Hey everyone, I'm Mallory Rubin and I'm thrilled to tell you that House of R has a new podcast feed. Joanna Robinson and I will now be with you twice a week with more of the deep dives you've come to know and love on the ringers. In addition to exploring all your favorite nerd culture new releases, we'll have nostalgic revisitations, height meters, hall of fame deductions, trope scores, drafts, and more. All bad babies are welcome as we dive into Star Wars, Marvel, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and beyond.
Follow the new House of R feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about the 2024 Oscar nominations.
Amanda, we're here to discuss, in my garage, the latest Academy Award nominations. How are you feeling on this fine morning? Well, it's 7.38. We aimed for 7.
I arrived at 7.20. Though I want to say that that was a little bit to accommodate everyone's schedules. And we're sending love and solidarity to Bobby and hope that he gets feet in his apartment back. Now at 7.38, we have overcome technical difficulties.
And I feel the same as I felt at like 6.05 when I texted you. Which is like, fine. This is fine. This feels like a compromise.
And in the grand tradition of compromises, it's like unsatisfying to pretty much everyone except Christopher Nolan and Justine Trier. And I guess Europeans, which is historically how compromises work. It's not bad, right? And for the most part, we were right.
But I wouldn't say that any of the surprises are like... Well, there are one or two nice surprises, but there's not like a lot of flair. Most of the surprises are... Okay, well, they did that thing that we thought they were going to do.
Yeah, there's a tremendous amount of precursors now. It's gotten easier and easier to predict Oscar nominations and Oscar wins over the last 10 years. All kinds of mathematical models. Tons of critics awards and Guild Awards now that we can look at and analyze.
But it does feel like in the last four or five years, there have been... I would say somewhere between five and seven genuinely surprising surprises on Oscar nominations morning. This year, I guess there were a handful, but it seemed like fewer than usual. The ones that we got...
And we'll talk about the surprises and the snubs and the what the fuck's in this conversation today. But nothing jaw-droppingly, overwhelmingly stunning. Even the things that I think some of us on this pod may describe as a crime against art. I'm not saying that.
I'm not coming in super hot. I'm coming in a little bit unimpressed. It's sort of like... When I say compromise, it's not like we all went to therapy with a really good therapist.
Or even just on our own with messages. This is me and you and Bobby in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? And talked it out. And it mostly makes sense, but it's like, what are you going to do?
It's not a crime. I'm just like this... There's no flair. There's no excitement.
There's no flair. Well, I think if you're one of the makers of Oppenheimer, there's a significant amount of flair this morning. Oppenheimer is the leading nomination getter with 13 nominations this year. One shy of the all-time record, which is currently owned by All About Eve, La La Land, and Titanic.
This isn't a hugely... You think Chris is pissed about that? You think he wanted the record? Christopher Nolan, the filmmaker behind Oppenheimer.
So I think he's pissed that he doesn't have 14. I think he would have liked it. I think the opportunity was dashed when Oppenheimer didn't make a short list for visual effects. But I find it actually very strange if you know anything about how the movie was made, because there are a ton of visual effects, but most of them are practical effects.
And so for that group to overlook that is quite strange. That would have been a way for it to get 14. Didn't get that. But I would imagine Christopher Nolan was quite satisfied, because in addition to Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, I mean, it's really on down the line.
Best Supporting Actor, of course, on down the line. Much like you said after the Golden Globes, this was going to be a show of strength for Oppenheimer. It feels like Oppenheimer's Oscar to lose. You know, I think there are actually quite a few heartening nominations.
We can look back on years past, even as recently as like three, four, five years ago, films that got more than two or three nominations, and it's kind of appalling. This year there are a lot of really good movies that have five, six nominations under their belt. So I think there's like a couple of critical misses that people were concerned about, but didn't actually think would come to pass. I guess we should just talk about those.
Chief among them, I think, specifically, are Greta Gerwig, who did not make Best Director, which you suggested was a possibility when we did predictions. And I thought more surprising to me was Margot Robbie missing in Best Actress for Barbie. So the world is dying to know your reaction to this news. Well, I floated it in our predictions.
I was like, this is a real possibility. And you had floated it. I looked it up. It was January 12th, a Friday in the afternoon.
And you texted me and Bobby saying that many people suspected that Greta Gerwig and Alexander Payne, who were nominated at the BGAs, would be out in favor of Justin Triegue and Jonathan Glaser. That didn't happen. So this is a possibility. I'll just say, I never personally thought that both of them would be out.
I thought just one of the two. And in fact, they both were out. Right. So we knew it was going to happen.
And then we knew it was a possibility. And then on the Margot Robbie front, I mean, we've just known forever that the Academy does not understand comedic performances. And I think that's honestly the best thing. Margot Robbie is one of the great movie stars and actors of her generation.
And is also probably a billionaire at this point. I don't know the numbers. I don't know the cut. She's doing very well.
I'm hoping we're getting towards, what is that, nine figures for her? She is the chief architect of the Barbie thing. And Barbie was nominated in Best Picture, and she is listed for that. So she'll be fine.
But it just is kind of, again, it's like a boring decision, you know? And I suppose you could say, if you want to be generous, that her spot was taken by Annette Bening in Nyad, who swam a lot. And swimming is really hard. So Annette Bening is great.
And I know that she really wants an Oscar. And this is sort of like the Glenn Close of this year. I love Annette Bening, you know? I just noticed that you have the American president on Blu-ray.
I'm sitting right next to it in your garage. And that's why you're my guy. Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging my collection at this hour.
It's like, what will we remember in 5, 10, 15 years? Is it like Annette Bening yelling at some people at a speedo? No. It's not going to be.
The Annette Bening nomination is a signal of a handful of nominations across here that I think are wildly forgettable and just feel very campaign-oriented, very kind of studio-origin-oriented. The Barbie thing, to me, feels like as much a strike against comedy as commerciality and a specific kind of commerciality, which just does not do well at the Oscars, which I've whinged about on this show for years and don't fully understand. You know, Barbie was not my favorite movie of the year. It was in my top 20 favorite movies of the year.
But I think it's very good. And it's a very impressive achievement of movie construction and execution. And so it's recognized for that, I think, in Best Picture. I think whether the direction is superlative relative to the other nominees, it's all debatable.
You know what I mean? I mean, like, Justine Triad and Jonathan Glazer are capital-A artists, right? Greta Gerwig is, too, but she's obviously operating in a mode that is even different from the where she did in Little Women or Lady Bird. I believe Jane Campion remains the only woman to be nominated more than once in Best Director in Oscar history, which is interesting.
But as recently as Thursday on the show, when you and I talked, I was like, well, we have one. We have Greta Gerwig. We have this woman. I always don't do.
It's fine. You know? It's just... It's not even...
It doesn't even leave, like, a bad taste in my mouth. Because, you know, as we discussed on Thursday, when Barbie came out in the summer, it was a sensation. Everyone was like, oh, my God, it's going to suit the Oscars. And I was like, really?
Like, you know, I don't know. I have talked to people, and I see how these things go. Greta is another person who's going to be fine. How much money do you think she made?
Greta Gerwig? Yeah. You want to put a specific dollar amount on the amount she made on the film Barbie? Yeah.
Like, did she have a cut of... I'm sure she participated in some fashion. Okay. As the writer-director who pitched and sold the concept of the film.
That being said, that aspect of moviemaking has changed a lot, like, contractually in the last 10, 15 years. Right. So maybe not nearly as much as she would have had 20 years ago. But, you know, she's also someone who was proven to be a commercial filmmaker even before this movie.
Lady Bird made, like, $70 million. Little Women made over $100 million. So if possible, she... They're all doing very well financially.
Right, yeah. So they're doing fine. But the interesting thing I was wondering about is there was this... There was a line of thought that Oppenheimer significantly capitalized on the Barbenheimer experience at the box office.
Oppenheimer, a three-hour biopic, you know, made for large format screens, very serious subject matter, was able to capitalize on the extraordinary success of Barbie and the Barbenheimer wave, you know, that sort of, like, social media explosion that happened. Do you think that Barbie actually benefited from an awards perspective by being a part of the Barbenheimer experience? Or is this maybe a sign that didn't... How do you feel about that in the aftermath of the nominations?
Sure. I mean, I do think that those movies are success-wise are tied together forever, both box office and awards. We, like, took them all seriously. You know, it's also true that, like, Christopher Nolan has been, like, an extremely accomplished filmmaker before and after, as has Greta Gerwig.
You know, people have been pointing out that all three of her features have been nominated for Best Picture, and that's, like, a first... You know, she's the first director to ever have their first three features nominated for Best Picture, so that would have been true whenever they released it as well. I mean, we're, like, dealing with heavyweights. And we were.
And that is another reason that, like, Barbenheimer became a thing, because we all had some confidence of being like, oh, well, Christopher Nolan is making a giant movie, and Greta Gerwig is making a giant movie. I think everybody made the right decisions in pairing them together, even if certain people didn't love it. Do you think Christopher Nolan has seen Barbie yet? Absolutely.
You do? Yeah, I'd be very surprised if he hadn't seen the film Barbie. Do I think he's still annoyed with Warner Brothers for dating Barbie when they did? I do think he's still annoyed about that.
I don't think he has much to be annoyed about this morning. If I were Greta Gerwig, I would probably actually understand this. It's very rare that filmmakers who are working in prefab IP are recognized in as many categories as some of us are banking on. If you're working in intellectual property, a movie like Black Panther can get nominated because there feels like something kind of historic and thematic that we haven't seen before.
I think Barbie is very much operating in the same way with an idea of gender in the world, femininity, feminism, expectations of women. These are big, important ideas, but they're still inside the Barbie box, literally. So I guess I'm not. And she steps out of it.
She makes a choice as a woman doll. She gets back in the box, but then she says, no, I don't want to be in the box. And then America Ferreira drives up her product endorsement car and works it right in front of the Mattel building for a beautiful car shot. And then they drive away to the Land of Enchantment.
Let me just say, I think that things like that are the best of the film. I understand. This was one of the easiest to predict best picture races, certainly since I've been doing this show. I think part of that is because seeing the oddness of the PGA noms just kind of locked everything into place.
Yeah, but that only happened after the PGA noms. Even like all through December, we had a lot of movies on the bubble and it was real, like 14, 15 movies for 10 spots, which was cool. And I am bummed about the movies that did not make it in, even though it's funny, last night I was at dinner with my husband. He's like, okay, so what are you excited about tomorrow?
And I was like, well, I'm not really excited about anything. I'm just very nervous that some things that I fear will happen, will happen. And I think that I was most anxious about past lives, falling out of best pictures. So, because that just would have felt really bad for everyone.
So, I'm glad that it made it in. I'm bummed about all of the strangers, which, you know, I think never really had a chance, which is sad. There was a failure at launch of that campaign, unfortunately. Yeah.
What else am I sad about? I have a few things. I mean, in best picture. I think in the same spirit of Barbie missing in best directing, I think we're way overdue for a movie like Spider-Verse to be nominated for best feature film.
I think it's actually genuinely getting weird now, the way that in many other ways the Academy has expanded its understanding and acceptance of different kinds of movies, of different kinds of filmmakers, the international nature of body, which really shone through again this year. There's a real, like, National Lampoon's European Vacation thing going on with the Academy right now, where they're just, like, really excited about whatever's going on in Europe. I think it's actually getting a little goofy, and maybe they've over-expanded it in some ways, at their own expense, because they're going to alienate viewers from the show who do not know what Anatomy of a Fall is. Nevertheless, that doesn't bother me.
That's a wonderful movie. But I'm not weeping over the exclusion of May, December in a lot of critical categories. You know, it did get a Best Original Screenplay nomination. It's the kind of movie that only gets an Original Screenplay nomination.
You know, it's a critics film. It's an intellectual film. It's a semiotic film. It's a movie that is about ideas that is mocking the industry that it is essentially being voted on.
So I can't say I'm stunned by that, but it would have been nice to see Charles Melton's name, or Julianne Moore's name, or Todd Haynes' name, or, you know, any number of people that didn't get a look today. It's interesting looking at the films that got the most nominations, because I don't think that that necessarily, aside from Oppenheimer, communicates a lot of power. Both Killers of the Flower Moon and Poor Things got 11 nominations this morning. I think that you're right, that Killers of the Flower Moon might be another Irishman situation.
I think perhaps with one example. Perhaps with one. Yeah, exactly. I'm in the bag for Lily Gladstone.
I don't know her, but I think she was wonderful. I think that she's the first Native American actress to ever be nominated for Best Actress, and she's great. I just personally hope that she wins. She might not, because I think the 11 nominations for Poor Things suggests that Poor Things, you know, might show up.
And it's funny, as you keep scrolling down it, you know, and you see, like, obviously it was going to compete in production design and costume design and whatnot, but it's just, it's there, like, in every category. And that is a real Oscar-friendly movie. So I would watch that space. There was some speculation that the director of Poor Things, Giorno Sontimos, would miss in director, for example, by retaining Greta Gerwig and also having the two other European filmmakers who made it in.
That didn't happen. It made it into adapted screenplay. Mark Ruffalo made it in, although Willem Dafoe did not, which is something that I have been sure of in my mind for weeks and weeks and weeks, despite SAG not putting Ruffalo in. The other thing I just want to mention quickly is we didn't talk about the BAFTAs and the BAFTA nominations last week, because the BAFTAs have changed the way that they vote, and now I find that award should be very strange.
And some people listening to our show on Friday said, like, how did you, why did you record this before listening to BAFTA nominations? As usual, the BAFTAs don't mean anything. Like, a movie like Sawburn is not present here. There's not serious people.
All the Strangers is not present here. Like, the BAFTAs do not meaningfully reflect where the Academy Awards is going really at all anymore. So I feel at least confident in doing that. I probably would have had poor things at roughly 11 nominations.
I'm not, like, stunned by that number. Whether or not it's strong, I'm not sure. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it could just be that Oppenheimer absolutely sweeps all the craft categories.
Yeah, it does feel like that. I think that Holly Wattenkamp should win for costume design. You know, the Oppenheimer hats look cool or whatever, but, and there are a couple other places where it could sneak in, but I think you're right. Yeah.
Barbie could be a place where costumes are recognized, potentially, too. I think now we're the base where we're like, well, how will Barbie actually be recognized? How will it actually get some love? It will literally, okay, I'm not ready to talk about something yet.
I'm actually not ready to talk about something yet. I was texting this morning with some friends who may or may not have a film podcast and who may or may not be excited again when we talk about animation. Hi, guys. And they were probably like, like, like, you're talking about Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan.
Yeah, yeah. Post-A-3 Watchables, yeah. Chris started watching an animated show? He's seen a few.
Yeah. Blue Eye Samurai, Scavengers. And then you and Andy were both like, yeah, but we didn't like those animated shows. It's impossible to please you two.
I never shared an opinion. I went to see Boy the Heron, and you and Bobby were like, well, you can't start and he's like, well, I guess I'll never start. It didn't take long for you to start shouting at me about things I like in my garage. I did like those animated shows.
I don't know why I've been slandered on that. Nevertheless, I'm happy for you guys. You spoke to some friends about animation. Two friends, in fact.
Two friends about animation and also the nominations writ large. They were positing, it's the Blanchett voice. They were positing that the Greta snub, if you will, and best director and some other things would clear the way for an adapted screenplay win for Greta Gerwig and her partner, or now husband, I believe. Congratulations.
No Bombac. Yeah, yeah. Also, they celebrated at a Billy Joel concert. Like, those two are undefeated.
As usual, no Bombac. I think it's like going into games, Billy Joel concerts, getting checks off of Barbie, making pavement jokes. We'd fucking love to see it. I don't know if I believe that.
I'm a little dubious of that. I'm a little dubious in part because I think there's already this understanding of a kind of at least campaigning category for all around original. There was a big surprise to me in adapted screenplay, which was the Killers of the Flower Moon was not recognized. I don't know very many people who didn't have that.
Didn't you talk about that, though? On Thursday, you were like, there's this question of whether Jonathan Glaser will come in. How strong is Zone of Interest turned out? Very strong.
Very strong. The Zone of Interest. I want to get to that. I want to save a little bit of room for the Zone of Interest conversation, but Killers of the Flower Moon is very similar to the Zone of Interest in this way.
They're both extremely unusual adaptations. They're adaptations. And I started reading the Martin Amis novel. I got about halfway through it.
And I was like, wow, this is just not what the film is really at all. And I don't think I fully realized that until I dug into it. And I actually haven't finished the Zone of Interest. Maybe I will at some point.
But as with all, Martin Amis is extremely densely written. But Brilliant Prose with my guys is really in the emotional context. I'm reading A Perfect Pirate now, the John the Gray novel, which is like unreal. But also I've been reading it for like three weeks.
And I still, it's incredible. But much like Killers of the Flower Moon, which is framed as this slow reveal whodunit about this kind of genocidal massacre and investigation, the movie is sort of inverted in the way that it's framed. And we will get very shortly to Leonardo DiCaprio and the role he played in that. The Zone of Interest is very similar.
It's like there's a kernel of an idea that Glazer then went forward with and reshaped and reimagined. Took him a long time to do this and unpack it. We talked about it on the show when he was on. It's cool that it's recognized.
My gut when I see this is that it means either Oppenheimer or poor things is going to end up when you adapt it. And if the Oppenheimer weight is really strong, I think that screenplay personally, I know you have your issues with the third act. I think that screenplay is pretty underrated when you talk to the people who made the movie about the way that he basically conceived fully of the story. It wasn't like, oh, and then we'll cut back to this black and white sequence.
It is beat for beat, him capturing the movie in his mind, adapting a 700-page book of this thing right there on the shelf. So to me, it's not, I don't see Barbie getting a look there, but it also just feels oddly out of place with this collection of adaptations because it's an IP adaptation. It's not a story-based adaptation, whereas Oppenheimer's based on a novel, there's an interest based on a novel, portings based on a novel, and of course Oppenheimer's based on a massive non-fiction tome. But maybe that distinguishes it in some way.
Maybe that's a credit to it. I'm not sure. Yeah, I can't tell. Sometimes the screenplay categories are a place to reward directors or filmmakers who are admired but aren't going to win anything else.
So in that case, you could see it happening, but it just doesn't seem really like Barbie is admired enough for that to happen. It does have eight nominations. Yeah, sure. Two of them are songs, but it doesn't have nine nominations.
So we'll save it. There's one more thing that could have been nominated. Please, as always, to see Martin Scorsese recognized for his work. His 10th nomination for directing, that makes him the most nominated living filmmaker in the world.
I think it puts him in second place all time amongst directors behind William Wyler, who has 12. I don't think he's going to get there, but that is sort of the Joe DiMaggio hitting streak record of Oscars. I never in a million years would have thought in 1999 that anyone was ever going to get close to William Wyler's 12 nominations. There's not another realm of possibility for Scorsese at this point, which is pretty wild.
So he passes Spielberg on the active list, and his muse and partner, Leonardo DiCaprio, snubbed. To me, this is like, I don't know whether snubs exist or don't exist. This is a snub. This is a weird thing that happened.
I think it's easy to say. Coleman Domingo moved into his spot for his work in Rustin. I think we love Coleman Domingo. I do not think Rustin was a very good film.
It feels like a nomination for someone who is really beloved, but his work is fine. But it's very traditional biopic work. It feels very similar to me to an opening nomination. Right.
Also, by the way, both Netflix films. Both Netflix films. Much admired. Yeah.
There's a lot of power and money behind those campaigns, and very charming people who have deep ties to the industry who work in film and television. But the Leo thing is interesting because this does happen sometimes, and it's been suggested by a few people that Leo might be in his 21st century Tom Hanks era, and I think that that's right. This is like, it's shades of Tom Hanks not getting nominated for Captain Phillips, where you're like, I don't know, this is like an amazing transformation from one of the best actors and most famous people in the world. Like, what is the, why are we not recognizing this just because we have so many times before?
I find things like this hard to make sense of, spending so much time thinking about it because on paper, it's like, well, Scorsese with 10. Of course, he's Martin Scorsese. What a genius. But Leo, no.
Is it because that's an unlikable character? Is it because he's ugliered himself in a way that is not appealing and not what we expect from him? I mean, he's definitely not the hero. There's also, he's playing a quote unquote simpleton who then, like, how simple is this person and how much is it?
Like, is he stupid versus is he evil versus like what's going on? And I think people don't often give credit to how difficult like those shades are to portray. And so, and they just go with the judgment of being like, well, I don't, I don't like this character. Yeah.
If you, if you, if you can disinvite Margot Robbie and Leonardo DiCaprio from your award show, should you do it? Like, you know, I realize that this is not a uniform group of people sitting in a room making a decision together, but it just feels like cut off your nose to your face. I mean, you know, it's another thing where they gave Barbie Best Picture and they know that Margot is going to be there supporting it in that way, which has like sort of been the annoying trend of award season. It's like, well, we won't give Barbie any of the real awards, but we'll give them just enough that we can still have Margot Robbie and Mario Grimmick on stage.
Which is all the Golden Globes, too. You know, it's just, I'm not going to say anything. You guys can read into it what you want. But the Leo thing is just stupid.
Like, I don't get it. I mean, I think he obviously made a choice to take a step back to support Lily Gladstone's campaign, which, of course, looks like to be a thoughtful and chivalrous move and the right thing to do in many ways. And he just hasn't done a lot relative to what he's done in the past when he was really trying to win. And everything that he's done, he's done with her, which is like very cool.
With his support of sources, yeah. And something somewhat similar happened, I think maybe unintentionally during Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where he effectively became the support system for Rad Hit. Now, I like Rad Hit in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. To me, the Leo performance is significantly more crucial and interesting and more representative of the way that Leo has challenged himself as a filmmaker or as an artist and star.
Because Tom Hanks has just been doing weird shit for 20 years. He's worried a lot less about being a Matt May idol or a box office star or driving the future of the business. He's making movies with the Wachowskis and he's making, you know, Van Gogh Otto. Like, he's writing novels and being a goofball on pods.
Like, he's in a different era completely. Leo is still Leo. Like, he is still one of the centrifugal forces of Hollywood. So, it'll be interesting to see.
Sometimes this is going to have an impact. I get the impression he doesn't give a shit. But it's a very notable miss that most people did not have up until about two to three weeks ago when people started speculating it could happen. Right.
Because he missed a couple of key precursors. Maestro has seven nominations. Yeah. Does it require seven nominations?
Yeah, but they're the nominations in each category that I'm like, well, I could just get rid of that and put in someone I like. I'm sure you're out with Maestro. I am. Wow.
Listen, I liked it a lot. But, like, would you put Leo instead of Bradley Cooper? Sure, yes. I don't want to have to choose between my beautiful damaged boys.
Like, they're beautiful. But I think that this is a bad outcome for the future of Bradley Cooper because he's not going to win anything. But it's not going to provide any, like, angst or anger for the creativity, you know, mill. So, I would take it.
And then, I guess this is going to be scandalous, but whatever, it's early in the morning. Like, I would drop Carey Mulligan in a heartbeat for Margot Robbie or for anybody else. She's a wonderful actor who is consistently recognized at the Oscars for performances I don't care that much about, with the exception of Education with Rules. Yeah, I think this is her third nomination.
I don't really have a strong feeling either way. I think the whole kind of framework of that movie doesn't make sense. And in many ways, Carey Mulligan is giving not even a lead performance. I think in a lot of ways, it's a supporting performance, but it's been framed very much by the opening and closing of the movie to make you think that she is not supporting Bradley Cooper's performance in some way.
I wonder how we look back on my show if we look back on it at all. It felt like a kind of inevitable machine a year ago when you look at it on paper and say, okay, Bradley Cooper's follow-up to Star Wars, produced by Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. There's been a rumor of a Leonard Bernstein biopic for more than a decade in Hollywood. You got Josh Singer in to help write the screenplay.
This is a guy who wrote Spotlight. He wrote The Post. He wrote First Man. He knows how to do a story like this.
Carey Mulligan on board. You got Maggie Levitique shooting it. Black and white. I mean, it looks really good.
It's good. But again, it's all of those pieces of the puzzle with something. It didn't totally cohere. To me, it didn't cohere as just a very core thematic.
You trying to tell me what this movie is about versus what I think this movie is about. And I think voters felt that too. But they nominated it in picture, actor, actress, screenplay. It's a big achievement as a production.
And I think that's kind of what this shows, which is interesting. It's the only film that has a Best Picture nomination from a streamer. And we are now fully out of that pandemic lockdown era when streamers were able to capitalize pretty significantly. And Apple and Amazon and all these other outlets were able to get Best Picture nominations.
There's a big change to Netflix. Scott Cooper is out. On his way. So he's leaving.
He was layered a few months ago under Bella Bajaria. And many people speculated when that happened that he would be out. Hate to get layered. And so he's out.
He's been there for, I think, almost seven years. And so he was the person greenlighting a lot of these films. Netflix has been on this long journey to Best Picture. And that journey continues, I think, because my story's not really competing.
This was a really good year for theatrical box office and for mainstream movie going and for art house movie going and the awareness of movies like Anatomy of the Fallen, poor things. And the movies that are coming out of COVID were not guaranteed to kind of bounce back. So I think that the streamers suffer in some respects. I think also, I wonder if Netflix could do it again, if they would reorient where their attentions lie.
Like now I'm going to get a movie like Society of the Snow and what happened with Alcat on the Western Front. I'm like, would it have been better to put all the Society of the Snow out in November? And because people are still watching that movie and enjoying it. And it feels like a big, important, international story with incredible effects and design and performances.
Yeah. I don't know. If you could redo it, would you redo it? The main guy, Enzo, is now like on the European fashion show circuit.
Did you see this? He was at the Loewe show with all the other Loewe boys. No, but that was like a real, whoever cast like the guest list of that did an amazing job because it was like Gushel Conner who has that deal, Mike Feist, Joe Allen, Callum Turner. Callum Turner, yeah.
Yeah. The boys in the book. Right. And who's dating someone who, once again, people get to it.
Do you know this? I don't know. Oh, this is very exciting. What a crescendo this podcast is.
Is he dating your response to most? Anyway, and then the Society of the Stope guy. So he's really in the mix now. I don't know.
I realize that my type is a Loewe big boy, which is really exciting. What else should we say? I mean, John Williams has 54 Oscar nominations. That's sick.
What do you think of his work in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny? Can you, why don't you hum a tune for us from that film? I took my son to a light show around the holidays, as many people do across this great land. This one was in Atlanta.
I got to say, the Atlanta Botanical Gardens is really putting on a wonderful holiday light show. I really appreciate that shout out on this podcast. I know you're in the area, but they used the Indiana Jones theme song for like a really climactic event in the light show. So I didn't check, but it was very effective in that moment.
I was like walking under a tunnel into some enchanted forest and the lights were falling and then from the trees and it was Indiana Jones and I was excited. So just so I'm clear about this, your comments about John Williams, living legend, the oldest living nominee in Oscar history. I believe he's 91 years old. Also the most nominated living human.
Your comment is they played one of his compositions at Lincoln Garden over Christmas. My comment is that his music is so powerful. What he has contributed, even it transcends cinema. You know, it transcends Hollywood.
It is a part of the fabric of our lives. There we go. That's it. Nice.
Well done. Well done. There's the context we need. Hollywood's biggest night!
How do you feel about the holdovers? I feel the same way I always feel. I don't mean your feelings on the film. This is an episode about the Oscar nominations, so we're going to talk about that aspect of things, if you don't mind.
It was like, oh, it's a movie. I saw it. It did pretty well here. You know, five nominations.
I'll just say five nominations for the holdovers, American fiction, and the zone of interest. I want to mark this because I'll just all indict myself. I complain all the time about how Hollywood fucked me over. I finally got into my 40s and I got this podcast and I'm so excited about it.
And then they were like, what you will get forever is Fast X. And in fact, these are three original stories from really great filmmakers, completely different kinds of movies. The kinds of filmmakers, honestly, a French woman, a black American, and an old white guy who also is constantly trying to explain how the world is bad, who are getting lots of nominations for the movies and really good films. I'm not stunned, by the way, that these movies have been appreciated.
I do think that there's been a little bit of Hollywood's biggest night. Let's get back to good films in the last year or so, maybe two years or so. But the holdovers simultaneously impressed me and disappointed me with how it did this morning. There was some suggestion that maybe Dominic Cessa had a chance late breaking it in because he was really good at wearing sunglasses.
I mean, he is really good at wearing sunglasses. And that's one of the things where we talk about how there are always a couple surprises on nominations this morning and you wake up and you're like, hey, Phantom Thrive, or hey. And there weren't any nominations this morning where you're like, hey, Dominic Cessa, you know, like Rachel McAdams was not nominated. I thought maybe when she showed up on SNL to introduce Renee Rapp, but I thought it was even classier that she waited until after Oscar voting to endorse the, you know, to endorse the new Regina George.
But the Dominic Cessa thing, to me, is less of a verdict on the holdovers and more of a verdict on, like, no one got splashy with the nominations this morning. I think the quote-unquote disappointment of the holdovers has got to be Alexander Payne not getting it for director, which I would guess actually he's probably a little bit relieved to not be the guy who replaced Reddick Erwig in the nominations. He's been honored many times. I don't think that would be ideal to be the portrait of frustration and women's inability to get into that group, with the exception of Justin Trudeau, obviously.
The one, like, splash that you're talking about, I think it's a really bad splash, and this is nothing against this actress, but the America for Air nomination is just fucking weird. Oh, I mean, it's weird in the context of no Greta Gerwig in director, no Margot Robbie in Best Actress, but somehow America for Air makes it in. Yes, that's my point. I mean, obviously, they're not competing in the same category, so it's not like, oh, well, America for Air replaced Margot Robbie, I understand that.
But I just, I think she's fine in that movie. I think that character is a tool to telling the story. Yeah, but she's got the speech. It's a very good speech.
James Cameron loved it, you know? He talked about how Greta really managed to just condense the experience of American womanhood. Also an incredible writer. He did that interview from a submarine.
Maybe the America for Air nomination is for putting up with Kevin Costner. Just wanting that. I think I might have said that. I'm a close, Todd, where I was like, maybe there's a sympathy card that gets played here for America for Air.
I really liked her in that movie. And I liked it, and I was bummed, but I thought it was a shame when she was pretty early dropped from the awards chatter throughout the season, and so I don't mind it. But it is weird. Like, the logic of where the nomination's landed does not quite make sense.
This is a funky category. She's an important actress. It's Emily Blunt, Danielle Brooks, America Ferreira, Jodie Foster, and Davey and Joy Randolph. As is so often the case, categories like this are very unrepresentative of the Best Picture nominees or of the feeling across the board.
That's not a lot of great parts written for women, especially supporting parts. They're often just moms or wives or secretaries. This feels like a very unadventurous group of nominees, and Davey and Joy Randolph has obviously been dominating. I would have liked to have seen old Julianne Moore in here, personally.
Sure. But to kind of point, one thing. I know that I have not been the most supportive. supportive of emily blunt's campaign for supporting actress i didn't put together that it's her first Oscar nomination which is nice and there is like i'm gonna read the list of first time Oscar nominees Emily Blunt, Danielle Brooks, Coleman Domingo, America Ferreira, Lily Gladstone, Sandra Buller, Cillian Murphy, Dave Wendell Randolph, Jeffrey Wright, and Sterling K.
Brown another good surprise not shocking after we saw SAG and the fact that one of the two poor things supporting actor nominees wasn't gonna get in but he's great i feel like i put him up for recasting couch on the rewatch so um hopefully this just means more opportunity he's very good that character is really interesting and really funny and uh it's a movie that like otherwise i think would be a little too grounded without him yeah and he lifts the movie off its feet sometimes he's kind of the chaos agent of the movie he's really really wonderful in that one um so yeah a lot of really good first time nominees i was very happy to see Sandra Holder get in for her work in anatomy of a fall i don't know if i when i first saw that movie and of course i won the pomme d'or at um at cannes it's not shocking that it's being recognized here because the pomme d'or now all of a sudden is like a hugely meaningful prize to the american voting body of uh the Oscars which is it's not used to be this way um but everybody wants to go hang out in france uh any else no no no everyone yeah no not in french sports okay i mean i can't yeah yeah they're just kind of like well i like the vibes so i'll check out the movie i mean in general that's one of the cannes one of the winners of this of this awards like venice and tell you i did okay but kills the far moon premiered can right i mean some of that was also interest some of that was it was maestro maestro was at venice yeah yeah okay well you know how you feel about maestro you said maestro's the worst film you saw i just i would make room i would compromise in a different way did you see that godzilla minus one got nominated for visual effects you know when it made the short list a few weeks back and i have i had a couple of friends who were in the academy tell me that it was guaranteed that it was gonna be nominated for visual effects i didn't believe them and shame on me for not just not believing them because they were like there's such an overwhelming amount of support for that movie you can even hear it in the announcement this morning uh desi beats and jack quaid both of them gave very funny performances by the way with a particular emphasis on actors or films that they really liked but when godzilla was announced people were fucking screaming at whatever that event is and who are the psychos who were at that event at 5 30 in the morning who are those people i i don't know we've never been invited would you go uh i think we could pretty easily go if we wanted to um would i go no i would roll that event at 5 29 and that was that's what's interesting to me is that you still get up to watch it live yeah i'm a steward of great works i woke up at 6 a.m pulled up a list didn't even put my glasses on it was real like phone one inch from my nose read everything and immediately got a little disgusted and texted you and then went and had coffee i think if you look through my text messages over the years going back to 2018 when we started doing this together um you can just search for the phrase these morons which will come up once a year every year right around the same time when the numbers drop uh i'll tell you what i didn't think was moronic was it a nomination for ed lackman for el conde which i did not have my on my bingo card i also saw that at venice uh you did it's not done well um yeah el conde getting nominated in anything is fascinating the cinematography in that is genuinely fantastic uh it's a beautiful movie and so i was excited about that i don't know any other small ones that you were happy about selene sonk did make it an original screenplay as well as past eyes getting a best picture nomination that's good i feel really good about that um the very rare screenplay and picture pairing and just that which i think has become a little bit more common with the introduction of 10 full nominees of best picture uh i don't know any other like not really any other great surprises we shouldn't overlook glazer and triet it's easy to make a joke about the european fascination in the academy but two really great films and great filmmakers yes and glazer just let me just say this i saw his own interest for a second time we're gonna talk about it in depth later this week on the show i think now it is justified to kind of spend a little bit more time on the film now that in theory it will be opening more widely and people will want to go see it boy this is a very unusual film to get five nominations and that's not a value judgment of any kind but as i try to frame it as this sort of like more of a uh work of textural art and not it's not a movie movie you know it's a very thin narrative it takes some wild turns uh stylistically and structurally true and it is challenging thought-provoking very upsetting obviously what it's about is resonant what's happening in the world right now what's happening the middle east what's happening with the notions of fascism violence the way that people attempt to address world problems like it it fits in this time but the way that it's told it's the it's actually the least commercial of jonathan glazer's four films and his first films are not yeah i've been doing the glazer rewatch i mean that's some powerful stuff but it is also a unique world to to spend a weekend yeah yeah um so i'm happy about that probably but it is unusual i don't think there were a ton of what the fucks but i was you know speaking of your your two friends the robot dreams nomination yeah what's that animated was it's a it's a um it's a spanish film paulo berger is the director why can't robots have dreams uh i don't i don't think is that one of the crucial questions confronting society right now well and a film that explores it with all the tools that animation provides do you know what the original title of the story that blade hunter is based on robot dreams no it's called do androids oh yeah electric sheep oh yeah i do know that so this is a time-tested concept um i know that that's my thing i don't care what robots have feelings we've been doing this for 75 years why is teenager ninja turtles not in i don't know man that's between you and your guys you know i showed up i bought a ticket did you see it on nemona you know i was actually gonna watch it last night and instead i watched a movie a really sick movie for a different podcast that we're doing this week okay i don't spoil it uh you recently rewatched it though because i saw it on letterboxd that you re-logged this film um i actually don't know what you're referring to but that's really exciting um so robot dreams got in which means let me just see for one second about wish yo wish we are going so hard with wish in this house that you're in right now we got wish gear is that the adu garage is a wish base but when we acquire the physical media it will um oh that's right wish of course a quasi maligned disney animation film celebrating 100 years of their animated movies um didn't get a nomination today elemental did get a nomination for best animated feature i did say when the annies didn't recognize elemental or wish they would be stunning if both pixar and disney missed out they did not uh spider-verse got in going there and it's pretty locked in to winning that category i'd be surprised if it didn't not disappointed to not see joe hisaishi for best score i think it was a long shot but best score is kind of weird um john williams of course beloved but that's an odd nomination i think oppenheimer and uh livid grunson has got it in the bag i don't really get that american fiction nomination that's fine um i can't say that i remember it relative to some other stuff on the board like the spider-verse score is amazing genuinely amazing and to not get a look for something that's just like kind of light and flurry jazzy and something we've just heard in many movies before no disrespect to the uh folks who worked on that film but i thought that was an odd nomination no uh no the taste of things in the international feature or fallen leaves but taste of things is one of the trapsies of this morning in my opinion do you think that the french body that chose this film rather than is regretting that decision on this day i guess so how much does the french body that chooses the international feature film care about winning that oscar i mean i assume that they would prefer to win it as opposed to not win it but they seem pretty french and you know if you will it's my understanding is it's 35 men in shock in a room are you watching mr spade i'm not i'm not i'm not you should be watching it's the only show that i'm watching right now that holds the amanda bell for tv right now which is the one show that i'm watching at any given time but like i'm seriously considering moving to the south of france okay i wish you well in that space um this is your final episode then i'll be able to go again and see all of next year's best picture winners in the night do you speak french yeah i do fluently um no but that is the language other than english that i am best at um a little bit of room for you to talk about dua lipa yeah they didn't nominate dance in any way for original stock they nominated i'm just kind of thank god because if they passed up the opportunity for ryan bosling to perform at the oscars that would have been incredibly stupid they nominated that billy eilish dirge which will win and we'll have to sit through it being like performed at the five most boring minutes of your life the song's called what was i made for um you're having a normal one about this huh they nominated the fire inside from the film flame and hot which is about cheetos oscar nominated film flame and hot you know what i thought it held my attention apparently it's like barely based on uh reality but uh whatever uh they nominated it never went away from american symphony yes which was actually not even though we both picked it to win i did not pick it to win i don't think what did you pick it what did you pick to win no i think that you did but you gave a whole speech about how this year it's personality-driven documentaries you think and so well i was wrong about that okay um and then they nominated a song for my people from killers which i'm fine yeah i mean this category is the i mean it should just be but dance the night away is featured prominently in barbie it is the songs which they do the choreographed number at the sleepover that happens every night at barbie's dream house uh it's genuinely very catchy it taught me about duolipa who's dating colin turner oh they were making it outside the squishy park did you see the film the boys in the boat no but i almost went to see it a couple times and i was like i'll probably like it if i go i thought it's uh to use an amandaism it held my attention i definitely it is passable i'll watch it when it's available in my home it is um it is a self-hit it is the second highest grossing george flooney directed movie uh of all time just really something like nine movies uh many of which have been forgotten in history but uh yeah it seems to be doing well it's a real old guy yeah it just seems right down the middle like full dad's uncomplicated well made good performances anyway duolipa won't get the Oscars well maybe we'll see would you go if duolipa i got your back and i don't think that you should go without a nomination you can come over and have the gronies with me instead okay fair enough um with your hot boyfriend yeah this is a that's a weird collection of nominees uh quickly documentary feature film bobe wine the people's president the eternal memory four daughters to kill a tiger and 20 days of maria pole i guess 20 days maria pole is the leader here from the chronicles the devastation in the ukraine uh i think the eternal memory is probably running closely with it um a very upsetting film about uh marriage and alzheimer's and a journalist um i haven't seen four daughters or to kill a tiger so until tiger had a very small release so that was a very surprising nomination i definitely thought something along the lines of american symphony would have gone in that place i was wrong um using all the shorts that were short so do you want to give your dissertation on that right now so wes anderson did get one nomination congratulations wes anderson the wonderful story of henry sugar nominated and oh certainly will win for the best uh short future i thought you'd turn the page 2024 yeah no we didn't um asteroid city nothing but at least we got a short film unsurprising but still sort of a travesty um yeah and then all the other short films i will watch at my in my home as they're made available to me i saw i saw a trailer for even because they do release the shorts in theaters every year i've never gone but i saw a trailer for last year's shorts like i saw a trailer advertising this year's program featuring last year's shorts i know i'm just observing in real time i was just like i've seen a lot of those i remember that you're like i saw a commercial i saw a guy's dating a girl commercial listen the dual leave a calendar is hugely important to my gen z constituency okay and people online gen z mommy if you like didn't even listen when i was like they were making out outside of sushi park you know i've been there yeah sure but it's like the celebrated celebrity place you can always get a paparazzi photo of people on the balcony leaving sushi park and that is where dual leave and calendar are making out uh i'd like to thank the entity for acquiring two nominations for mission impossible dead reckoning uh which is no longer dead reckoning part one we didn't discuss the fact that the part one was dropped from the title of that film so does that mean they're just going to rename the next one i suspect so okay that's just tom doing work that's tom looking at the field you know the offensive coordinator is looking at what the defense is giving him they said please stop putting part one in your movie title sir and he said aye aye captain how many emails do you think were sent in total among people okay first of all okay scale back scale back zoom out zoom out enhance does tom cruise email oh wow i think he has a person who does that on his behalf okay and then are they read aloud to him or print it out read aloud i think okay he's on the go he can't be handed pieces of paper okay and so and then he is like dictating he's got an earpiece whenever he's not filming he's just on his motorcycle he doesn't sleep he's just on the motorcycle racing around the contiguous okay all right so how many motorcycle emails did he dictate about dropping the title whose idea was it is the question to me was it his idea if he said we gotta get part one out of the paint we made an error well that was my second question because like how many emails total was it paramount in the paramount did this idea spark tom cruise leaving paramount to join warner brothers which is not actually what he did but how it was framed when that is you think it's like 2300 2300 emails yeah 2300 that is probably low think about how these people email you know 2300 and they're just like we'll have to circle back and we'll have to check it on like here's some numbers and we gotta set a meeting like that's yeah i don't email you right in a year i don't email sure but i'm not paranoid you know that's like old school i think it was like at least four figures of emails so we're in the thousands of emails okay uh i gotta say you have a very meek mind i don't fully understand how it works but i'm proud of you uh the film the creator also got two nominations yeah what do you think of that movie um i i did not like just to watch it in that environment i didn't mention it i had going on my tv and then i had barbie going on max's tv because i thought that the colors and the movement would entertain him which they kind of did that's an indoctrination of your child he can say hi barbie uh which he learns from the barbie plane that your daughter owns yeah i mean let's go on a plane you know i'm sure that was exactly what the filmmakers intended for me um yeah the creator is the visual effects oscar is legit like i think it could and probably should win i feel like that's the one might win okay do you have any nominations napoleon got three three that's a lot respect ridley and respect a fantastical time at the movies you know i everyone was just really mad in their history books logging on talking about this and that and it's not what they taught me and it was just a funny time at the movies i agree what are you what are you most disappointed about as we look back on this i i just i feel a little bummed about the prominence of greta gerwig in all the lead up to the you know awards and and that thing of let's figure out how we can get greta gerwig on stage for an award that's not best director best picture and then sure yeah yeah it's like it's fine and i don't know whose spot i would take as director and she's probably a billionaire if anyone has any info on points i'm genuinely curious i don't know what you're talking about i'm just curious if she has how much money she made that's what runs this town no you want to understand that you got you're here Brass out. to the business you have to be to come to your garage at 7 30 in the morning so we're gonna follow the money okay this is what a billion dollars can get you a room full of plastic yeah so she'll be fine she's great and it's not some travesty and i think people were expecting me to yell and i'm gonna yell and this is this is also true to margot robbie and an extent in best actress it just i think what they accomplished was a little undervalued and the way that they were trotted out and then not reward it just leaves a bad taste yeah that's all totally understand um i guess i don't really have a huge disappointment i think that the leo snub is just one of those silly things that kind of forms over the period of a few weeks and and here we are um is there anything that you're really looking forward to now that you've seen all the nominations for the telecast something that you're excited for a win that you're rooting for rooting for uh lily gladstone i am rooting for the budding romance between mark ronson and ryan gosling to make it on to the academy stage perhaps in the form of performance the only time i've rooted for a live performance at the academy awards there's been some murmurings that ryan gosling will not perform i'm just kidding what do you think about that i mean i think that that is probably the right decision for him as a person with self-respect i also wouldn't do it live i would do it in the movie but not live you know that's just me you have to draw a line somewhere um but maybe they could at least present together something i don't know they're buds now according to instagram i enjoy that one thing we didn't talk about was uh john mulaney hosting the governor's awards yeah he's very good being amazing yeah i feel like probably both of us i know i for sure and like john mulaney should host the oscars for the last six or seven years well you've also made between john mulaney and the rock i do think the rock should as well um and he frankly needs that right now um as he starts to rebuild his reputation by making a film day 24 but uh i think i think i just need him crawl together to the spirit awards yeah and i was like this is let the two of them do this this is this is a home run and then he was brilliant in the clip that i saw from the governor's award that wasn't there um and you know now we've got kimmel kimmel extremely reliable in hosting the show basically has never blundered and whenever there's something weird happens he's excellent at riffing when something strange happens he keeps the train on the tracks very much which is very hard to do as we have learned every single word there um but i do think i would i would like him to see now mulaney is through all his personal stuff he's been through the last few years seems to be on the other side of some of those things uh i i would like to see him get a crack at this now because he absolutely he struck me or at least people who were helping him write the jokes people who were really watching the movies and making writing a lot of smart jokes about the movies which is something that i hope comes to the show this year um aside from that i don't know i don't have a ton of rooting interest it's hard to not feel like this is just a bulldozer of an oppenheimer year which i won't complain about but could potentially make march 10 kind of boring sometimes that happens you know sometimes the chiefs roll into town and they beat your team you know there's an inability to patrick holmes and christopher nolan at times and taylor swift and the nfl's desire to see taylor swift uh in the super bowl i think there's do you believe in that do you believe the nfl would fix the afc championship game to live without taylor swift i mean it seems like the nfl is capable of anything except uh being respectable so wow right but you know i don't have an opinion on that interesting do you think christopher nolan should somehow get involved in the super bowl just to kind of lock things in can it bring create a union of all of our culture no he's you know he's just doing personal fitness and i support him for that i got actually like when he was asked about the peloton instructor a very charming increase um he because he was asked whether he had seen her response and he was like no i didn't um or maybe he was asked if he had i don't remember it was something about how he's taking a break from peloton but he loves them and something it was charming okay well that's definitely sealed right there for christopher nolan a very thoughtful response uh any closing thoughts here what are we gonna do to make it interesting for the next six to eight to something weeks i'll come up with another game i don't know something some sort of blood sport that will make this exciting i mean i think there are a couple of really still very exciting races that we'll spend a lot of time on giamatti versus killian murphy lily radson versus emma stone can robert downey jr be wounded be pierced no um is there like yeah screenplays both both of those i think are very hard to predict right now so it's not that everything is dull but it just it does seem like it's oppenheimer and everything else in best picture even movie like i thought the holdovers was really strong no no pain tells me it's not as strong as i thought you know i i thought anatomy of the fall is weirdly a movie that has now risen in my estimation of how what people think of it i'll tell you the one thing we forgot to mention i thought so interesting was getting into film editing now obviously editing is a critical part of that film because it's a courtroom drama there's like memory and reflection and recreation and what ifs in the structure of the movie and it is brilliantly edited but a foreign language film that about that kind of subject matter getting into editing seems people are taking it seriously i guess original screenplay is not really because that just seemed to be able to win that seems you think so don't you think because i like i still decided getting into editing i think that oppenheimer well when editing that editing is extraordinary i agree with you and like pace setting and tone setting in that in that film i don't holdovers is tough holdovers versus anatomy of a fall feels like a real race to me in screenplay yeah but as you said pain fell out of best record there's real respect for for justin tran and anatomy of a fall and the screenplay category is normally where they were worth that yeah that's an interesting one okay we'll probably talk more about that probably talk more about anatomy of a fall still not streaming well go to the cinema i do most days and it's wonderful um couldn't agree more thank you to our producer bob wagner for his work on this pod um thanks bob thanks for making sure we didn't screw up this recording what would we do without you uh later this week we're gonna talk about the zone of interest we're gonna do a mailbag so if you have any questions if you have any outwaged notes about the results if you have any thoughts about amanda's reading of the calum turner dualipa relationship anything you want to see at the academy awards let us know we'll see you then