All right, here we go. Quiet! Roll up! And the Oscar goes to...
You like me! Right now, you like me! There's a mistake. Moonlight, you got one Best Picture.
Moonlight won. That's the only thing... Probably the only love that man will ever get in life by stripping off and showing his shortcomings. And the Oscar goes to...
Jack Palance. It's a clean sweep. The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. Humphrey Bogart?
Hello and welcome to The Big Picture podcast, where we take a look at the latest movie news, the films of today, and we put them into context. Seated across the microphone from me is Film Buff Online Editor-in-Chief, Rich Drees. And seated across the microphone from me is Film Buff Online Contributing Editor and all-around enthusiastic human being, Natasha Boguski. It's the most wonderful night of the year.
With apologies to your husband, and, you know, your wedding anniversary and stuff like that. Oh, fuck that. Oh, jeez. Wow.
Christmas beats my wedding anniversary. We both know that. That's true, yeah. But yes, it is Oscar night, and literally 10 minutes ago, they said goodnight after we saw everything everywhere all at once.
Kind of be the big giant monster of the evening and taking home seven of the 11 nominations it had. And it could only ever win 10. It wasn't going to completely sweep because it was nominated for two different performers in the Best Supporting Actress category. Exactly, yeah.
So it wasn't going to totally sweep, but I felt fairly confident going in that it was going to do pretty well, and it did. It didn't quite do as well as I'd hoped because, I mean, it is one of my favorite films of the year. It is my favorite film of the year. And it was just fantastic to see how excited these people were, how much joy there was.
This is a little movie that cost, what? The little movie that could. Indeed. A24 dropped, what, $14 million on this?
I believe it was $14 million. I believe they shot it in 38 days, according to Stephanie. And as we're recording this, I'm literally looking at the clock. It's 11:59, so I can quickly say this.
One year ago, one year and a day ago, on March 11th of 2022, Everything Everywhere All at Once premiered at South by Southwest. What an amazing year for this movie. I know. I'm still messaging out about it.
I went back and I, I mean, this was the first movie reviewed after our Oscar show from last year. I think we took two weeks off and then we'd seen this at a critics' screening. And we were super enthusiastic about that. We said, you know, oh my gosh, great film.
Our first, I know I said first five-star film of the year for me for, you know, keeping track on Letterboxd. It was my first five-star of the year. And I think it might be my only one. I think I gave Tar and Banshees both four and a half.
I think that was the only one that got five. One comment that you made that I was, when I was listening back to it today, you said you needed to watch more Michelle Yeoh movies. And I said, I could help you out with that. And of course, Criterion just dropped that big collection.
That big hunking collection there, which is great. So, so yeah. So if you wanna see more of Michelle Yeoh, get on that right away. But let's kind of go over the whole evening here as we usually do on these, the After Hours After Dark show here.
First off, let's start with Jimmy Kimmel as a host. It was nice to have a host back. Thank God. Yeah.
Really helped move things along because the years that they were not doing it kind of sucked. Agreed. And some of his stuff was kind of like, I will admit though, there was some of his stuff I thought was slightly in, I wasn't offended. I just thought that some of his jokes were a little in poor taste, like Melania.
Yeah, doing the thing with Melania, the Robert Blake joke. No, no. It just wasn't funny. No.
If it was, if it was funny, but still in bad taste, I would have laughed. I just kind of like, ugh. Look, okay. Seth MacFarlane's Abraham Lincoln joke several years ago was in poor taste and still fucking funny.
It's brilliant. Last year or the year before, someone made a joke about The Last Duel and they're like, we have a disc here of a movie that no one has seen. So if you guys wanna catch up on it, it's called The Last Duel. And I was like, not a good joke.
It wasn't even fucking funny. It was a waste of a joke. And this was the same. Yeah.
He started off kind of strong. I thought the monologue was good, but the stuff he was kind of just dropping and I was wondering, I'm wondering if like a lot of that was like him going off stage and quickly huddling with the writers to come up with something really quick. Yeah. And then come back out and it just wasn't working.
It needed better quality control. Dropping a comedy bit into like the third hour of the show, basically, you know, where he was kind of doing the questions thing, kind of sucked. I did enjoy the Jenny the donkey bit. That was cute.
The Room Tone joke was fucking hilarious, even though no one watching it who doesn't work in the industry wouldn't have got it. That's true. I said that, I said on, like when I was, because I was doing some tweeting during the show, I said something along the lines of, that's a great joke that maybe 90% of the people who aren't in the room, in the theater will not get this joke. And I think I may have been generous.
I'm thinking more like 95 to 97% of the people in the world who aren't, who weren't in the auditorium would get that joke. No, no, no, no, no. I think anyone who works in the industry, it doesn't have to be particularly in Hollywood. Oh yeah.
But if they don't work in the film industry or if they don't work in podcasting. Because right before we started, you went Room Tone and I went, after you got done, I went, thank you, Jimmy Kimmel. Well, I'm saying, no, what I'm saying though is that 97% of the people watching the Oscars aren't in the industry, so they're not gonna get that joke. And I don't care.
That's, that's, you know, that's like the philosophy of Mystery Science Theater 3000, of not everybody's gonna get every joke, but everybody's gonna get, you know, the right jokes are gonna find the right people. And if you were watching tonight and you got that joke, good on you. If you didn't, well, sorry. It's a, it's a technical-y thing.
Yeah. I like that he came out with a whole boom mic and the recording units in the bag and everything. It was fun. Like he, he went all in on that joke.
Now we started off with the, the Best Supporting Actor and Actress category, which. They combined the actor categories. Yeah. Which I think was a great way to kind of like, because yeah, these were both categories that people were very interested in because of Ki Huey Quan's long run through the awards season where they were just giving him everything.
Yeah. And he just kept being so, so effacing, so jubilant, so positive. And he never ran out of. He's been so fucking delightful this award season.
Yeah. He never ran out of anything inspiring to say. And I'm like, I think midway through, I was kind of thinking, you know, dude, pace yourself on your cool stories that you tell when you get up there. And he still had a wonderful one tonight about, you know, my, my family's in town.
They're all watching at home. I was a refugee. I spent a year in a camp. And now I'm here.
Dreams, you know, you know, talking about, you know, dreams come true. A lot of the, a lot of the everything everywhere all at once people talked about dreams, holding onto your dreams. Michelle Yeoh made a point of it in her speech. The Daniels mentioned it at some point in one of their two speeches, or three speeches, actually for, you know, as writers, as directors, and as producers on that film.
So, so it's, and the fact that that movie just is such a positive force. It's such a great, wonderful story that it all carries through to how they've comported themselves through this award season. It really just kind of, you just can't like be like mad at this. And if you are, I don't know what to tell you, except seek help.
It's, it's such a beautiful, beautiful freaking film. It's a film about family. It's very profound and I'm sorry, it is not Fast and the Furious or Avatar level of, we drop family every fucking five minutes. Speaking of, I'm going to go off on a quick tangent.
Okay. The Fast X trailer when it dropped, I could have done a drinking game to how many times in two and a half minutes he says the word family. Yeah, but you would have been dead of alcohol poisoning. But anyways.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is very good about presenting the idea to you without shoving your face in it. In fact, it shows your face in dildo fights and hot dog fingers and bagels before it throws family in your face. Wow. You are wound up.
Oh, I I'm so glad that it did. Oh, it's still nice. Oh, it's still nice. Like, it's the next Star Wars.
In 10, 15, 20, 30 years, I feel like this is the generational switch from millennials and Gen X into Gen Z, and you're seeing that this is where they are cementing their stamp on what filmmaking is and will forever be iconic because of it. OK. I mean, I look forward to watching the next 20, 30, 40 years of films. Of course, once I get to about 35 years from now, my facilities might not be all that working.
But well, yesterday I came across a post that said prior to the Academy Awards today, the most awarded film in film history was Return of the King with 101 awards throughout their awards season. The awards season, you know, and that includes like the old awards, people's choice, Golden Globe. And everything everywhere all at once beat them with 158 before the Academy Awards ever took place. EAEO is the most awarded film in film history.
It didn't need Best Picture. Well, no. But it's nice. But it's nice.
Exactly. But I have a feeling if it hadn't won, it would have gone to All Quiet on the Western Front. Yeah. Yeah.
The way the preferential ballot works. Oh, yeah. I was a little bit nervous that something would happen with those mathematics and that mechanics. And those those math.
Anyway, with how it works and and kind of be a spoiler there right at the end, which would have been interesting to say the least. I think what's also interesting, though, is for, you know, also receiving multiple nominations. Tar, Elvis, Babylon and Banshees of Inisherin all went home empty-handed tonight, which hurt me a little because Tar and Banshees for me were exceptional standout films. Oh, yeah.
I watched Banshees four times in like the last three months. I loved it so much. Like I said, Babylon's a hot, hot mess, but it's a really well-made hot mess in terms of like production design, the music, the costumes and everything. So, you know, I thought it maybe had a chance for snatching like one of those out.
Yeah, I honest to God, I thought Elvis was going to take costume design because Baz Luhrmann and his wife don't play around when it comes to costume. I know. I know. Well, let's just kind of cut to the chase here, then we filled out Oscar ballots before before we started watching.
And how many did you have altogether? I actually didn't count them up. OK, well, I had 15 out of the 23 categories. You know, I missed a documentary shorts and animated short too, which you picked my ass this year.
I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, 12. Wow. OK, because usually you are the one who is much better at this than I am because I always vote with my heart instead of my head.
All of these movies are available now and I think they're all really worthwhile seeing even Babylon, which is a hot mess. As I keep saying, I will say, though, in the nominations category, original score, one should have been won by Babylon. Absolutely. I did listen to the scores because I have time at work.
Um, so I got through all the songs and I got through all the scores. Babylon should have definitely fucking won score. And I also think that Batman should have been included in said scores. Yeah.
In cinematography. Yeah. You're welcome, Mr. Deakins.
Yeah, that's right. He had he had words to say about that. Well, let me let me ask you this then, though, looking at the original score category, we have the five nominees were All Quiet on the Western Front, Babylon, Banshees of Inisherin, everything everywhere all at once and The Fablemans. And the winner was, of course, All Quiet on the Western Front.
But who would you have kicked out of that category to make room for Batman? For score? Yeah. Don't hate me.
Everything everywhere all at once. Listening to the scores. That was the one I was actually the least impressed by. OK, it didn't feel more like a score, but more of a sense of sounds.
More of a soundscape. Yeah, it was more of a soundscape than an actual, like, full orchestration score. And I don't have a problem with synthesized music. Obviously, Hans Zimmer creates actually most of his scores through synthesized and recorded sounds.
And I think he is probably the successor to John Williams. But yeah, I would have gotten rid of EAEO from that category. It didn't win it anyway. Any big surprises for you?
Obviously, costume design, I think, was the big what the fuck for me. OK, just because it didn't go to Elvis. Not just because of Elvis, but when you look at the costume design. Yes, Black Panther is good at showing a lot of cultural across the board from pulling from Aztec, Maya, different African cultures.
That being said, I thought the first Black Panther showed that a lot more. Whereas Wakanda Forever showed a very limited amount of Wakanda and showed us more of the Central American tribe a little bit more, which I'm OK with, but I still don't think that was enough. Elvis spans multiple decades and also influences are copied from real life with their own spin on it. Like they're using real footage and recreating footage.
And then you look at Babylon, you look at the old Hollywood influences such as Anna Mae Wong for the one character. You're looking at technically Clarabelle is said to be the influence for Nellie Leroy, but they don't make Nellie Leroy look anything like her. And that's OK because at the end of the day, Babylon is supposed to be more inspired by that time period. Kind of like how Bridgerton is inspired by Regency, not an actual copy and paste replica.
It's not supposed to look like that time period, which can have this make it a little too masterpiece classic. It's supposed to show you the seediness, the dirt, the grit, the underbelly of this society and how just the whole over the top glamour and the chaos of it is what draws you into it until you don't even realize who you are anymore. So it helped. They tell a story, I think sometimes a little more than just showing the beauty of a culture.
Sometimes that can be part of the story and sometimes it can't. I just don't think it worked here. Mrs. Harris goes to Paris.
It was it was a cute little movie, but and the costumes were nice, but they are technically just replicating a Dior collection from the 1950s. I can do that by pulling things out of my closet. OK, for me, the big the big kind of like shocker I was like was I know this sounds weird. It's like in a technical category production design that all quiet on the Western Front took that.
And I was like, really? Over something as, you know, expansive as Babylon or Avatar, even where you're designing literally everything that's on screen. You have to come up with all this plant life, all this underwater life. You have to come up with the huts that these, you know, certain the water tribe live in.
And then you have to go, OK, well, what's in this hut? And then you have to figure out how they build their tools, how they build things as simple as a cup and a bowl and the amounts of imagination that has to go into that. And I'm not saying it's just doing historical research or something like all quiet on the Western Front is is easier or it's cheating. It's a different type of discipline here.
But man, I mean, obviously, Avatar is going to win visual effects. If you put your money anywhere else in that category, you're not a serious person. But I really thought it had a chance in production design just because it is creating an entire world right down to every tiny, small detail. Like, how do they wrap twine to become rope and things like that?
So that was a little that was a little surprising to me that they didn't take it, to be honest. It should have gone hand in hand with visual. Not necessarily, but for both reasons. Production design.
It feels like those two for Avatar work hand in hand with each other. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they don't in all movies, but for Avatar, very much so. Yes.
OK, now we got to talk about this. What? Don't are you bringing up the memoriam? Yes.
Which I thought was pretty good. I mean, we were both shedding copious tears at certain points of it. So obviously it was effective. And I think I think having John Travolta introduce it.
Oh, he did. And God bless him. You know, he can be a bit of a goofball or whatever. I just wanted to storm the stage and give him a hug.
Exactly. Same here. I'm like, you know, because he was holding his shit together remarkably well for having to introduce a segment in a way that acknowledges the fact that a very good friend of his and, you know, somebody who's very important to his life was in that. And his work as well.
Yes. You know, of course, Olivia Newton-John. And, you know, she and she's the first one there in the thing right up front. It was moving.
They, you know, again, they, you know, remember, like production designers and special effects people. You know, I saw Greg Jean in there and that was somebody I've been aware of as just like a movie and sci-fi nerd forever going all the way back to like high school and reading like Starlog magazine and all that stuff. And he was always somebody I thought would be an interesting interview and I just three hours and forty minutes. That's a decent amount of time.
And we started recording at like five of midnight. So it was nice to see James Hong sitting there next to Cate Blanchett with the Google eyes on his bow tie. Yes. Yes, that was adorable.
Hail to the bagel. I think overall, though, it was a good ceremony. I think because all the winning people were from EEAO, that kind of gave a positive energy to everything. Yes, Jimmy Kimmel had to make a couple jokes about what happened last year, and they weren't great.
I giggled. I think Chris Rock had... Okay. Okay.
Okay. But I think, you know, last week, Chris Rock on his special on his mic on it had his say, yeah, drop the mic and let's all move on and move forward. But, you know, it's Jimmy Kimmel. He's ultimately a talk show host.
It's in his nature to run a joke into the ground. It was nice to see the revival of the Matt Damon feud. Yeah, I thought that had gone away. And then he trotted that out, which was nice.
How funny would it have been if the guy in the cocaine bear suit turned out to be Matt Damon? I would have pissed myself laughing. I would have fallen over. And I would have been so fucking happy.
It would have made that bit all the better. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was okay with Elizabeth Banks doing that. Poor Elizabeth Banks.
She had a cold and I felt so bad for her. Yeah, her voice was... It was shot. Yeah.
But, yeah, overall, though, I'd say this was one of the better Oscar ceremonies. I would call this the Oscars of comebacks and dreamers. Yeah. Like, I mean, I've been talking.
We've been talking about this for a couple of weeks now off mic and just our daily life. And I've been like, you know, the Brendan Fraser and the key story. They're both so inspiring. And Oscars loves a good narrative for their evening.
And if you can't look at those two people who were in Ceno Man together with a polyshore joke. Okay. That was a good polyshore joke. But I think, you know, last week, Chris Rock on his special said, Drop the mic on it.
Had his say. Yeah, drop the mic and let's all move on and move forward. But, you know, it's Jimmy Kimmel. He's ultimately a talk show host.
It's in his nature to run a joke into the ground. It was nice to see the revival of the Matt Damon feud. Yeah, I thought that had gone away. And then he trotted that out, which was nice.
How funny would it have been if the guy in the cocaine bear suit turned out to be Matt Damon? I would have pissed myself laughing. I would have fallen over. And I would have been so fucking happy.
It would have made that bit all the better. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was okay with Elizabeth Banks doing that. Poor Elizabeth Banks.
She had a cold and I felt so bad for her. Yeah, her voice was shot. But yeah, overall, though, I'd say this was one of the better Oscar ceremonies. I would call this the Oscars of comebacks and dreamers.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like, I mean, we've been talking about this for a couple of weeks now off mic in just our daily life. And I've been like, you know, the Brendan Fraser and the key story.
They're both so inspiring. And Oscars loves a good narrative for their evening. And if you can't look at those two people who were in Ceno Man together with a polyshore joke. Okay.
That was a good polyshore joke. But I think, you know, last week, Chris Rock on his special said, Drop the mic on it. Had his say. Yeah, drop the mic and let's all move on and move forward.
But, you know, it's Jimmy Kimmel. He's ultimately a talk show host. It's in his nature to run a joke into the ground. It was nice to see the revival of the Matt Damon feud.
Yeah, I thought that had gone away. And then he trotted that out, which was nice. How funny would it have been if the guy in the cocaine bear suit turned out to be Matt Damon? I would have pissed myself laughing.
I would have fallen over. And I would have been so fucking happy. Yeah, it would have made that bit all the better. Oh, yeah.
I mean, it was okay with Elizabeth Banks doing that. Poor Elizabeth Banks. She had a cold and I felt so bad for her. Yeah, her voice was shot.
Yeah. But, yeah, overall, though, I'd say this was one of the better Oscar ceremonies. I would call this the Oscars of comebacks and dreamers. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Like, I mean, we've been talking about this for a couple of weeks now off mic in just our daily life. And I've been like, you know, the Brendan Fraser and the key story, they're both so inspiring. And Oscars loves a good narrative for their evening.
And if you can't look at those two people who were in Ceno Man together. Okay, that was, yeah, a good polyshore joke was there also. If you can't look at their stories, though, and know what kind of hardship they went through and to get back to where they are, you know, right now, which is probably walking into the Vanity Fair party and having a great time because it's like 45 minutes after the show has ended now. By the way, really quick, can I say Colin Farrell sat there all night and been a fucking trooper and not watched any of his film win any awards.
But his son sitting next to him is the cutest fucking thing in the goddamn world. He's the most respectful, jubilant kid I've ever fucking seen on the Oscars. Yeah, he seemed to have a good time. And good for him.
Yeah. Poor Brendan. I thought he was gonna hyperventilate and fall over. Yep.
Boy, if only Warner Brothers had like a movie with Brendan Fraser in it. That joke, by the way, I'm surprised they didn't cut to Brendan Fraser. Yeah, I know. Son of a bitch.
Don't make a joke like that with the guy who one of the guys in the film who's probably really sore about that. Yeah, as well he should be. I mean, they were not done and there were still reshoots to be done on that that they were getting ready to do. And the idea that, oh, it's not a big enough film.
It's not, you know, a world shattering superhero movie. It's precisely the reason why it should be made because you you can't be always telling the world is going to end if we don't save it. Sometimes you have a smaller story about a smaller superhero who's just trying to stop an arsonist and save some people. The stakes, you know, don't have to be, you know, gigantic.
Sometimes it can be smaller. And it's unfortunate that David Zaslav was an idiot because he could have had a movie getting ready to come out where they could say, hey, we have an Academy Award winner here. Good move, dumb dumb. By the way, I just want to throw out really quickly.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Lady Hayden Guest, as they know her over in the UK, is a Hollywood legend. Nepo baby, as she is the first one to make that joke. She is the daughter of Hollywood legends Tony Curtis. What?
Hollywood royalty. Oh, OK. Hollywood royalty. Yes.
Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Both were nominated for Academy Awards, but never won. And somewhere in heaven tonight, they got to look down on their daughter standing on that stage who said, I just won an Academy Award. Yes.
Her speech was great because she's like, I you know, I stand here, you know, not by myself. I'm here with all the people who helped, you know, make everything everywhere all at once. And I'm here with all the people who helped make every movie I've ever been in. You know, we have won an Academy Award.
I thought that was like very beautiful way to acknowledge. She's what, like 62? Something like that. And steps on that stage and she can look back on her life and go.
I have done everything. I have been a screen queen. I have been in goofy comedies. I've been in serious dramas and I have won an Academy Award.
That's true. I have done everything. So if by going by her own thing, we have won an Academy Award. That means now.
Howie? Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd have now won an Academy Award. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold Schwarzenegger's now won an Academy Award.
Yes. The entire cast from about five different comedies. Lindsay Lohan. Lindsay Lohan has won an Academy Award.
Richard Lewis has won an Academy Award. Rian Johnson's won an Academy Award. There you go. Finally.
Like, and I was saying this on the other show that I do. And Armis has won an Academy Award. Oh, my God. Those two are going to be partying at the after party.
I just realized that. Because I was saying to my co-host on Generation Movies, the other show that I do on Monday nights on Facebook. We did a kind of like a quick spur of the moment Friday night pre-Oscar show where I said, I don't think Rian Johnson was going to win again this year in screenplay. He was nominated for Knives Out.
He was nominated for Glass Onion. And I go, but I think third time's going to be the charm for him because he's if he keeps up the level of writing for the next Benoit Blanc movie, he'll be nominated again