You know, in many ways, it's like, it's not Japanese, she said, but it is, you know, investigating that, that legal system, that journalist, that media ecosystem, of how, like, a rape case would be explored and covered in that, in that country. So I, I was like, this is interesting. I, I kept kind of watching it. And then the, the controversies around it in Japan are also kind of interesting. And again, I, I do not speak or read Japanese, so I was reading, like, translations. I have no idea whether I'm right or not. But the

• 29:25Amanda Dobbins?

  use of the very, there's some very galling, like, absolutely horrifying, uh, video camera footage that is used. And then, who says that's allowed to be used and where and how and how that's affected?

• 29:40Sean Fennessey?

  This will come up again.

• 29:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, is, yes, is, um, was, was fascinating. So I, I, like, I, I enjoyed, check out Black Boxed Iris if you haven't seen it.

• 29:48Sean Fennessey?

  Think it's on Paramount Plus right now?

• 29:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Enjoy is like, not the word. It's very, it's very tough. Yes, check it out.

• 29:52Sean Fennessey?

  Um, all right. International feature film. This was a category that was considered settled for about three months.

• 30:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:02Sean Fennessey?

  The nominees are I'm Still Here, The Girl With The Needle, Emilia Perez, The Seat Of The Sacred Fig, and Flo. Of course, Emilia Perez was by far the frontrunner, the most nominated film at the Academy Awards this year. The scandal that hit about five or six weeks ago has completely torpedoed its chances in a lot of categories. That doesn't mean it's done here.

• 30:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree with you, Sean.

• 30:25Sean Fennessey?

  Um, but I'm not choosing it.

• 30:28Amanda Dobbins?

  You're gonna, you're gonna go with the Brazilians?

• 30:30Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna take I'm Still Here.

• 30:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I think that, I, I mean, I think that you're right. Honestly, a part of my, again, and again, I'm just, I'm really sorry to generalize with a, a country as historically, you know, uh, rich and varied as Brazil, but like, they like Capybaras so much that I, and that Capybaras are native to Brazil. So I'm like, hmm, maybe Flo. And then here, I think you're right, that I'm Still Here really could pull it out.

• 30:58Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it has a Best Actress nomination and a Best Picture nomination.

• 31:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Sean Fennessey?

  So in the event that anybody who looks at the Emilia Perez story has an awareness of it feels that it has become a nuclear circumstance. That this feels like the next best place to go. Now, Flo is beloved. I think there's a lot of admiration for the seat of the sacred fig, though it didn't perform as well as some people thought it might throughout this season. But I think the campaign's been strong. I think Fernanda Torres has campaigned well. You know, for me, I find that movie to be very traditional. It feels very much to me like a 1985 sort of Academy Award nominee. It's not a bad film by any means, but it felt somewhat rote. And I know people are mad because there's a huge passion for that movie that I didn't like it that much, but I just didn't really connect with it. And but I I've know that I'm in the minority, at least among people who have checked it out.

• 31:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked it. I, as I was falling asleep last night, very, very cool thought process. I I realized that we forgot the ending of I'm Still Here for best ending in our Alternative Academy Awards.

• 31:59Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't love it.

• 32:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just liked that it was Fernanda Montenegro, you know?

• 32:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure.

• 32:04Amanda Dobbins?

  That was cool.

• 32:05Sean Fennessey?

  The connectivity with her mom and a former Best Actress nominee.

• 32:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I agree that the third act, I I would like to know more about this, what everything that happened in the third act. I'm not sure why.

• 32:13Sean Fennessey?

  They kind of yada yada the like, she became a national hero. I was like, wait.

• 32:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. And it like activist for indigenous rights and all.

• 32:20Sean Fennessey?

  For the first hour and a half.

• 32:21Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know. Though I have to say like their home in Rio looked fantastic, you know?

• 32:25Sean Fennessey?

  The stuff that worked, I was just talking with Justin Sales about this yesterday. The film had me the first 45 minutes. The family story all the way up until the inciting incident, really, of their family story.

• 32:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's.

• 32:36Sean Fennessey?

  Was was was very compelling.

• 32:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It seems cool if you could own a house a block from the like most famous beach in the world and just walk back and forth, like a nice life, I guess.

• 32:46Sean Fennessey?

  Put it on your 2026 bucket list.

• 32:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway.

• 32:50Sean Fennessey?

  So you're choosing I'm Still Here as well?

• 32:52Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm I'm doing Amelia Pratt.

• 32:54Sean Fennessey?

  Really?

• 32:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's a hang on.

• 32:55Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting. Okay.

• 32:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that, I mean, listen, like we just said, Carlos Gascón will be at the Oscars. Netflix is paying for it. Like, I think she's not gonna win. I don't think it's gonna win Best Picture. But in the same way that we were all so like so befuddled by like, why does everyone like this so much? You know, I think. I think people will be like, sure, in this category, yeah, I liked it. I don't really care.

• 33:17Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. Did you end up watching The Girl with the Needle?

• 33:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I did last night. That was my last thing that I watched. LOL.

• 33:22Sean Fennessey?

  What did you think of that?

• 33:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's pretty, I mean, well-made, impressive, yeah.

• 33:27Sean Fennessey?

  Beautiful photography.

• 33:28Amanda Dobbins?

  You know me and carnies. So.

• 33:32Sean Fennessey?

  Got it.

• 33:32Amanda Dobbins?

  That's my only issue.

• 33:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so that's, so we split on two out of three so far.

• 33:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, who do you think should win?

• 33:40Sean Fennessey?

  Flo.

• 33:40Amanda Dobbins?

  You think Flo?

• 33:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 33:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm gonna go with See the Sacred Fig.

• 33:45Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 33:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Which, you know, should literally be 40 minutes shorter than it is. But I thought especially in all of the family stuff and the setup and like the first hour rips, in my opinion.

• 34:00Sean Fennessey?

  Man, I really, I struggled with this one. I, another movie where I'm like, the story is more important than it is interesting to me personally.

• 34:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just, you know, who doesn't like a Chekhov's gun, you know?

• 34:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but like, it's literally a gun.

• 34:17Sean Fennessey?

  Like, in the first 20 minutes, I was like, okay, I know what this is gonna be. I don't, you know, I think, obviously because of the story of what Mohamed Rusolov had to go through to make that film, and he's been exiled now, and all of that is remarkable, you know? The same is true for the story that Walter Salas is telling in I'm Still Here. These are incredibly relevant.

• 34:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I would agree with you that hours two and three meander.

• 34:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And I have some questions about everyone's strategy in the ending, but we're not doing rewatchables right now. Like, where are they all going?

• 34:47Sean Fennessey?

  You wanna do like an all 22 tape breakdown of the ending of the See the Sacred. Don't spoil, don't spoil for people who haven't seen it.

• 34:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Why is that the strategy?

• 34:54Sean Fennessey?

  If you haven't seen The See the Sacred Fig, we'll probably never talk about it again on the show because I didn't love it that much.

• 34:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But whatever.

• 34:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, well, we've already split on two out of three and we haven't even gotten to the shorts.

• 35:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 35:04Sean Fennessey?

  I don't even know what to do with these.

• 35:07Sean Fennessey?

  I this, I, I think I said I only liked one. That's not entirely true. I liked a few more than one, but I, this is not my favorite crop of films. You have called to abolish the shorts from the telecast in the past.

• 35:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, that, I mean, that's true. I should say it with my whole chest. New award ceremony. It's a different thing.

• 35:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 35:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a new award ceremony.

• 35:26Sean Fennessey?

  Short films do matter. They just don't really make a lot of sense in the context of this award show.

• 35:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:31Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, which we're on the same page about, so let's go.

• 35:33Amanda Dobbins?

  And they and the voters end up doing this, like the voters and I end up doing the same thing.

• 35:38Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Every time, which is just like speed watching all of them.

• 35:41Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:42Amanda Dobbins?

  If you even watch them at all, which I did, but you do wonder how many voters are gonna go through all 15, even though they're made available on the platform. This is the other thing. They're hard to see. They're, they're getting better. Many of them are available to rent on like Vimeo or YouTube now, though it's not clear to me whether that money is going to, I, I'm not really sure what that distribution is about.

• 36:03Sean Fennessey?

  I know how it works. I mean, they show them in a select number of like 800 theaters every year.

• 36:07Amanda Dobbins?

  We live on the, we all live on the internet. People are watching this on the damn internet, you know? Put it on YouTube and put a rent button by it. Like, I, I just don't under.

• 36:14Sean Fennessey?

  Honestly, it's a good, it's a good call.

• 36:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:16Sean Fennessey?

  They should find a way to make them more widely available.

• 36:18Amanda Dobbins?

  If we're, if we're gonna do this.

• 36:19Sean Fennessey?

  I think they should probably get more aggressive with this at the shortlisting stage. Once the films are shortlisted, all of those movies should be made publicly available. There's a million reasons why that's not the case, just like we can't get a Nora to be streaming before the world, you know, like not enough people have seen it for this to have been a meaningful moment.

• 36:35Amanda Dobbins?

  But like, if we're gonna do this and we're still gonna have these at the Oscars under the guise of it's important to honor emerging filmmakers and like the next generation, then make this shit available.

• 36:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Emerging filmmakers like Wes Anderson.

• 36:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 36:47Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay, best animated short. Why don't you read the nominees once you've finished sucking down that giant water bottle?

• 36:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Hydration is important.

• 36:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 36:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Beautiful Men, In the Shadow of the Cypress, Magic Candles, Wander to Wonder, and yuck! Exclamation point.

• 37:05Sean Fennessey?

  I chose Yuck. I don't feel great about it. I don't, I, I only really clicked with one of these and I tell you, it was not Beautiful Men.

• 37:14Amanda Dobbins?

  You didn't like that?

• 37:14Sean Fennessey?

  Which is about three men who go to Turkey to get a hair transplant.

• 37:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:17Sean Fennessey?

  Which of course is all the, all the, all the rage now. Shout out to Van Lathan, you know, who's had some amazing experiences with hair transplants.

• 37:25Amanda Dobbins?

  But not in Turkey, right?

• 37:26Sean Fennessey?

  Not in Turkey. I thought Yuck was very sweet and I thought it had a nice like animation flourish. The lips was like very memorable. It's also fairly short.

• 37:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they're, these were all pretty short.

• 37:41Sean Fennessey?

  They're, you know, In the Shadow of the Cypress is probably the heaviest of the five. And, but not the one that I clicked with the most. The one I liked the most was Wander to Wonder.

• 37:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I've picked that to win.

• 37:52Sean Fennessey?

  You have? Okay, interesting.

• 37:54Amanda Dobbins?

  It won the BAFTA and the Annie.

• 37:56Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, it could win. It's not, um, it doesn't really have like a strong message.

• 38:02Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 38:03Sean Fennessey?

  And I tend to look for message movies in the short films.

• 38:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I tend to look for precursors.

• 38:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 38:09Amanda Dobbins?

  But I liked Wander to Wonder.

• 38:11Sean Fennessey?

  I, that was my favorite by far. That animation style, the tone, I enjoyed it. It felt like, it felt like an Ardenman kind of film.

• 38:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked Magic Candies.

• 38:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it was sweet.

• 38:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you know, I liked it better than Yuck, which I thought was too sentimental.

• 38:25Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, I don't really have a ton more to say about it. It made it short. Best documentary short. I have some things to say about this category. The nominees are Death by Numbers, I Am Ready, Warden, Incident, Instruments of a Beating Heart, and The Only Girl in the Orchestra. Your thoughts?

• 38:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I am going, I'm predicting I Am Ready, Warden to win.

• 38:47Sean Fennessey?

  I am as well.

• 38:48Amanda Dobbins?

  It is available on Paramount Plus in addition to being available on the Academy site. And I do think visibility is important. It is also a recognizable documentary, accessible documentary format as opposed to.

• 39:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Incident, which I think should win, but I think will be difficult for most voters firing it up. I mean, it is difficult. It is absolutely. Incident uses police body cam footage and security cam footage to recreate and not to recreate, but to show and investigate the police, a police shooting of a civilian in Chicago in, I believe, 2018.

• 39:40Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:42Amanda Dobbins?

  And so you are, you are watching that happen over and over and over again from different angles. And it is horrifying and incredibly upsetting and obviously really important. But the first title card is just a heads up that much of the movie doesn't even have sound. So I think, you know, when we do these, we don't really think very highly of the voters, which is possibly unfair. But I do imagine that would be alienating to a lot of people turning on their portal to try to get through these as soon as possible.

• 40:13Sean Fennessey?

  The looking at my phone crowd won't connect with Incident as much.

• 40:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, Incident is also sponsored, purchased, whatever, by The New Yorker, who they do this a couple of times every year and have they won yet?

• 40:25Sean Fennessey?

  That's a very good question. I'm not sure of the data on that, but theirs is often a more high-minded and somewhat experimental. You know, Bill Morrison, the director of this film, is a brilliant documentarian. If the folks haven't seen Dawson City: Frozen Time, his 2016 feature, it's a fascinating portrait of time lapsing. And he's very admired in the community, but I would not say that Incident, which is by far my favorite of the five, screams Oscar winner, even though it's an important issue. All of these films are about something.

• 41:03Sean Fennessey?

  Important or powerful in their own way. You know, if The Only Girl in the Orchestra won, I would not be surprised.

• 41:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's on Netflix.

• 41:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's on Netflix. Netflix tends to do very well in the shorts categories. It's a, it is also, like I Am Ready, Warden, a very recognizable portrait-style short doc of a longtime member of the New York Philharmonic who plays double bass, who is a ward under Leonard Bernstein, and who is sort of a very retiring person, but is also very charismatic in her own way. And it's just like a nice, well-made movie. And sometimes movies like that-

• 41:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Made by her niece.

• 41:39Sean Fennessey?

  Made by her niece, yes.

• 41:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Uses Beethoven's Seventh very well. Just always glad to hear that. Last year, there was a, what was the name of the short film about the instruments program in the public schools in Los Angeles?

• 41:56Sean Fennessey?

  The Last Repair Shop.

• 41:57Amanda Dobbins?

  The Last Repair Shop.

• 41:57Sean Fennessey?

  Chris Bowers, also a nominee this year, has filmed-

• 41:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, exactly. So you do wonder whether, and that was children, you know?

• 42:04Sean Fennessey?

  If they were a little over it, yeah.

• 42:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and there is another, I know there's another-

• 42:07Sean Fennessey?

  Instruments of a Beating Heart is also in that category. If one, if Instruments of a Beating Heart wins, maybe, maybe you and I should make a film about kids playing music. Could, could do well at the Academy Awards. I, I think I Am Ready, Warden is a familiar kind of story about a person on death row, but told very differently. And the subject of the film, the, the man on death row, I would say comports himself differently in this experience than really what we've seen before. I think that's going to resonate with people. Thought it was an interesting movie. This is not a bad crew. Death by Numbers, I thought, was the most traditional, though of course, it's also about a very important incident of a young girl who survived a school shooting, who then becomes an advocate in the proceedings of the trial of the school shooter.

• 42:49Sean Fennessey?

  Who survived, very rarely do school shooters actually survive that incident.

• 42:55Sean Fennessey?

  You know, this is a heavy category.

• 42:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 42:58Sean Fennessey?

  Best live-action short.

• 43:01Sean Fennessey?

  What are the nominees?

• 43:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Anuja, I'm Not a Robot, The Last Ranger.

• 43:08Amanda Dobbins?

  How are we saying Alien?

• 43:10Sean Fennessey?

  Alien?

• 43:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Alien? Yeah. And The Man Who Cannot Remain Silent.

• 43:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I don't feel good about this zag, but I'm doing Alien.

• 43:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You are?

• 43:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 43:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I think it should win, so that would be exciting.

• 43:23Sean Fennessey?

  Do you?

• 43:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, listen, out of the category itself.

• 43:27Sean Fennessey?

  I thought The Man Who Cannot Remain Silent was superior.

• 43:29Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, that's the other one. I, I found Alien to be incredibly stressful and affecting. And the, you know, the, the fake green grass, the, the camera going everywhere all the time.

• 43:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's very manipulative to me.

• 43:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it is, but so is the subject that it is portraying, which are the ICE. Well, you wouldn't even call them raids, but the ICE tactic of arresting people who have come for their green visa, green card interview. And obviously that is incredibly relevant to what is happening all over this country right now in completely horrifying ways.

• 44:05Sean Fennessey?

  That's why I think it will win. I think it will be a vote for

• 44:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:09Sean Fennessey?

  empathy in this experience. The Man Who Cannot Remain Silent, similarly is, is an international story and is a recreation of a 1993 massacre where Serbian paramilitary entered a

• 44:23Sean Fennessey?

  was it a Croatian train and removed people and murdered them for not having their papers in order or whatever. But the, I, I thought the filmmaking was very good in that film. And I'd like to see more from that director.

• 44:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I would also be very happy if that won. It, it was very good.

• 44:39Sean Fennessey?

  So what are you picking?

• 44:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm going with Anuja.

• 44:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Because that's the celebrity-backed Netflix entrant.

• 44:47Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't think this was very good.

• 44:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I did not either, but that's, that's not what we're picking here.

• 44:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:52Amanda Dobbins?

  This is, that's who I'm predicting.

• 44:53Sean Fennessey?

  You're saying because Mindy Kaling is the executive producer of this film?

• 44:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, and it's available on Netflix. And it's a, you know, about a small child and access to education. Two important things. Again, the, the ideas are important.

• 45:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 45:05Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the, um, the execution that we, we quibble with.

• 45:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so Alien for me. Annuja for you.

• 45:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:13Sean Fennessey?

  Your favorite category now, original song.

• 45:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, yeah.

• 45:16Sean Fennessey?

  The nominees in original song are El Mal from Amelia Perez, The Journey from the 688, which you and I just heard for the first time moments ago, Like a Bird from Sing Sing, Meet Camino from Amelia Perez, Never Too Late from Elton John colon Never Too Late.

• 45:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm doing it. I'm going Diane Warren.

• 45:35Sean Fennessey?

  What?

• 45:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's get it over with. Let's get it the fuck over with. Let's go.

• 45:41Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 45:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you have two Amelia Perez, so some vote splitting.

• 45:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Netflix is behind Diane Warren. Let's just like, you know, God bless them. We don't have to endure the performances this year. Let's just do it and be done. Okay?

• 45:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, definitely. Let's be, let's do it and be done. I'm choosing El Mal. I think El Mal will win. Maybe not. Maybe, I love what you're about. You're bringing the great energy, great stuff. Like a Bird should win, but even that is not my favorite song in the world. This category stinks.

• 46:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Just get it.

• 46:12Sean Fennessey?

  We should just junk it.

• 46:13Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think that we should let, um, Dina Simone from Opus win. We should give Nile Rodgers an Oscar and then, does he already have one? Give him another. That's fine. And, and then we can junk it.

• 46:26Sean Fennessey?

  Has Nile Rodgers EGOT-ed? He probably doesn't have an Emmy, right?

• 46:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's see.

• 46:33Sean Fennessey?

  No, Nile Rodgers doesn't have an Oscar.

• 46:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:36Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe he doesn't have any of these awards. I assume he has a Grammy.

• 46:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you never know with them.

• 46:40Sean Fennessey?

  It's very true. Uh, okay. Well, I'm choosing El Mal.

• 46:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, you're probably right.

• 46:47Sean Fennessey?

  I, every indication, I think El Mal is a heavy favorite, so maybe this is a boring pick.

• 46:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Does Nile Rodgers really not even have a Grammy? Oh, Grammy Award. Hmm. With, but what is this? He's won these? Okay, he has an award. Oh, forget Lucky.

• 47:04Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, of course, naturally. That makes sense.

• 47:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's fine.

• 47:07Sean Fennessey?

  They waited a solid 35 years to give him a Grammy.

• 47:10Amanda Dobbins?

  There you go.

• 47:10Sean Fennessey?

  Anyhow, original score, next category.

• 47:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:14Sean Fennessey?

  You want to read the nominees?

• 47:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Daniel Blumberg, The Brutalist. Volko- Volker Bertleman, Conclave. Camille and Clement Ducal, Emilia Perez. John Powell and Stephen Schwartz, Wicked. Chris Bowers, The Wild Robot.

• 47:32Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I'm choosing Daniel Blumberg for The Brutalist.

• 47:34Amanda Dobbins?

  As am I.

• 47:35Sean Fennessey?

  Some energy coming out that, you know, maybe, maybe Conclave has more of a chance here than, than we'd realized.

• 47:41Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a good score.

• 47:42Sean Fennessey?

  It is a pretty good score. It's a pretty good score for a thriller.

• 47:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. You know, it's, it's fine. It's no The Brutalist score.

• 47:50Sean Fennessey?

  No. Is The Brutalist score too abstract, too odd? That kind of ticking clock quality that it has for, for the, for the common voter?

• 47:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I don't really think so because it still has those, like, it has that hook. Like, literally, it has a hook.

• 48:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:05Amanda Dobbins?

  That is used majestically throughout the film in that opening. So if they've only seen 20 minutes, then they got the gist.

• 48:11Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really understand the Wicked nomination, as I've said before.

• 48:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't understand how it's eligible, but June Part Two score was, was not.

• 48:19Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed.

• 48:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 48:21Sean Fennessey?

  Chris Bowers' score for The Wild Robot is quite good.

• 48:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:23Sean Fennessey?

  I don't fully understand why Maren Morris' song from The Wild Robot didn't make the cut, but Chris Bowers did make the cut.

• 48:30Amanda Dobbins?

  You would have to ask all of Diane Warren's friends.

• 48:33Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, that's a factor, for sure. That's a factor. Um, all right. Well, we can just move on. I hope Daniel Blumberg wins.

• 48:39Amanda Dobbins?

  So do I.

• 48:39Sean Fennessey?

  That's one of my favorite film scores in many years. And I think it will be, I think it will be remembered.

• 48:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

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• 50:02Sean Fennessey?

  Best sound. Now, this category, obviously, a few years ago was collapsed. It was previously best sound editing and best sound mixing. Let me see if I can remember this correctly. Is sound editing is more like for bullets and car crashes? And sound mixing is usually more for like underwater experiences and things like that? So sort of like creating a net more natural world experience?

• 50:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Like that?

• 50:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, just like that. Very good. They're together now.

• 50:30Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great.

• 50:31Sean Fennessey?

  We just so happen to have two musicals in this category. The nominees are A Complete Unknown, Dune Part II, Emilia Perez, Wicked, and The Wild Robot. I guess you could make the case that there are three musicals if you include A Complete Unknown in that list. And yet, I'm selecting Dune Part II.

• 50:47Amanda Dobbins?

  As am I.

• 50:48Sean Fennessey?

  I also think Dune Part II should win.

• 50:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm going with A Complete Unknown to win.

• 50:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 50:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Because they had all those live performances and I don't know. We like it. And my house.

• 50:58Sean Fennessey?

  Are you confusing the quality of the performances with how good they are mixed?

• 51:01Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm just enjoying the whole thing. It was like going to a Bob Dylan concert. I didn't get to do, go to one of those. I wasn't around, so thanks, everyone.

• 51:10Sean Fennessey?

  Are you offended when I start questions with, are you confused by?

• 51:15Amanda Dobbins?

  No, that's, I'm used to it. But I do, I do think Dune Part Two will win because it's won almost every precursor except for the Cinema Audio Society Award, which went to a complete unknown.

• 51:30Sean Fennessey?

  And yet you're not choosing it.

• 51:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not, but you know.

• 51:32Sean Fennessey?

  That's a very small body.

• 51:33Amanda Dobbins?

  As a member of the Cinema Audio Society. I'm just, I'm pleased to say that we had the right, we had the right take.

• 51:41Sean Fennessey?

  That would be a good name for this show. The Cinema Audio Society before we went on YouTube.

• 51:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm sure they have it trademarked.

• 51:48Sean Fennessey?

  Best visual effects. We're really plowing through the below the line categories right now. Now, this one is relevant because it is the only category in which you have not seen a film.

• 52:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I forgot to watch Alien Romulus.

• 52:03Sean Fennessey?

  So read the nominees.

• 52:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Alien Romulus, Better Man, Dune Part Two, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and Wicked.

• 52:11Sean Fennessey?

  I've once again chosen Dune Part Two.

• 52:13Amanda Dobbins?

  As have I, but there could be a spoiler.

• 52:16Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think it could be Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes? I think so too, that the Planet of the Apes films have never won in this category. So when I went to go see the film, when I screened it at Disney, they, before the film, showed me a 10-minute compilation of the mocap performances that the actors were doing and then put a side by side of what the apes looked like in an effort to show the extraordinary lengths that they went to to build these worlds. It's very impressive. My big issue with that film is really the script. I don't, I just don't think the story of that film is very strong. I think it's maybe not quite big enough a hit.

• 52:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Interesting.

• 52:56Sean Fennessey?

  So sometimes when a movie like this rises above, it's usually a big, big blockbuster. And this was sort of a middle-tier blockbuster, whereas Dune Part Two was above it in that respect, plus Dune Part Two, obviously, you know, has a Best Picture nomination.

• 53:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly, it has a wider breadth.

• 53:11Sean Fennessey?

  And it has, it has legacy in this category as well because it won for Dune Part One some years ago.

• 53:17Amanda Dobbins?

  When I went to see Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, I briefly fell asleep, so I think, you know? It's very good what they do, you know? It's very convincing, but as you're right.

• 53:27Sean Fennessey?

  It's very good what they do.

• 53:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's very good what they do with the effects. But it was a boring one.

• 53:32Sean Fennessey?

  You know those are not real monkeys, just to confirm. So Alien Romulus is a fascinating nomination here. It's the movie's only nomination. It's a movie that, you know, Chris and I did an episode about the film when it came out in August. We both liked it. A pretty good deal as a blockbuster. I thought it was really entertaining. We're pretty picky about our Alien movies. I think the Alien-

• 53:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you guys were open to it.

• 53:54Sean Fennessey?

  We were open to it, yeah. The Alien stuff in the movie, the xenomorph stuff, is very good. The Ian Holm decision, the decision to-

• 54:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Ah, yes.

• 54:05Sean Fennessey?

  To CGI recreate Ian Holm and his, you know, a version of his, not his character, but a version of his character from the original Alien film was much maligned. It was one of the big things that I didn't like about the movie. Chris didn't like it about the movie. If you hear feedback about this movie, this comes up pretty quickly. So it's surprising to me that it got love from this branch in the first place. I don't think it has any chance of winning. I would like to see more Fede Alvarez Alien movies, though, and I think he's gonna make another one.

• 54:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's great news.

• 54:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 54:33Sean Fennessey?

  Let's go to the next category, production design. Here you see the production designer and the set decorator get recognized in this category. So the nominees are Judy Becker and Patricia Kucia for The Brutalist, Susie Davies and Cynthia Slater for Conclave, Patrice Vermette and Shane View for Dune Part Two, Craig Lathrop and Beatrice Brenton-Rova for Nosferatu, and Nathan Crowley and Lisa Andalas for Wicked.

• 55:01Sean Fennessey?

  You want to tell me what you're choosing?

• 55:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm choosing Wicked.

• 55:04Sean Fennessey?

  I am as well. Can I tell you something about this?

• 55:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 55:08Sean Fennessey?

  Production design innocent in the film Wicked.

• 55:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 55:11Sean Fennessey?

  I actually think the production design is very good in this movie. It's the lighting that is the problem.

• 55:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 55:16Sean Fennessey?

  And so if this film were lit differently, for example, not backlit for the majority of the film, so as to seem as though sun rays are beaming through on our characters, this world would have been more interestingly rendered.

• 55:28Amanda Dobbins?

  What about the color choices? Where are you-

• 55:33Sean Fennessey?

  That's not the production designer's job.

• 55:35Amanda Dobbins?

  All right, they're working with the palette given to them.

• 55:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 55:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Um.

• 55:40Sean Fennessey?

  I think they built a very credible world.

• 55:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, they did.

• 55:43Sean Fennessey?

  That could have been not credible. Did it look like with The Wizard of Oz? No. Did that annoy me? Yes. But actually, I think their job was quite difficult.

• 55:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I think everybody in this list did a great job.

• 55:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's a.

• 55:52Amanda Dobbins?

  With what they were given.

• 55:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good collection of nominees. I would agree with you.

• 55:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:55Sean Fennessey?

  Obviously, I have a ton of admiration for what The Brutalist accomplished.

• 55:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course.

• 56:00Sean Fennessey?

  On incredibly small budget.

• 56:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, the, the basic complication, like, not even complication, like, the, the contradiction of the movie is that you are building a whole world about a building and the construction of a building that you do not have the budget or the means to build.

• 56:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 56:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And they do an incredible job representing absolutely all of it. I do think that the, the weird AI snafu probably did not help them.

• 56:27Sean Fennessey?

  Got in the sauce a little bit.

• 56:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Not really fair to Judy Becker, in my opinion.

• 56:30Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 56:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Because it was a contractor and she did an amazing job. That's what I would pick to win.

• 56:36Sean Fennessey?

  I think all of these are good. Um, I, I have should win is Dune Park 2, because I think they're operating from a place of like, complete and total imagination with what's on the page there, you know, and trying to render some of these things as extraordinary. Now, they have more advantages, this crew, because they have a huge budget.

• 56:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 56:53Sean Fennessey?

  Relative to some of these other movies. Nosferatu is no slouch in this category. You know, the fact that it overperformed so hard in the below the line categories, I think it's like, real admiration for it. I'd be, I'd be very curious to see the voting totals.

• 57:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too.

• 57:06Sean Fennessey?

  In this category.

• 57:07Amanda Dobbins?

  The conclave is like beautifully done, both, obviously, the staging for all of like the, your Renaissance paintings, but also just the Vatican rooms, you know, like the weird hotel quality of all of those rooms are, is, is so like, texturally, like, specific and evocative. Really, really well done.

• 57:27Sean Fennessey?

  Even Lawrence confronting Arayemi in his room.

• 57:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Sean Fennessey?

  In that room, and you're like, that is definitely what those rooms look like.

• 57:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, exactly.

• 57:34Sean Fennessey?

  You believe the space so thoroughly. And you know, they like remade the Sistine Chapel in that movie. It's pretty crazy. Okay, a cool category, the Oscars. What do you know? Wicked's probably gonna win my least favorite of the five. Costume design. Who are the nominees?

• 57:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Ariane Phillips, a complete unknown. Lisi Crystal, Conclave. Janty Yates and Dave Crossman, Gladiator 2. Lyndon, how are we saying?

• 57:58Sean Fennessey?

  Muir?

• 57:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Muir, Nosferatu. Paul Taiswell, Wicked.

• 58:02Sean Fennessey?

  I think Wicked's gonna win.

• 58:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I do as well.

• 58:04Sean Fennessey?

  I think this is actually one of the lockiest of the

• 58:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree, and you know what?

• 58:09Sean Fennessey?

  Worldwide categories.

• 58:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I think they should win.

• 58:11Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 58:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Liked those popular dresses.

• 58:13Sean Fennessey?

  How generous of you.

• 58:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Great job.

• 58:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, it's okay. I should win as Nosferatu for me.

• 58:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 58:19Sean Fennessey?

  All those bodices.

• 58:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they're good.

• 58:22Sean Fennessey?

  You know?

• 58:22Amanda Dobbins?

  They're very good.

• 58:23Sean Fennessey?

  All those cloaks that Count Orlok is rocking.

• 58:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm. It's, but are you, like, is that who should win for the achievement? Or is that just how you would like to dress?

• 58:33Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't broken out Count Orlok voice on you yet.

• 58:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 58:37Sean Fennessey?

  But that's, that's coming.

• 58:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 58:38Sean Fennessey?

  Not today, not today. Uh, this is, is this the only Gladiator 2 nomination? Can't recall. I think it is. It's kind of a weird one.

• 58:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 58:48Sean Fennessey?

  All those

• 58:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Tunics, you know?

• 58:50Sean Fennessey?

  Tunices, yeah.

• 58:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Sandals.

• 58:51Sean Fennessey?

  I was gonna say togas. Are they togas?

• 58:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm trying to remember. I mean, I guess some people are wearing togas or robes.

• 58:59Sean Fennessey?

  Roman, not Greek. Is Greek toga?

• 59:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I, I do think the Greeks started with the toga. Let's just Google toga right now.

• 59:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, great.

• 59:06Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 59:06Sean Fennessey?

  This is the kind of content you come here for.

• 59:08Amanda Dobbins?

  A distinctive garment of ancient Rome. No, I'm sorry, I, I was wrong about the Greeks.

• 59:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 59:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. So, they were wearing togas, yeah. And, and various sandals.

• 59:18Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and some other stuff.

• 59:20Sean Fennessey?

  Breastplates?

• 59:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, and all the

• 59:23Sean Fennessey?

  The helmets?

• 59:23Amanda Dobbins?

  The little crowns and, and such.

• 59:25Sean Fennessey?

  All the crowns, yeah.

• 59:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:26Sean Fennessey?

  Sure. What'd you think of those twins?

• 59:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Seemed like they, they had the stuff, you know? They were ready to rule.

• 59:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Shades of Kamala. Um, okay. Let's go to makeup and hairstyling. The nominees are a different man.

• 59:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:40Sean Fennessey?

  Emilia Perez, Nosferatu, The Substance, and Wicked.

• 59:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I think the Substance will win.

• 59:47Sean Fennessey?

  I do too.

• 59:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Wicked and the Substance have kind of split the Guild ones.

• 59:52Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really see it with Wicked in this particular, just because of Elphaba's green skin?

• 59:56Amanda Dobbins?

  She's quite green.

• 59:58Sean Fennessey?

  Sure. That was the accomplishment relative to the Substance, which is this

• 1:00:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:00:03Sean Fennessey?

  orgiastic explosion of makeup effects?

• 1:00:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It's pretty central to the plot. If you get the wrong green, you know?

• 1:00:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:00:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I also think that the Substance should win, so.

• 1:00:18Sean Fennessey?

  How many times have you watched Wicked?

• 1:00:19Amanda Dobbins?

  One time.

• 1:00:20Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. You seem to be showing some affection for it here.

• 1:00:24Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I just, I'm honoring what I saw and what was there, you know?

• 1:00:31Sean Fennessey?

  Honor the makeup, honor the film.

• 1:00:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It was green. It was quite green.

• 1:00:36Sean Fennessey?

  You think Wicked should win?

• 1:00:38Amanda Dobbins?

  No, Substance.

• 1:00:40Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, we're aligned on that. We've been aligned on a lot of these. Some of these are snoozy. We did the interesting ones at first.

• 1:00:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:00:46Sean Fennessey?

  Let's get less snoozy. Film editing.

• 1:00:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:00:49Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know what's going on here.

• 1:00:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't either.

• 1:00:52Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if I'm taking a chance by doing this or not. We talked about how this was one category in a potential quartet of potential wins for Sean Baker. The nominees.

• 1:01:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you're gonna read them, yeah.

• 1:01:03Sean Fennessey?

  Are Anora, The Brutalist, Conclave, Emilia Perez, and Wicked.

• 1:01:08Amanda Dobbins?

  If Sean Baker wins this, I just, I think we know where the rest of the night is going.

• 1:01:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. I think there's not a high likelihood that The Brutalist wins, but if The Brutalist wins, my antenna goes straight to the roof.

• 1:01:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:01:21Sean Fennessey?

  Because there's not a ton of evidence that it's gonna happen.

• 1:01:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Sean Fennessey?

  But I know that there are people who have admiration despite the film's length. The Brutalist has wildly underperformed the Guilds, but again, similar to the kind of flow versus the Wild Robot thing, where I'm like, what's really in the sauce of the Academy right now? What, who is like the dominant, who are the dominant blocks?

• 1:01:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:01:44Sean Fennessey?

  I still haven't fully figured that out yet. I don't think it's gonna be a big night for The Brutalist at all, spoiler alert, but I'm keeping my eye on that. To me, it is ultimately between Conclave and Anora, which is what I think we all think Best Picture comes down to, right?

• 1:01:57Amanda Dobbins?

  That's so crazy. Yeah, I think so. What a weird year.

• 1:02:01Sean Fennessey?

  How did we get here?

• 1:02:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:03Sean Fennessey?

  So who do you have winning this?

• 1:02:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I have Conclave winning.

• 1:02:04Sean Fennessey?

  I do too.

• 1:02:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think I'm.

• 1:02:06Sean Fennessey?

  I don't feel good about it.

• 1:02:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't either, and like I said, if Sean Baker's up there. You know, I think we know how the rest of the night is gonna go. I think you're right about The Brutalist. I also think The Brutalist should win. Because I think everyone who's whining about the length is confusing the task of what an editor does. And it's not to just trim. It's not what I love to do as an editor of writing. It's about pacing and it's actually bringing that like absolutely sprawling, sort of like maniacal vision into some sort of focus and pace. And you can follow what's going on. And that movie moves. It is however many hours, but it moves.

• 1:02:45Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's so funny you say that because I have Brutalist should win in a couple of categories where it might feel like a reach, but I picked Enora should win.

• 1:02:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's nice.

• 1:02:53Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you why.

• 1:02:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, a long movie that moves.

• 1:02:56Sean Fennessey?

  A long movie that moves, I think slows down a little bit too much for me. That's a story choice, the same way that The Brutalist kind of makes story choices that I think people don't love. I just think cutting comedy is an underrated skill. And the second act in the movie is a diamond. It's like a perfect, and look at the way in particular when they enter Yvonne's home or Yvonne's parents' home. And the, you know, the way that Annie is being sort of like attacked by these men or restrained by these men. There are a lot of cuts, a lot of different angles, and energy that is super duper high. You know, obviously Baker conceptualizing, writing, shooting, doing everything on this movie. You might take this away from him a little bit. You might say, well, if you do everything yourself, then you.

• 1:03:37Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's hard to get just right. I'm with you.

• 1:03:38Sean Fennessey?

  It's hard to get just right. Some good nominees in this category. Do not know why Wicked is here.

• 1:03:43Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, Bohemian Rhapsody won this category five years ago, so.

• 1:03:47Sean Fennessey?

  This is a very finicky category. If, I think legitimately, I think it's very similar to Best Picture in how it's, in terms of it's like one film's at 60%, one film's at 35%, one film's at 10%.

• 1:03:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And we should note that edit, best editing is historically, it is often tied to Best Picture. It is sort of, I mean, even though that's like changing a little bit, but.

• 1:04:10Sean Fennessey?

  You see correspondence in terms of the winners having a Best Editing nomination historically.

• 1:04:14Amanda Dobbins?

  It can be, it can be a sign. So that's why we're like scratching our heads about it.

• 1:04:19Sean Fennessey?

  Another one that's a little tricky.

• 1:04:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:21Sean Fennessey?

  Cinematography. Who are the nominees?

• 1:04:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Lol Crowley, The Brutalist, Greg Fraser, Dune Part Two, Paul Guillaume, Emilio Perez, Ed Lachman, Maria, Jaron Blashky, Nosferatu.

• 1:04:33Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I mentioned to you that the ASC Awards threw us for a little bit of a loop.

• 1:04:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Sean Fennessey?

  Over the weekend by giving their award to Ed Lachman.

• 1:04:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:41Sean Fennessey?

  So it's been a long time since a movie that did not have a Best Picture nomination won in this category.

• 1:04:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Sean Fennessey?

  Doesn't usually happen. It did happen for Deacons, as I recall, for Blade Runner 2049. That wasn't a Best Picture nominee, right?

• 1:04:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but that was Deacons.

• 1:04:59Sean Fennessey?

  It was Deacons.

• 1:05:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And I mean, it is insane that Ed Lachman doesn't have an Oscar.

• 1:05:04Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 1:05:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And so you could see that happening, but I don't know if he has the like household name across the Academy that Deacons does in terms of it's time to overcome the fact that like literally no one but you and me saw Maria.

• 1:05:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I thought it was interesting that he got this for another Pablo Lorraine movie that was less appreciated, but maybe it just speaks to the strength of that body in his mind or in his body of work. Hmm. So I chose Lol Crowley for The Brutalist.

• 1:05:32Amanda Dobbins?

  As did I.

• 1:05:33Sean Fennessey?

  I think Jaron Blashky should win for Nosferatu.

• 1:05:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I probably do too.

• 1:05:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty close. It's pretty close.

• 1:05:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I probably do too.

• 1:05:39Sean Fennessey?

  I think they're both, they both had hard jobs.

• 1:05:43Sean Fennessey?

  They both are working with very exacting filmmakers with very strong visions, who I say this with affection for both Robert Eggers and Brady Corby are really up their own asses.

• 1:05:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Somebody needs to take the microphone away from somebody you just mentioned.

• 1:05:56Sean Fennessey?

  Brady?

• 1:05:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not, sir, come on. Just, you know.

• 1:06:00Sean Fennessey?

  I think he has done actually a very smart thing for himself.

• 1:06:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course.

• 1:06:04Sean Fennessey?

  He has developed a cult of personality and a persona that is hard for filmmakers to do in 2025. Whether you like him or not is kind of immaterial.

• 1:06:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:14Sean Fennessey?

  Most of the on font, most of the great directors are on font terribes.

• 1:06:17Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 1:06:17Sean Fennessey?

  Very few people are Steven Spielberg. We're like, oh, he seems like a nice man. It's like, go read an interview with Goddard. It's like, that's, they're assholes.

• 1:06:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:24Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay. So we're on the same page with Lol Crowley. We've matched on a lot of these.

• 1:06:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:06:30Sean Fennessey?

  We're kind of going a little chalky.

• 1:06:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I do also think that Ed Lachman like deserves an Oscar. So.

• 1:06:35Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed.

• 1:06:35Amanda Dobbins?

  If you want to put that for should win, like, you know.

• 1:06:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, we can go through his entire filmography and say, why did he not win one?

• 1:06:42Amanda Dobbins?

  That looked good.

• 1:06:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he probably, let's see, what's the earliest one he should have won?

• 1:06:49Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe desperately seeking Susan in 1985?

• 1:06:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:52Sean Fennessey?

  That's how, you know, that's how far back his career goes. He, he shot The Lords of Flatbush in 1974. We're talking about a 50 year body of work. Okay, next category is original screenplay. The nominees are Enora, The Brutalist, A Real Pain, September Five, The Substance.

• 1:07:09Amanda Dobbins?

  You gonna do it?

• 1:07:10Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not gonna do it.

• 1:07:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not gonna, I, I'm not gonna do it either.

• 1:07:12Sean Fennessey?

  Really wanna do it.

• 1:07:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, and you could, like, it, it could not be wrong, but you're not, you're not gonna do it. You're gonna go with Sean Baker for Enora.

• 1:07:23Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna go with Sean Baker for Enora.

• 1:07:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:07:25Sean Fennessey?

  I really wanted to go for A Real Pain.

• 1:07:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's there. There are hints, there are clues, it's possible.

• 1:07:32Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot of clues, there's some precursor stuff. There's also the Jesse Eisenberg factor.

• 1:07:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:07:38Sean Fennessey?

  He is a very well-liked and accomplished actor who has worked with many people in Hollywood. He's worked in huge productions, he's worked in independent film, he's worked on television, he's worked in the theater. He's also just, if you've met him, just a nice, funny guy.

• 1:07:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Just so lovely.

• 1:07:54Sean Fennessey?

  And he's been giving great speeches and people-

• 1:07:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you see the, the bit where someone asked him about like his TikTok or all his social media stuff?

• 1:08:01Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:08:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And he's like, I'm old and dumb, so I just do whatever. And then, and then says the name of the nice young woman at Searchlight, who is in charge of the social media, and he knows her name, and he's like, she's lovely, and she's just like, do this. And so then I did it. And I was just like, well, Jesse Eisenberg, you're the best.

• 1:08:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, he's great, he's, he's, he's run a great campaign.

• 1:08:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Also relatable.

• 1:08:22Sean Fennessey?

  He, I mean, he's, he's one of us, obviously, age-wise at least. I, original screenplay historically has been the bastion of the cool.

• 1:08:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:34Sean Fennessey?

  Enora is the kind of movie that usually wins just original screenplay.

• 1:08:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:08:38Sean Fennessey?

  And nothing else.

• 1:08:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 1:08:39Sean Fennessey?

  And so we're in a funky year where I think it's probably going to win- And I'm probably tipping my hand about how I feel like everything's gonna go on this night. But again, if it doesn't win, much like editing, the Conclave siren is gonna start wailing.

• 1:08:57Amanda Dobbins?

  For, oh, oh, because something else gets original and then Conclave gets adapted.

• 1:09:02Sean Fennessey?

  It's possible.

• 1:09:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:09:03Sean Fennessey?

  And Conclave gets adapted, and that means Conclave's package, so to speak, will be stronger.

• 1:09:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think, let me ask you, if, if, does it matter who else wins original screenplay if it's not Anora? Like, do you interpret a real pain win differently than you would a substance win?

• 1:09:21Sean Fennessey?

  I think so. It's, I, I might have misspoken on the cinematography category. I think it's actually, original screenplay is a category that very rarely wins without a Best Picture nomination. So, a real pain not having a Best Picture nomination, which I predicted for months and months that it would.

• 1:09:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:09:40Sean Fennessey?

  I wonder if this is one of the rare cases where after nominations, Jesse Eisenberg did a lot of good for his film in terms of advocating for it, even though it lost out on Best Picture. Like, he could have just packed up. He could have been like, I got screenplay, that's cool, you know?

• 1:09:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I'll be there.

• 1:09:56Sean Fennessey?

  I'll show up, I'll support Kieran, but I'm not gonna do a lot. But he's done a lot. And I think a real pain not being a BP nominee, but winning, shows that Anora is not strong.

• 1:10:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:10:08Sean Fennessey?

  That's just, this is a gut.

• 1:10:10Amanda Dobbins?

  What if the substance wins?

• 1:10:12Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not gonna totally rule Anora out.

• 1:10:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Because you think that's people just being like, well, you know what, I liked the substance and, but both of, both a real pain and the substance have acting nominees already locked up. So, it's, it would be less of a throw this film a bone and more of a, I'm not that psyched about Anora.

• 1:10:30Sean Fennessey?

  Well, what, what that could tell you, and we're really in game theory territory here, is if they give original screenplay to the substance.

• 1:10:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Sean Fennessey?

  It could mean that Mikey Madison could still win Best Actress.

• 1:10:40Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't think so.

• 1:10:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. We'll get there very shortly. So we both have Enora.

• 1:10:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:10:45Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 1:10:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Should win?

• 1:10:47Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I wrote A Real Pain.

• 1:10:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I wrote the film Enora.

• 1:10:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, great.

• 1:10:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Written by Sean Baker.

• 1:10:55Sean Fennessey?

  Adapted screenplay. The Brutalist is a movie that I love. Um, it at times feels like a person writing a novel in a screenplay.

• 1:11:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:11:04Sean Fennessey?

  My favorite scene in the movie is, uh, obviously Van Buren and Lazlo Taut.

• 1:11:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, the cocktail scene, sure.

• 1:11:10Sean Fennessey?

  Their exchange, but like everything that Lazlo Taut says in that scene. I'm like, no human has ever said these words together.

• 1:11:15Amanda Dobbins?

  But Adrian Brody's so good that it doesn't matter. Yeah, and Guy Pearce too.

• 1:11:17Sean Fennessey?

  He tricks you, yeah.

• 1:11:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, adapted screenplay. The nominees are?

• 1:11:22Amanda Dobbins?

  A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Emilia Perez, Nickel Boys, and Sing Sing.

• 1:11:28Sean Fennessey?

  This is actually the most locked category of the night.

• 1:11:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Conclave.

• 1:11:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:11:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's won at every single awards thing.

• 1:11:34Sean Fennessey?

  Peter Strawn, longtime screenwriter, admired. This book is okay, but.

• 1:11:42Amanda Dobbins?

  At best. It is insane. I mean, he's basically saddled with the weirdest, silliest ending to like a very pulpy, fun story.

• 1:11:51Sean Fennessey?

  And makes it work.

• 1:11:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and makes it work until the ending. I mean, the ending, you're still sort of like, what?

• 1:11:55Sean Fennessey?

  I still feel that way, too.

• 1:11:56Amanda Dobbins?

  But you just don't care about everything else.

• 1:11:58Sean Fennessey?

  We should talk about that when we talk about Best Picture.

• 1:12:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:12:00Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I have Conclave winning as well. I think Nickel Boys should win.

• 1:12:03Amanda Dobbins?

  As do I.

• 1:12:04Sean Fennessey?

  Um, a major achievement. We've talked about why it's such an achievement on past episodes. Actor in a supporting role. The nominees are Yurba Borasov for Enora, Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain, Edward Norton for A Complete Unknown, Guy Pearce for The Brutalist, Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice.

• 1:12:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Kieran Culkin.

• 1:12:22Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Kieran Culkin will win this award.

• 1:12:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:12:24Sean Fennessey?

  He will give a seemingly tossed off, but maybe secretly privately constructed speech. He's very good at remembering his lines, so to speak. Uh, you know, he's good in this movie. He's my.

• 1:12:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm pro Kieran Culkin.

• 1:12:38Sean Fennessey?

  Least favorite of the nominees?

• 1:12:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:12:42Sean Fennessey?

  He's my least favorite of the nominees.

• 1:12:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:12:44Sean Fennessey?

  He's not bad. It's a very good character.

• 1:12:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I, well, he's tied for least favorite, in my opinion, so.

• 1:12:52Sean Fennessey?

  With Jeremy Strong?

• 1:12:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:53Sean Fennessey?

  The Succession boys? Is it just because you hate Roy Cohn or because you don't like what he did?

• 1:13:00Sean Fennessey?

  Are you confused by?

• 1:13:02Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm not confused by. I just, like, I get it. And it's, I mean, it's a very Jeremy Strong performance in a movie that I was sort of irritated by.

• 1:13:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, I think Guy Pearce should win.

• 1:13:14Amanda Dobbins?

  As do I.

• 1:13:15Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's nice.

• 1:13:16Amanda Dobbins?

  He's incredible in that movie.

• 1:13:18Sean Fennessey?

  Fantastic. Actress in a supporting role. The nominees are Monica Barbaro for A Complete Unknown, Ariana Grande for Wicked, Felicity Jones for The Brutalist, Isabella Rossellini for Conclave, and Zoe Saldana for Emilia Perez.

• 1:13:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Will win, Zoe Saldana. Oh, you're gonna zag?

• 1:13:38Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:13:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:13:38Sean Fennessey?

  Will win, Zoe Saldana. Should win, Zoe Saldana. How about that?

• 1:13:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Should win, Ariana Grande.

• 1:13:47Sean Fennessey?

  A little head bob.

• 1:13:47Amanda Dobbins?

  So there you go.

• 1:13:49Sean Fennessey?

  You're really coming out strong for Wicked.

• 1:13:50Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's just, listen, I can appreciate what is good and then say that the rest is not. But she was very good, very winning.

• 1:13:59Sean Fennessey?

  I liked her performance as well. I talked about it when I talked about the film on the show. I also live with Glenda, so, uh, because my three-year-old would like nothing more than to be Glenda, then, um, I have to honor her by saying, "Good job, Ariana Grande." Listen to her on WTF.

• 1:14:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Ariana Grande.

• 1:14:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Um, which was okay. I gotta say, it is odd listening to Marc Maron do his, and again, tremendous love and respect for what Marc Maron does in his show. I listen to so many hours of it. Those two talking is just weird to me. Just imagine that conversation. They weren't bad together, but it's just, in my mind, by them looking at each other feels wrong.

• 1:14:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:14:37Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, actor in a leading role, why don't you read the nominees?

• 1:14:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Adrian Brody, The Brutalist, Timothy Chalamet, A Complete Unknown, Coleman Domingo, Sing Sing, Ralph Fiennes, Conclave, Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice. Before you say anything, this is the one where I hadn't made up my mind.

• 1:14:52Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:14:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think right now, just in my head, I know what I'm gonna do. But, but I wanted to say that I've made my decision in my head before you.

• 1:15:00Sean Fennessey?

  Do you wanna say yours before I say mine?

• 1:15:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. I, I think it's gonna be Adrian Brody.

• 1:15:04Sean Fennessey?

  I chose Adrian Brody as well.

• 1:15:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Could be a surprise.

• 1:15:08Sean Fennessey?

  Again, I said this on the show this week, 18 of the last 20 Best Actor winners at SAG went on to win Best Actor at the Academy Awards. That is a very powerful statistic. Very powerful. It, it traverses a long period of evolution within the Academy.

• 1:15:24Sean Fennessey?

  Even though SAG doesn't always match up, Adrian Brody had been bulldozing his way towards this and was a heavy, heavy, heavy favorite until Sunday night. It certainly wouldn't stun me if Timothy Chalamet won, but it would surprise me. I think he's a little too young for what the Academy likes to do. The only real precedent for this, of course, is Adrian Brody himself, when he won in 2002 for The Pianist. And I said my should-win is Adrian Brody as well.

• 1:15:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Mine as well.

• 1:15:52Sean Fennessey?

  As much as I'm an admirer of Timothy Chalamet, Adrian Brody, the movie is on his shoulders. He is incredible. It is one of the great screen performances in recent history. So we're aligned. Why were you agonizing?

• 1:16:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Because I do think that Timothy Chalamet at SAG Awards, even though it doesn't affect the voting, it, you know, kind of reflects where that voting body, which is a very large voting body, is headed. I do think A Complete Unknown has some, like, deep Academy, but like, support, just like a very traditional movie, a really likable performance, you know? And the Glenn Close, Olivia Colman, and then Cate Blanchett, Michelle Yeoh stuff, like, lives on in my head, right? Like, it can change.

• 1:16:40Sean Fennessey?

  I'll give you an even more pertinent example, I think, which is, we saw this last year with Killers of the Flower Moon versus Poor Things, and how Emma Stone triumphed at the Oscars. A lot of people will say bigger star tends to win at the Academy Awards in these races.

• 1:16:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:16:58Sean Fennessey?

  Timothy Chalamet is the bigger star.

• 1:17:00Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 1:17:00Sean Fennessey?

  Brody's been in the business longer, but Timothy Chalamet is a much bigger star than he is. Adrian Brody is on movies that are, like, straight to VOD. That's no disrespect to him, just saying.

• 1:17:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Everybody has to make a living.

• 1:17:11Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely. Look at me now. I'm prostrating myself before people making predictions like an asshole. So I'm not better than him by any means.

• 1:17:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think Olivia Colman was a bigger star than? Glenn Close?

• 1:17:23Sean Fennessey?

  I don't.

• 1:17:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, she was in more people's homes.

• 1:17:26Sean Fennessey?

  I think she was a more, weirdly, we didn't quite realize it at the time, but was actually more of a draw.

• 1:17:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:34Sean Fennessey?

  You know what I'm saying when I say that?

• 1:17:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:17:36Sean Fennessey?

  And I think particularly that was a reflection of the increasingly international group, too.

• 1:17:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And I think Adrian Brody could benefit from that a bit.

• 1:17:43Sean Fennessey?

  He could. That's where, that's kind of where my head's at with The Brutalist.

• 1:17:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Mine as well.

• 1:17:46Sean Fennessey?

  Are there a lot of Europeans that are coming, gonna come out for this movie in the voting?

• 1:17:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I think so.

• 1:17:51Sean Fennessey?

  That kind of needs to happen, right? And it needs to happen in another category, which we'll talk about momentarily. Let's talk about actress in a leading role. The nominees are Cynthia Erivo for Wicked, Carla Sofia Gascón for Amelia Perez, Mikey Madison for Enora, Demi Moore for The Substance, and Fernanda Torres for I'm Still Here. One item of note, this collection of nominees have never faced off against each other through all the precursors. Fernanda Torres not present at the BAFTAs. There was, of course, the Golden Globes split, and not all these names were represented at SAG.

• 1:18:23Sean Fennessey?

  So what does that mean?

• 1:18:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It means Demi Moore. It's a sweep.

• 1:18:30Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it wouldn't be a sweep because Mikey won at BAFTA.

• 1:18:33Amanda Dobbins?

  That's right. You're right. Okay.

• 1:18:34Sean Fennessey?

  That was the one, another one that threw me for a loop. Much like Timmy at SAG, Mikey Madison at BAFTA, winning there while, which was a very odd, particularly because, and god, my brain is like an absolute tool right now. It's just flow, I can feel the gears clicking together. Enora didn't win anything else at BAFTA. Didn't win Best Picture, didn't win Best Director, didn't win Best Screenplay, didn't win any of that stuff. Which is stuff it had been winning everywhere else, the American guilds. And yet, Mikey Madison won at BAFTA. So what the hell was that?

• 1:19:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Once again, BAFTA can be confusing, especially in the performer categories. The, the system is intricate.

• 1:19:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. I also chose Demi Moore.

• 1:19:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:12Sean Fennessey?

  I think Mikey Madison should win.

• 1:19:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I do as well. She was wonderful.

• 1:19:16Sean Fennessey?

  Is there any world where Fernanda Torres wins?

• 1:19:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, sure.

• 1:19:19Sean Fennessey?

  I think there is.

• 1:19:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Again, the, the Brazilian voters are powerful and, and passionate.

• 1:19:26Sean Fennessey?

  It wouldn't be just them.

• 1:19:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And we see them and respect them.

• 1:19:29Sean Fennessey?

  We do?

• 1:19:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I don't want to find out what happens.

• 1:19:32Sean Fennessey?

  See them where?

• 1:19:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but I, I.

• 1:19:33Sean Fennessey?

  In a dark alley?

• 1:19:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I just would love to go to that house in Rio. Someone let me know if it's still there.

• 1:19:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. This is just your fast five bias showing, I think, isn't that the one in Rio?

• 1:19:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but also like, you don't want to go to Rio?

• 1:19:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:19:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you don't like the beach. That's the other thing.

• 1:19:53Sean Fennessey?

  I don't like the beach.

• 1:19:54Amanda Dobbins?

  There is, there is one part in the, and I'm still here, where Fernanda Torres's character just talks about like, she needs to go to the beach or else it's not a real vacation. And I was like, truth, you know?

• 1:20:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And that's really the core text of that film. That's really what it's about at the end of the day.

• 1:20:12Sean Fennessey?

  I, I'm excited to see this play out. Demi Moore's giving great speeches.

• 1:20:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I think you're overthinking it a tiny bit.

• 1:20:20Sean Fennessey?

  I picked Demi Moore.

• 1:20:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but like even in this, I think you're like doing a little Get Out's gonna win over Shape of Water, but you know, that's, that's, it's okay.

• 1:20:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Thank you for bringing up the Shape of Water. I was thinking about it recently because best original screenplay, the Shape of Water memorably did not win. Get Out won that year.

• 1:20:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:42Sean Fennessey?

  But then it went on to win best director and best picture. So what is, does that have, does that tell us anything about Enora this year? With any of the other categories? Like, is there a meaningful place like that where it could miss? I'm sort of vamping a bit before we get to best director and best picture, which of course are still actually quite difficult to predict at this stage.

• 1:21:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I think, I'm trying to think, the, the, the Get Out, the Get Out win, I sound so southern when I say Get Out.

• 1:21:08Sean Fennessey?

  The Get Out win.

• 1:21:09Amanda Dobbins?

  The Get Out win.

• 1:21:10Sean Fennessey?

  You sound very Texans.

• 1:21:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Really horrifying. Was like, you're very classic. We love Jordan Peele. Like, we liked this. We would like this. It was a cool award, right? And, and also like a great, important film.

• 1:21:23Sean Fennessey?

  And that was particularly interesting because it was up against The Shape of Water and Three Billboards, which were number one and two in the race throughout the entire season.

• 1:21:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:21:32Sean Fennessey?

  And it's still triumphed over both of those movies. Is, is Enora not as cool as Jordan Peele?

• 1:21:38Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think it's cool.

• 1:21:40Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:21:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you're right that it would normally be the cool win plus. And now it's also possibly just gonna get others. Like, that's why I was kind of like, maybe The Substance has a shot here. Just in terms of, but.

• 1:21:50Sean Fennessey?

  That cool quality.

• 1:21:51Amanda Dobbins?

  But I do think that they're gonna give Demi Moore an Oscar so they don't need to to throw at another bone, you know?

• 1:21:58Sean Fennessey?

  The ingenue era has slowly been dying.

• 1:22:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:03Sean Fennessey?

  In Best Actress category. It's something that happened quite frequently in the 2010s. And has not been happening nearly as much. So that's part of the reason why I was swayed to pick Demi Moore. Okay, directing. Who are the nominees?

• 1:22:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Sean Baker, Enora, Brady Corbeille, The Brutalist, James Mangold, a complete unknown, Jacques Odian, Emilio Perez, Corleone Farja, The Substance.

• 1:22:23Sean Fennessey?

  I've chosen Sean Baker.

• 1:22:24Amanda Dobbins?

  As have I.

• 1:22:25Sean Fennessey?

  The DGA precedent is extremely strong.

• 1:22:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Agree.

• 1:22:28Sean Fennessey?

  I, it's hard for me to fight against it.

• 1:22:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:22:31Sean Fennessey?

  It does feel like a year with a directing Best Picture split.

• 1:22:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:22:37Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not saying that that's what I'm doing.

• 1:22:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, but you, you're emotionally preparing yourself for that.

• 1:22:41Sean Fennessey?

  Doesn't it feel like one of those, doesn't this feel like a La La Land, Moonlight kind of situation?

• 1:22:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Not really.

• 1:22:47Sean Fennessey?

  What?

• 1:22:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I mean, I, sure, anything, you know, anything could happen. Craziest Oscars, sure. Yeah, but I also, I, again, I think that we're, we're all, we're trying to make sense of our experience, right? And so it's been a very confusing year for you.

• 1:23:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And you haven't, no, yeah.

• 1:23:06Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean?

• 1:23:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you've been doing it for the whole six months.

• 1:23:09Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's.

• 1:23:09Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, I logged on in January. So you're just like, you're exhausted and you don't know which way's up. And you wanna, like, you wanna put some meaning around this roller coaster that you've been on.

• 1:23:22Sean Fennessey?

  You got me.

• 1:23:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and I, meanwhile, I think that surprises could happen. I'm not 100% confident, but it does seem like things have shifted into a place a little bit.

• 1:23:36Sean Fennessey?

  Even after?

• 1:23:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I could be wrong. I could be wrong.

• 1:23:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think if, if Edward Berger were here, and he is of course not nominated in this category. I would really be tantalized by the possibilities. If Brody doesn't win, does that mean it's more likely or less likely?

• 1:23:55Amanda Dobbins?

  If Brady, oh yeah, if Brady doesn't win.

• 1:23:57Sean Fennessey?

  No, if Adrian Brody.

• 1:23:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, if Adrian Brody doesn't win. I was like, are we on the wrong first name basis with Mr. Corbeil at this point?

• 1:24:04Sean Fennessey?

  If Adrian Brody doesn't win, is it more likely or less likely that Brady Corbeil wins Best Actor? And with the idea that you want to give one to The Brutalist.

• 1:24:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know if The Brutalist has that kind of appreciation respectfully. I think, I don't, I think that it has the people who absolutely love it and are voting for it. But I don't know if everyone's sitting there trying to like disperse, you know, trophies fairly the way we are at the Alternative Academy. I think they're either, if Adrian Brody doesn't win in Best Actor, it's because there is not a Brutalist hive in the Academy to correlate to the hive all around us.

• 1:24:49Sean Fennessey?

  The Boys didn't bleed through?

• 1:24:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, The Boys didn't make it in.

• 1:24:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:24:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I could be wrong.

• 1:24:54Sean Fennessey?

  I've chosen Corle Farja for should win.

• 1:24:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's lovely. I've chosen Sean Baker from Enora.

• 1:25:03Sean Fennessey?

  Corle Farja, you know, first of all, just recognize the work of women.

• 1:25:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you're so right. Thank you. Yeah.

• 1:25:08Sean Fennessey?

  This is a woman with a strong voice.

• 1:25:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Our leading voice.

• 1:25:10Sean Fennessey?

  She was confronted by, how dare you?

• 1:25:12Amanda Dobbins?

  It's you and Justin Baldoni.

• 1:25:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's not nice.

• 1:25:19Sean Fennessey?

  He wants to lift women up, right? And their work, that's what he says.

• 1:25:22Amanda Dobbins?

  He had a whole podcast about it.

• 1:25:23Sean Fennessey?

  He did have a whole podcast about it. I also have a whole podcast about it. Have you noticed? Corle Farja did exactly what she wanted to do. She was confronted by a studio who were like, don't do this. We don't want to put this movie out. And she was like, no, this is what it is. This is what I want to do. It's a crazy idea. I'm a super French lady and I need to, I need my vision realized. She should be rewarded for it. I think that's what this award is all about. On the flip side, pretty much everybody in this category is good. They're good in different ways. Jacques Audiard's movie is an absolute nightmare. But Jacques Audiard is a good director.

• 1:25:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:25:55Sean Fennessey?

  This is just not, this is his least good film.

• 1:25:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:25:58Sean Fennessey?

  James Mangold, speaking of WTF, some of the best 90 minutes you'll ever get. If you like listening to guys explain why and how they made a movie, and what they were thinking about when they made a movie.

• 1:26:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:08Sean Fennessey?

  Just check out James Mangold talking. I think, I think Mark asked three questions.

• 1:26:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:26:13Sean Fennessey?

  In 78 minutes.

• 1:26:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is, you know, that's an incredible power dynamic at work.

• 1:26:18Sean Fennessey?

  It really is, and it was great. I really enjoyed it. I'm a huge Mangold fan.

• 1:26:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I enjoyed that film very much.

• 1:26:25Sean Fennessey?

  Shall we go to the final category?

• 1:26:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's do it. Have I taken like the, the suspense that you're trying to build? Out of this?

• 1:26:33Sean Fennessey?

  No, there's no suspense.

• 1:26:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Alright.

• 1:26:35Sean Fennessey?

  Best Picture.

• 1:26:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:26:36Sean Fennessey?

  The nominees in this category are Enora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune Part II, Emilia Perez, I'm Still Here, Nickel Boys, The Substance, and Wicked. What are you choosing?

• 1:26:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm choosing Enora.

• 1:26:50Sean Fennessey?

  I am as well.

• 1:26:51Amanda Dobbins?

  We gotta go with what we know.

• 1:26:53Sean Fennessey?

  I am not feeling confident.

• 1:26:56Amanda Dobbins?

  No. It could go several different ways. And that is fun.

• 1:27:01Sean Fennessey?

  I think it can only go one other way.

• 1:27:03Amanda Dobbins?

  You think it can only go Conclave?

• 1:27:05Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 1:27:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:27:06Sean Fennessey?

  I think this is now fully a two-horse race. I think it's very hard to look at BAFTA and SAG Ensemble and say, "That doesn't matter." It does matter.

• 1:27:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:27:17Sean Fennessey?

  It matters a lot.

• 1:27:19Amanda Dobbins?

  They're gonna intro the next ceremony with that. It's like right before Kristen Bell comes out. It's like, "And I'm an actor." It'll just be, "The SAG Awards. It does matter."

• 1:27:31Amanda Dobbins?

  You're giving out really great taglines these days, along with your segways.

• 1:27:34Sean Fennessey?

  I've just become a, a, a very confident broadcaster. I just, I don't know what else to say. I feel very at ease with you.

• 1:27:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:27:41Sean Fennessey?

  In this format.

• 1:27:42Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:27:42Sean Fennessey?

  Speaking of these items.

• 1:27:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you identify as a broadcaster?

• 1:27:45Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely. Always have.

• 1:27:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 1:27:48Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think this is?

• 1:27:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you are correct. I don't know if broadcaster is where I would, is what I would think of.

• 1:27:56Sean Fennessey?

  I'm a six foot tall, white man with brown hair.

• 1:27:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:58Sean Fennessey?

  I am a broadcaster.

• 1:28:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Congratulations. You did it.

• 1:28:02Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I aspired to something and I achieved it. I actually never aspired to it, but I did achieve it.

• 1:28:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Nice mom who wants to go to the Rosewood Kona.

• 1:28:09Sean Fennessey?

  You are not nice and barely a mom. It's only been three years.

• 1:28:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Two. Not one, but two.

• 1:28:17Sean Fennessey?

  We have two children, but three years.

• 1:28:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, but.

• 1:28:20Sean Fennessey?

  A mother of two.

• 1:28:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm a mother of two.

• 1:28:22Sean Fennessey?

  Sort of, sometimes nice mom of two.

• 1:28:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Nice to them.

• 1:28:25Sean Fennessey?

  Who wants to go to Kona. That's how you identify? Put that in your, in your Instagram bio.

• 1:28:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Instagram bio. A nice mom of two who wants to go to, should I tag them? You think that'll help with the invite?

• 1:28:37Sean Fennessey?

  At Four Seasons, at Rosewood. Um, that might work. I think Anora's gonna win.

• 1:28:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I do as well.

• 1:28:44Sean Fennessey?

  I think Conclave could win.

• 1:28:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I do as well.

• 1:28:47Sean Fennessey?

  I think if the Brutus wins, I'm gonna.

• 1:28:48Amanda Dobbins?

  You're gonna lose it?

• 1:28:49Sean Fennessey?

  Have a lot of fun.

• 1:28:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's great.

• 1:28:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's gonna be a funny episode. It's gonna be real fun. You're gonna see, you're really a goofy boy. Um, I think the Brutus should win. I think the Brutus.

• 1:28:58Amanda Dobbins?

  You've made that quite clear.

• 1:28:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's just a crazy achievement.

• 1:29:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:29:01Sean Fennessey?

  That's my take. You think Anora should win?

• 1:29:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah, also a crazy achievement that we've sort of been taking for granted.

• 1:29:07Sean Fennessey?

  I disagree. I think it's been widely celebrated by the industry for the last five months. I think it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. I think Sean Baker has been crowned. I have no problem with any of these things, but I don't think we're taking it for granted.

• 1:29:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:29:20Sean Fennessey?

  It's really good. I'm not even sure if it's my favorite Sean Baker movie, honestly.

• 1:29:25Amanda Dobbins?

  What is your favorite Sean Baker?

• 1:29:26Sean Fennessey?

  Probably Red Rocket. I think that's the funniest and the smartest and the most laden with subtextual ideas about our world. It's just not, it doesn't make you feel quite as good as Anora does at times.

• 1:29:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:29:40Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Anora has all this like big uplift in the first act.

• 1:29:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I mean, I, I love Red Rocket. I, Simon Rex forever. Uh, have you ever read, he did like a whole series of interviews promoting Red Rocket? And there was one that was just about how he, he recommend, it was a strategist recommends thing. And he recommended those like toe spreaders. Do you know what those are?

• 1:30:02Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:30:03Amanda Dobbins?

  They're just like little gel things that you put between your feet to spread your toes. And he talks about how he thinks that's really important for grounding yourself. Um, and I think about that a lot. So shout out to him.

• 1:30:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I, I think.

• 1:30:17Sean Fennessey?

  Just a nice mom of two.

• 1:30:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that Enora has as many of the ideas as, as his films, but then also manages to achieve both that kind of classic Hollywood cinema like magic and also is a very modern movie all at once. And just like the number of things that it achieves, like the very light touch is magical to me and hard to do.

• 1:30:47Sean Fennessey?

  No denying that. It would be a very cool and very interesting best picture winner to talk about in the context of history and also in what it means right now for movies. This is a pretty small collection of movies, though, just in terms of how many people have engaged with these movies, what the kind of culture around them is.

• 1:31:04Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 1:31:04Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Dune Part Two is obviously a very big film. To a lesser extent, Wicked, still very popular.

• 1:31:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:31:11Sean Fennessey?

  And then is the next biggest film behind that a complete unknown? And the substance together?

• 1:31:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably, box office wise? I mean, you can't underestimate The Conclave Peacock Run.

• 1:31:20Sean Fennessey?

  Actually, you're right. Conclave, I think All In made a hundred million dollars, which is really good.

• 1:31:24Amanda Dobbins?

  And then everyone I know is watching it at home and being like, huh, Pe- huh, Conclave?

• 1:31:30Sean Fennessey?

  Conclave wins, you say what?

• 1:31:35Amanda Dobbins?

  It never gets old.

• 1:31:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great bit.

• 1:31:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think my moms watched Conclave? Do you remember this Christmas dinner?

• 1:31:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:31:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And my mom was like, I've read the book, so why do I need to watch the movie? Which is just the most my mom take of all time.

• 1:31:49Sean Fennessey?

  Was it that Aileen had not seen it, so you shushed her? So that she wouldn't spoil it?

• 1:31:53Amanda Dobbins?

  No, that was at, that was when she, that was the last visit. It was like Si was like two weeks old. I hadn't been able to see a movie. And my mom was like, I don't know how they're gonna adapt this because.

• 1:32:04Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, you hadn't seen it.

• 1:32:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I hadn't seen it. And Chris and I had to be like, do not spoil the twist of Conclave to me.

• 1:32:10Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, and she said she wasn't going to.

• 1:32:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And then at Christmas, she was like, I haven't seen it. Why would I see it? I read the book. I don't need to see the movie. And you and I were just like. In my home at Christmas dinner, having dedicated our lives to this. And I was like, cool. Thanks, Mom.

• 1:32:24Sean Fennessey?

  Not a listener of the pod.

• 1:32:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I will say sure, you know, I'd, I guess.

• 1:32:32Sean Fennessey?

  Say sure?

• 1:32:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:32:33Sean Fennessey?

  That will be your response to the Conclave's victory at the 97th Academy Awards? Okay, very good.

• 1:32:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I will say, I mean, it makes sense. It was, it was a strange year. And in a way, we, I guess, were like wishful thinking it in a different way when the like ensemble, like vaguely, like recognizably like Oscar type movie about important European subjects, quote unquote, but with a commercial twist directed by a very well-respected international filmmaker, starring all your favorite guys, wins, plus Isabella Rossellini, you know, it makes sense. May, and maybe we spent the last six months, you know, whining for nothing.

• 1:33:17Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:33:17Amanda Dobbins?

  That's what I think. What will you say?

• 1:33:19Sean Fennessey?

  You'll just have to tune in Sunday night to find out.

• 1:33:23Amanda Dobbins?

  That was great work.

• 1:33:24Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Um.

• 1:33:25Amanda Dobbins?

  What kind of drink are you gonna have during the, the live show?

• 1:33:29Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I've been on a gin kick for the last year or so.

• 1:33:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Sean, welcome.

• 1:33:33Sean Fennessey?

  But if I have gin.

• 1:33:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:35Sean Fennessey?

  And then podcasts could be dicey situation.

• 1:33:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:33:38Sean Fennessey?

  Gin makes me a little ornery.

• 1:33:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:33:40Sean Fennessey?

  In a nice, in an amusing way, but I'm not sure that that's what I want to bring. So my, my gut tells me old fashioned.

• 1:33:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:33:47Sean Fennessey?

  Rye old fashioned.

• 1:33:48Amanda Dobbins?

  If we're programming liquor to correspond to, to mood, I should probably have a margarita.

• 1:33:55Sean Fennessey?

  Cause you're a huge Amelia Perez fan?

• 1:33:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And also because, you know, it's a representation of Mexico.

• 1:34:01Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:34:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Is exactly, is accurate, much, yeah.

• 1:34:03Sean Fennessey?

  Fully.

• 1:34:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, will you make the margarita for me?

• 1:34:07Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't made a margarita in some time.

• 1:34:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. You make a good margarita and I don't, I don't really.

• 1:34:12Sean Fennessey?

  I just stole my wife's recipe.

• 1:34:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. I mean, Eileen makes all the good cocktails.

• 1:34:17Sean Fennessey?

  Make good cocktails. Uh, I, I can, I can study and work on it.

• 1:34:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know if that's what I want. It does feel like more of an afternoon drink.

• 1:34:26Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:34:26Amanda Dobbins?

  For me as well than.

• 1:34:28Sean Fennessey?

  It does.

• 1:34:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, you know.

• 1:34:29Sean Fennessey?

  It does. Not me. I'm just a giant tall glass of brown liquor at 2:00 PM.

• 1:34:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I could have like a Campari soda.

• 1:34:34Sean Fennessey?

  Live on YouTube. That would be very elegant.

• 1:34:36Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 1:34:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. You're just an elegant lady.

• 1:34:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:34:39Sean Fennessey?

  Nice mom of two.

• 1:34:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:41Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, great job today.

• 1:34:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Great job.

• 1:34:43Sean Fennessey?

  Feel good about this?

• 1:34:44Amanda Dobbins?

  In the end, we didn't vary that much.

• 1:34:47Sean Fennessey?

  I went pretty chalky, I think, because I'm afraid.

• 1:34:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:34:50Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't take a lot of risks.

• 1:34:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's good to be honest.

• 1:34:51Sean Fennessey?

  Um, yeah, I think it's gonna come back to bite me. I think I fucked up the shorts, for sure.

• 1:34:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:34:59Sean Fennessey?

  Animated feature, I'm not, I'm really confused about.

• 1:35:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:35:03Sean Fennessey?

  Um, even though I don't think there's a wrong answer between the two.

• 1:35:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:35:08Sean Fennessey?

  Best Picture, if Conclave wins, can be fucking weird. It's gonna be fucking weird.

• 1:35:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but, you know, and in some ways, it's just, it's a Green Book year. But that's, I mean, and that's rude to Conclave.

• 1:35:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's just, it just, it will feel like an off year.

• 1:35:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:21Sean Fennessey?

  It will feel like an off year. I agree with you. Okay. Any closing thoughts?

• 1:35:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Love the Oscars.

• 1:35:25Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:35:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm excited.

• 1:35:27Sean Fennessey?

  I'm looking forward to the show. Conan O'Brien, of course, hosting. Um, they've already announced three and a half hours. Clips.

• 1:35:34Amanda Dobbins?

  They were like, they didn't say specifically, like, I don't know what your, like, DVR calendar, you know, guide will say, but they were like, we're gonna try to bring it in by three and a half. We know everyone wants three. What can we do? So.

• 1:35:49Sean Fennessey?

  Will there be any movies that are in the Irishman over 10 situation? Like, is The Brutalist most likely to be hit by that?

• 1:35:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably, though we predicted a couple. I don't think we predicted a complete unknown win. And it has one, two, three, four, yeah, so, 0 for 8.

• 1:36:08Sean Fennessey?

  That would be bad.

• 1:36:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it'd be tough.

• 1:36:09Sean Fennessey?

  You're right.

• 1:36:10Amanda Dobbins?

  They all worked really hard, but Monica Barbour won the heart of Andrew Garfield, at least for one night only, so who's, who's the real winner?

• 1:36:18Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, my king stands astride his kingdom once more. Thanks so much to Andrew, the man. Thanks to Jack Sanders as well. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. Reminder, live on YouTube, this person, very excited to be with you, 2:30 PM, 5:30 Eastern, before the Academy Awards, and then we will be coming to you as quickly as we can after the telecast on Sunday night here on The Big Picture. Listen on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, watch us here. Be nice in the comments. Amanda reads all of them. See you then.

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