Best Picture Power Rankings. Plus: Is ‘Emilia Pérez’ Really a Front-Runner?

Sean is joined by Ringer-Verse host Joanna Robinson and The Ankler's awards editor Katey Rich to discuss the state of the Best Picture race. Amid this conversation, they go through the 10 films they think are running hottest to be nominated for the top award at the Oscars and compare their list to the last time Sean did said exercise (1:00). Then, they zero in on one of those front-runners, Jacques Audiard’s ‘Emilia Pérez,’ a challenging swing of a film that's received mixed reviews from critics and Letterboxd users alike since hitting the Netflix service (1:10:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Joanna Robinson and Katey Rich Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  I'm Yasi Solak and I'm here to announce a brand new season of my Ringer original podcast, Bandsplain, the show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists to you and yours. This time, babe, we're going across the pond. That's right, I'm absolutely chuffed to be talking about the music scenes of 80s and 90s Britain. I'm talking Madchester, I'm talking baggy, I'm talking shoegaze, I'm talking Britpop, mate. So tune in every Thursday starting November 7th for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 0:33Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach, and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not-so-great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that: bullspend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO?

• 1:18Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:50Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fantasy and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Amelia Perez and the Best Picture race. Today on the show, we are discussing Jacques Audiard's audacious, new, hyper-stylized, musical, crime saga, trans coming-of-age, family drama? It's Amelia Perez. We're taking stock of a fascinating-for-a-change Best Picture race. It's all up in the air right now. So I've got two great awards-season thinkers here today. Returning champion and Ringer icon Joanna Robinson, and her old pal reunited and first-time Big Picture guest Katie Rich. Katie is the awards editor at The Ankler, the host of the Prestige Junkie podcast. She's been covering this awards game for many, many years. Guys, hi. Hey.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  So happy to be here. Reuniting with Joanna and with Sean. We've been on my podcast together. Just reunions all over the place.

• 2:40Sean Fennessey?

  I'm so glad you guys are here. This has been a really interesting start to the awards race because I tend to think I have a pretty good handle on these things. You've both covered this stuff for many years. I can't recall a time, going all the way back to my 1990s reading entertainment weekly era, where I was like, I don't really know what's winning, so to speak, what's in the lead, what even the frontrunners to me are a little bit baffling. And so the movie that we'll talk about in the second half of this conversation is one of those kind of confusion points for me in terms of it being a frontrunner. And so I'm curious to think, to hear whether you guys think it is one. But something has happened in recent weeks here in the United States of America, which is there was an

• 3:23Sean Fennessey?

  election. Donald Trump was elected 47th president. Was there? Yeah, it's true, Joanna. Yeah, so that happened.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  I'm doing great. We're feeling great.

• 3:30Sean Fennessey?

  So everything's good about that. And it did have me thinking about 2016, which is a monumental award season year, in part because that was the year, just five weeks after Trump was elected for the first time as president, then Moonlight shockingly defeated La La Land in the great mix up of that season. And that, I think, changed the Oscars forever. I remember writing a column about it at the time, that there had never been a winner quite like that. And there are some people who read that win as a kind of reaction to the state of the country. Maybe that's overreading it. I'm not quite sure. But I'm curious, just as a starting point of this conversation, do you guys foresee a response to the world at large in the potential Best Picture winner this year? Katie, I'll start with you.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  I mean, I've been saying for months, like, everybody remember in 2016, everyone slightly lost their minds in the awards race. And I think it's not overreading it at all to be like, there was this version of the story where La La Land stood in for Trump and Moonlight stood in for Hillary Clinton. And like, the further away we get from that, the more insane that those correlations sound. But the idea of supporting a movie that's about, you know, healing past trauma and just like allowing black people to star in a Best Picture winner, which very rarely happened before, like, that was all mixed up in this, like, resistance era that was just starting at that point. Like, Meryl Streep got a standing ovation at the Golden Globes for talking about Muslims? I don't even remember. Like, the vibes were so strange. And the thing I can't figure out, you know, we're like two weeks past or not even

• 4:57Speaker 02

  two weeks past the election now is like, it's definitely different this time. There isn't the like resistance energy building. There's not a like, we all want to get behind a Nora because it's a story about a woman and women were defeated this election. Like, it feels sadder, more complicated, scarier in some ways. And I, it only muddles the picture. Like, I thought we were gonna wait until the election and then kind of take a breath and be like, all right, here's what we've got. And like, I feel less clear on it than I did before, which is maybe appropriate for what 2024 has been like so far.

• 5:26Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think, Jo? You agree with that?

• 5:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think I don't understand what the tone is going to be at the start of next year, because I think everyone is in this sort of, not everyone, but the people who aren't happy with the outcome of the election are in this sort of like-

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Which is many Oscar voters.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Recoup space. And, and so that makes me wonder if instead of sort of like spiky resistance, we're looking for soothing, something that feels soothing and uplifting. And that's why I don't want to like jump ahead on things we want to talk about. But I will just say like briefly, I feel like the Wicked narrative has just like snapped into place. As, as part of that sort of like, let's all rally around something that makes us feel warm and happy and uplifted, which is not a knock on Anora or anything like that. But then like, all that stuff is more complicated than the more simplistic offering of something like Wicked. So, yeah, if you asked me a couple of weeks ago, I would have had a very different answer. But this, that's where I'm sitting right now. It feels like everyone

• 6:26Speaker 03

  I've talked to who is unhappy with the election results is seeking comfort.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I have Wicked on my list of critical items to discuss in this episode. I've since seen Wicked. I have not been putting Wicked on our trademarked Best Picture power rankings at all during this season. Part of that is a, is a me problem, which is that I have not seen the stage musical Wicked. I have not read the novel. I am just wicked blind. I was until I saw the movie.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Do you know the songs? They hadn't like, like penetrated through in your head?

• 6:57Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure I had heard To Find Gravity in a Target at some point, you know, like, I'm sure that happened. But- I, you know, since, since this, since I had a kid and The Wizard of Oz became a big part of our life, Wicked became a part of my life through the soundtrack. And so she is really into those songs and is obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. We were just at the Academy Museum last weekend. We saw The Wizard of Oz there. We saw the Ruby Slippers. The Wicked conversation is happening in my home on a regular basis. But so I just saw this movie, and maybe we can talk about this first before we talk about the frontrunners, because I, I think you're on to something, Joe, and I've been trying to sort it out. I think there are some strong cases for Wicked, which is not out until November 22nd. And then there are

• 7:38Sean Fennessey?

  some strong cases against it. So I want to kind of vet those with you guys. On the negative side, I don't know if people know this because it's not being marketed this way, but this is a part one of a two-part movie, which if you've seen the Mission Impossible trailer, you know that that's something that we're not that comfortable with anymore. If you've saw the way that Dune was marketed and now Dune Part Two, we know that we're not rewarding movies for their first bite at the apple. That's been traditionally true throughout the history of Hollywood at the Academy Awards. And this is, you know, I don't think I'm spoiling anything to say that this movie ends on a cliffhanger. It ends on a climactic moment, but it is the opposite of resolution. And that feels almost antithetical to the idea

• 8:20Sean Fennessey?

  of movie storytelling. So do you think that'll be held against it in any way?

• 8:24Speaker 03

  I mean, I think that's the argument we were making around Dune Part Two at the beginning of the year, right? That this was like, that was the Two Towers. They have to wait for their Return of the King Part Three moment. I think, from what I, I haven't seen Wicked yet. I'm seeing it this Sunday. Though, like anecdotally, it's kind of hard to get into a screening. They are so jammed and popular around here.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  There's a song about being popular in Wicked. Maybe that's why.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Exactly. But like, part one of Wicked, if people are fans of stage show, part one of Wicked has most of the good songs. And so I don't know that people should like, hold out for part two when it comes to awarding Wicked. There are some good Act Two songs. But also, it ends with, no spoiler, everyone kind of knows this, Defying Gravity is like, this big, is the biggest song out of this huge musical. And it ends on this sort of like soaring upbeat. So, again, I haven't seen part one. And there's definitely more to come, but I, I could see it being held against it in a different year. But given the lack of like really strong frontrunner elsewhere, I don't know. I think it has an opportunity. What do you think, Katie?

• 9:32Speaker 02

  I mean, I know smart people who think that Wicked is going to win Best Picture. People who are more confident than I am in saying anything about what's going to win at this point, although I guess we'll get there. But I think the escapism thing is totally right. I think, Joanna, you're totally right that the Wicked thing has locked into place. I mean, it helps that they had their premiere earlier this week, I think, like right after the election. So the timing was good, whether they intended it or not. Reviews haven't actually come out yet. Those don't come until a couple of days before it opens. So they're being very smart, playing the social sentiment embargo game, much as Gladiator 2 did, except they've got all these influencers who like went to this big fancy premiere and are thrilled about it. But I keep thinking about if Barbie couldn't get treated the way that it deserved to as escapist fantasy,

• 10:14Speaker 02

  like not just that Oppenheimer beat it, like Oppenheimer was going to beat Barbie no matter what. But you know, things like the stumps for Best Director, like the things that it didn't get credit for. Like Wicked could get in in a lot of these ways, but to be a Best Picture winner, you kind of got to have that extra something. And I haven't seen Wicked yet either, so I don't know. I know it's about two women like going up against like a falsely, a false male patriarch, the Wizard of Oz. So who knows? But I feel like escapism is only going to take it so far. And it's gonna, like with the Academy that we have now, the Academy that voted for Moonlight, you need something else to get across the finish line.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  Can I, can I say really quickly? I'm so sorry. This morning, when I was thinking about podcasting with Katie again, I was like, I get to talk to Katie about Barbie, which I didn't get to talk about last year. I wanted to talk to you, because I was thinking about Barbie in the context of Wicked this morning as well, as I was thinking about this. And it was like making me kind of actually preemptively a little angry, because as much as I think Wicked is snapping into place, and I haven't seen it yet. I was texting you a little bit this morning, Katie, like John Chu's visual style is not my preferred visual style. And if you're going for like sumptuous girly pop, glorious technicolor film, I would much rather a Barbie get this than a Wicked Again sight unseen.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  Or like the fact that I have for like over a month now been hearing Ariana Grande, Ariana Grande, Oscar winner in a way that like Margot Robbie couldn't get in the door is is personally slightly aggravating to me. But that being said, I think because Wicked lacks like the America Ferrera overt feminist speech, it might be perhaps be a bit more palatable to the people who felt like Barbie was being preachy in a way that I didn't, but a lot of people did, you know? So

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 12:06Sean Fennessey?

  I, if they're concerned about preachy, there's like, there's plenty of preachiness in Wicked, honestly. It's a pretty ham handed metaphor for like, accepting people who are different from you. It's, this is a really tough one for me because as I said, like, I know that there are a lot of people in the Academy that have a lot of fondness for the Wicked stage musical and that obviously it's been one of the most successful musicals of the 21st century. And so there's already, if you've seen it before, you're familiar with it and you go into it, there is a kind of comfort. And then there is an expansion that the director, John M Chu, applies to the story that is very effective. I thought Ariana Grande was incredibly enjoyable in this movie. Very funny, really elevated the material, I thought. I really enjoyed her. So I get where a lot of that sentiment is coming from. But man, in the

• 12:49Sean Fennessey?

  history of Best Picture winners, there's not a lot of movies like Wicked. You basically have to go back to The Sound of Music to find a movie that has the kind of upbeat and color that this movie has. Now, it doesn't mean that other musicals haven't won, like Oliver won, Chicago won, but those are pretty grimy, dark musicals. And the Academy

• 13:10Speaker 03

  Even Moulin Rouge is darker than, you know, what we're talking about.

• 13:13Sean Fennessey?

  Completely. I mean, think about the setting of that film. And so this is a, this would be extremely unusual in the history of the Academy. And if it did win, it would feel to me like the first part of our conversation, this kind of boomerang effect on what's happening in the real world is, is filtering into the conversation because I don't think most people were taking this movie too seriously two or three months ago. And now it feels like it has been elevated significantly. I mean, For me, at the risk of spoiling my review, like, I thought it was fine. You know, I definitely don't think it's bad. It's not a disaster by any means. It's not really my flavor of stylized CGI. Like, I just, I have a hard time looking at that production design. But people really seem to like it. So if I'm on the other side of that, I'm OK with it.

• 14:00Sean Fennessey?

  It is IP. You know, it's not, this is not that different from Barbie and Marvel and Top Gun. And like, it's an IP movie.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  But to your point about taking your daughter to go see Wizard of Oz at the Academy Museum, it's IP with a connection to, like, old-school Hollywood. So it feels like it's connected to the grand art of filmmaking, even though it looks, to my eye, as far away from the glorious Technicolor of the 39 Wizard of Oz as you can get. I don't get, I don't get the John M. Chu aesthetic. I don't understand its appeal personally. But I'm hearing from every, like, a lot of people have seen it that they, you know, people who are in this sort of awards game that they're like, oh, it's gonna win every craft award. And I'm just sort of, I'm a little baffled by it.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  God, the Dune Part Two people are shaking their fit. I mean, again, I haven't seen Wicked yet, but like, you know, the crafts in Dune, I feel like we're kind of waiting for them to, like, swing back around and win all the Oscars they did last time. And here this usurper comes around the bend.

• 15:00Sean Fennessey?

  That would, that would be a strange and unfortunate outcome if Wicked swept all the crafts. But again, reasonable people can disagree about it. So it is a hopeful story about people standing up to power. It is a kind of a good moment for John M. Chu, who I think really sees himself in the mold of like a Spielbergian, like visionary-type filmmaker who takes on big material. And I think often elevates it. Like, I really liked Crazy Rich Asians. I think In the Heights is a little underrated. I definitely don't think he's a bad filmmaker by any means. I don't think he's Steven Spielberg, though, at all. I think if the, if the world, if the Academy wants to try to elevate someone, there's an opportunity there with him. More, more than anything, the reason why I have been kind of flipped on this and starting to feel like it's gonna get in there, at least into the race, is the telecast really needs a movie like this.

• 15:46Sean Fennessey?

  When you look at the potential lineup, setting aside Dune Part Two, it is a deeply uncommercial collection of movies this year. And especially having now seen Gladiator Two and being a little bit iffy on if that's getting in. I don't know, like, we kind of need to see Defying Gravity on the telecast, because I'm not sure who's gonna tune in to watch this. What do you, okay, what do you think?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  They can't nominate Defying Gravity, because it's not an original song. There are no original songs of Wicked. I do know that much, which is, there are some in the second part, I have been told. But it's fascinating to me that they did not, they were like, I think the story is that it's like, there's too much going on, we can't make room for it. Like, this is half of the show. How was there not room for something new? Anyway, they made your, they chose. Um, I might be higher on Gladiator 2 than you are, Sean, maybe we can get to that later. Um, I mean, I think you can't, you have to acknowledge, like, Anora's making a ton of movie, a ton of money, and it's limited release. Conclave is out there making money, making memes. Like, it's, it's running hard there.

• 16:42Sean Fennessey?

  It's true.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Um, but yes, I mean, Barbie and Oppenheimer, again, they set this standard that's not gonna be achieved. Like, you're not gonna get two giant billion-dollar movies. I guess Oppenheimer almost made a billion, um, as major Best Picture contenders, again, for quite a long time, if ever. Um, but, and I think the bigger thing that you had pointed out is that Wicked is hopeful, that has this, like, hopeful message at the end of it. And like, there is hope to be found in all of these movies that I've got on, you know, my list of things to consider, but the, ending on a hopeful note, ending on this idea of, like, we can overcome, like, even Gladiator 2, like, there's a lot of darkness tempering almost all of these. There's so much sadness to have to get through. So, maybe that's just what we were saying about the escapism, is like, how much hope do we need to rally behind, and how much can people, you know, make themselves put up with the bad feelings

• 17:28Speaker 02

  you get in watching The Brutalist and vote for it anyway? That's what we don't know.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Can I ask you, Katie, a quick, our old bosses Vanity Fair just put out their, um, their Hollywood cover. And there is, there is a moment, and you've worked on it, and I've, like, worked on it slightly, very tangentially, but we've all sort of, like, been in that, in that game for a long time. And every year, there's someone missing from the cover, that come January, February, we're like, why did we not put this person on the cover of the Hollywood issue? Who is that person, do you think?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  Because we, you and I, I think, both agree this is a great lineup.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's a great cover, they did a great job.

• 18:10Speaker 03

  We loved it.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  But so, I mean, I think part of the logic of bringing it out in December this year, or November is the December issue, is kind of getting a little bit out of the like the Oscar hype scene. So like last year, you know, Charles Milton's on the Hollywood cover and then he doesn't get the nomination for a December. Like, it's fine, he deserved to be there, but you know, getting away from that part of it, these are all the hopefuls. Um, I mean, you can say that Mike Feist, if they're gonna have Zendaya and Josh O'Connor on there, why not let Mike Feist be be part of the crowd? Um, I mean, you could say like Kieran Culkin, I think like may well win an Oscar this year, but like, should he have been on the Hollywood cover? Like, I don't know. Like, like, um, Carlos Sofia Gascón, I think is the actual like breakout of Amelia Perez. We'll talk about her in a moment. But Zoe Saldana's on there too. So I don't know. Maybe I feel like they got it right, Joanna. Who did? Who do? Who am I missing?

• 18:54Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't. I don't have a good answer. I just always love that moment. Or or like, there's always someone on there that we're like, ooh, we really thought you were gonna go and you didn't, you know? So just something to think about. But it's a great. I mean, like, it's great cover and includes people like Shuji Gatwa or whatever that's just sort of like there and exciting, but not really necessarily in the Oscar conversation.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  I mean, maybe Mikey Madison is the answer. Like, and I would like, it would surprise me if they had tried to get her or if that had not been part of the conversation. Again, I don't work there anymore, so I don't have insight into that. But she's kind of a big young breakout of the moment, who is maybe notably absent.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Or to put Demi back on the cover when she like did such famous Vanity Fair covers, you know what I mean? So like.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  That's good thinking.

• 19:33Sean Fennessey?

  That's one of the, I mean, I don't have a instant recall on who's appeared on these covers in the past, but three people who crossed my mind were Margaret Qualley, Paul Meskell, and Mikey Madison. Those are those feel like three signature figures of the year in movies thus far. And they're not there. And you know, there's always like booking concern too. And if Paul Meskell had been on in the past, I wouldn't be surprised at all. But, um, I don't know. That's kind of a weird collection this year. It's like Nicole Kidman is playing a part, but Harris Dickinson is not there. That seems odd, given what Baby Girl is and kind of what's kind of come out of that. Whereas that movie feels like a continuation of what Nicole Kidman has been doing, but maybe like a step up for Harris Dickinson in some ways. Nevertheless.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  You need to have very famous people on the front panel. That's always the part of the math of making those. And, uh, you know, our.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  You're like Glenn.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Getting bumped up to.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Glenn in the A position is a wow moment. Is a wow moment. That's like a Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts position. And there's Glenn Powell. So.

• 20:31Sean Fennessey?

  We are so happy for Glenn here at the big picture. We have, we always support him.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Sorry to derail your pod to talk about Vanity Fair covers.

• 20:38Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's relevant because this kind of visibility, it plays into what's going to happen here. You know, up until I saw Wicked, my sense of things was that Enora and the brutalist and Emilio Perez, which we'll talk about shortly, were the three front runners. Now, Katie, you pointed out that Conclave one has been doing great business, which is just very cool to see because it's almost exactly what I cry about on the show. And I'm like, we need more of this. We need more of this like upper middle brow, you know, mystery movie set in an interesting world with high class actors. I fucking love that stuff. Same reason I love Jura number two. I'm just like, man, more of this, more of the middle. But it is middle and historically the Oscars are often rewarding the middle. So you could really see a case for a movie like Conclave. And then it obviously has this political affectation.

• 21:23Sean Fennessey?

  It's consistently pointing to its closeness to the American political system. So I could see that. So that's four. And then if you add wicked, that's five. I'm not sure if I'm ready to add wicked yet, to be honest with you in terms of the front runner conversation. I don't know.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  Not at all?

• 21:39Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I feel like a lot of the fervor that you're talking about with the difficulty of getting into screenings and is like, there is a rabid fan base around this kind of a movie, but there are rabid fan bases around Deadpool and Wolverine as well. And that film will not be competing. Like, I'm not totally sure that indicates that it is a best picture winner. Now, I could be totally wrong. I don't know.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  No, it definitely doesn't like attendance doesn't like correlate to, but it helps. It's why Top Gun, you were able to talk about Top Gun Maverick as being in the race because we're like, it's good for business and we want to reward things that are good for business. So if Wicked is not just like, you know, people wanting to do advanced screenings, but pre-sales on tickets have been bonkers bananas. So, you know, it's like, it's gonna make a ton of money. Maybe not Deadpool and Wolverine money, maybe nothing can, but it's gonna make a ton of money. And I think it's going to get that sort of. Cinemas back or Hollywood's back sort of narrative that we're constantly cycling back to when we talk about these things.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, something that like assuages the fears of Hollywood about itself that like can be like, oh, well, we can nominate this because it's making us feel good. Like Barbie and Oppenheimer did that Top Gun Maverick and Avatar, the Way of Water did that. I think Conclave can do that for exactly the reason you were just saying, Sean, that it feels like it's the kind of movie that like doesn't get made at all anymore. Enora, to some extent also, even though it's really not traditional in that way. I'm curious if The Brutalist fits into that because it's such a like, this young guy, I think of Brady Corbin as being this young filmmaker, even though he's very close to my age because we're all very youthful on this podcast. And we look good, too. Exactly. You know, just someone like following their passions, like, you know, like an exciting new voice. So there's, there's a lot of narratives you can follow in that one for it. And I wonder if, if we can make a lot of money, it can do that. Gladiator

• 23:21Speaker 02

  2 can the same way. But you kind of have to like, to fit into some spot to make Hollywood be like, okay, we haven't gone all wrong because Conclave exists.

• 23:29Speaker 03

  Well, I don't know if this is the Gladiator 2 marketing team that is like, put this narrative out there. But all the like tweets and blue skies and whatever I've seen comparing the first Gladiator's Rotten Tomatoes score to Gladiator 2's Rotten Tomatoes score and that they're comparable, right? And they're both in the 70s. And so a lot of people are just sort of like, okay, you know, the classic, what do the critics know sort of thing. But just basically this idea of like, don't count it out just because it's got 70 something in Rotten Tomatoes. If that is from the Gladiator 2 team, bravo, well done. But like, Sean, you and I both were bullish on Gladiator 2. And then I talked to you when you had seen it and I got kind of deflated. I see it next week. But like, um, I, if it makes a ton

• 24:13Speaker 03

  of money, if it does, I think, you know, it could be in the conversation. And I don't think you have to have made, obviously, a ton of money. We're going to talk about, you know, you talk about Enora doing relatively well at the box office, but that's like quite relative, right? But like, But it has been interesting to me to hear this conversation, ongoing conversation we've been having about the Oscar telecast where we're like, they have to put in movie people, people have actually seen, or have actual movie stars there, or else no one's gonna watch the telecast, something that we are all, we go, all three of us go back and forth on this. I've heard all of us talk about this, where we're like, they need to pander to people, so more people tune in. And they go, well, fine, never mind, just make it super niche, and just for the hardcore movie fans, that's fine, who cares. Um, but I, the, the,

• 24:56Speaker 03

  not to like hammer on poor Ariana Grande, because I actually do think she should probably get nominated, but I will be distressed if she wins before some of the other actresses who are in contention. But like, um, I've been hearing the like Golden Globes-esque, you know, narrative of like, we need to have Ariana Grande there so that people will come. And that's something we're used to hearing, like, we need to nominate Angelina Jolie for the tour, so that she will come to our award show. And I was like, why are we, why are we Golden Globes-ing the Oscars, the Oscars? So, I don't know, that's where I am.

• 25:30Sean Fennessey?

  I guess I'm, I am interested to see if the Globes are more impactful. People have already been indicating that it's probably BAFTA that will be the most predictive this year, in part because of a number of the contenders and where they fit. The Gladiator 2 thing, I don't want to say too much about the movie, we'll be talking about it at the end of next week. And I said when I did the power rankings a month ago, just having seen it, it's just deeply iterative of the original on purpose, with a less good script. And even though their Rotten Tomato scores may ultimately seem somewhat similar, I think with the exception of the Denzel Washington character, there's not like a, it doesn't feel that different to me from the first film. So if just being reminded of the original is enough to muscle

• 26:15Sean Fennessey?

  its way into the race, I guess that's something. But I can't say I was. I can't say it lived up to where I wanted it to be.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  I had a great time with Gladiator 2. I left on a real high out of that movie, including about Denzel Washington, who like I do think is really in that supporting actor mix.

• 26:33Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Like I would not count him out at all. I mean, the theory I had thrown out, and we're not talking about best director today, is like Ridley Scott still has no Oscar. And like if you feel like, you know, if you look at Sean Baker or Brady Corbett or Jacques Audiard, and you're like, none of them are really clamoring for an Oscar. Like Ridley Scott's right there. But I think Gladiator 2 does need a bigger head of steam behind it before we can start really talking about stuff like that.

• 26:54Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. I would have been much more comfortable. I was very comfortable predicting him in Best Director two months ago before I saw it for that exact reason, Katie, which is it feels like an oddly, I don't want to say weightless, because that's not, I don't mean that the films are weightless, but I don't know if the Sean Baker or Jacques Audiard narrative are like, these guys are overdue and it's time for them to compete. You know, it doesn't really feel like that's quite in place. I look back at the rankings that I did on October 21st, and I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I was in a mono studio alone by myself.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  Joanne and I were both marveling at how good you are at monologuing into a microphone.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  We were listening to it this morning. We were just like, wow, Sean's really good at this.

• 27:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's nice. Probably some combination of paranoia and narcissism colliding to make that possibly successful. But I think actually, even if I sounded cogent, I don't think I did a very good job of outlining where the race stands. And I think there's a little bit of my personal taste has invaded because seeing a movie like Enora, you know, I've been a huge Sean Baker fan for a very long time. Seeing a movie like The Brutalist, which is kind of like vacuum sealed in a lab for my interests. You know, it's just so close to the kind of thing that really moves me historically at the movies. Those two movies being so high up, I'm like, yeah, Nickel Boys should be getting in. This audacious, unusual, reimagining of first-person point of view storytelling from a complex novel feels like something that matters. But then I look at it and I'm like,

• 28:16Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. It's going to take a lot for a movie like that to get over the line. And then is September 5th too simple? So I'm really kind of... I'm unsordid on where I think I stand. I'll just, for the sake of the listenership, I'll say here's where I was one month ago, and then we can talk about what we think is actually in right now. So it was Nickel Boys, September 5, The Piano Lesson, Gladiator 2, A Real Pain, Dune Part 2, Conclave, The Brutalist, Emilio Perez, and Enora. And I don't feel great about anything other than the top four there right now. So what do you guys think?

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Well, I was thinking, as, you know, it feels unsettled. I agree that this feels more unsettled than usual because we don't have anything coming in as a real front runner. But like, this is always the vibes part of Oscar season. There have been, there's been the Gotham nominations, which gives us some information, but not that much. In December, we get Golden Globe nominations, we get SAG Critics' Choice starts happening. Like, we get some better sense of what people are actually choosing. But when we sit there and we're like, well, I think older Academy voters will like Emilio Perez. That's based on like, maybe you were at a regional festival screening. Like, there's not a lot of information to go on for any of this stuff. So I think it's only sensible to have this like, kind of formless sense of like 20-ish titles that you think are in the mix, but like, no idea how to sort them because we haven't been told, we haven't been given any data to work off.

• 29:34Sean Fennessey?

  Do you have a hobby horse right now, Katie? One that you're like, I feel like this is going in and no, people aren't talking about it as much? Like, I know you talked about Sing Sing on your show a couple of times, and I left it out last time, and that was probably easily the biggest blowback I got was like, where the fuck is Sing Sing, dude?

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the one I was gonna bring up, like, looking at my list and listening to yours. I was gonna throw out Sing Sing, so we could talk about that too. But also Blitz is becoming a big hobby horse of mine. I mean, you just talked about how BAFTAs might wind up being predictive. Like, if you look at the reviews of Blitz from the UK, they are much more effusive than the ones in the US. I really loved it. I saw it, I had like, left my children and come to New York to see a screening of Blitz, and I was like, this mother's been separated from her child. And, you know, it really, I was in the right spot for that. But I think in this post-elections period, like, a story about people enduring really tough stuff and coming together, and specifically this multi-racial, multi-ethnic vision of London that has so rarely been on screen, like, that has real power. It's an Apple movie.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  I don't even know what the box office is, or if it's being reported. Like, that's always a weird asterisk on these things. But I think, until proven otherwise, I feel like Blitz could have some power that's being underestimated right now.

• 30:41Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think Joanna? And what did I screw up? What are you feeling is in the mix that I didn't identify?

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Here's two things. Number one, and I understand why, and you and I are going to talk about it next week. I think you have a real pain way too high, I think.

• 30:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  As like a film, the Kieran Culkin narrative, I understand, but like as a film, as a best picture film, that feels a bit high where you have it on the list. Not that it's not going to get in, but Sing Sing for me really is like genuinely, and I'm not just yes ending. Katie got a text from me about this earlier, but I was just like, I used to do this thing on Little Gold Men where I would just like championing something that I feel like really emotional about. Um, and they, Katie reminded me that they used to call it like the Joanna's heart vote. And it's like Sing Sing for me. I, I saw that movie at South by and then I saw it again. You know, in a local theater where a lot of actually awards voters go and like the, the,

• 31:41Speaker 03

  the Academy members that were in the screening that I went to in the Bay Area really liked it. And I think not just because, I mean, I think the performances are quite good, all of that sort of stuff. But like that classic Oscar art is important. You know, theater is important, stories are important, acting is important, is inside the package of like a little film that could kind of story. So I don't know, I really feel, I love Sing Sing and I feel like it has a real shot to be in the, in the race.

• 32:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I had some regrets not including it. It's just so tricky because it's been such an odd release strategy. I guess A24 announced that they will be reissuing it in theaters either at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. So more people can see it. You know, we did an episode about it in August and I was like, is this a good idea? It was one of like nine episodes this year where I'm like, I don't know when people are going to see this. I don't know when to talk about this movie. I don't know when to talk about Enora. It's still only in a thousand theaters as opposed to 3,000, even though it's doing pretty good business, as you pointed out, Katie. And so that's an unusual situation because in 21 and 22,

• 32:52Sean Fennessey?

  I felt as though the hangover effect from the pandemic meant that a lot of films went to streaming pretty quickly. I remember The Banshees of Inisherin hitting Max really fast.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:02Sean Fennessey?

  And feeling like, wow, that was a great move. Like, that really helped the campaign because a lot of people saw that movie, a movie that otherwise would have been a fairly small film, and got excited about it. And I remember just like looking at the data on who was listening to that episode. I'm sure I've said this before, and I was like, wow, a lot of people listened to the episode about the weird Irish comedy drama from Martin McDonagh. And a movie like Sing Sing, it's like premiered at TIFF in September of 23, played South by in March of 24, opened on like 200 screens in August of 24, getting reissued in December of 24, and then making its way to the race. It's a very unusual kind of trajectory for a Best Picture nominee. So maybe that's kind of what's fogging my brain about that one.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  That's the closest we have to a Coda in terms of the pattern this year. Like, Coda came out in the summer after its Sundance premiere. It really made like no splash at all. Everyone thought it was this nice movie that no one was ever going to talk about again. And it resurfaces partly in the power of a campaign of having all of its cast go to all these events together. I feel like I talk about this all the time, but there's real power to that. And like Clarence Macklin and Coleman de Bingot together is like a powerful site, along with, you know, real people in the movie who were formerly incarcerated and more or less playing themselves. There's so much power in that, too. And I think A24 like are often smarter than we give them credit for. I remember when The Whale was coming out, like it was just not on streaming and not on streaming. And everyone was wondering like, what in the world are we doing? But it builds up. It doesn't have this moment of peaking to be like, oh, God, I guess no one really wanted to see that movie. It just

• 34:31Speaker 02

  gets to roll slowly forever. Maybe that's part of the Anorius strategy, too. So I feel like Sing Sing, it just can't be written off yet. It's like, oh, that movie didn't connect. Because Joanna, I've been hearing stories like what you said about Academy screenings since the summer. Like, it plays so well in a room. And like, you get 10 people in one screening and 10 people in another one, and eventually you've got 4,000 people who've seen your movie and you got a campaign there.

• 34:54Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so tell me what movies you would knock off that I had on last time.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  Okay, I'm trying to remember what you had on this.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  September 5?

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. September 5, I have, I have questions about also that, uh.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  Just because, not anything against the movie, just because I just am not feeling like the swell behind it, you know, that you want at this point, so.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  It's not out yet, right?

• 35:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's out at the end of November.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 35:19Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know how wide that release is going to be. That is the kind of movie to me that if it were made available on streaming fairly quickly, I think would benefit it because it is of, it's a modest production, you know? It's a men in rooms talking movie.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:32Sean Fennessey?

  And obviously, we have one of those in Conclave already this year, but.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  And Conclave is very polished compared to September 5, which is very well made, but not the, not as flashy as Conclave at all.

• 35:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's definitely not as flashy. I don't know, I think that there was something about, you know, there's obviously the inherent complexity and difficult to discuss nature of the hostage situation in the real events of that film and how it reflects or doesn't reflect on what's going on in the world right now. And I don't know how much any of that will filter into the conversation around the film. I think it just kind of felt a little bit like a movie from the mid 70s that people would be like, that's a great film about people doing the work and the paranoia inherent in the work that we do. And there might be a little bit of self-gratification around anybody in media taking a look at that movie and maybe misreading it about what it actually means. But like, we're not so far removed from a spotlight Oscar, you know?

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:22Sean Fennessey?

  So it doesn't seem out of the total realm of possibility, but it's a smaller movie for sure. It's, it's bigger than Sing Sing, though.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  And I say this as like, a tangential member of the media, as like a big supporter of media. What is the national temperature on the media compared to when it, when Spotlight came out?

• 36:39Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean?

• 36:41Speaker 02

  Things have gone great in the media since, in the last 10 years. What are you talking about?

• 36:44Sean Fennessey?

  Are we not stable in our careers forevermore?

• 36:46Speaker 02

  Are we the baddies? What are we saying here?

• 36:49Speaker 03

  Guys, a cabinet, a cabinet position could be ours, so you know.

• 36:53Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not a journalist, I'm a content creator, so I don't know about you guys.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  And the content creator is also having a great reputation these days, too.

• 37:00Sean Fennessey?

  That's a good one.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  No, I went September 5. I, I had the spotlight thought also on September 5. It's, it's less emotional than spotlight. Like, there's this very, like, straightforward people doing their jobs. Like, you kind of get to the end of the movie and, like, the characters are all kind of more or less where they started. Like, I love John McGarrot, I think he's great in it. I think Peter Sarsgaard is really great in it. But there's not even, like, the, you know, Mark Ruffalo yelling "they knew all along" moment in this. Like, kind of the point of it is that they're keeping their heads down and, like, getting the job done in these crazy circumstances. And I wonder if that can work against it. Because Sing Sing is a smaller movie, but it's really emotional, and that can really pull people along with these smaller productions.

• 37:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's say for the sake of conversation that we're just putting Sing Sing in the nine slot, replacing entirely September 5. Does that sound right to you guys?

• 37:47Speaker 03

  It does.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  For now. What are, what, what are we doing with the piano lesson?

• 37:53Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, let's talk about the piano lesson.

• 37:55Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's clearly gonna get at least recognition for Danielle DeWiler's performance. I think you can make the case that she is in the, in the top two or three in that race for supporting actress. To me, she's a lead, but that's neither here nor there. I don't really care about category fraud that much.

• 38:11Sean Fennessey?

  I think at a time when I wasn't sure how movies like Enora and The Brutalist were gonna resonate, I was like, this feels like an elevated version of a conventional movie that often gets awards consideration. Maureeny's Black Bottom is an example of a movie like this, where I'm like, I think that piano lesson is superior to Maureeny's Black Bottom in a variety of ways, way more cinematic. But it is something that historically the Academy has clicked with. And so, I don't know, I just, I don't know how radical the Academy is or is not. And so, I don't know what to make of that one. I liked it, I liked it out of Telluride, I don't think it's, um... I don't think it's my favorite, it's not my favorite movie of the year by any means, but it has a lot of the bones of things that have been nominated in this spot in the past.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  I talked, I talked to Malcolm Washington and Daniel Durbal a little while ago and revisited, revisited the movie and was really taken with it the second go around, like having seen it in Toronto and was kind of too tired to engage with it properly, maybe. I think Malcolm Washington is really smart and really good filmmaker. Um, and kind of what I was saying before about Brady Corbett, like the idea that like, you know, you get someone new, you get new talent. He's 33 years old.

• 39:14Sean Fennessey?

  I know, I had him on the show too. We haven't run that interview yet. And I was like, wow, this guy is incredibly impressive and cool.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  He's got it. Like it's not, I mean, he obviously, he has strong Hollywood connections because of the family he comes from, but like he has studied, he knows what he's talking about. And I think there's something really exciting about that. Um, I agree, like Ma Rainey, it's better than Ma Rainey. And also there is a slot in Best Picture for something like that. But I can't, I can't figure out what to kick out for it, you know, like it's, uh, it's impressive, but are you gonna get like, I think I'm higher on a real pain than Joanna. Like, yeah, I have it sitting on the outside of my list for kind of the same reason that I can't, you know, figure out what to do with it.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  There's a part of me that wonders, and I'm, I'm less inside the game than I used to be, but it feels slightly outside the Oscar race game that like, the power of Netflix to get something nominated is not as strong as there was a run where it really was. They had all these resources. They still do have a ton of resources and they could get a ton of stuff nominated. And now it feels like they're being a bit more judicious. And I, and I have been told by people who work at Netflix, that they're throwing all of their stuff behind Amelia Perez. And so I kind of feel like, you know, the, I mean, yeah, that's, that's a does statement, but I've just been told that also by Netflix. And so it's like, the piano lesson, there are previous years where Netflix could have upwards of like three or four Best Picture nominations, you know, but like, I don't know if that's still the case.

• 40:35Sean Fennessey?

  I may be letting that infect some of my thinking, too, is that, well, you can sort of count on 1.7 Netflix films making its way into the Best Picture race. I think The Piano Lesson is the only film that they have in the race this year that is actually competing that originated at Netflix. You know, both Maria and Emilio Perez were pickups out of festivals. And so historically, when they produce a movie, too, they like to be behind it more. I think they obviously had fewer films in the pipeline for two reasons, I think. One, obviously, the strikes, which made it more difficult. And two, they've just de-emphasized this frame, this part of their strategy, which was a huge part of their strategy for many years, that endless pursuit for the Best Picture win.

• 41:18Sean Fennessey?

  If they get it for Emilio Perez, like, I might just quit podcasting. That will be so absurd relative to, like, what Roma was, you know, anyway.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  Sure. Are you just gonna re-watch Mank and cry?

• 41:30Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I can't credibly tell you I think Mank was, could have won Best Picture, but it was my Best Picture of that very odd movie year. Okay, so I felt like Nickel Boy, September 5, and The Piano Lesson were the three that I felt the least confident about. It's why they were 10, 9, and 8 last time. So if we're taking The Piano Lesson off, is that where Wicked Part 1 is going?

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Can I propose something else to add in without saying what to get rid of? But what about The Substance? Are we thinking enough about The Substance?

• 41:56Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I'm glad you brought this up. Yeah, this is great.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  Talking about making money, like, it's, like, successful. It's, like, again, by movie standards.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  Sticky in the culture in a way that, like, even some other more popular movies haven't been.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. I would love if that happened. And I'm actually willing to swap out Nickel Boys for The Substance at number 10 for the sake of good list-making, because I do think that there is a zeitgeist-y thing. It's also, it's available to stream on MUBI now, and you can rent it on VOD, to my point about Banshee's Vinny Sharon. It's a movie that more people can see, and it has clearly made way more money, I think, than Universal ever thought it could before they got scared and sold it to MUBI because they didn't want to be anywhere close to the content. I really like that movie quite a bit, and I am on a couple of text chains with a couple of Academy voters, and they fucking hate it. Hated it. And people also hate this movie.

• 42:53Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I really like it, but that level of vitriol, now, I don't think anybody is putting The Substance at number 1 on their Best Picture voting ballot.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  I doubt it, yeah.

• 43:02Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe at 4, maybe at 7. But the people who hate it will not, it won't be getting any eight, nine, 10 votes. You know what I mean?

• 43:10Speaker 02

  It'll just be, it'll just not be on their ballot whatsoever.

• 43:13Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly. So how much does that factor in?

• 43:15Speaker 02

  No, and with the like, the likability factor in terms of getting a best picture nomination is pretty well known. So that is a, that is a good, I was, I mean, again, we're not talking about director, but Corley Fajad, like as a director candidate, I think is maybe being more underestimated than its best picture chances, but I do think it's hovering in there.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  When you say, again, that you're on a text chain with several Academy voters, wonderful flex for you.

• 43:37Sean Fennessey?

  Did I use the word several? I don't know if I said several.

• 43:41Speaker 03

  Um, Amelia Perez is also quite divisive.

• 43:45Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  You know, and we've got it all the way up at number two on your previous list. And so I'm not, I'm not trying to take it off the list by any means, of course, not, not at all, but I think, I think it's a little higher than, I think, the Academy voter. Cause there's, you know, we always have to consider, of course, the older curmudgeonly Academy voter that we keep in our mind. And then of course, as Amanda likes to remind us, the international voter is something to keep in mind as well. But like, and Sean, I told you this when I got out of my Amelia Perez screening, the older Academy voters were like, well, that sure was a thing. It seems to baffle them, you know? So I, yeah, I don't know.

• 44:24Sean Fennessey?

  I believe my, my self quote about Amelia Perez, after I saw it, tell you right was, well, that is a lot of movie.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 44:31Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't know if I said much more about it. We'll get into that very briefly.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:35Sean Fennessey?

  When we get into Amelia Perez. Okay. Let me raise one more, I like the idea of the substance. Great call, Katie. We'll put it in there for the sake of conversation. Sing Sing will be at nine. Is a complete unknown on your radar?

• 44:48Speaker 02

  I have that on my list of, I don't, I haven't seen it. I know a handful of people who have.

• 44:53Sean Fennessey?

  I'm seeing it next week.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Okay. Yeah, like.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  What have you heard from the people who've seen it?

• 44:57Speaker 02

  That like, it is okay, but like, I was also one person was just like, you're gonna hate it, which was surprising to me because I have felt kind of like generous toward it. But the same person reminded me that Ford versus Ferrari got like 10 Oscar nominations, like not that long ago.

• 45:11Sean Fennessey?

  Damn good movie.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Uh, and a complete unknown like could be just like hitting right down the middle. Like we've been talking about the middle and how the Oscars like like to live in the middle and like maybe a complete unknown, it's not gonna do Wonka numbers, but it could do like adjusted Wonka numbers I'm putting in December and like be the moneymaker and the middle thing that we're looking for.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  Now you know why I podcast with Katie for so long, because she brings up Wonka. I was gonna bring up Wonka. I was gonna bring up Wonka and say, I think we should stop ever underestimating Timothy Chalamet, so.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:44Sean Fennessey?

  I, man, I'm just, I'm in a complicated state.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  I know a place unknown like is going to mean a lot to you one way or another, right? Like, it's not, you're not gonna be neutral on this movie.

• 45:55Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, I'm gonna come down. Well, I like, I like Mangold, I really do. He's been on the show. I find him to be like a fascinating orator. I think what I, we spoke for like an hour and I asked three questions last time he was on the show. And he's got really, really strong ideas, but he does have a kind of traditionalist streak in what he pursues and what he believes is great cinema. Whether or not that transfers to the most mainstream artist who broke the conception of mainstream in American popular music history, like, I'm not sure if that's a match. So, I'm skeptical.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  Why do you think so few people have seen it?

• 46:32Sean Fennessey?

  I, I was told that it, there were reshoots and that it wasn't done.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had kinda gotten that sense that they hadn't finished it yet. And also, like, you know, they're gonna wait and for the Gladiator 2, Wicked, like, Mwana 2, like, there's this huge, like, Thanksgiving jam up. And they're gonna, like, screen it when they can for, I think there's gonna be screenings on the 25th, so, pretty soon, for, like, the critics who vote in New York Film Critics Circle in LAFKA, so they can get those votes out and then, you know, bring it out to people. Because you want that, like, late mover advantage that, you know, we've all said existed since Million Dollar Baby, and more often than not, like, it doesn't really pan out that way. But I think everyone, every year, there's something that tries. Like, maybe we could talk about Nosferatu, also kind of barely peeking its head out at this point.

• 47:12Sean Fennessey?

  I would love to do that.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  Sean, you said Nosferatu.

• 47:17Sean Fennessey?

  Did my eyebrows go straight up?

• 47:19Speaker 03

  Wait, Katie, when you say Nosferatu, who's the person in Nosferatu you most want to champion, just like, theoretically?

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Uh, well, I haven't seen Nosferatu yet, so I feel like, I don't think my answer's Lily Rose Depp, but I gotta remember who else is in Nosferatu, so I'm gonna Google it real quick. Who's, who are, who are you championing? It sounds like you have an answer.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  No, I just think that you, like me, agree that Nicholas Holt deserves more.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  I had to just basically confirm that Nicholas Holt was in this movie before, yes. Nicholas, I haven't seen Juror Number Two yet, though, so I feel like my Holt's card is gonna get revoked until I go see that.

• 47:52Sean Fennessey?

  So these were, there's three more movies that have not come up in this conversation that I think we should talk about. There's Nosferatu, there's Juror Number Two, the twin killing from Nick Holt, and The Room Next Door, which is the new Almodovar movie. Have you guys seen The Room Next Door?

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I saw it in Toronto.

• 48:07Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. I would say I was lightly dismayed watching that movie as a, like a mega Almodovar fan, like a fanboy. I, it's a movie that didn't work for me, but I, it's another, I think another fairly divisive film. But that movie, and Nosferatu and Juror Number Two are movies that I had, was maybe not taking as seriously as I should, and now I feel like maybe I need to throw them in the mix too. So maybe Joanna, if you're right, that A Real Pain is not contending in the way that I think it is.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Ooh, I'm more with you on A Real Pain. Katie disagrees. Yeah, I think A Real Pain's pretty strong.

• 48:40Sean Fennessey?

  I do too. I really like it.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  I think it should be in there. I just think you have it too high.

• 48:44Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. Nosferatu I have seen. I, I'm no longer doing the like, I've, you know, Nosferatu, parentheses, Eggers, comma, 2024, closed parentheses, colon, an absolutely beautiful film for all the sickos out there. Like, I'm not doing those tweets anymore. I've sworn them off, but.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  Do you want to try that on Blue Sky?

• 49:09Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe. I'm over there if people want to check that out.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Is it a beautiful film for the sickos, though? Is this the exclusive we get on this podcast?

• 49:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, it's Eggers at a mega budget, doing the thing that he does. A very, very funny movie, I thought. And I think it's like sense of humor and sense of doom and the collision of those two things. It's something that really speaks to me, but it does not at all seem, it's another movie that'd be wildly unusual for a movie like this to be nominated for Best Picture.

• 49:36Speaker 03

  Were you at the event with Eggers and Guillermo del Toro?

• 49:38Sean Fennessey?

  I was, and it was one of the absolute best post-screening Q and As I've ever seen. It was, Del Toro is obviously a genius when it comes to film history, but the two of them, who were doing shorthand on the history of myth, it was fascinating. Maybe, not all people would agree, but for somebody like me, I was enraptured by their conversation.

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think, I think if that's like the conversation that continues around that film, I'm excited for the Sickos to have their, have their day, because they deserve it.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  I think that's the vibe I've been getting from people who've seen it, is like, I love this movie, but you know, like, The Lighthouse was in there for its Oscar contention for, you know, got that cinematography nom, but like, it seems like that may still be the ceiling on what Robert Eggers is turning down. And like, God bless him, we want him to keep doing that and not go for Oscar glory instead.

• 50:21Sean Fennessey?

  I, I wouldn't totally write off Lily Rose Depp. She is the standout performer from the movie by far for me, and she does some things, there's been some reporting about kind of like the physical performance that she gives, the way that she sort of contorts her body, and the fact that no CGI was used to capture all of those things, that is very impressive and I think will be a talking point up to the release. I'm very curious to see if that movie does good business, because if it does, I think its chances in other categories goes up. Costume design, make, makeup is, it's definitely competing in makeup, when you see what the scars guard, uh, scars guard transformation is. Anyway, I, I don't think Nosferatu is gonna get in. Your number two, I'm not ready to write off yet.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  I'm fascinated by it, because like- Well, how much of that is the, is the like, Justice for Clint narrative?

• 51:05Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's all that.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  Stick it to David Zaslav.

• 51:08Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's entirely that thing.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 51:10Sean Fennessey?

  Um, it's a, it's a very solid film, it's like a seven out of 10 for me, but I think there is a little bit of a like, Justice for Clint thing, which is ironic, just given what, how Clint sees the world and how he fucking hates institutions, and the idea of like, an institution granting him yet again, another award, identifying his genius is a bit silly, but, you know, it's also, it's the same thing as Conclave, it's just, it's a, it's an old-fashioned, down-the-middle genre movie with very good performances, and, you know, some flaws in the storytelling, I think, but a great, great ending. And, so I, I, if you told me that in four months- It's a big part of the conversation. I wouldn't be shocked.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Would it be like, do you imagine it being like a best director, best picture thing? Like, is Nicholas Holt more of a contender? Like, how across the board, a rise up do you see on this?

• 52:00Sean Fennessey?

  I don't see Nicholas Holt competing, even though it is a very, very good performance. I'm sorry, Joanna.

• 52:07Sean Fennessey?

  He-

• 52:07Speaker 03

  Sean just doesn't properly respect Nicholas Holt, and that's okay.

• 52:10Sean Fennessey?

  No, I do. I do. I like him quite a bit. I mean, he's just the king of all cucks, and he's having one of the great cuck runs in these two films. When you look, when you see Nosferatu in your number two, you'll know what I mean.

• 52:21Speaker 03

  Sean texted that to me, and I was like, no way he's gonna say that on the podcast. That's why, that's why you're one of the greats, Sean.

• 52:26Sean Fennessey?

  You don't underestimate him.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  Can I throw out another, you listen to, there's one more we haven't talked about?

• 52:34Sean Fennessey?

  Please, yeah.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  We can leave, miss, I don't know how I feel about it, but The Wild Robot is still out there.

• 52:38Sean Fennessey?

  Ooh.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  Making, making money.

• 52:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  It is, when I was talking to somebody about, you know, post-election vibes, like, what's the movie about people like coming together? And like, making the world better. It's about animals, but it is a very great, like, everyone team up to stand up for your values kind of movie. It's not as successful as Inside Out 2. Nothing is. And Inside Out 2 is gonna push really hard to be, to take that one animated spot. Like, I think everyone's correct that not both can get in. I think it's really crowded for The Wild Robot to make its way in there, but like, I don't know. It still feels like it's gonna, it's gonna fight hard for that spot until it runs out of road, I think.

• 53:13Sean Fennessey?

  It's still, not since, is it Toy Story 3 was the last one to get into Best Picture?

• 53:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, there was this very quick run of Pixar movies, and then they said, nope, we're done with that. No, thank you. Never again.

• 53:25Sean Fennessey?

  I, I don't, I really like The Wild Robot. I don't, I don't see it getting over the line. I'm not, I think, I think it's a very good film. I think it's a, a very powerful film if you're a parent.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:37Sean Fennessey?

  But I don't know, this feels like, actually, all of a sudden, it just feels really crowded to me.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  I know, I know.

• 53:43Sean Fennessey?

  You know, we're like Sing Sing and A Complete Unknown, and The Room Next Door, and Blitz. And I'm like, they could all get in. That seems totally plausible to me, that all of those movies could get in, so. Okay.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  Well, when you did, you did the list of 26 in October 21st. How many movies are we at now? Are we at like 16? Have we narrowed it down a little bit? Okay.

• 54:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think we're at about 16.

• 54:02Speaker 03

  I know we're going from the bottom-ish, but, and I, I think that's how I usually like to do this, but should we, should we do some top-down stuff just to make sure we don't run out of essential spots?

• 54:11Sean Fennessey?

  As always, you're way ahead of me on all this, Joanna. Thank you. You're right. Do you, do you guys agree that Enora is still the frontrunner in this race?

• 54:19Speaker 02

  I do. I like, I kept waiting for something to replace it. And I'm now starting to wonder if it just does a Nomadland and just stays there. Just the whole time.

• 54:27Sean Fennessey?

  I came out of the screening and I was like, this movie's gonna win. And I still kinda think that, but.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Nomadland is such a, that's such a baffling year to try to draw lessons from.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  It's an impossible comparison, but like, yeah. I know Enora, it's so strong. And I, I talked to Sean Baker yesterday and his, some of his production team and was like, just left even more dazzled. So presumably anyone who goes to a Q and A with them will do the same thing.

• 54:50Sean Fennessey?

  I never would have guessed that on all the times that I've spoken to Sean Baker in the past. I'm like, he's emerged as the darling of this award season. It's so strange. Not, that's not a negative read. It's just weird.

• 55:02Speaker 03

  But like Neon is good at what they do, right? Like, you know, so.

• 55:06Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay. So Enora is one. What is number two?

• 55:10Speaker 02

  I have Conclave at two for my list.

• 55:13Sean Fennessey?

  Love the boldness. What do you think, Joanna?

• 55:15Speaker 03

  I like it.

• 55:16Sean Fennessey?

  Did you like Conclave?

• 55:17Speaker 03

  I really liked Conclave.

• 55:18Sean Fennessey?

  You did?

• 55:18Speaker 03

  So over on, uh, childlike content, we're doing, uh, three weeks of Denzel Washington. And, um, to your point about like, I miss movies like this, like watching Philadelphia and the Pelican Brief. I was just like crying. I'm like, why don't we have these movies that make $200 million anymore? Um, anyway, so that's, yeah.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  I was informed by.

• 55:38Speaker 03

  Let's champion Conclave.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  I was informed by Dave Gonzalez, uh, your co-host, uh, that, uh, both Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow were in The Pelican Brief. Uh, so it was like a pre-Conclave Conclave right there.

• 55:48Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, good point. That had not occurred to me. Uh, the only thing that would have made Conclave better is if Denzel showed up. That would have been quite special.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  You could absolutely fit him in there and give him like.

• 55:57Speaker 03

  Julia? Is there room for Julia in there?

• 56:00Speaker 02

  You don't know what those nuns look like under those habits. She could have been scuttling around, serving lunch.

• 56:05Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 56:06Sean Fennessey?

  Given the ongoing success and the fact that those movies are out the world, I like Enora and Conclave at one and two right now. So then.

• 56:15Sean Fennessey?

  Have you guys seen The Brutalist? You've seen it, Katie.

• 56:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Sean, I think you and I are, you and I are in the Brutalist, you know, hype squad together.

• 56:22Sean Fennessey?

  We are.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  Eight twenty-four, eight twenty-four, if you're listening, I'm really sorry I missed my first screening. I'm seeing it next week. I'm seeing it next week, eight twenty-four. I'm so sorry.

• 56:32Speaker 03

  I'm excited to see it.

• 56:33Sean Fennessey?

  Isn't it number three? Am I overstating it?

• 56:35Speaker 03

  I think you guys should put Brutalist at number three.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  I have it at number three.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  You guys both really love it.

• 56:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 56:38Speaker 03

  Do it.

• 56:39Speaker 02

  I like not to like go back to the election thing over and over again, but I do think that's a movie that's been rattling around in my head even louder since the election. Like, I think that image of the upside down Statue of Liberty on the poster, like, it is really striking. And I think it's just an incredible work of art. And it's got a lane, right? Like, it's not really that much like a Nora or a Conclave. And I think you need that variety in a best picture lineup, too.

• 57:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I tend to agree. I think it's also the movie that, it reminds me a lot of Tar. You know, it's a movie that is built around a mega sensual performance that is loaded with all of these ideas. And if you take those ideas out, great. And if you don't take them out and you just see it as spectacle, that's also gonna work for you.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  Does, does the three and a half run, hour runtime, so much so that they're, they put an intermission in the press screening that I am so sorry I missed, um, does that factor into it? When you're thinking about people watching their screener at home.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  Watching this on a screener sounds like a terrible idea. And I don't know how they, they can't prevent people from doing it, but I, I don't imagine. Remember how, um, Joanna Mike Hogan used to always say, like, imagining people in their Beller mansion with the sun streaming through their giant windows, watching these movies at home? Conclave's gonna rip like that, and The Brutalist is absolutely not.

• 57:55Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'm, I'm so torn on that. I mean, on the one hand, Oppenheimer was three hours, you know? And Oppenheimer, obviously, was a big hit, so people just saw it in the theaters, but... I wouldn't recommend seeing that movie on a screener either, but it absolutely dominated award season from start to finish. So I don't think that that necessarily disqualifies. The intermission, as I understand it, is a part of the film. It is literally baked into the movie. And there is a title card that appears that shows you that you're, it's not like you're just at a roadshow and they only share it with you when you're seeing it in this format. I think when you buy the movie on digital or whatever, you're gonna just have the, I think you're gonna have the intermission. I could be wrong about that.

• 58:31Speaker 03

  Let's all go to the lobby and have ourselves a snack. Yeah.

• 58:34Speaker 02

  Have the countdown clock. It's a, it's a beautiful title card at intermission.

• 58:39Sean Fennessey?

  But historically, in the, in great, long, you know, Hollywood epics, the reason for the intermissions that were baked into those movies was obvious. It was get up, go to the bathroom, go get a snack, go get some more popcorn. That was very purposeful. It was part of the exhibition of the film.

• 58:52Speaker 03

  I'm not upset that it exists. I love, I love that, you know, when you're watching an old school epic on AMC or TCM or whatever, and then the intermission like comes up in the middle, it's incredible. It would just surprise me in a press screening because I was, there was just like a note in my press screening, there will be an intermission. I was like, that I've never experienced.

• 59:11Speaker 02

  I was so relieved. I had to sit up and stretch my legs. But also, there's this great moment, and Sean, it might have happened to you, where like, I was sitting next to, to Joe Reed, and I did, we turned to each other being like, do you love this? And we kind of like check in with each other at intermission. And it was just so, such a great, like, oh, my God, you guys, we're doing this together. It's such a great feeling.

• 59:28Sean Fennessey?

  I had the same thing. I saw it in LA and I was sitting next to Glenn Whip from the Los Angeles Times. And we both were like, man, I hope this is as good as I, here it is. And it's kind of been like a wonky year and I haven't really been able to kind of get my heart behind too many movies. And then same thing, Katie, like maybe not quite at the end of the first, first half, I was like, hey, we got one.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  Great, Brutal is at number three.

• 59:53Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Brutal's at number three. Number, number four.

• 59:57Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Joanna, what do you, what do you think? Like, what, if I've overestimated a real pain, have I underestimated anything? Is there something that should be shooting up closer to the top?

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  Well, the only thing, I mean, we do have to put Emilia Perez here on here eventually, but like, I'm wondering if Doom Part Two goes at four.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  And then Emilia Perez at five. What do you feel like this? What, what is the late in the day Doom Part Two? All I'm seeing, I mean, constantly invited to screenings with like, Denis Villeneuve is gonna be there. Like Denis Villeneuve is screening this movie every single night.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  The most tireless man in the world.

• 1:00:34Speaker 03

  In some city in the world, Denis Villeneuve is showing Doom Part Two. Um, so like, how effective is this like?

• 1:00:42Sean Fennessey?

  I'm doing a live event from Arrakis with Denis, actually, which I'm really excited about. The sand pod.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  The fight's gonna take forever, but it's worth it.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, the wind sound, getting the wind sound out of your pod is gonna be really tough.

• 1:00:53Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry, Bob. Apologies.

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  Sorry, Bobby.

• 1:00:57Sean Fennessey?

  I, that feels a little high for me. I, I think that the movie is beloved by those who, who love it. But amongst the Academy, I think there is still a little bit of like, that's a movie for the nerds sensation. Um, it's maybe not as.

• 1:01:15Speaker 03

  I thought it's broken through more than Doom Part, like Doom Part One, there was that sort of like, this is for the nerds vibes, and I thought Doom Part Two had broken through. But maybe that was just because we walked out of our screening and like, everyone in our screening, Sean liked it, and we all looked at each other across the nerd pods and the big pick pods, and found common cause together in Doom Part Two.

• 1:01:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't, Katie, I'd be curious to know what you think about this. Amongst cinephiles, Denis is someone who now everyone is like, he is in, he's entered the pantheon, right? He's somebody who every time he makes a movie now, it will be a kind of event. It's been this slow build through American productions. And everyone identifies him as like a big, a grand scale master movie maker. But science fiction has very little footprint in the history of the Academy Awards. It's just not a genre that unless a film is an absolute sensation like Star Wars, that it tends to get into these races. So even more so than like fantasy, you know, fantasy has a better track record even than science fiction for the most part.

• 1:02:19Sean Fennessey?

  So I, while I think it is definitely going to be nominated and is widely admired and was a huge box office hit, I don't see it as like really in competing for this Best Picture win. What do you think, Katie?

• 1:02:29Speaker 02

  Can I, I want to make a proposal. I feel like it might perform exactly the way as Avatar, The Way of Water, in that it was a sci fi sequel and it's like highly respected on every technical level, you know, following up a movie that had been a pretty major Oscar player. And I don't remember how many nominations. I don't think it won anything, or maybe it only won visual effects. It gets in and nominated and kind of all the places it needed to be. And then everyone kind of just said, okay, good. You're here. And now we're going to go focus on other stuff. Like, maybe that's a trajectory for Dune Part Two.

• 1:02:56Speaker 03

  Tough, tough room. Okay.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  You know how much I love Avatar, Joanna. I consider that a high compliment.

• 1:03:02Sean Fennessey?

  Dune Part One did win six Below the Line Oscars.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  It did. It sure did.

• 1:03:05Sean Fennessey?

  So, and it'll be curious, I'll be curious to see if it can, it can match that. My impression, my, my instinct would be to put it more around six.

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:03:13Sean Fennessey?

  Dune Part Two. Will you, will you bargain with me on that?

• 1:03:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I feel good about that. I had Emilio Perez here at number four, which I don't want to go to the mat for, but just to.

• 1:03:20Speaker 03

  That's, I think that's fine.

• 1:03:22Sean Fennessey?

  I do too. Is it, is it crazy that Wicked Part One would be at number five?

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:03:27Speaker 02

  Uh, no.

• 1:03:29Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like it might be.

• 1:03:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I like, I would say put Sing Sing there, like the way I made my list, but that's not based on anything. Like, and I think that in, in this moment, like if we're trying to capture not only what we think is going to happen, but where the energy is right now, it's wicked.

• 1:03:43Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. So then we have seven and eight. Thus far, we have knocked off Nickel Boys, September Five, The Piano Lesson, Gladiator Two.

• 1:03:52Speaker 03

  We simply must put A Real Pain at seven.

• 1:03:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:56Sean Fennessey?

  And it goes down one slot. So you can feel like you had a victory of a kind here.

• 1:03:59Speaker 03

  I made a difference. I made a difference.

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I feel really confident that A Real Pain is getting in for Best Picture.

• 1:04:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:07Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  Just where, you know?

• 1:04:08Sean Fennessey?

  So at number eight.

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, we're running out of room.

• 1:04:12Sean Fennessey?

  Just Gladiator 2, very quickly, Katie, do you think it's gonna get into this race?

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  I had said yes when I made my list, but like, I feel like with Gladiator 2 and Dune Part 2, there can only be one. Like, maybe that's not right, but maybe like Wicked Gladiator 2, Dune 2, I don't know that there's room for all three. So if you're gonna keep Wicked and Dune 2 on there, then Gladiator's gotta go.

• 1:04:34Speaker 03

  I think right now, in the, so here's what I know about Gladiator 2. I haven't seen it. Uh, people are mixed excited about it, but not overly excited about it. Chris Ryan and Sean Fantasy, the two people I thought would be most in the tank for Gladiator 2, are not in the tank for Gladiator 2. I, I think Denzel is the, is the Oscar conversation and Best Picture is not.

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:01Sean Fennessey?

  So then is Blitz going in this spot?

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  I think Blitz deserves a spot in here. Like, that is a huge technical achievement. It's got all that, you know, the below the line support, like, makes a difference in Best Picture. Those people are all voting for Best Picture. Like, if you get all of the, like, sound editors in there, they're gonna see something in Blitz that not necessarily we're going to. And there's the international component. Like, it's not all English people, but like, I, I feel like there's like a European fanbase for that movie that's maybe harder for us to see. And I really like it. So just personally, I wanna push for it to be in there.

• 1:05:32Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's insightful. I was a little disappointed with this, to be honest with you. I, another movie that I felt like its script did not quite live up to some of the technical mastery and performance on display. And that was kind of a bummer because I tend to really love the scripts of Steve McQueen films because he has a real acid burn sensibility that I really connect with, whether he's making something historical or more genre-based. I, I, at times I was like, is this, this is very Spielbergian as well and very kind of... You know, it was heartfelt and open and emotional, which is not a bad thing per se, but it's not quite what I expect from him. Also, I think the first five minutes of that movie, without spoiling it, is a real fake out about what kind of a movie it's gonna be.

• 1:06:17Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:06:17Sean Fennessey?

  Because it has this kind of like stunning, dramatic sequence of what was happening during the Blitz in London and kind of like what the on the ground experience of it was like, that the movie mostly doesn't follow. It becomes much more this sort of like Dickensian story of a child in a level of escape, as opposed to this like, literally, your city is on fire and here's how it feels.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:06:40Sean Fennessey?

  And so maybe I got a little bit pushed off of it, but I think you're right, Katie, that there's something about the international nature of the Academy and the framework. And also, you know, World War II movies have a long history.

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:52Sean Fennessey?

  At the Academy Awards. And so I could see it. I don't know, Joanna, you haven't seen it yet?

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  I haven't. Um, I do think that, uh, like Steve, Steve McQueen in general, of course, is like of, of interest to the Academy. And then Saoirse, I, this is my way to online, uh, you know, opinion. But Saoirse on the press circuit for this film has been strong.

• 1:07:19Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:07:20Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. It feels like the momentum from, oh, she's definitely getting in for the outrun, has now fully shifted to she's definitely getting in for Blitz and not for the outrun, which is a fascinating turn of events.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  I really liked her in The Outrun too, which is, um, I, I drafted my-

• 1:07:32Sean Fennessey?

  Another movie whose script I did not like, I'm sorry.

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, it's not like, it's not the strongest script in the world. I think she's wonderful in it. I, I have it in my movie fantasy league, so I have a strong rooting interest in the-

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  You have a vested interest in it.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  It's as if there's real money involved, but there absolutely is not. Um, but yes, I, um, I think she is really good. She's been good on the Blitz press tour. She and like Elliot Heffernan, who's the main kid, like they're a good duo doing the press together. And, um, Yeah. I was gonna say, I feel like Dickensian more than Spielbergian is a way to get into Blitz, without sounding too much like a proper English major, but um, and I think that works in its benefit, but I absolutely see if you have, if you're coming in for one Steve McQueen and you get a different one, why it would um, throw you off when you first watch this movie.

• 1:08:11Speaker 03

  Is like, is having not seen it, is Empire of the Sun like a good comp to it or not?

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  I've never seen Empire of the Sun. Sorry.

• 1:08:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, in many ways, they're similar. Um, I don't know if Elliot Hefrenin has quite what Christian Bale had in that movie.

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  Time to tell.

• 1:08:28Sean Fennessey?

  Personally, but.

• 1:08:30Speaker 03

  High bar, but yeah.

• 1:08:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it's um, I don't know. I need to watch Blitz again, is what I'll say. Especially before I do an episode about it to just kind of wrap my head around it. Cause it just, it wrong footed me. It was just not what I expected it to be for a variety of reasons. That doesn't mean it's not um, accomplished or competing here. I've, boy, I've just, I've never been more flummoxed by the Best Picture race than I have in this year.

• 1:08:54Speaker 03

  But that's so fun. That's so fun, Sean. And it's so boring when we're like, we know who all the nominees are in August.

• 1:09:00Sean Fennessey?

  The Oppenheimer thing was a snore. That was really quite dull, honestly. Even though I like that movie.

• 1:09:04Speaker 03

  But it was a great movie for you.

• 1:09:06Speaker 02

  So emotionally satisfying. The Oppenheimer's carried us through. He's a great man.

• 1:09:11Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 1:09:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so then our official rankings.

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  Wait, was that 10? Are we done?

• 1:09:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Sean Fennessey?

  We're done. We've got 10.

• 1:09:17Speaker 02

  We kicked out Nickel Boys. Oh, man. Okay.

• 1:09:19Sean Fennessey?

  We kicked out Nickel Boys, we kicked out September 5, we kicked out Piano Lesson, we kicked out Gladiator 2. I predict Nickel Boys will make a comeback.

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:26Sean Fennessey?

  Nickel Boys, and I also think there is a very strong case for a Rommel Ross and director. And some of that will be relative to whether there's um, European representation, or whether like a Corle Farge or Audard gets into that category. If they do not, there is a place for a, Nickel Boys is the most directed movie of the year.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:46Sean Fennessey?

  It is very much a vision, and so we'll see on that, but we'll wait, because the movie's not even out for another month, and then even then, I think it's gonna be a fairly limited release.

• 1:09:55Speaker 02

  The zone of interest on Jonathan Glazer comparison on that, I think, holds very strong. So, yes.

• 1:10:01Sean Fennessey?

  Precisely. Um, number 10, The Substance, which I just love that we're putting it on. I don't know if it's gonna last in the season, but I like that we're doing it. Number nine, Sing Sing. Number eight, Blitz. Number seven, A Real Pain. Congrats, Joanna. Number six, Dune Part Two. Number five, Wicked Part One. Number four, Emilio Perez, which we will speak about momentarily. Number three, The Brutalist. Number two, Conclave. And number one, the frontrunner in the race, Enora.

• 1:10:27Speaker 04

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• 1:10:57Sean Fennessey?

  So let's talk about Emilio Perez. Okay? It's on Netflix. Boy, people seem to not like this movie. Have you been seeing the Letterboxd reviews and the tweets and the cutting out the scenes from the film? And it's divisive.

• 1:11:12Speaker 03

  This is, this is like, watching the Emilio Perez clips be ridiculed on social media is giving me such strong A Marriage Story flashback. Like Netflix is like lives and dies by the memes that come out of their movies and like, uh, yeah, I liked this movie. I was captivated by this movie. And then there was never a moment where I could predict what would happen next. You know, it's got like a telenovela plot. And as a huge musicals fan, I was really intrigued by it as like a musical property. But given that it's based

• 1:11:57Speaker 03

  on an opera, like it is much more operatic in that we're singing through dialogue rather than like having big musical numbers with a few exceptions, like Zoe Saldana centric exceptions.

• 1:12:09Speaker 03

  But yeah, what a, what a movie this is that I saw in the theaters. And I'm glad it exists. I'm really, really glad it exists. That's, that's something I'll say.

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  I will say the, the clip that I, when I first saw the movie, I saw this scene of the musical number set in the, the surgery wing and saying, oh God, that's going to go viral on Twitter and people are going to get really mad about it. And that is exactly what has happened. Like, it is very easy to spot when you're watching this movie that out of context, this will, I mean, it reads crazy in context. Like, that specific musical number where you have Zoe Saldana in a gender reassignment clinic in Switzerland or something, is wild when you're watching it. It's not like the movie makes any of that seem any less crazy. But when you're sitting down for all these big swings and you're watching them on top of each other, I do think there is a, coherent's not the right word because I do think it's all over the place and I think that's part of the appeal of it. But there's a vision to it. There's a reason that all this is happening. It all fits as part of a whole.

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  And like, I think Zoe Saldana, she's the best to show in the movie for me. Like, she's understanding the world that this performance is existing in really well. And she, it starts off with this, another musical all around her, kind of set in the streets of Mexico City, that's a lot more grounded than that one.

• 1:13:16Speaker 03

  That was my favorite.

• 1:13:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's really good. And she has the one at the Galileo later where she's dancing on the tables. She's a great dancer. She always has been. So yeah, it doesn't, all the pieces don't necessarily fit perfectly together, but I, I hate the like experiencing out of context, even if that particular musical number, you know, and where this movie lands in its politics, like is absolutely up for consideration. But I think people need to see the whole thing before they can, you know, decide that this is so offensive to their sensibilities that they don't want to watch it.

• 1:13:44Speaker 03

  That's, I'm sorry, it's not like a perfect Comptoir marriage story, but it drove me absolutely up the wall. When people took that Adam Driver screaming scene out of context, it was like, inside the movie,

• 1:13:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

  this works very well.

• 1:13:55Sean Fennessey?

  I was devastated by that, but much more so than anything in, in Emilio Perez for me, which I, I, okay, I'll put a little bit of context around the film. So it is written and directed by Jacques Audiard. It is roughly based on an opera. It stars Zoe Saldana, Carla Sofia Gascón, Selena Gomez, Edgar Ramirez, handful of others. It won the jury prize at Cannes in May.

• 1:14:20Sean Fennessey?

  Audier, this is his 10th feature. He is an icon in France. He is an occasional interloper with American audiences. A profit was nominated for international feature in 2010. I still think that's his best film. It's a film that is somewhat similar, but also wildly different. I think he tends to shift pretty dramatically in tonality. But the way that he expresses his stories and the way that his characters express is always very big. He is a maximalist filmmaker. You know, Rust in Bone is a very maximal film. The Sisters Brothers is a quiet movie, but it's a very big movie. And I'm always kind of interested in what he's doing. I think this movie is ultimately a failed experiment. It's cool that he tried it. If he didn't have Zoe Saldana, I don't think the movie would have worked at all.

• 1:15:05Sean Fennessey?

  She really, every time it's working for me, she's in the frame. It's not, which is not a criticism of Carla Sofia Gascón, who I think has an incredibly challenging role here. Playing both a pre-transition man and also a post-transition woman. And there has been some debate about rendering those two things and this sort of like going back in time, going forward in time, and what the sensitivities are around that. I don't claim to be an expert on this topic. I don't, if someone is deeply offended by it, I understand. I think she has a big challenge and the film is not well-written enough to kind of pull off that aspect of the story for me ultimately. And I also thought Selena Gomez was not good. And she obviously is going to draw a lot of attention to this movie,

• 1:15:49Sean Fennessey?

  but she feels way out of her league relative to the other two central performances. So for me, because of that, it's a super mix. All that, when you're, it takes you out of the movie when the energy is shifting every eight minutes on what kind of a movie it is. And so I, I struggle with that a bit.

• 1:16:05Speaker 03

  I also, like, I thought Selena Gomez was extremely distracting. And that's the kind of character that I love. And I really wish I could have seen someone who was like more up for it. The salty ex-wife? What's the? The hot mess express. She's just like a hot mess express and I love that kind of character. And, and I just think Selena Gomez, uh, you know, despite her obviously like musical talent was just like not up for this gig. I'm baffled by Edgar Ramirez being here in such a small quantity, like it's such a weird deployment of Edgar Ramirez. And I liked Carla Sofia Gascón, I think, a bit better than both

• 1:16:44Speaker 03

  of you. But I will say, I think the height of it was the dinner where she first reveals herself to Zoe. And I was like, on the edge of my seat.

• 1:16:53Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. That scene is great.

• 1:16:55Speaker 03

  Great scene. I was just like enthralled by it.

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:57Speaker 03

  And I like enthralled by both of them. And I just like, yeah, I just, this, again, I want this movie to work better than it does. And I am so glad when someone who has big ideas tries something.

• 1:17:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:11Speaker 03

  And so then there's going to be like, parts of this movie that I'm going to remember forever. And then there's going to be parts of this movie that my brain is just going to let go of. And that's sort of how I feel about it.

• 1:17:21Speaker 02

  I do like Carla Goodbend, actually. And I interviewed her a while ago, and she's such a bubbly, lively person to talk to. So I was just, at that point, you know, right after Toronto, when Telluride, I was like, oh, get her in a room with voters and they're going to lose their minds because she's such a fun, like, person to talk to and really different from this very reserved character that she's playing on screen in both iterations. And, you know, her singing is not, she would say, the first person to say, she's not like the strongest singer. So like, it is tricky when these songs are not like, super traditional, like, sung songs. I can't really hum any of them. And like, giving them to various people's voices is more of a challenge. But there's, I agree with you on that scene, Joanna, where, you know, she and Zoe Sedanya sit at the dinner table. And the drama of that, the way the lights cut out, the way they start singing, like, that's what you

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  get when this movie is such a weird experiment. So like, you're gonna have to get that. And then you're also gonna get songs that like, don't work nearly as well. And that's, that's the buy in. And so even though I was buying in with it, like you were, whenever anyone says, like, oh, my God, I couldn't stand a minute of it. I'm like, okay, I respect that. I understand where you're coming from.

• 1:18:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't come out on that. I didn't despise the movie or anything like that. I think it's, it's, it is really trying to do something that has essentially never been done in terms of the, the multi-layering of story types and the shifting of tone so dramatically over and over again. I just think it's, it's a really Messy stew. It's like, you know, putting cinnamon in salsa, you know, it's like, these things are not, they don't go together, you know, and they don't.

• 1:18:46Speaker 03

  Now I want to try that, though.

• 1:18:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, so I, I think I just, I was constantly kind of bumping on the movie where I was like, man, okay, I'm in the middle of a movie where someone's trying to do something weird in a movie. Uh, and so I feel it's kind of a difficult thing to talk about because what I don't want to do is like discourage somebody from trying to expand what the movie form is, you know, like what movie storytelling can be. I think it's also, it's not one or two, but like three or four, super complicated ideas, social ideas that are coursing through the world right now. You know, in particular, there's something very messy about the back half of the movie where Carla Sofia Gascon's character has this kind of epic realization when she

• 1:19:28Sean Fennessey?

  is handed a missing poster about the destruction that has been wrought upon Mexico by cartels and cartel violence and all of the missing children, the vanished, um, uh, people and women of the country. And so she decides to start like an NGO in which she attempts to kind of save or, or, or do justice by this problem that she is manifestly responsible for as a former.

• 1:19:57Speaker 03

  But I love, I love that, right? That's so, that she has this like saintly redemption arc. And then when she is challenged inside of her own house by Selena Gomez's character, the sort of, the nasty crime boss side of her is just right under the surface and comes right back up, you know? And so it's like, it's so messy, but I, I like, you're watching it, you're like, you're watching it, you're watching, it's very like Eva Peron, like, it's very like you're, the hypocrisy of it, uh, is, is astonishing. And then she has this like other love story and you're sort of like, do you get to have this based on

• 1:20:39Speaker 03

  all these other things that you've done? And then when she sort of reveals that this other part of her, not gender wise, but like personality wise, is still like right there under the polished surface. I found that really powerful inside the movie.

• 1:20:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's just like a it felt just felt like a strain in the storytelling that only people who have money can fix problems. I kind of like, I kind of hate, I think is like, kind of gross and feels like, you know, Jacques Audiard is a very elevated artist, you know, he's the son of a filmmaker. He's a he lives in a very rarefied status and it feels like a very unexamined idea to me, especially because this figure at the end of the film is celebrated as this kind of icon of justice.

• 1:21:24Speaker 03

  Literal icon, yeah.

• 1:21:25Sean Fennessey?

  Which it all felt a little bit wrong headed to me. And so maybe you're right, maybe it is more complex and the sort of like the hypocrisy of it is what we're meant to take away from it, Joanna. I didn't feel it when I was watching it.

• 1:21:36Speaker 03

  I just think I think that like, I mean, perhaps Zoe Zeldan's characters like belief in Amelia undercuts this point that I'm just about to make. But like, to me, it's just saying, all these people that you think are these like virtuous saviors or whatever have this, can often do, especially people with massive amounts of wealth, how did they get it? Have this like other side.

• 1:21:58Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we would never have that in America, though. We don't have that with our leaders.

• 1:22:01Speaker 03

  No. We're squeaky clean. How do you a film that is so divisive? And not just not just divisive, but like, people really dislike this movie. How do you feel like it became a festival jury prize winner? And how do you think it was that Netflix looked at this and said, this is the thing we're going to put all of our muscle behind?

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  I think it may, I think the festival jury prize thing is not so hard to explain because the festival jury is like eight people, you know? Like, that's enough people like being on its wavelength. And one, you know, the all four of the actresses like won best actress prize together. Like, there's, you know, there's something kind of exciting about watching all that happen together. Netflix going all in on it is the part that I'm still kind of wrapping my head around. I mean, they had a kind of small slate going into this year. We were talking about that earlier with, you know, with the strikes and everything. So it's kind of like they went to Cannes trying to figure out what their thing was going to be. They weren't going to get a Nora. So like, this kind of felt like the next thing they could do. It's a weird fit for all of the new, you know, the new Netflix that we're talking about, even compared to some of the previous films they've backed.

• 1:23:05Speaker 02

  As they're big Oscar contenders. So I admire them. I'm glad they're going all for it. Like it's maybe the strangest movie that they've shepherded through the award season. But it is, I feel like if Netflix hadn't gotten behind it, like it could easily be like a a bleaker street release that we'd be like, oh yeah, okay, that's an interesting thing that Zoe Saldana did moving on and then never talk about it again.

• 1:23:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think I think it's a little bit more calculated than that, to be honest. I mean, in terms of how it won, it's very obvious to me how it won, which is that Audie Art is an icon in France. He's won the Palme d'Or, he's won, I think he's won best director I can in the past. He is, he is one of the essential French filmmakers of the last 35 years. So there's that. Plus, you have, and Selena Gomez is an incredibly famous person who you can use to advertise the film. And this is a global film on a global streaming platform. It is a movie that features a Dominican Puerto Rican actress, a Mexican actress, a Spanish actress. You've got Edgar Ramirez in there, you've got a French filmmaker, it's set all across, it's a continent hopping story.

• 1:24:08Sean Fennessey?

  It appeals to a big, broad audience, even if some of the social themes are, you know, I guess somewhat divisive in the way that it's told. It's got huge elements of like, straight down the middle, Sicario style crime thriller. You know, especially in the final act that, you know, will appeal to a lot of people. I think the musical stuff is very hit or miss because of the compositions. But as soon as Zoe Saldana started sort of like talk, sing, rapping in that first number, walking down the street, I was like, wow. This is captivating. Like I've never seen her do this before. She's got incredible chops and I've not quite seen a story like this. I think your point though, Katie, about how like, these are not humable songs.

• 1:24:47Sean Fennessey?

  It's really going to be held against it in that respect, especially when you compare it to something like Wicked Part One, which is just nine earworms lodged into your head. But I can, I can really see the sort of both commercial and awards instincts that the company had coming off of a strike year with a, a sort of decentralized awards apparatus inside of the company. Whether or not it's actually going to do what it wants to do, I don't know. I don't, I mean, if this has 10 nominations and zero wins, will you be surprised?

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:25:18Speaker 03

  Do you think, do you think it doesn't have a, a strong chance in international feature?

• 1:25:23Speaker 02

  I, I have been assuming so, but I haven't gone back and looked lately at what else is up to. It did feel like kind of the, the heavy hitter there.

• 1:25:30Sean Fennessey?

  It, it definitely is the frontrunner. And I think that all we imagine is like, for example, not being selected by India, ver- very clearly.

• 1:25:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:39Sean Fennessey?

  Means that Emilio Perez has a big opportunity. I.

• 1:25:43Speaker 03

  And I think it's one of those things where like, if it gets nominated for best picture, which we all think it will at this point in the year, that, that, one of those things where it's like, it's nominated in both international feature and best picture, that sort of like makes it feel like, you know, the top of the top inside of the international feature category. So.

• 1:26:01Sean Fennessey?

  That is what happened with Zone of Interest last year. Yeah.

• 1:26:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:04Speaker 02

  I mean, see, The Sacred Fig is another Cannes title that Germany has submitted, like that one. I haven't seen that one, but I know it's got like big critical support. And, and then one that I saw at Toronto, I don't know if either of you guys have seen, I'm Still Here, the Walter Salz Brazilian film.

• 1:26:17Sean Fennessey?

  I was supposed to see it yesterday in a lunch rent long and I missed it.

• 1:26:19Speaker 02

  It's so good.

• 1:26:20Sean Fennessey?

  It is a huge hit in Brazil right now. It's like one of the biggest films in years.

• 1:26:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, like it's got, you'll probably have time to talk about it later, but when I saw that one, I was like, okay, like if people see that international feature is such a strange category every single year, the shortlist is going to come in December, we'll see what's in there. But there is competition. It's not Emilio Perez walking away with it, I don't think.

• 1:26:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. See to the Sacred Fig is neon. I was a little bit more mixed on that as well, but it certainly is a very timely film that you could see, um, breaking through.

• 1:26:47Sean Fennessey?

  I guess you're right, Joe, that we should be considering it for, for holding space for international.

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  I also feel like Zoe Saldana could win still, despite all the skepticism around Amelia Perez. Like, she's terrific in this movie.

• 1:26:59Speaker 03

  She is, and it's such a good, sorry to bring my, like, House of Art credentials in here, but it's such a good post-Gomorrah, like, move for her. Like, she is having such a good, "I'm putting my Marvel money to use to do exactly what I want to do" kind of career right now.

• 1:27:16Sean Fennessey?

  All due respect, um, her, her post-Gomorrah move was lioness.

• 1:27:20Speaker 03

  Lioness, I knew you were gonna say, I'm so sorry. But lioness, but lioness in conjunction with Amelia Perez is a real strong Zoe move, so.

• 1:27:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:30Sean Fennessey?

  Let's, let's talk about supporting actress in a little bit more depth here. Zoe Saldana, I think, is a frontrunner.

• 1:27:35Speaker 02

  If Ariana Grande, uh, kicks out Selena Gomez from her slot supporting actress, it will be extremely funny. The, all the, like, the 2010s Pop Star Wars is coming back to roost.

• 1:27:45Speaker 03

  That does kinda work.

• 1:27:48Speaker 02

  Sorry, Sean, you were gonna...

• 1:27:49Speaker 03

  I love, I love Selena, uh, personally. She's just not good in this movie, so, you know, if, if someone was to take her spot, then sure.

• 1:27:57Sean Fennessey?

  I think, okay, here, here's what I think is in contention for supporting actress right now. We've got Zoe Saldana, we mentioned Saoirse Ronan in Blitz. We mentioned Daniel Dedwiler in The Piano Lesson. We mentioned Ariana Grande, we mentioned Selena Gomez. I think it's gonna be tough for her to, with Zoe Saldana already pretty far ahead there. And then there's Isabella Rossellini. They're, eh, from Conclave, which is a very small part. There's Felicity Jones from The Brutalist, which I would argue is the least well-written aspect of that film, but we can talk about that.

• 1:28:28Sean Fennessey?

  And then what else? Maybe Carrie Coon in his three daughters, Monica Barbaro in A Complete Unknown.

• 1:28:33Speaker 02

  Uh, Angelina, Angelina Ellis Taylor in The Nickel Boys. Um, I think she's, like, in, in terms of singling out an acting contender from that movie, I think she has the best chance.

• 1:28:42Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good point.

• 1:28:42Speaker 03

  Are they running Margaret Qualley in lead?

• 1:28:44Speaker 02

  They're running her in supporting, at least according to People on Gold Derby, which is usually what it takes in gospel.

• 1:28:50Speaker 03

  I would say.

• 1:28:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that would be extremely well deserved.

• 1:28:54Sean Fennessey?

  Do you see Demi Moore getting into Best Actress?

• 1:28:57Speaker 02

  She's not on my little post-it that I wrote for myself, although that's been a while now. Best Actress is so crazy. It's so competitive. I've been thinking about Carlos Sofia Gascón, actually, because she stands to be the first openly trans actor to ever get an acting nomination. And I think her not getting in would be read as this enormous snub, even though I think with what we've talked about, Emilia Perez, it's a challenge for reasons completely outside of representation, because there's like 10 excellent Best Actress contenders. And, you know, you could just pick and choose at random and have a perfect lineup there.

• 1:29:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm really, I have not really spent enough time thinking about Best Actress, other than I think Mikey Madison is going to win. But Angelina Jolie and Tilda Swinton and Nicole Kidman are all competing pretty hard in that category. And Cynthia Revo now, if Wicked is the phenomenon that we expect, it could be a little tricky.

• 1:29:46Speaker 02

  Marianne Jean Baptiste, do not sleep on her. Hard Truth is playing like gangbusters everywhere it goes.

• 1:29:52Sean Fennessey?

  Good point. Hmm. I don't know, guys.

• 1:29:56Speaker 02

  I mean, this happens every year, right? Where at least the last couple of years, where Best Actress is just this absolute bloodbath. And Best Actor, you're like, um, who can we put in the fifth spot?

• 1:30:04Speaker 03

  Number five, number five.

• 1:30:06Speaker 02

  Every single year, I'd like, men dominate Hollywood in so many ways. And this is the one place where the actresses pick up.

• 1:30:13Speaker 03

  Every single audition for a school play that I ever attended.

• 1:30:18Speaker 03

  Three guys.

• 1:30:19Speaker 02

  Go find someone from the football team who wants to audition.

• 1:30:24Sean Fennessey?

  I never was one of those guys. I think I regret being one of, not being one of those guys. That would have been a good lifestyle choice for me.

• 1:30:29Speaker 03

  You would have crushed.

• 1:30:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, straight guy who loves theater. Just get in there. Yeah.

• 1:30:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:33Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:30:35Sean Fennessey?

  Missed opportunity.

• 1:30:36Speaker 03

  Another life, Sean, another life.

• 1:30:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's too bad. I was too busy being Timothy Chalamet, Lady Bird, being Howard Zinn on the hood of my car in the parking lot.

• 1:30:44Speaker 02

  Calling things tight.

• 1:30:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yep. I mean, honestly, yes, that's one of the most accurate movies ever made. That movie is chilling, how accurate it is.

• 1:30:51Speaker 05

  And yet you still have a cellphone.

• 1:30:53Sean Fennessey?

  I do, I know, I know, they're following me. Well, I, you know, I just got co-opted by the system. You know, now I'm a part of the machine.

• 1:31:00Speaker 02

  Yep, we all, it all happens to all of us.

• 1:31:02Sean Fennessey?

  I'm a power broker now. What else do you want to say about, I mean, Emilio Perez is a movie that like people have been talking about for seven months. I watched it again last night and I was like, nah, it's alright.

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:31:13Sean Fennessey?

  It's weird.

• 1:31:14Speaker 03

  I think people should see it, but I think it's a really hard, to our earlier conversation about The Brutalist, a really hard home watch. Uh, you know, you have, like, especially, I mean, especially because it's, you have to watch it with subtitles. You know what I mean? And like, people are used to doing that, uh, with a lot of Netflix content. But I still think because it just swings all over the place in tone, it's such an easy thing to just pause and walk away from or something like that.

• 1:31:39Speaker 02

  But I would argue that, that that like makes you cut, you like, you turn away for a second and you're like, wait, what's going on? It kind of like, when I revisit it home, it kind of drew me back in more than I expected it to.

• 1:31:49Speaker 03

  I just, I, I, if anyone's listened this far and hasn't seen it, I think you should see it.

• 1:31:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:31:55Speaker 03

  That's what I would say. I really think you should see it and I think you should see it in a theater. Um, but you know, if you want to watch it at home, that works too. But like, I don't think it's a successful experiment, but it's, uh, you know, it's an experiment worth looking at.

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  I would say my prediction is going to be, it's going to get more, like, the people who only watch the clips on Twitter and seen the negative Letterboxd reviews are going to see like, wait, how many Oscar nominations did this get? Like, it's going to feel like a surprise. I just want to like predict that that will happen. Like, it's going to do well with nominations, whether it wins anything. I think it's going to stick around long enough to do that.

• 1:32:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I've seen it compared to Crash a bit on social media, which is a bit rude. Um, but the Academy has a history of nominating movies that are...

• 1:32:37Sean Fennessey?

  That feel like they're not going to age well, you know, that feel like they're almost fantasies.

• 1:32:41Speaker 02

  What could you mean?

• 1:32:42Speaker 03

  Like, what Green, what in the Green Book are you talking about?

• 1:32:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you know, it's another movie. I don't think this has anything to do with Green Book, but you know, that's another example of, you know, Bohemian Rhapsody is a film that had many, many Oscar nominations that is like actively bad.

• 1:32:55Speaker 02

  Went viral on social media for being poorly made and yet it worked out anyway. So yeah, and like our list that we made.

• 1:33:01Sean Fennessey?

  This movie is better than that, those movies, in my opinion.

• 1:33:03Speaker 02

  Yes, and we made a list of like really good movies that we think are the best picture contenders. Like, you know, the best picture 10 over the last 10 years is just like the batting average has gone up so high, like it just gets better. So like if you have one in there that's divisive and like maybe only appealing in the broadest way to a smaller group of voters, like that's usually what happens.

• 1:33:20Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I think this was a successful experiment. I'm really, I'm happy to have reunited you guys on a podcast talking about awards. That's really great. Any, any closing thoughts?

• 1:33:29Speaker 02

  Uh, I love talking, I love making an Oscar list and then immediately regretting it and feeling like I could, I should have changed it. And for some reason that brings us joy. Why do we do this to ourselves? I don't know, but it's, um, it's the only, only way I know how to do it.

• 1:33:42Sean Fennessey?

  I like to think, um, it's something about, uh, fixing the pain of my, my childhood. If there's something, if I, if only I could just get this right. If only I could just guess these movies correctly.

• 1:33:53Speaker 02

  Everything will fall into place.

• 1:33:55Speaker 03

  Sylvoy.

• 1:33:58Speaker 03

  Wow. Um, I just want to say, and I don't know if this is against company policy, but I'll just say that like, following Katie Rich's newsletter has been one of the joys of my life. Uh, since she's been at The Ankler and it keeps me really well informed and they're really fun reads. So I suggest that you subscribe to Katie's newsletter.

• 1:34:15Speaker 02

  Now, now the Spotify HR is going to have to give you a call. I appreciate it. I hope it was worth it.

• 1:34:18Sean Fennessey?

  That's not how it works here. Come on, guys. This is a very warm, generous, you're on the episode for crying out loud. Listen to the Prestige Junkie podcast, read Katie's newsletter. Uh, Joanna, where you're on like a 14 pods. What, what pods are you on these days?

• 1:34:31Speaker 03

  House of R, Trial by Content, Prestige TV, which is not the same as Prestige Junkie.

• 1:34:35Speaker 02

  No, I did not steal your title. I promise it was there before I got there.

• 1:34:38Speaker 03

  We know, we know.

• 1:34:39Sean Fennessey?

  That's it? Nothing else? You don't wanna, you're not appearing on the Ringer NFL show these days?

• 1:34:43Speaker 03

  Um, stay tuned. Who knows?

• 1:34:46Sean Fennessey?

  How exciting. Uh, thank you, Kadia and Joanna. Thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. I'm sitting right beside him here in the New York office. How exciting. Next week on the show, Joanna is coming back. We're talking about two films. One, the film that she insulted a real pain and undermined its awards chances, which I think is one of the best movies of the year, uh, starring Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg. And we'll also talk about Red One, which I still have not seen, but I'm not hearing great things about it.

• 1:35:17Speaker 03

  You and I have a great weekend in front of us watching that film.

• 1:35:21Sean Fennessey?

  We'll see you guys then.