Oscars Coverage - Part 3 - Blockbuster Awards

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[00:00:51] Welcome to the Lourhounds Oscar Prep Series. I'm your substitute host, Alicia. And I'm just probably not the voice you were expecting to hear.

[00:00:57] We'd already asked Jean to join us for this final Oscars episode as we'll be discussing

[00:01:02] some of the movies we all talked about together before. So now we're especially grateful that Jean can step in while David is in bed

[00:01:09] fighting with the COVID monster. Ah, feel better soon. Feel better soon. Yeah. Today we're covering

[00:01:15] what we're calling the blockbuster awards or the technical awards. If you're being

[00:01:21] technical about it, these are the visual and audio awards, the crafts that make

[00:01:27] movies look and sound the way they do. This is the third episode in our Oscars Prep series.

[00:01:32] If you want to hear it all, you can start with our teaser episode released on February 18th,

[00:01:36] followed by part one, the headliners from February 27th and part two, The Hidden Gems,

[00:01:42] released earlier this week. We'll make sure you know what's nominated, including a couple of nominated films you might not have heard of before.

[00:01:50] And many that you have. We'll point out the most likely winners and share the stories behind the different races.

[00:01:56] And like in parts one and two of the series, we're calling in some extra voices from the Lourhounds family and beyond,

[00:02:03] including one many of you will be familiar with.

[00:02:06] Jean, it's me.

[00:02:08] It's me.

[00:02:09] Hi.

[00:02:10] We're looking forward, Jean, to hearing your reactions to everything we haven't gotten

[00:02:17] to chat with you yet about any of this.

[00:02:19] Cool.

[00:02:20] And we want to hear your thoughts too.

[00:02:22] Which movies you're enjoying, your reactions to the winners,

[00:02:25] death-race success stories,

[00:02:27] email us all your feedback at lorhounds.com or even easier.

[00:02:33] Just head over to the lorhounds.com and use the contact form or the voicemail feature there.

[00:02:40] Do also check out our Discord community and jump into the film discussion.

[00:02:45] Links are in the show notes.

[00:02:47] Also, we'd be forever grateful if you could help us get more ears tuned into this special series.

[00:02:53] Please pass this episode along to anyone else you think would appreciate some Oscar Intel,

[00:02:57] or just leave a five star rating and review wherever you're listening.

[00:03:00] It really helps the algorithm point more people in our direction.

[00:03:04] So, Sean, thanks so much for being here.

[00:03:07] I mean, thanks that you're already planning on being here and thanks,

[00:03:09] actually.

[00:03:11] Thanks for having me.

[00:03:12] Thanks for inviting me.

[00:03:13] What's, what's your Oscar history, by the way?

[00:03:16] Did you grow up watching?

[00:03:17] Yes.

[00:03:19] We would all huddle around our television set Oscar night and what's the

[00:03:24] Oscars my siblings and I

[00:03:26] when I was much younger and yeah this was no appointment viewing in our house at that time.

[00:03:33] Yeah and how was your movie watching going these days?

[00:03:38] As with everything post-COVID it's not as robust as I normally would like it to be, but I do find, you know,

[00:03:48] my way to seeing the things that I really do want to see. Yeah, but I'm very picky about

[00:03:56] situations now. And I'm just waiting for the day when I don't have to be as picky, a greener

[00:04:02] and a viewer as I've been over the last two years really.

[00:04:07] Right. Because of time you mean? Right, exactly. So a lot of times I'll wait until it comes

[00:04:15] out on something comes out on VOD. Right. And then and watch it there. But in other cases

[00:04:21] where you know you have to see it, you have to see it. So yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[00:04:26] Yeah, Marvel's still appointment viewing for us at least. Yeah, exactly. So any movies you're

[00:04:32] rooting for this year, you want to shout out in general, Oscar nominated or not? There's nothing

[00:04:38] that I'm rooting for, but there is the big snub and we'll get to it when we get to it.

[00:04:45] I think you already, you might know where I'm going with it already.

[00:04:49] There's one huge snub that for the life of me, I don't understand what people are afraid

[00:04:55] of, but we'll get there when we get there.

[00:04:59] Okay, okay.

[00:05:01] And yeah, so David, by the way, while he's all laid up in isolation, he's tackling some

[00:05:07] of his final best picture and nomination watches.

[00:05:10] So we'll check in on his thoughts on poor things later.

[00:05:13] He watched that today.

[00:05:15] And yeah, we'll also hear from him again after the ceremony.

[00:05:18] We were talking about doing a quick wrap up episode to respond to the ceremony itself

[00:05:23] and any surprises or highlights

[00:05:26] and previews some films that might be contenders next year.

[00:05:30] Like, I mean, we already know what the winner is.

[00:05:33] Yeah, what?

[00:05:34] Next year.

[00:05:35] Absolutely.

[00:05:39] Yeah.

[00:05:40] We have the winner.

[00:05:41] We have it in with 14 nominations.

[00:05:43] Yeah, exactly.

[00:05:45] And taking 10 of the 14. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna have the winner. We have it in with 14 nominations. Yeah, exactly. And taking 10 of the 14.

[00:05:47] Yeah.

[00:05:48] Yeah, no, it's definitely,

[00:05:50] our first major Oscar contender has arrived

[00:05:55] and is not going anywhere for the rest of the year.

[00:05:57] Oh God, no.

[00:05:58] Oh, that thing is,

[00:06:01] that's gonna be a monster.

[00:06:03] Yeah, I was, you know, I'm one of the ones who was kind of

[00:06:06] had mixed feelings about the first part, but I am all in. Really? I did not know that.

[00:06:13] Yeah. We had not talked about that. Yeah. I've talked about it with David because we're both

[00:06:18] like we both were bothered by being you know, as we call in the Wheel of Time Kingdom bookcloaks.

[00:06:24] Yes. Yes. Yeah. You change that. Why? of Time Kingdom book cloaks. Yes. Yeah.

[00:06:25] Yeah.

[00:06:26] You changed that. Why?

[00:06:27] And I don't.

[00:06:27] Yeah.

[00:06:28] Right.

[00:06:29] Right.

[00:06:29] Just for that long slow shot.

[00:06:30] But I think overall it's just a whole new level now.

[00:06:33] But anyway, that's that's next year's Oscars.

[00:06:35] For now I'm actually still finishing something called the

[00:06:38] Mecha death race.

[00:06:39] So the death race for anyone who missed the prior episodes is

[00:06:43] basically people who watch

[00:06:45] every Oscar nominated movie in a year or die trying hence the name.

[00:06:51] So that's 53 films this year including a bunch of shorts of course.

[00:06:55] Where are you?

[00:06:56] Well I've, the Oscar is all done.

[00:06:59] So then after that the next level is the mega where you also watch the BAFTA's, the

[00:07:04] spirit nominees and I think the

[00:07:06] Golden Globes are included in that too. So all done. So now I'm finishing up the MECA which also adds

[00:07:14] the Oscar shortlist, the BAFTA longlist and the Deathies are the Academy of death racers that's a ceremony that takes place on YouTube the night before the askers.

[00:07:29] So the idea is that everyone there is watched all the movies so it's supposed to be like the most fair voting but then we also have these extra categories and I'm presenting two of them.

[00:07:38] I thought that's awesome.

[00:07:41] It starts at 6 p.m. Eastern time.

[00:07:45] Oh, similar link.

[00:07:46] Yeah, we'll put a link in the show notes.

[00:07:48] In case anyone wants to check it out.

[00:07:51] We're going to let's just say one of my videos I'm planning to make tomorrow involves cat

[00:07:55] wrangling, so wish me luck.

[00:08:00] But yeah, if anyone at home wants to track their Oscar's death race progress, there's

[00:08:05] the Oscar's death race website is very nice, simple interface where you can just check off movies.

[00:08:10] There's a more complicated where you can do the different levels of races on deathracetracking.com.

[00:08:17] And when you're looking for help finding movies, go to the subreddit, Oscar's death race. Just

[00:08:22] use the search function before posting, please.

[00:08:26] So yeah, Jean, you're going to be watching the Oscars ceremony Sunday night.

[00:08:31] I probably won't sit through the entire thing, but we'll be switching back and forth,

[00:08:36] you know, watching social and maybe on threads or blue sky just to see what's being presented and then you know based on

[00:08:47] what's being presented turn turn the TV to the channel but I'm not really the

[00:08:52] last couple of years I haven't really been invested in watching Oscar or any

[00:08:58] sort of award show really. Yeah. And don't even award showed that I think I've watched sort of religiously in

[00:09:07] the last 10-15 years, maybe the game awards. But even the Grammys, I'm not

[00:09:14] really tuning into that either. So it's really a change in my viewing habits, I

[00:09:19] guess. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a lot of people are filling that way in the

[00:09:24] awards show

[00:09:25] industries feeling it.

[00:09:26] Do you see some of them switching around channels, you know, looking for a new place to lands

[00:09:33] when you're not seen as a good investment?

[00:09:35] But I'm hoping that this year, the fact that there are bigger movies nominated, just not

[00:09:43] just because they're nominating more popular movies but because

[00:09:46] some really quality movies became enormously popular so yeah that's always a good thing

[00:09:53] and we're off to a good start with do obviously this year so here's hoping that that's a trend

[00:09:58] that continues and then yeah it becomes more fun because right right I'm looking forward to it. Did you see the Barbie promo Kimmled it?

[00:10:06] I did it with hilarious. Yeah. She's Kate McKinnon. Yeah. She's just everything she does

[00:10:16] leaves me in tears. Yeah. She's great. She's just great. And I love there in the movie as well.

[00:10:22] Yeah. I she would be a great Oscar host, I think.

[00:10:25] She would be. She acts. Yeah, you absolutely right about that. She would be.

[00:10:29] I think she would draw on numbers too. I think so. I think so. She's a really good

[00:10:34] comedian. She's really good at what she does at her craft. Yeah. Well, I mean, I like Kimmel.

[00:10:39] This is his fourth time hosting, which he's it's a record that he has tied with

[00:10:45] Whoopi Goldberg and Jack Lemon RIP.

[00:10:47] Are you Kim O'Fan or are you like him?

[00:10:50] No, I'm not a Kim O'Fan.

[00:10:52] I'm not with the other guy.

[00:10:55] The other Jimmy.

[00:10:55] Yeah.

[00:10:55] Fallon.

[00:10:56] Yeah.

[00:10:57] I I don't I'm not a fan of either one of those persons.

[00:11:02] So really nice.

[00:11:03] Don't do it for you.

[00:11:04] Yeah, they don't.

[00:11:06] Don't. I like Kimo better than Fallon personally. Fallon feels. Yeah, I think most people do. Yeah. I think that's the choice

[00:11:12] of most people. For those of you who are tuning in, then the ceremony is at 7 p.m. Eastern time,

[00:11:20] which is actually, so the ceremony is one hour earlier than it usually is. Yeah. And the US clocks also

[00:11:28] change that morning. So it's time savings time. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:33] Like savings ended ended. I know exactly. Exactly. It's

[00:11:37] annoying. But right now I like that this means that this

[00:11:40] ceremony instead of starting at 2 a.m. for me is going to start

[00:11:43] at midnight for me. Oh, wow, that is a big deal.

[00:11:46] Yeah.

[00:11:47] But yeah, so is airing on ABC in the US or ABC.com and you can check Oscars.org to see

[00:11:54] where it's airing around the world.

[00:11:57] So after night normally has been an early party day for you.

[00:12:02] Like how do you handle it over the years?

[00:12:06] Of the season? Do you like?

[00:12:07] Yeah, I mean, so it's often starts with a nap earlier in the day,

[00:12:11] a nap leading up to it. And then, you know, because, you know,

[00:12:14] humans used to sleep in two parts before the industrial revolution.

[00:12:18] And we used to like get up in the middle of the night for an hour or so.

[00:12:21] So it's like more extreme version of that. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's nice. That's nice.

[00:12:27] That's what I think about it. It helps to be a freelancer. And then I just obviously,

[00:12:33] I know that the next day is not the day to schedule things.

[00:12:40] But one thing I forgot to say about the Oscars in the first episode is that actually an important

[00:12:46] thing to understand about the Best Picture prize is that it's actually done by ranked

[00:12:50] choice voting.

[00:12:52] So all the other categories you just pick one of the five, but for the best picture,

[00:12:57] you rank all 10 best pictures so that they calculate the first round, all the first place

[00:13:04] votes, and then the lowest one on the list falls off, and then they calculate the first round, all the first place votes, and then the lowest one on the

[00:13:06] list falls off, and then they calculate all the second like all the second place votes for those

[00:13:10] ballots, and so on and so forth until they get out to the mayor. Do you like that? Yeah, I think

[00:13:15] that's a better way of voting and we should do it for him, politics too. Oh, we definitely should

[00:13:19] do some time. I mean, it's they tried in New York and it got a little messy, but that's just human error. They just people just have to.

[00:13:26] Yeah, the more you do something, the better you get at it, hopefully. All right. So yeah, don't let the setback stop it all. You know what I mean?

[00:13:34] Yeah. Well, it's like, it gives me comfort because I don't have a vendetta against Oppenheimer or Maestro, but I would prefer other films win.

[00:13:45] So I have like eight chances.

[00:13:47] Tell me really you're not an upper arm of your monster.

[00:13:52] Yeah, I wouldn't have known that.

[00:13:54] Dear listener, I'm being very sarcastic.

[00:13:56] Yeah, I know.

[00:13:57] I've mentioned it once or twice.

[00:13:59] But you know what I am a fan of?

[00:14:01] It's official.

[00:14:02] Ryan Gosling is officially doing the Ken song at the ceremony.

[00:14:05] You got to watch for that.

[00:14:07] Yeah, that's one of my favorite songs of last year.

[00:14:10] Yeah.

[00:14:12] Yeah.

[00:14:12] And of course, all the other best song nominees

[00:14:14] are performing too, but whatever.

[00:14:15] Right.

[00:14:17] It's all about jazz.

[00:14:18] It's all about jazz.

[00:14:18] Of course.

[00:14:19] But yeah, I like a little spectacle.

[00:14:21] This is a, these are the categories that really are the ones that like bring the spectacle.

[00:14:27] So as I mentioned before, go back, check out parts one and two for the breakdowns of the

[00:14:31] best picture nominees, the acting, directing, writing categories and what we call the hidden

[00:14:36] gems, the animation, international docs and shorts.

[00:14:39] But today we're covering the rest of the categories you'll see.

[00:14:43] So that's VFX, film editing, cinematography, production design, costumes, hair and makeup,

[00:14:48] sound, score, and song.

[00:14:50] And these are basically the awards that are rewarding.

[00:14:53] The artists who make a movie a movie, make it a spectacle.

[00:14:59] The people responsible for transporting us to new worlds.

[00:15:02] On the way, we're going to be revisiting the 10 best pictures

[00:15:05] that we talked about in part one.

[00:15:06] And you'll be hearing nine of those names a lot in this episode.

[00:15:09] Plus the names of a bunch of other biggest movies of the year,

[00:15:12] like Guardians of the Galaxy 3,

[00:15:14] Admission Impossible, Dead Reckoning,

[00:15:16] along with mixed in there,

[00:15:18] a couple of one nomination wonders you might not have heard of,

[00:15:21] with, of course, some new voices chiming in.

[00:15:24] Cool.

[00:15:31] Actually, I'm going to start with a voicemail from Mike Manolo of Nords of Color and he has some strong feelings about his favorite films of the year and he's sick of people not taking

[00:15:37] some of them seriously just because they happen to be comic book movies. So, Jean,

[00:15:41] this felt like something that might be near and dear to your heart as well. Oh, it definitely is. It definitely is.

[00:15:46] Yeah. So we're talking about the blockbusters, including his number one film of the year today.

[00:15:53] So I asked him to send in his thoughts and let him go ahead and call out the film subs.

[00:15:58] All right. Hey, guys, it's Mike Manol from The Nerds of Color. And I've been asked by my good

[00:16:03] friend, Alicia, to contribute to the Lourhhounds to talk about Oscar Snobbery, particularly against movies of the

[00:16:10] blockbuster variety. Now, I know what you're thinking, a lot of these blockbusters, they already get

[00:16:15] rewarded by the amount of money that they receive at the box office, and that's true. But, I also

[00:16:22] think that a spade is a spade, if a movie is really good or the craftsmanship

[00:16:27] behind it is terrific, then that should also be recognized as well.

[00:16:31] Now full disclosure and judge if you must, my favorite movies of last year were Spider-Man

[00:16:36] across the Spider-Verse, Past Lives and Guardians of the Galaxy of Volume 3.

[00:16:40] And yes, I realize I'm probably the only person to put that in my top three, let alone

[00:16:44] my top ten.

[00:16:45] But to be completely honest, it's because I got a more

[00:16:48] emotion and more investment out of a movie like that and the characters within, then I ever did a movie like Maestro,

[00:16:55] which personally I consider it to be

[00:16:58] pretentious Oscar bait.

[00:17:00] If we were to take Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse,

[00:17:03] in my opinion, I think it's a lot more artistic and a lot more engaging than a movie like Maestro,

[00:17:09] but it would never even be put into the best picture conversation versus a movie like Maestro because A. it's animated and B. it's about a superhero.

[00:17:18] And that to me is such a shame. I'm glad it's nominated for Best Animated Feature. I'm glad it has a shot at winning Best Animated Feature, but to not nominate a better movie than another movie just so that you can

[00:17:31] appease producers like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, in my opinion it speaks to what's

[00:17:37] wrong with the Oscars. It's about appeasing who you know, it's about looking deep or pretending to look deep, then it actually

[00:17:46] is about rewarding the quality of a movie or whether a movie's good or not. Even something like

[00:17:51] Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Now, by no means do I think that should have been nominated for best

[00:17:56] picture, but even a technical award like Best Makeup. In my opinion, the craftsmanship, the amount of

[00:18:02] hours that they put into creating the creatures of counter-earth or the high evolutionary

[00:18:07] It's so much more involved and so much

[00:18:11] Harder to do than a movie like let's say golda or putting a false nose on Bradley Cooper for my strobe

[00:18:17] And yet it wasn't even put on the Oscar short list whereas the other two movies were nominated, to me that really comes down to

[00:18:26] one thing only, which is probably anti-marvel bias, or the fact that they're trying to look like

[00:18:32] they don't consider Marvel cinema, so that they can please people like Martin Scorsese.

[00:18:38] And that superficial reason diminishes the amount of work that is put into the craftsmanship of making these

[00:18:46] movies, which is a real shame.

[00:18:48] It's no longer about the quality or the work itself.

[00:18:51] It's just about something superficial and hollow or trying to follow a trend like dissing

[00:18:56] Marvel movies or something.

[00:18:59] And that's a real pity.

[00:19:01] Even something like stunt work.

[00:19:02] We have yet to receive a stunt category within the Oscars,

[00:19:06] but we've got one for casting for some reason, despite the fact that people who put in the work

[00:19:12] and the effort into making movies like John Wick come to life and pop will never get recognized

[00:19:18] for their contributions, simply because maybe the Academy doesn't consider stunt work really worthy of the Oscars,

[00:19:27] despite the fact that it's great. It's part of filmmaking.

[00:19:30] So in conclusion, I do think that there is something of a bias when it comes to Oscar voters,

[00:19:37] and it's why we see the same old movies that really pander to the Academy, Oscar bait,

[00:19:43] if you will, being nominated every single year.

[00:19:46] I do wish that the Academy would be a little bit more open-minded

[00:19:50] about animated movies and superhero movies and movies

[00:19:53] that really do have wonderful craftsmanship

[00:19:56] but get ignored because of the genres that they're part of,

[00:19:59] whether it's horror or comedy or what have you.

[00:20:03] And just go back to rewarding movies because they're

[00:20:09] great because the quality and the craftsmanship behind them are great and less about who you're

[00:20:15] going to please and who you're going to attract for viewers and trying to look deep and trying

[00:20:21] to look political. Just reward the movies that deserve it because

[00:20:27] they are amazing and spectacular feats of art and good quality.

[00:20:32] All right, Sean, I thought.

[00:20:35] Well, yeah, we're coming in hot and heavy and yeah, I love it.

[00:20:40] That is a kindred soul because I feel the same way. Yeah.

[00:20:45] You know, the movies that we obviously cover over at the universe are not viewed as being

[00:20:53] artistic in any way.

[00:20:55] And I would say that.

[00:20:57] That's often not fair.

[00:20:59] Exactly.

[00:21:00] Especially Guardians of the Galaxy.

[00:21:02] Exactly.

[00:21:03] Into the Spider-Verse still remains my favorite movie of the Galaxy. Exactly. Into the Spider-Verse, still remains my favorite movie of the year.

[00:21:08] Mm-hmm.

[00:21:09] It's your kind of best picture nomination.

[00:21:12] Yeah, right.

[00:21:13] I'm just at a loss for words that isn't considered one of the best films of the year.

[00:21:22] Yeah.

[00:21:23] I mean, there was some buzz around it,

[00:21:25] actually. There was some buzz around it, like, that it might break through and best picture that it

[00:21:31] might break through in score and song and a few other places, VFX even. Right. And I said into

[00:21:40] a excuse me, I'm in a cross, of course, but it's the best film that I watch this year, in 2023,

[00:21:49] hands down.

[00:21:50] There's nothing that comes close to the story to me.

[00:21:54] And there's nothing that comes close to the visuals.

[00:21:56] And if you can marry story individuals,

[00:22:00] then I don't understand how you can't say, you know what?

[00:22:05] It's time to change our narrow mindedness

[00:22:09] and really reward people for doing the art

[00:22:15] that they're actually doing.

[00:22:17] Right, and I would say the same thing about comedies too,

[00:22:20] that comedies need to,

[00:22:22] but people need to be less novice about them.

[00:22:24] Would you? Yeah.

[00:22:25] Would you put Guardians of the Galaxy 3 in your top 10 of the year?

[00:22:28] Yes. It wouldn't be in my top three, but it's in my top 10.

[00:22:31] Okay.

[00:22:32] And you know I'm not a guardian guy.

[00:22:34] No, that's true. That's true. So that said something.

[00:22:37] Right.

[00:22:38] So yeah, he mentioned also stunting casting categories.

[00:22:42] So the story behind that is, yeah, there is no stunt category. And a lot of people think there should be for good

[00:22:47] reason. The BAFTA's had stunt category, even though they award those while

[00:22:52] people in the red carpet, they don't show that part. But there is a casting.

[00:22:57] So the the academy has different branches and there is a casting branch.

[00:23:01] And they've been lobbying for a long time for an award.

[00:23:05] So next year there's going to be a casting award and people have mixed feelings about

[00:23:11] it like, okay, there's a branch that didn't have an award.

[00:23:13] There's another one still, marketing.

[00:23:15] But yeah, and people aren't sure, is this going to be like rewarding an ensemble kind

[00:23:20] of award?

[00:23:21] How is this going to be treated?

[00:23:22] So it's going to be very interesting to see how that plays out.

[00:23:25] Right.

[00:23:26] But I think they should have a category for study.

[00:23:29] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:23:30] Because folks are just as important to many films as anyone else on site.

[00:23:36] And they should be recognized for the work that they do.

[00:23:39] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:23:40] They should be celebrated for the work.

[00:23:42] Yeah, the BAFTA winners, by the way, were mission impossible and on the TV side, the

[00:23:47] Last of Us, which I think is very worthy.

[00:23:50] Yeah, that's fair.

[00:23:51] That's fair.

[00:23:52] I wouldn't quibble with that at all.

[00:23:54] And I also agree with Mike that I would have loved to have seen Guardians of the Galaxy

[00:23:58] and Makeup over Maestro and especially Golda, but we'll get to that later on. How don't you have a film like

[00:24:05] audience as a nominee for makeup?

[00:24:08] Like how is that even possible?

[00:24:11] Yeah, I know.

[00:24:13] I don't always snub marvel in those but

[00:24:16] for some reason this year I think just

[00:24:18] that it I think it's the negative story

[00:24:20] around like marvel in general indeed.

[00:24:22] A team getting things are going to be right.

[00:24:24] Exactly. I do think they're getting better about expanding their horizons in general at the Academy

[00:24:30] and whether it gets nominated for Oscars like you know David and I've talked about

[00:24:33] those more international films also you know we have poor things as one of the big nominees

[00:24:38] this year we had everywhere everywhere all at once and Paras parasite is winners and these would see be seen as definitely outside the Academy norm so right um it's four things outside the

[00:24:50] Academy norm so well I would say just because it's fanciful it's you know

[00:24:57] it's weird and sci-fi-ish hmm It's not a coming of age drama, you know, right?

[00:25:06] Right.

[00:25:07] Where we often make the jokes about being.

[00:25:10] When I haven't watched it, and when I saw it, I very much thought it was something that

[00:25:16] the Oscars would look at.

[00:25:18] When I read about it and it, you know, background on the film and who it stars and yeah story itself you know it

[00:25:28] didn't interest me but I felt that this was the type of story given the players around it that

[00:25:36] would get noticed noticed by the Oscars. Yeah I mean it's it's got a great cast but yeah that

[00:25:42] the Oscars are guilty of that about favoring, especially

[00:25:45] Satan in the short films.

[00:25:47] The films with the famous people get more attention.

[00:25:52] So but let's dive into the category where the blockbusters, including one of Mike's

[00:25:57] favorites are King.

[00:26:00] So that's VFX.

[00:26:02] And the five nominees for VFX are Guardians of the Galaxy 3,

[00:26:06] which was the VFX done by a team of studios,

[00:26:09] the creator, industrial light and magic,

[00:26:12] Napoleon, industrial light and magic,

[00:26:14] Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, Industrial Light and Magic,

[00:26:17] and Godzilla minus one to host studios

[00:26:20] by the legendary director Takashi Yamazaki.

[00:26:23] And yes, you probably noticed that I was saying one name a lot.

[00:26:30] Yes.

[00:26:32] So yeah, ILM Industrial Light and Magic is kind of dominating this, the VFX industry in the

[00:26:39] US.

[00:26:40] And one of the SFX supervisors has three chances to win this year and another has two chances to win.

[00:26:47] That's insane.

[00:26:48] That's insane.

[00:26:50] But the last time when I think about another studio

[00:26:54] that was like that, there was a studio called Rhythm and Hughes

[00:26:56] and they were just dominating and raid around the time

[00:27:00] that they won an Oscar for Life of Pi.

[00:27:03] They went bankrupt because Oh, wow.

[00:27:06] They were just being stretched too thin and that really hasn't gotten much better.

[00:27:09] Wow.

[00:27:10] Yeah.

[00:27:11] So who do you think?

[00:27:12] What do you think?

[00:27:13] What are your sentiments lie with this category?

[00:27:16] Well, so this is the only category today with not a single best picture nominee

[00:27:20] in sight.

[00:27:20] So we haven't talked about any of these movies yet in Oscar terms, but we have covered three of them in full in this podcast.

[00:27:27] Now, Jean-Pierre and I and David, we covered Guardians of the Galaxy three twice and the creator.

[00:27:34] And David and I covered Napoleon.

[00:27:37] Did you get to watch Napoleon?

[00:27:39] I did.

[00:27:40] Yeah, what did you do?

[00:27:41] I've watched all of these five.

[00:27:43] Okay. Okay. Great.

[00:27:44] What are your thoughts on on this category?

[00:27:47] Um, for me, the clear winner is the creator.

[00:27:52] Yeah, I agree.

[00:27:54] Just yeah, I just think that that movie, I can turn off the sound and just watch it.

[00:28:02] Yeah. In silence.

[00:28:08] turn off the sound and just watch it. Yeah. In silence. Just watch the screen as it shifts from scene to scene. And if something, if a film does what this film does or did for

[00:28:17] me, which is leave an impression with Nomad where that site of that ship is something that I will never forget

[00:28:30] whenever I'm watching film.

[00:28:32] Yeah, no, I agree. It stuck in my head. And I, it's just the sci-fi elements

[00:28:38] look so natural and blended into the environment.

[00:28:41] Yeah.

[00:28:42] That's why when we were talking about that film, you're saying the royal building is what you want to see more. You want to see more things?

[00:28:47] Absolutely.

[00:28:49] Yeah.

[00:28:50] Absolutely. Go ahead.

[00:28:52] Well, I was just going, I mentioned when we covered it, but I do think there's some

[00:28:56] inspiration from the art style of Simon Stalenha, a Swedish artist who's best known for tales

[00:29:03] of the loop. So if you like this style, look that up.

[00:29:07] I mean, it's not to say anything negative about the other films, because I think the

[00:29:14] other four were, like, if I ranked them in order, the creator would be number one for

[00:29:20] me.

[00:29:21] Guardians would be number two.

[00:29:24] Okay. one for me, guardians would be number two.

[00:29:25] Okay.

[00:29:25] Godzilla would be number three.

[00:29:29] Michigan possible would be four,

[00:29:31] and Napoleon would be five.

[00:29:33] Okay, okay.

[00:29:34] I also wish that,

[00:29:36] Spider-Verse were in here, rebel moon.

[00:29:39] Oh, of course.

[00:29:39] I think it's okay that rebel moon's out,

[00:29:41] but it wasn't contender.

[00:29:43] Poor things could have been in here.

[00:29:44] And also society, the snow, just for that playing crash alone.

[00:29:49] But yeah, I mean,

[00:29:50] I can't besides anyone in the lineup.

[00:29:53] Yeah, the spider verse is really lacking.

[00:29:58] Dreams at you.

[00:29:59] Yeah.

[00:30:00] When you saw, when I saw the category,

[00:30:02] when I saw it, it screamed at me like,

[00:30:04] huh? Yeah. Like what screamed at me like, huh?

[00:30:05] Like, what's going on here?

[00:30:08] Right.

[00:30:09] Did you blend together?

[00:30:10] Like hundreds of different worlds of animation.

[00:30:13] Like, what, what are we doing here?

[00:30:15] So that is, you know, the biggest slide I think of this entire Oscar season.

[00:30:22] Okay.

[00:30:23] Even, you're like, forget Greta and Margot. It's it's a yeah.

[00:30:28] Vitamin VFX. Yeah, yeah. Okay, fair enough. But yeah, of then once it are nominated,

[00:30:34] I spoke to some VFX artists and they are also rooting for the creator, just FYI.

[00:30:41] Wow, okay. Okay. I did try to get an interview with the VFX artists, but it's actually it's a

[00:30:47] really tough time for them to talk to us because first of all, the industry is getting hit by

[00:30:53] strike lag, you know, when they were working while the actors and writers were on strike,

[00:30:57] but the productions were stopped. So now the pipeline of work has dried up and there's a lot of layoffs and the like going on and

[00:31:08] there's also a lot of below the line so to speak contracts are including VFX contracts are up

[00:31:17] at the end of July so they have their own potential strike looming.

[00:31:21] Wow. Wow. Yeah. Speaking of VFX conditions, the story of this season,

[00:31:28] you know, and the Oscars loves its stories, is that the Godzilla VFX was done by a team of only

[00:31:35] 35 artists on a 15 million total budget for the film. So, you know, there's a lot of people worried

[00:31:41] about them that they're clearly overworked and underpaid.

[00:31:50] This is obviously in Japan where there is just an even more insane work ethic than in the years.

[00:31:57] But they created something incredible and it's probably probably going to be the winner, I think. You think it's going to be crazy.

[00:31:58] Yeah, I think it's, first of all, it's a chance to reward a widely loved film.

[00:32:04] And it's also people are impressed by this story of how cheaply they made it.

[00:32:10] And it's also the other interesting story is that Takashi Yamazaki,

[00:32:16] if he wins, he would be the first director to win in this category since

[00:32:19] Stanley Kubrick did in 2001 Space Odyssey.

[00:32:22] And that was Stanley Kubrick's only Oscar by the way so.

[00:32:26] Wow I don't think it's gonna be because of that thing it's gonna be Napoleon.

[00:32:30] You think Napoleon? I don't know I think.

[00:32:32] I think it's gonna be Napoleon.

[00:32:33] I don't know I don't know that there's just not the love.

[00:32:35] This is what this is. I know there's not a love for Napoleon among the people but this is the type

[00:32:42] of film that they always recognize.

[00:32:46] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:32:47] I think it's going to be Napoleon.

[00:32:49] All right.

[00:32:50] I mean, because in Godzilla, by the way, it's not just the Kaiju, it's the fact that there's

[00:32:54] been this real circulating that which the entire cities were built with CGI and so realistic.

[00:33:01] I actually didn't realize that.

[00:33:02] I didn't know that.

[00:33:03] That's amazing.

[00:33:04] Mm-hmm.

[00:33:05] I mean, the entire film is gorgeous,

[00:33:08] but it's gonna be Napoleon.

[00:33:11] Yeah, all right, all right, we'll see.

[00:33:13] So one person who's definitely rooting for Godzilla

[00:33:15] is lifelong Godzilla fan, Adrian.

[00:33:18] And he explains why.

[00:33:20] Hello, my name is Adrian, and I feel electric

[00:33:24] about talking Godzilla with you today.

[00:33:26] Alicia and David, please insert the Conan and Brian

[00:33:29] needs a friend to theme music here unless you don't want to get sued.

[00:33:32] Which case you can just leave this in until the audience

[00:33:35] use their imagination.

[00:33:37] There's a scene in the original 1954 version of Godzilla

[00:33:40] in which a man breaks it to his partner that he can't attend a concert

[00:33:44] because he has to investigate a boat that disappeared.

[00:33:47] It's such a small moment, but since it's one of the first scenes in the movie it sets

[00:33:51] up the tone well.

[00:33:53] This is going to be a film about humans that has monsters in it, not the other way around.

[00:33:58] Subsequent Godzilla movies seem to lean more on the monsters, but in my heart this one

[00:34:02] said the template.

[00:34:03] I'd seen monster movies growing up, them, Frankenstein, creature from the black lagoon,

[00:34:09] but Godzilla was the first time I remember thinking the monster was cool.

[00:34:13] Godzilla had a personality, had something that made it mad.

[00:34:16] It was terrifying to look at both because of its size and its similar focus on destruction.

[00:34:22] And then there was the sound, my God the sound. Godzilla's

[00:34:26] roar would be the defining movie sound from me until I saw Star Wars, when Darth Vader's

[00:34:31] breeding became the template for terror. As I said over the years other Godzilla movies

[00:34:36] came, both from Japan and the United States. The Japanese ones I saw seemed to lean into katruva years, at least in my opinion, until 2016's

[00:34:45] wonderful Shen Godzilla, and the American ones, mmm.

[00:34:50] I watched them all because they were Godzilla, but I never felt any connection to them.

[00:34:54] In fact, I wound up actively disliking them because they felt like a betrayal to the original

[00:35:00] magic that I felt.

[00:35:02] So I turned my eyes back towards Japan in the hopes of getting a good Godzilla movie.

[00:35:06] And in 2023 my hopes were fulfilled with Godzilla-1.

[00:35:11] I won't go into detail if you have spawned the movie for folks that haven't seen it,

[00:35:16] but I will touch on some reasons why it made my top 10 and likely top 5 of that year.

[00:35:21] Just like the original Godzilla, it's a movie about humans that happens to have a monster in it. You are introduced to some very real,

[00:35:29] very dimensional characters early on in the film. A fighter pilot, a group of

[00:35:35] people that survived the horrific bombing of Tokyo, other citizens of the city.

[00:35:40] What slowly emerges is a film about guilt, honor, trauma, family, and choice that is somehow

[00:35:47] propelled by a gigantic monster that, like its predecessors, destroys the ever-living

[00:35:52] shit out of things.

[00:35:54] But to me what is at the core of Godzilla-minus-one is a redemption.

[00:35:58] From the eventual redemption of a couple of characters to the larger redemption of the

[00:36:03] people in the city, there is a hope that drives this movie far beyond your standard blockbuster.

[00:36:08] And incredibly, that redemption doesn't come at the expense of the very large,

[00:36:13] very terrifying, very destructive monster that has a body count in thousands.

[00:36:18] Instead, Godzilla is the impetus for much of that redemption,

[00:36:21] both on a micro and macro level. Let's see Iron Man Thor, etc. do that.

[00:36:28] I kid, but also I don't.

[00:36:30] If you haven't seen Godzilla minus one,

[00:36:32] you should rent, buy, stream, whatever it takes.

[00:36:35] Don't miss out on this amazing film.

[00:36:37] It's one for the ages.

[00:36:39] OK, who else thinks that van could have a career in ASMR? So at least you know books are listening to books or something.

[00:36:52] Yeah, I can listen to it.

[00:36:54] You all wrote your name.

[00:36:55] I need to watch Shin Godzilla.

[00:36:57] Have you seen that one?

[00:36:58] Yes, I've watched every Godzilla.

[00:37:01] Okay, so you are also a big Godzilla fan in general? Yeah, from when I was a kid,

[00:37:07] everything's giving in New York City, they would have Godzilla and King Kong shows,

[00:37:15] movies on either China 11 or China 9, and everything's given from 10 o'clock to four o'clock.

[00:37:25] I'd be in front of the television watching Godzilla.

[00:37:29] Oh, cool.

[00:37:30] Yeah.

[00:37:31] Yeah.

[00:37:32] Are you going to go see Godzilla vs Kong?

[00:37:34] Yes, I will.

[00:37:35] Yeah.

[00:37:36] So I was...

[00:37:37] Yes, I will.

[00:37:38] I personally, I've written off Godzilla movies and I've made, you know, dismissed that film

[00:37:43] even on this podcast.

[00:37:44] But Godzilla minus one got

[00:37:47] me back in with indeed.

[00:37:48] I love what Adrian said about this is a film about humans and as monsters in it, not the

[00:37:53] other way around.

[00:37:54] Right.

[00:37:55] But now I'm looking at the Godzilla versus Kong trailers and I'm like, this is pure.

[00:38:01] So one of the branches of the AODR, the Academy of Death Racers is the Kino branch,

[00:38:06] which is like, I can only define as the most

[00:38:10] bombastically fun movies, like this.

[00:38:13] This film is so, you know, this is ridiculous.

[00:38:16] I cannot do this.

[00:38:19] I mean, you know, that's the thing.

[00:38:20] You can get pose, right?

[00:38:23] You can have something like Godzilla minus one,

[00:38:26] and you could have the bombast of Godzilla, Kong,

[00:38:31] you went by, you know what I mean?

[00:38:33] Yeah, yeah.

[00:38:34] That's the beauty of film, I think.

[00:38:39] You can have something, you can have the same character

[00:38:42] do so many different things,

[00:38:44] and you just get to choose, it's nice to get to choose which one you

[00:38:47] appreciate you know what I mean instead of you know being shoehorned and to

[00:38:51] watching one thing and saying ah this is not for me maybe a different take on

[00:38:55] a character will be the one that's for you and I think that's pretty cool for

[00:39:00] somebody somebody I speak of Godzilla like like a person, for Godzilla to be around for so long,

[00:39:10] you know, gives and lends it to different interpretations.

[00:39:14] And I think that's really cool.

[00:39:16] Yeah, no, that's true.

[00:39:18] It is a very versatile character

[00:39:20] and Godzilla in minus one is definitely a film

[00:39:22] that shows that, that shows what's possible with it. So yeah if you want to watch these nominees yourself I'm sorry

[00:39:28] Godzilla in minus one is the is the only one you can't really readily watch

[00:39:33] everyone's trying to find it but we have to be patient Japan will take their time

[00:39:39] to get it out on digital on streaming but you can watch Guardians of the

[00:39:43] Galaxy 3 and the creator on Disney

[00:39:45] and or Hulu. You can watch Napoleon on Apple, Mission Impossible on Paramount or Skyshowtime

[00:39:52] or whatever your equivalent is. So most of these are available to watch right away. And it brings

[00:39:58] us to another technical category that actually decides how an entire film turns out and that's film

[00:40:06] editing and the nominees in this category are Oppenheimer with film editor

[00:40:12] Jennifer Lame for Things with Jorgos Mavropsi.

[00:40:19] I'm gonna do this.

[00:40:21] Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

[00:40:23] Mavrops Tsaridis. Mavropsaridis. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Mavorops Tsaridis, mavorops Tsaridis, there we go.

[00:40:27] That's it.

[00:40:29] Killies of the Flower Moon with Thalma,

[00:40:31] and I know it's pronounced Schoonmaker, I guess, in English,

[00:40:35] but it's actually a Dutch name, Schoonmaker,

[00:40:38] but anyway, Schoonmaker.

[00:40:40] Anatomy of a Fall, Laurent, St. Ischel,

[00:40:42] and the holdovers Kevin Tent.

[00:40:46] So he has funny, the last category,

[00:40:48] no best picture nominees, this category,

[00:40:51] only best picture nominees.

[00:40:53] Right, right.

[00:40:56] I've only seen Oppenheimer and Killev's Flower Moon.

[00:40:59] Okay.

[00:41:01] The holdover, again,

[00:41:03] pour things in the holdovers. I did not, yeah I, again, pour things into holdovers.

[00:41:05] I did not.

[00:41:07] Yeah, I just, I couldn't.

[00:41:08] Oh, okay.

[00:41:10] Well, we'll see if we can change your mind.

[00:41:12] Yeah.

[00:41:12] Yeah.

[00:41:14] One interesting thing about this category

[00:41:16] is you see a lot of really long-term relationships

[00:41:19] with these editors and the directors.

[00:41:20] Because really, like the film really is kind of made

[00:41:23] in the editing room.

[00:41:24] So the two Yorgosas, Lanthamos and Mavropsari

[00:41:28] dis work together and 10th works on every Alexander Payne

[00:41:35] movie, Senes Xiao. This is his third film with Triet and

[00:41:39] Shoemaker has been working with Scorsese for 50 years and

[00:41:43] won, she's won three times, Raging Bull, the Aviator

[00:41:48] and the Departed and she's gotten nine nominations which these are my records for this category.

[00:41:53] Wow, that is amazing.

[00:41:56] But I don't think she's gonna win this year.

[00:41:58] Why? Who do you think is gonna win?

[00:42:00] I think Oppenheimer is gonna win.

[00:42:02] Really?

[00:42:03] Okay.

[00:42:04] Yeah. And if anything then it challenges it, it'll be poor things because I think Oppenheimer is gonna win. Really? Okay. Yeah. And if anything then challenges

[00:42:06] it would be poor things because I think you know all these films have strong editing. There's

[00:42:10] but there's no films like last year the winner was everything everywhere at once and that film

[00:42:14] fell right behind by its editing like that was special effects were made with editing.

[00:42:21] So I think this is just going to come down to people voting for their favorite

[00:42:25] of the top two films overall. I mean, they're both very worthy. Okay.

[00:42:29] Okay. This is another category that where Spider-Verse should have been.

[00:42:33] Yeah, I agree totally. I didn't think about it before. I agree totally.

[00:42:39] I can see Oppertheim and winning. Yeah. Yeah. Just on the taste of Oscar voters.

[00:42:48] in winning. Yeah, yeah. Just on the taste of Oscar voters. Yeah, I mean, it's if it's if it's just got the momentum, people are just going to check it off down the ballot where right

[00:42:53] unless they have a strong feeling otherwise. But poor things is likely to shine in other

[00:42:58] categories, which we will talk about after a short break. OK.

[00:43:19] So yeah, we were saying up and Heimers likely to be a greedy goblin at the Oscars.

[00:43:24] How many do you think they're gonna take?

[00:43:26] Um, I mean, I think we're gonna get at least, at least two acting director best picture.

[00:43:34] Oh boy.

[00:43:37] Well, we'll talk through what else.

[00:43:39] Okay. Okay.

[00:43:40] Okay.

[00:43:41] But I do think that, you know, the visual awards are where surreal,

[00:43:46] candy colored poor things is there to shine, you know?

[00:43:49] It's time to shine.

[00:43:52] Yeah, so, you're going to go to slanthemos.

[00:43:53] He's a director that many love or just don't connect with.

[00:43:57] He's one of my favorite directors

[00:43:59] and poor things feels like a slanthemos movie.

[00:44:02] So, indeed, I can see why some people

[00:44:04] might be more or less into it. It's unabashedly odd, it's explicit, and deeply thought-provoking, but it's also the most

[00:44:11] incredible looking Lanthamos movie yet. And so I asked Abby, she's also a fan of poor things and

[00:44:19] of Lanthamos' English films in general. So I started to talk about the awards it's nominated for

[00:44:26] that we're talking about today and Lanthamos in general.

[00:44:28] So I will play that interview now.

[00:44:31] All right, so I am here with Abby now,

[00:44:34] or should I say, Abby?

[00:44:36] Abby is fine.

[00:44:37] We're just having a big conversation

[00:44:40] about pronunciations in accents.

[00:44:49] Now, Silas and Zinn's will recognize you from our Begin 23 book coverage and of course we have shift and dust coverage coming soon, my auditory editing issues aside.

[00:44:55] And Lourhounds of course will know you as our regular correspondent on our Loki coverage.

[00:45:01] Now you are a Japanese-based Hungarian Romanian film fan. Do I summarize that?

[00:45:07] Yeah, summarize. I'm not Romanian. I'm just from the country is Romania.

[00:45:12] Right, that's why I say Hungarian.

[00:45:15] Yeah, yes.

[00:45:17] Yes.

[00:45:18] Okay.

[00:45:19] But so how would you describe your general taste in film overall?

[00:45:25] Oh my, it's a jumble of everything.

[00:45:29] When I go for entertainment,

[00:45:32] I can watch anything, you know, Marvel and what have you

[00:45:36] and this comic based movies and also, you know, comedies

[00:45:40] and dramas that is like for entertaining

[00:45:44] and then you go serious movies like one Scorsese with Cosinema,

[00:45:49] but not Scorsese because I don't like him very much.

[00:45:54] And hand-shaking meme.

[00:45:56] Yeah. Well, it happens. Right.

[00:45:59] So we all have our preferences.

[00:46:02] But you know, I'm not very picky, but I find lately that I'm not very

[00:46:09] good at watching these big action movies. I just can't tune in with them anymore.

[00:46:15] So you're not going to do the past in the Furious?

[00:46:18] I don't know. Maybe it's an age thing because I watched these kind of things before, you know, all the John Wick's I watched

[00:46:25] upon the last one and I couldn't just, I went halfway when no more, it's enough.

[00:46:32] Oh really? Okay John Wick is my next action franchise I'm going to attack on the next couple of years.

[00:46:36] Oh my.

[00:46:38] Yeah, okay.

[00:46:39] But we're here to talk about poor things and Yordigo Slanthemos a little bit in general.

[00:46:47] And Yordigo Slanthemos, he is a Greek director and it's kind of funny because he spells his

[00:46:52] name.

[00:46:53] Now most Americans would look at his real name and say Georgios, but I haven't to know

[00:46:57] I have friends with that name before it's pronounced Yordigo.

[00:47:01] So he actually changed the spelling of his name for his movies.

[00:47:04] So the people stop mispronouncing it. Oh no, interesting, I didn't know that was all right. You and I,

[00:47:15] we've both seen all of his English language films so that would be the lobster favorite.

[00:47:21] Yeah the lobster the favorite the killing of a sacred deer and poor things are his English language.

[00:47:26] That's, I didn't watch the Greek films yet.

[00:47:31] Yeah.

[00:47:32] I don't know, the doctor think I have it somewhere on my list.

[00:47:36] Yeah, that's, to be honest, dog truth is the only one that I would really recommend to

[00:47:42] anyone other than a length most completionos completionist, but yeah,

[00:47:45] I'll get into that a little bit why in a minute. Would you say that you're overall a Lanthimos fan

[00:47:51] and how would you rank those films, the English language films? Oh, oh, I think, yeah, I like this

[00:47:58] work and it's quite recent that I got into it, I suppose.

[00:48:05] I didn't know about them before,

[00:48:07] but I like the favorite very much.

[00:48:11] Right.

[00:48:11] And kind of favorite.

[00:48:13] So the favorites are favorite.

[00:48:14] It's favorite of my favorite.

[00:48:16] And I went back and watched these other things,

[00:48:19] the movies, yes.

[00:48:20] So yes, the favorite is the favorite.

[00:48:27] So the favorites, the last one he did with Emma Stone and also live your comments in there.

[00:48:29] And this is, yeah.

[00:48:30] I am liking that he's working with the same actors.

[00:48:35] It's going to.

[00:48:37] And do you like better the favorite or poor things now?

[00:48:41] The favorite and then poor things, I think.

[00:48:44] OK.

[00:48:44] After that, I think the lobster.

[00:48:47] Okay. I think I think my ranking would be poor things, the lobster, the favorites,

[00:48:54] and then killing of a sacred deer amongst the English language. And I put dog tooth up

[00:48:58] near the top of that list. Oh, I must watch that. Yeah. Okay. But so why can you tell me briefly what is it that you like so much about poor things? Oh

[00:49:11] Everything I think like it's it's such a weird little story for the start and this whole

[00:49:17] idea of

[00:49:19] going through the development of a

[00:49:23] being from baby to adult while being in an adult body.

[00:49:29] So to speak, it's kind of really weird, but it's an intriguing storytelling, I suppose.

[00:49:39] And you can see that the way she goes through these phases in life,

[00:49:47] And you can see that the way she goes through these phases in life, you know, and it's very interesting to see on this forward and her development as a person, redevelopment

[00:49:55] you want to say.

[00:49:58] And it's also so beautiful.

[00:50:01] I like it.

[00:50:02] You're watching, you're going to the museum and watch like expressionist art or

[00:50:07] something. I watch this movie as like, and there's also this weird lens, the focus of how this is

[00:50:16] being shot. Like it's fantastic. Like it's not a real place really. It doesn't feel like a real place. It's so fantastical.

[00:50:26] It's a little like technical or a thing like, but it's art.

[00:50:30] You're watching it art while, you know,

[00:50:33] getting immersed in the story.

[00:50:34] I love that very much.

[00:50:35] Some people might find this weird.

[00:50:37] I don't know.

[00:50:38] But I love that it's weird.

[00:50:40] Yeah, exactly.

[00:50:40] Honestly, a plus for me.

[00:50:42] Yeah.

[00:50:43] Yeah, same same.

[00:50:44] Well, actually, so this visual design is the reason why we're talking about this movie

[00:50:49] today, rather than in part one, which is, of course, stuffed with interviews as it was.

[00:50:55] But before we get into that, you and I were briefly talking before we started recording

[00:50:59] about some of the negative reviews that we've been seeing.

[00:51:03] So what kind of negative reviews have you been seeing

[00:51:05] and what are your thoughts on those?

[00:51:07] I just saw the one because I didn't go and check out reviews

[00:51:12] when I wanted to go in really virgin.

[00:51:17] Okay, but now I see some doctor wrong person

[00:51:21] saying that this movie is misogynistic

[00:51:24] because she's exploited and has sex and what?

[00:51:30] What? What were these people watching really?

[00:51:34] Like this whole, she has agency through all of it really.

[00:51:41] And it's a prostitution, yes she has agency in that too. She chooses that. Right? Right?

[00:51:49] And she stops the moment she wants to.

[00:51:51] Exactly. She's doing what she wants.

[00:51:53] It's not for a moment that she's forced to do anything really.

[00:51:57] And then she's... what's his name?

[00:52:00] Mark Raffa-lo. Oh, it's character. I don't know the Mark Raffa-lo.

[00:52:03] Yeah, Mark Raffa-lo.

[00:52:04] When he's trying to kind of control her, that's not working for him, right?

[00:52:09] So I don't know how, what are these people watching really?

[00:52:14] And just because you have shocking scenes and it's sex in it,

[00:52:19] and she seems to enjoy it, right? So how is that misogynistic? How? I mean, I just, I don't understand

[00:52:28] like why. Right. Now, so this is a topic that's close to my heart in a way because, because I

[00:52:35] I live in Amsterdam and I was a tour guide in Amsterdam for a long time, including in the Red

[00:52:40] Light District. So I've gotten the opportunity to think a lot about

[00:52:45] the history prostitution and I've gotten the opportunity

[00:52:47] to speak to women and men who work in sex work.

[00:52:52] And so I do get frustrated that overall,

[00:52:56] around the globe, there's this bias against sex work,

[00:52:59] which you know, as people say,

[00:53:00] is the oldest profession for a reason.

[00:53:02] Now, I'm not going to sign up for that work myself,

[00:53:05] but far be it for me to tell someone else what to do with their own body.

[00:53:10] Exactly. Yeah.

[00:53:12] So I appreciate that this film explores it in a somewhat light way, you know,

[00:53:16] you got like a random just kind of walking across the room and a lot of silliness.

[00:53:21] Yeah, it's kind of comedical bit and you know, you like it. Right.

[00:53:24] So yeah. Yeah, It's kind of comedic a bit in light heart. It's kind of silly at point.

[00:53:27] It's also just throwing the light on some serious teams, right?

[00:53:34] Right, exactly. Well, as I said, we're talking about this today because in addition to Best Picture

[00:53:39] Director, supporting actor for Ruffalo, an adapted screenplay, which David and I talked about in part one of the series.

[00:53:45] Poor Things is arguably the strongest contender

[00:53:48] in a bunch of the so-called technical awards

[00:53:52] or we're calling them the Blockbuster Awards.

[00:53:54] It's nominated for cinematography,

[00:53:57] film editing, production design, costume design,

[00:54:00] makeup and hair styling, an original score.

[00:54:02] While Oppenheimer is likely to sweep

[00:54:05] a lot of the Headliner Awards,

[00:54:07] I feel like these categories plus Best Actress,

[00:54:10] maybe Screenplay are where people are most likely

[00:54:14] to honor poor things

[00:54:15] because there is a lot of love for the movie.

[00:54:17] Now this is where I have to bring up Dog Tooth,

[00:54:19] which was, this was Lanthimos' first Oscar nominated film

[00:54:23] nominated for the International

[00:54:25] Award and it actually explores a lot of the same themes as poor things like it's

[00:54:31] about raising people in an environment of control and what is nature versus

[00:54:37] nurture and a lot of things that come back but we have the budget for dog tooth was $250,000 US dollars and the budget for poor things is 35

[00:54:52] million. So that is literally a 14,000 increase in budgets.

[00:54:58] Yeah, but it shows in the quality really. Yeah.

[00:55:03] really see it shows in the quality really. Yeah.

[00:55:07] Yeah, you caught it like I call it a techno color dreamscape.

[00:55:13] But they set up like how would you describe? I keep thinking of especially the ship when they're on the ship and like this even

[00:55:16] the smoke is green. Right. It's a smile. It's like a work of art.

[00:55:21] Yeah. Yeah, it really makes you feel like you're dreaming a

[00:55:24] little bit.

[00:55:25] Apparently they did, they made the sky

[00:55:27] with like LED screens in the background.

[00:55:30] So they were kind of more immersed in this backdrop,

[00:55:33] this world that they were in while they were filming.

[00:55:36] And yeah, the production design is just,

[00:55:39] the costuming, it's a strong contender in costuming,

[00:55:44] strong contender in makeup especially

[00:55:45] because of Willem Dafoe's character

[00:55:48] who has a slight price in her appearance.

[00:55:50] Yeah, and hair, you know, she,

[00:55:52] Emma Stone walking around the whole time.

[00:55:55] Yeah.

[00:55:56] Flowing hair.

[00:55:57] Her black hair down to the butt.

[00:55:58] Yeah.

[00:55:59] Yeah.

[00:56:00] Swinging back and forth in every scene

[00:56:02] where we see her like learning to waddle as a child to walk as a woman.

[00:56:06] Yeah, the cinematography is another really strong point.

[00:56:10] Now, so Lanthamos and cinematographer Robbie Ryan, they selected four lenses to switch between throughout the film.

[00:56:17] And what did you think, Abby, about the use of the fisheye lens in this film?

[00:56:22] Oh, that was so interesting. Not you don't see that in many other movies,

[00:56:27] but it's such a, you know, the surrealness of the world.

[00:56:30] Like it's the fantastic sort of like,

[00:56:35] you are watching from whose eye are you watching this?

[00:56:38] And like, oh, immerse you in a different way, you know,

[00:56:41] world is so interesting.

[00:56:43] Yeah.

[00:56:44] Yeah, I feel like they use the lenses to,

[00:56:47] they switch back and forth between them,

[00:56:49] and especially the fisheye lens, indeed,

[00:56:51] to throw you off and to ask, like,

[00:56:53] whose eyes are we looking through?

[00:56:54] It's a voyeuristic feeling, right?

[00:56:57] Exactly.

[00:56:58] Have you ever seen any of,

[00:56:59] so the movie is based on the book by the same name

[00:57:03] by a Glazuigen writer, a slash artist, Alistair Gray.

[00:57:07] Have you ever seen any of his paintings?

[00:57:10] Oh, he's actually quite...

[00:57:11] His paintings too?

[00:57:12] He's also a painter?

[00:57:13] Oh, so...

[00:57:14] Oh, that's right.

[00:57:15] And it's interesting because his art also has this like

[00:57:19] surreal imagery that with these colors that are so turned up to 11 that it feels unreal and

[00:57:30] also sometimes this sort of fisheye lens effect. So it feels like the cinematography feels like

[00:57:36] another way they're adapting the story. That's interesting. That's great. That's great. And the book

[00:57:42] itself has his drawings, not his paintings, but it also, it is a multimedia

[00:57:47] book.

[00:57:48] I highly recommend anyone who loves a film, look into it.

[00:57:51] Well, another one goes on the list then.

[00:57:55] Okay.

[00:57:57] If you're reading this isn't long enough.

[00:58:02] But Abbe, is there anything else you wanted to shout out about the film, any other highlights

[00:58:06] for you or things that you like?

[00:58:08] Well, if you were to tell your friend who's like, I don't know if this movie's for me,

[00:58:14] why should I watch it?

[00:58:15] What would be your pitch?

[00:58:17] Well, if you like art in general, like, you know, painting. It's a must watch to collect your eyes and to challenge your brain a bit maybe by the subject matter.

[00:58:29] And you know I know that it might not be for everyone because it's quite

[00:58:34] graphic in some parts I suppose. But also it's... It's important. Yes, but it's

[00:58:39] important. I mean the surgery I guess. Yes, yes, sure. But it's not for children, but it's also...

[00:58:48] No.

[00:58:49] It's really... yeah, it blows your brain a bit.

[00:58:52] And sometimes you need that, you know.

[00:58:54] Sinamah.

[00:58:55] Right.

[00:58:56] Yeah, right.

[00:58:58] And it's also... it's not that it's like a...

[00:59:02] It's always the sinamah versus entertainment, and it's not that it's

[00:59:05] not entertaining.

[00:59:06] And it's funny at places that you are in there with the characters and you want to know

[00:59:13] what happens next and how they evolve.

[00:59:16] It's not that it's not entertaining.

[00:59:18] Oh, yeah, it's very entertaining.

[00:59:20] I mean, you get to see...

[00:59:22] It's not a doom and gloom.

[00:59:24] You get to see a lot of people acting foolish. Yeah. I love the side

[00:59:28] characters in this too. Like the, I forget the name of the her female friend she meets on the

[00:59:35] boat. That was actually, it was two men she meets in the book, but in the movie, it's a male and

[00:59:40] the woman is hilarious. At one point Mark Rufflo's character

[00:59:46] goes after her and I won't spoil it but her responses are just delightful. And

[00:59:52] Mark Rufflo was very very good and very funny and this thing like going crazy

[00:59:58] over. So you think that he deserves his best

[01:00:01] actor nominee sorry best supporting actor nomination. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

[01:00:06] Over Willam de Faux, who didn't get one?

[01:00:09] Well, he should have gotten one,

[01:00:12] but you know, it's a tough one, I guess.

[01:00:15] Would you nominate Willam de Faux over Mark Ruffalo,

[01:00:18] or would you say they're tied?

[01:00:20] Maybe tied in a different way.

[01:00:22] There are different roles.

[01:00:23] You need a different role.

[01:00:24] You need a different way, yes.

[01:00:26] How would you describe the Foes character?

[01:00:28] Well, weird, but with a lot of pain.

[01:00:32] And you just get these snippets of what his life must have been with this...

[01:00:39] Right.

[01:00:40] The story about his child, aren't you?

[01:00:41] Oh my gosh.

[01:00:42] It was just really shocking. Like, yeah, interesting.

[01:00:50] Would you say that poor things is your pick for best picture or do you have another movie

[01:00:55] you're rooting for for big parts?

[01:00:57] Well, to be fair, I didn't watch, I'm not a bad racer.

[01:01:00] Okay, there's a lot of movies that we only get available in cinema after they get some words

[01:01:08] Like right so you have a nice no no well because it's not

[01:01:14] No, yeah, but I'm not sure I want to watch it actually. Okay, sorry. I

[01:01:20] Don't know it's maybe not I watched Barbie and I love Barbie.

[01:01:26] Yes. And I'm very sad that she's not nominated for anything.

[01:01:31] The Greta Gerwig. Yeah. Well, she's nominated for adapted screenplay. So she's competing.

[01:01:38] She's competing with this for adapted screenplay. And although it's looking like that might go to American fiction maybe or often Hymer.

[01:01:48] Yeah, okay.

[01:01:49] Well, they are going to throw everything at open Hymer

[01:01:52] and good luck and everything.

[01:01:53] And okay, it's just not, okay,

[01:01:56] I'm not a big fan of the whole subject method.

[01:01:59] Yeah, I say, okay.

[01:02:00] And I believe that it's great.

[01:02:03] Okay, and you know, I have a very love-hate relationship with the director. So I'm not into him.

[01:02:10] Not much.

[01:02:11] What, Nolan? Chris for Nolan?

[01:02:12] Yes, yes. I like some. What is that? The Insta-Steller I liked? Yes. I'm not a big fan of Tenet. Okay, my favorites are Inception and the Prestige, I guess.

[01:02:27] Oh, yeah, yeah, maybe. Yes, not too.

[01:02:30] But I'm not this late. Anyway.

[01:02:33] And I'm so sort of the same with Scorsese too, because I know who, yeah,

[01:02:38] the killers of the whatever, and it's now one.

[01:02:41] I don't watch that because I'm so sorry,

[01:02:45] but he's also using one of the actors

[01:02:48] that I can watch on anything anymore.

[01:02:50] I decided that this contains Leonardo DiCaprio.

[01:02:54] I'm not watching.

[01:02:55] Oh really?

[01:02:55] I'm sorry.

[01:02:56] And it's not starting now.

[01:02:58] I watch that.

[01:02:59] I try.

[01:03:00] Okay, he's just never-

[01:03:02] That's fine.

[01:03:02] I have that with Tom Cruise.

[01:03:04] I have, yeah. He's always tagging a lot of films,

[01:03:08] Scorsese with Decaprio,

[01:03:10] it's a thing, like with the

[01:03:13] Yago Slante-Mossen, Emma Stone.

[01:03:15] Emma Stone, yeah.

[01:03:17] But no, I can't.

[01:03:18] Everyone needs to be used.

[01:03:19] Yeah, fair.

[01:03:23] Well, what were some other films this year that you want to shout out?

[01:03:27] Like you and I were just talking about the Japanese film Monster.

[01:03:30] Monster was all great.

[01:03:32] Yeah.

[01:03:33] Monster was all with my daughter twice and spent the whole day arguing about it.

[01:03:39] So what happened?

[01:03:40] Okay, it's great.

[01:03:42] It's thought provoking.

[01:03:43] Yeah, that one's about two school kids who, well, it's about one school kid in particular.

[01:03:48] And then this, the focus keeps, the perspective keeps shifting.

[01:03:53] So you keep seeing it from another point of view and getting more of this story filled in

[01:03:57] about this whole bullying at school incident. And is it the teachers or the students or,

[01:04:03] you know, any other films

[01:04:05] that you particularly like this year?

[01:04:08] I like the Godzilla minus one.

[01:04:11] Yeah.

[01:04:12] Mm hmm.

[01:04:13] Japan coming in hot this year.

[01:04:14] Yes.

[01:04:15] I like when they throw a lot of money at something then it shows.

[01:04:19] Yeah.

[01:04:20] Yeah.

[01:04:21] Although Godzilla is especially known for half of the movie.

[01:04:24] There's keeping. Some of them are quite substandard and just, you know, just absolutely.

[01:04:30] And yeah, I'm not particularly liking the Hollywood take on the Godzilla, like treating

[01:04:34] it like your neighborhood monster.

[01:04:38] Have you either met one star?

[01:04:41] I don't know.

[01:04:42] Right.

[01:04:43] Yeah.

[01:04:44] Okay. So, have you seen Shin Godzilla? That's the other one. I don't know. Right. Yeah, okay. So...

[01:04:45] Have you seen Shin Godzilla? That's the other one. I haven't watched it yet, but that's the

[01:04:47] other one that people say is very good.

[01:04:50] Oh, my daughter watched all the Godzilla movies before this one.

[01:04:54] He's her friend, and she said that this is a good one. The Shin Godzilla also. But I didn't

[01:04:59] watch it.

[01:05:00] No.

[01:05:01] Okay.

[01:05:02] Not all of them.

[01:05:03] Well, people want more Godzilla. That's another one to watch. Yeah, what was that though? Yeah, little film I liked, it's not nominated for anything, but

[01:05:12] it stayed with me, it was, you know, moved my heart. It was a man named Dotto.

[01:05:20] Oh, okay. If you heard of that? Right. Yeah, that was, yeah.

[01:05:25] It came out last year.

[01:05:26] But that's...

[01:05:27] Yeah, when he's last year.

[01:05:28] I've heard it's really good.

[01:05:29] Yeah, I liked it.

[01:05:31] Yeah, I still...

[01:05:32] That one's still on the list.

[01:05:33] I keep hearing good things.

[01:05:34] That Tom Hanks is at his Tom Hanksiest,

[01:05:37] but like in a grumpy way.

[01:05:39] Yes, yes.

[01:05:40] Well, thank you, Abby, for coming here to chat about

[01:05:44] Lanthymos and Poor Things, a film we both love.

[01:05:47] So everyone, if you haven't seen it yet, watch it. It's got 11 nominations.

[01:05:52] But yeah, be warned. There's a lot of sex. We've touched on it.

[01:05:55] They should pick up some of the, at least some.

[01:05:59] Yeah. Well, thank you so much.

[01:06:01] Thank you, Alicia. See you. So, I have to say that just after we stopped recording, Abby, throughout there, that she

[01:06:07] thinks there's too many biopics, so I said that people will know.

[01:06:11] And she totally backs up a Davey Max story about the opening of The Boy in the Hair,

[01:06:16] and that we talked about last episode.

[01:06:19] And she also gave me a tutorship on how to pronounce, and I'm going to do my best to

[01:06:23] say this correctly.

[01:06:24] Go ahead.

[01:06:25] Shugun.

[01:06:26] Shugun.

[01:06:27] The hit show, NFX, you should be watching and it's also being covered here.

[01:06:31] I'll be actually sitting in this week for it.

[01:06:34] Jean, did you have any thoughts about what Abi and I had to say?

[01:06:38] I mean, I haven't seen any really negative reviews for a poor thing.

[01:06:47] And the sense that I got from talking to different people

[01:06:52] who have seen it, that if anyone thought it was misogynistic

[01:06:56] in any way, they're stupid.

[01:06:58] They're like, yeah, I just really don't know

[01:07:03] why people turning to that viewpoint because everyone who I know

[01:07:12] who's watched it did not have that viewpoint. They felt it was a very empowering film, right?

[01:07:25] So, right, and empowering for the main character,

[01:07:30] not the, you know, the side characters. Like she was empowered to control her, yeah.

[01:07:32] Right, like she was empowered in the film.

[01:07:36] Her choices, her decisions, and her life.

[01:07:39] So I was really, you know, taking it back

[01:07:43] when I heard you and I be discussed like the

[01:07:45] negative reaction to the movie was nothing that I've heard before.

[01:07:51] So I'm interested to know, you know, like those persons who do, who did react negatively

[01:07:59] to it, like what was the, what was their reason that, like what was their reason,

[01:08:05] what did they find so harrowing in her story?

[01:08:10] That would be something that I'll be interested

[01:08:12] in hearing people discuss.

[01:08:15] Yeah, Sexist makes some people very uncomfortable

[01:08:18] and especially the idea of, you know, being free about it.

[01:08:24] Well, it's not the first movie to show people having sex,

[01:08:28] right?

[01:08:29] You know what I mean?

[01:08:30] Like, so what's the hit, right?

[01:08:33] Right, exactly.

[01:08:35] I just don't.

[01:08:36] It just doesn't make sense to me that people

[01:08:39] would have that view.

[01:08:41] But I know that it's a love movie.

[01:08:44] I just couldn't send me just put my cards out on the table. I really

[01:08:49] don't like period pieces. I really don't like European period.

[01:08:56] Unless they're, you know, fantasy. My babies. Yeah. You know,

[01:09:02] they have the USA fantasy, something like five, something.

[01:09:07] But just, you know, European, Western, period pieces, they're not my thing.

[01:09:14] I just don't, I feel...

[01:09:16] Are you ever played for you, perhaps?

[01:09:18] Yes, yes, that's exactly what it is.

[01:09:21] I've been inundated throughout my life with this cultural, you know,

[01:09:27] in-depth cultural, what's the word I'm looking for?

[01:09:31] Exploration of Western, you know, culture, Western society

[01:09:37] that I just don't, it's not something

[01:09:40] that I relish watching anymore.

[01:09:43] You know, like that's one thing that I know

[01:09:45] that has changed for me.

[01:09:47] Like, I couldn't watch sentence and sensibility today.

[01:09:52] Okay.

[01:09:54] Oh, now we're going after 10-hour sentences.

[01:09:57] Five in my heart.

[01:09:59] I couldn't watch that film today.

[01:10:01] I just couldn't.

[01:10:02] All right.

[01:10:03] You know, and I think that's my hesitation

[01:10:06] towards, you know, a film like Porte.

[01:10:08] Yeah.

[01:10:10] Even with Napoleon, you know,

[01:10:12] I didn't really enjoy the film.

[01:10:16] I wanted to see it because of the historical aspect

[01:10:19] of Napoleon's story and being Haitian American.

[01:10:23] It's, you know, a story that's near and dear to me.

[01:10:28] But they skipped over that stuff anyway.

[01:10:30] Exactly.

[01:10:31] Exactly.

[01:10:32] Although maybe we're our version.

[01:10:36] Oh, there's a four hour version?

[01:10:37] Is that the main version?

[01:10:39] Oh, wow, okay.

[01:10:40] Maybe they will cover that.

[01:10:42] So we'll see.

[01:10:43] But that was the main reason that I watched it.

[01:10:48] Like I couldn't watch. Yeah, I just, that's my thing. That's my thing. So

[01:10:56] But I have to say about poor things is that it is, I mean, it's dressed the production design and the costuming and everything. It's all

[01:11:07] very, it's all very Victorian influenced, but I wouldn't call it steampunk because it

[01:11:13] doesn't have that like gear motif, but it's a very modern take and the way that Bella acts

[01:11:20] and the way that she interacts with people. It's a Victorian inspiration, modern realization.

[01:11:30] And actually, the book itself wasn't written in Victorian times either, it was written just

[01:11:35] a few decades ago. So, I didn't know. But as I said, David did see, watched his film today. So he sent over a few notes.

[01:11:46] And so his reaction to the film was,

[01:11:48] the writing for Defoe is hilarious.

[01:11:50] So many parenting themes that take me back

[01:11:53] love the inversion of the Frankenstein story.

[01:11:56] It's like an adult version of a West Anderson movie,

[01:11:58] which I think is pretty fair.

[01:12:02] He says, what an extraordinary film operates

[01:12:04] on so many levels, Defoe should have been nominated.

[01:12:07] It's a shame that the sex and prostitution angles got so much discussion when there's just one part

[01:12:11] of a many faceted tale. I think, other than Oppenheimer, a better pairing is Barbie and poor things in

[01:12:17] terms of self discovery and actualization, exploring the world and then back to the self again.

[01:12:24] exploring the world and then back to the self again. That's deep stuff for David.

[01:12:27] Yeah.

[01:12:28] See?

[01:12:29] You should watch it.

[01:12:31] And for disclosure number two, I'm not a big Emma Stone fan.

[01:12:36] Oh, no.

[01:12:38] Yeah.

[01:12:39] Yeah.

[01:12:40] Yeah.

[01:12:41] I'm sorry guys.

[01:12:42] I'm sorry.

[01:12:43] Dear.

[01:12:44] Yeah. It is very Emma Stone. Yeah, I'm sorry guys. I'm sorry. Dear this year. I love her things.

[01:12:45] Yeah.

[01:12:46] It is very Emma Stone.

[01:12:47] But she gives a performance of her career, you know, because she has to evolve throughout

[01:12:54] the movie, basically.

[01:12:56] I mean, like I said, I've not heard anything negative about her performance or about the

[01:13:02] film.

[01:13:03] You know, everything that I've heard is

[01:13:05] duty positive and maybe in five years I'll watch it.

[01:13:10] Okay, okay, fair enough.

[01:13:11] Maybe.

[01:13:14] But yeah, so thank you again, Abi,

[01:13:16] for talking to me about poor things.

[01:13:18] Although I do humbly acknowledge that poor things

[01:13:20] is not the only worthy nominee in these categories.

[01:13:23] So let's run through these production design categories starting with production design.

[01:13:30] And so the production design nominees are Oppenheimer, poor things,

[01:13:36] killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, and Napoleon. And I just want to make a note here that a lot

[01:13:42] of people confuse production design in cinematography.

[01:13:45] So cinematography is basically about how the camera is positioned and used and how it moves things like that and

[01:13:55] Production design is about what the camera captures. So the production designer is the one who's responsible for deciding

[01:14:01] this is how the movie is going to look overall and

[01:14:05] who's responsible for deciding this is how the movie's gonna look overall. And... Barbie.

[01:14:07] Well, this category I was gonna say is basically poor things to lose and less Barbie sneaks in.

[01:14:12] Barbie. Yeah.

[01:14:14] Have to be Barbie.

[01:14:15] It's definitely between those two, I would say. But if killers of the Flower Moon looks like

[01:14:22] there will be blood to anybody, it's because the production designer Fisk most often collaborates with Terence Malek.

[01:14:31] And yeah, a lot of these production designers and set decorators have had multiple nominations,

[01:14:36] all worthy, but yeah, I missed films like Zone of Interest and Saltburn, could have

[01:14:42] also been in here.

[01:14:43] Okay. And then so moving to a branch of the production design is costume.

[01:14:48] So the nominees in the costume category are Oppenheimer, poor things, killers of the Flower

[01:14:53] Moon, Barbie and Napoleon.

[01:14:56] And I've actually kind of been low-key rooting for Napoleon in this category ever since I

[01:15:00] saw that film.

[01:15:01] Really?

[01:15:02] Yeah, because it's just...

[01:15:03] Why?

[01:15:04] Well, because I'm into the history and so I really appreciated the detail and accuracy of the

[01:15:10] costumes and the makeup and the hair of Napoleon. Like, they really nailed that and had some spectacular

[01:15:17] pieces that worked perfectly, worked better than the script. I mean, you're right, but Barbie.

[01:15:21] works better than the script. I mean, you're right, but Barbie.

[01:15:26] Well, I also think that this one will probably go to poor things, but

[01:15:30] really could be could be Barbie.

[01:15:32] Killers of the Flower Moon was also is a good contender because there's a lot of rich authenticity.

[01:15:38] And by the way, that is yes.

[01:15:40] Yes.

[01:15:41] Kathleen West, the costume designer

[01:15:45] is also the costume designer on Dune Part Two.

[01:15:48] So she might get it next year.

[01:15:49] Oh, wow.

[01:15:50] Yeah.

[01:15:51] And yeah, I don't know.

[01:15:52] Yeah, the poor things is just like Victorian for millennials.

[01:15:55] Like that it's taking a look that I adore and updating it.

[01:15:59] And it's done well at precursor awards.

[01:16:01] So I think there's a good chance.

[01:16:03] But yeah, as you say Barbies

[01:16:05] another strong contender in this category but it just feels like yeah

[01:16:09] with the bar there's the Barbie costumes and then the poor things costumes like

[01:16:13] kind of turn that off another level so okay poor things is somehow a little

[01:16:18] showier than even Barbie so yeah related category, makeup and hair styling, the nominees are Oppenheimer,

[01:16:26] poor things, Maestro, Society of the Snow, and Golda. So Mike referenced Golda earlier

[01:16:35] when he was talking about the audience of Galaxy and not being nominated here. And I agree,

[01:16:40] it should have been nominated instead of Golda. The deathbracers are considering

[01:16:46] mostly Golda the biggest clunker of this year. Wow. Yeah, it's so it's directed by a

[01:16:53] guy native and written by Nicholas Martin and it's Helen Mirren stars as Golda Mir

[01:16:59] who is the fourth Prime Minister of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. And it's just, it's uncomfortable for a lot of people to watch,

[01:17:08] not just because of the current politics,

[01:17:09] or the definitely that makes it awkward,

[01:17:11] but it just feels tone deaf in general.

[01:17:14] And sometimes, like, some of the things that the characters say

[01:17:17] are like, come across as a little offensive,

[01:17:20] but the worst part is that it's just...

[01:17:22] On purpose or...?

[01:17:24] No... Not knowing that it's just on purpose or

[01:17:33] Not knowing that it's offensive I mean I think I think the idea is that like Golda would have said it that way

[01:17:35] Okay But it's it's just boring on top, you know, it's just my eyes glazed over

[01:17:40] It's really a painful watch for me just because oh boy. Oh my god

[01:17:43] glazed over. It was really a painful watch for me just because oh boy. Oh my god. And this is how a lot of people, not

[01:17:46] everybody obviously it has its fans. But it is the one that

[01:17:50] people are complaining about the most in the death race. Okay.

[01:17:54] But this is the makeup category. And I do have to say the makeup on

[01:17:59] Mirin was transformative. They made her look like gold

[01:18:03] Amir and they had the right like

[01:18:06] speckling to blend the makeup and the prosthetics and the right jiggle and the

[01:18:10] jowls they added and but to Mike's point you know what else featured

[01:18:14] transformative makeup? Guardians of the Galaxy. Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

[01:18:18] I mean just think about Mantis. So who do you have winning this category? Oh so by

[01:18:24] the way anyone want to watch Golda it's on VOD. Who I have winning. Well, okay, so my show was considered the

[01:18:31] front runner at the start of the season, but there's been a lot of backlash against that film in

[01:18:34] general. And also like Cooper's choice to make the next year. Yeah. But it's also they did good aging makeup. Yeah, I don't know. Oppenheimer, I said that they

[01:18:49] would win a lot of categories because they've got the overall momentum, but I don't know that it

[01:18:54] especially stood out in the makeup category. The reason why it's nominated is because they had this

[01:18:59] huge cast of characters who had to be aged over time. So it's basically right aging nomination. I think there is a good

[01:19:07] chance for things will win. It's been doing well and awards up

[01:19:10] to here and especially to foes makeup, you know, he plays

[01:19:13] his Frankenstein character with and that's a really elaborate

[01:19:17] makeup. And also the other thing people are talking about is

[01:19:20] Bella's evolving hair, which like changes with her

[01:19:23] characterization over time. And I kind of I like that idea because the hair part often gets

[01:19:29] forgotten in the hair and makeup ward since they combined it into one, they used to be separate.

[01:19:34] But the one I've been rooting for is four things.

[01:19:37] No, the one I've been rooting for is Society of the Snow.

[01:19:41] Really?

[01:19:41] Because yeah, so they that's the film about the soccer team that got lost. Yes. Yes. And as

[01:19:49] they're starving, it's just so impressively done like the freezing and the starving and you really

[01:19:54] see these guys wasting away. And that's also why it should have gotten a VFX award. And the makeup

[01:20:00] was done by the team Marti and Ruby Bay, who won previously for Pan's Labyrinth.

[01:20:05] So

[01:20:06] there.

[01:20:06] Oh, wow.

[01:20:07] Okay.

[01:20:08] What a great visual.

[01:20:10] Yeah.

[01:20:11] I have to shout out one film that should be on this list is a

[01:20:14] Nigerian film called Mama Wati.

[01:20:16] And it is done in a stark black and white, but they make the

[01:20:22] makeup and hair just like really pop because of that.

[01:20:25] And they have these elaborate hairstyles for the women and they use this white makeup.

[01:20:31] And it's just really striking.

[01:20:33] I could stare at that film all day long.

[01:20:36] So you've got poor things taking the last three categories so far.

[01:20:41] No, well, do I think?

[01:20:43] Yeah, well, I did say, yeah, I did say that this

[01:20:46] is the part of where I think things are going to shine. Gonna shine, yeah. Yeah. But I think

[01:20:52] the streak is up with wins this category, this historical

[01:21:10] look at something fantastical that occurred in human history.

[01:21:14] Yeah, and the bomb, you know, I guess it's all about that bomb and with that movie.

[01:21:22] But I do really like the cinematographer for that one, Oitofan Huytima. And he's a regular

[01:21:29] collaborator with Nolan and many other incredibly shot films he did, like, nope, and let the right

[01:21:35] one in, her Tinker Tail or Soldier Spy, et cetera. This is only his second nomination, so good for him.

[01:21:48] second nomination. So good for him. Poor things is again, the other one. It's another strong contender for this category. This is the second collaboration between Robbie

[01:21:53] Ryan and the director, Jurgos Lanthamos, and also their second nomination. So obviously,

[01:21:59] it's a winning formula of them working together. They last worked on the favorites, and their

[01:22:03] next film is going to be the two of them and Emma Stone again.

[01:22:07] So I guess you're out, Jean, and it's kind of kindness.

[01:22:11] Probably coming out this year.

[01:22:15] But we've also got Killie's of the Flower Moon in this category with Rodrigo

[01:22:19] Crieto. And this is his fourth nom, including Brokeback Mountain.

[01:22:25] So yeah, you can definitely see that in killers

[01:22:27] of the fire moon that this is someone who likes

[01:22:29] to do these sweeping landscapes.

[01:22:32] Americana.

[01:22:34] And then Maestro, the cinematographer

[01:22:37] was Matthew Lebateek,

[01:22:38] and he's best known for the Aronofsky films.

[01:22:42] This is his third nomination.

[01:22:44] And then we have the new kid in the class,

[01:22:46] which is the film called El Conde.

[01:22:49] El Conde.

[01:22:50] Yeah, El Conde.

[01:22:52] It's on Netflix and the cinematographer is Edward Lockman.

[01:22:56] And it's the third nomination for Lockman.

[01:22:59] It's striking black and white cinematography

[01:23:02] in like a stark Chilean countryside setting. And the film itself,

[01:23:06] it's a dark satire portraying the 1970s Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a 250 year old vampire

[01:23:13] seeking death. So I don't want to spoil anything, but also another big figure from European history

[01:23:20] shows up. But controversially, it's someone from Europe and it's not Nixon who was actually

[01:23:25] caught supporting Pinochet's.

[01:23:27] Pinochet, yeah.

[01:23:28] And he was going to ignore that now.

[01:23:31] And it was also, the film was made by a controversial director, Pablo Lare.

[01:23:37] And he's previously known for films like Jackie and Spencer and two other nominated films

[01:23:43] soon.

[01:23:44] Maria with Angelina Jolie is Maria Chias,

[01:23:47] who she was an opera singer

[01:23:48] that Leonard Bernstein called the Bible of the Opera.

[01:23:51] And also he's a producer on the documentary

[01:23:54] we talked about last time, The Eternal Memory.

[01:23:56] Now I actually-

[01:23:57] That's on my list of films.

[01:23:59] The Eternal Memory?

[01:24:00] Yeah.

[01:24:01] No, I'll Conde.

[01:24:02] I'll Conde, yeah.

[01:24:04] Were you aware of it before? Did you just become aware of it? I was. I'll come day. Yeah. Were you aware of it before?

[01:24:05] Did you just become aware of it? Because of the asking? Yeah. Yeah. I saw people chatting about it.

[01:24:12] And I'm just like, there's something I need to watch. What caught you either the cinematography or

[01:24:19] this the premise? The premise. Like I could use the shaker 200 year old vampire. Okay, I'm in.

[01:24:29] I'm in. I need to hear this is about it sounds so absurd. Like, yeah,

[01:24:36] that's absurd. Yeah, I, I enjoyed this film, but I get why it's the source

[01:24:42] subjects for some Chileans. Of course, definitely. I asked someone else who's

[01:24:47] closer to this subject. You heard in the last episode, I talked

[01:24:51] to Pedro about the documentaries and he brought up Pichay. And

[01:24:55] so we did a little sidestep. And I asked about, you know, the

[01:24:59] South American sentiment toward this film. So I pulled out

[01:25:02] that conversation so you could hear us argue both sides of this controversy.

[01:25:06] Okay. Take a listen to that. Now I have to ask bringing up Pinochet. What did you think of El

[01:25:12] Conde? Yeah, I have a bit of a problem. I don't like Pablo La Jain approach. Pablo La Jain is who is a

[01:25:22] producer on the turn of Memory. Okay, right.

[01:25:25] I don't know.

[01:25:26] I don't like how he brings some historical figures to the film.

[01:25:30] I think that the comedy didn't hate it for me.

[01:25:33] But maybe it's because I'm a person that is like used to the 70s, South American dictatorships.

[01:25:41] And I think that sometimes the comedy is not like appropriate to make it

[01:25:47] funny. But yeah, it didn't work for me. All right. But I know people that do you like it?

[01:25:55] For me, it was I think I gave it. I don't I think I gave it a three or three and a half.

[01:26:00] Um, I I like satire and I guess I know about, you know,

[01:26:05] I've traveled through Argentina and Chile

[01:26:08] and you know, heard a lot about all of the political era

[01:26:13] there that, you know, Pinochet is just one part of.

[01:26:16] And I understand like the deep feelings,

[01:26:19] but I am someone who kind of likes to not laugh at,

[01:26:24] but to satirize.

[01:26:27] But I also understand that there are objections to the filmmaker because of also his parents' political connections,

[01:26:36] you know, that they're a right-wing family.

[01:26:39] But also, on the other hand, it's like, well, who better to satirize his own? Yeah, he's he's a filmmaker that is a bit

[01:26:48] all rising in South America.

[01:26:50] I know a lot of people that love him.

[01:26:53] I know a lot of people that hate him like very much.

[01:26:56] Yeah, I have no strong feelings with it.

[01:26:58] Yeah, I like I like Spencer.

[01:27:01] And I like yeah, I really like Spencer.

[01:27:04] Yeah, there's about Diana Spencer. Yeah. Yeah. And this one didn't hit it for me and that's okay. But I'm looking forward to watch Maria. That is his last film in the trilogy of the myths he made a film about Jackie, Kennedy, Spencer, now, Maria Carlos.

[01:27:25] Okay.

[01:27:26] All right, what do you think, Sean?

[01:27:27] Does the controversy make you more or less curious

[01:27:30] about the movie?

[01:27:33] I'm neutral to the controversy,

[01:27:34] but I understand it completely.

[01:27:37] Like, his sentiment is something that I get.

[01:27:40] Like, I could imagine, let's say,

[01:27:44] a somewhat Haitian, were to satirize

[01:27:49] Papadoc Duvalier as a vampire.

[01:27:53] That could be something that sets my mom and my sisters who were there at that time, could

[01:28:01] set them aback, where I would have a different viewpoint on it because I was

[01:28:06] removed from that reality. So I get it totally. I can understand it. But again, it's something

[01:28:14] that I feel like the premise of the movie sounds really absurd and I like absurd.

[01:28:21] Yeah, it's been a lot of absurd dark satire this year.

[01:28:25] I think the world's in the mood for a little dark humor.

[01:28:28] Yeah, I mean, what the world is experiencing

[01:28:31] and has experienced over the last three years, right?

[01:28:34] Four years.

[01:28:37] Yeah.

[01:28:38] But yeah, Alcanday was, it was nominated

[01:28:40] for the cinematography and cinematography.

[01:28:42] It's great.

[01:28:44] And Chile's a great country to visit, by the way, highly recommend it.

[01:28:48] All right, we're going to take our second quick break.

[01:28:50] And when we get back, we're going to be talking all about the auditory side of things.

[01:28:55] Okay. And we're back and we're going to jump straight into sounds like sound in general and also

[01:29:16] the category of sound and also the sound of another interview.

[01:29:23] No. of another interview, no? So I asked Lord Master and regular collaborator

[01:29:28] Did I Get I Bob to talk us through his experience

[01:29:31] of watching movies and what he thinks of this year's

[01:29:34] sound nominees, and this is what he had to say.

[01:29:37] So I'm here with Did I Get I Bob?

[01:29:40] Hi Bob, how are you?

[01:29:41] Very well, thank you, how are you?

[01:29:43] Okay, thank you for joining

[01:29:46] me today to chat about the Oscar sound nominees. So this is actually our second recorded interview

[01:29:52] together. Check the Wool Shift Dust book club, Winter Holiday Special for our first interview

[01:29:57] together, sandwiched between our greatest gift audio drama and my rendition of all the

[01:30:02] anxiety. We chatted then about the origin of your nickname, the role action

[01:30:06] figurine collectibles play in your life

[01:30:08] and your Did I Jeddai Bob YouTube

[01:30:11] channel. If you can give people a quick

[01:30:14] run through here of what you cover on

[01:30:16] your YouTube channel.

[01:30:18] On my quite a few episode reviews, most

[01:30:20] recently, X-Men and the Spider-Man

[01:30:24] 90s TV series. I also cover Star Wars, the

[01:30:27] Bad Batch. And I'm going to start playing the last of us video game because they just

[01:30:33] added accessibility features to that one.

[01:30:38] The first one or the second one?

[01:30:40] The first one. I have the second one as well.

[01:30:42] Okay. Yeah, the second one was, yeah, because I actually recommend people look up your,

[01:30:47] your last of us and your Mortal Kombat gaming on your channel too.

[01:30:53] Oh, yeah, I'm actually recording season four of Invasions as I play through that.

[01:30:57] And that'll be up too as well speaking of Mortal Kombat. So.

[01:31:01] Awesome. But today I asked you here to pick your movie fan brain.

[01:31:06] I've heard you comment before that you sometimes get surprised reactions when people find out

[01:31:10] you're a movie and TV fan.

[01:31:12] Well, I mean, it's usually, oh, wow, I had no idea you watched movies.

[01:31:17] How do you go about doing that?

[01:31:19] And I usually, well, these days talk to them about audio description narration, which we didn't

[01:31:25] have in the 90s.

[01:31:26] It's such an amazing new way for blind people to enjoy movies where everybody else did.

[01:31:34] So yeah, I get those kinds of responses and not at all difficult to answer.

[01:31:42] So right.

[01:31:43] Yeah, I've gotten the opportunity to watch some movies with you

[01:31:46] and listen to these audio description tracks.

[01:31:49] And I'm really impressed by the amount of artistry

[01:31:52] that goes into it, because, for instance, yeah,

[01:31:55] the well-done ones, like the one we did,

[01:31:57] what was for Evil Dead Rising, just the way

[01:32:00] that they were pacing their voice and the tone.

[01:32:04] And it just matched exactly the action on screen.

[01:32:07] Like it really was translating the overall feeling

[01:32:10] that I was getting from the visuals into sound.

[01:32:12] So that was just, yeah, it's really cool to see

[01:32:15] when it's well done like that.

[01:32:16] I agree.

[01:32:18] Yeah, you also like to go to the movies

[01:32:20] with your friends pretty regularly.

[01:32:22] I bet there are listeners who don't realize

[01:32:24] that you can get headsets for audio description there

[01:32:26] when they work.

[01:32:28] You can, and it might be a good idea

[01:32:31] to ask the local theater staff about the batteries

[01:32:35] and whether or not they're charged.

[01:32:37] That definitely is a must,

[01:32:41] if you want to experience the whole movie.

[01:32:43] But when they do work, they are,

[01:32:46] I guess I can say this quite a sight to see

[01:32:49] when it comes to audio description.

[01:32:51] Yeah.

[01:32:52] And of course, audio descriptions inside,

[01:32:54] I guess you might say that it's really the sound mixing

[01:32:58] that brings film to life.

[01:33:00] It is.

[01:33:01] And these days I tend to watch a movie

[01:33:04] with the audio description turned on first and then to appreciate the sound

[01:33:08] Okay, I tend to go back to my favorite scenes and really get a

[01:33:13] better idea as to what they added because with audio description

[01:33:17] You know you have to describe the scenes, but at the same time, you know, you've got the sound going on

[01:33:23] So I do enjoy both.

[01:33:25] So it's kind of a kind of interesting to juggle both.

[01:33:29] But yeah, I noticed that you you like to consume stories in multiple ways to get

[01:33:33] like a more 360 degree picture of it.

[01:33:36] So like audiobooks and Braille and things like that.

[01:33:40] Yes.

[01:33:40] Um, various perspectives, right.

[01:33:43] So yeah, so you were the person that I most wanted to hear from when it comes to opinions

[01:33:47] on this year's Oscar nominees for Best Sound.

[01:33:51] Just quickly, before we get into our discussion, the five nominees in this category are Oppenheimer,

[01:33:57] the creator, Maestro, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1, and the Zone of Interest.

[01:34:03] And I know you've watched Oppenheimer, the creator, Maestro.

[01:34:07] I know you were working your way through the Mission Impossible series, but I don't know

[01:34:10] if you got to dead reckoning yet.

[01:34:12] I'm almost finished with dead reckoning.

[01:34:15] OK.

[01:34:16] Oh, so you got to listen to some of it.

[01:34:18] Yeah, I'm over halfway through that, so.

[01:34:20] Oh, OK.

[01:34:22] And unfortunately, the Zone of interest is currently only available in German

[01:34:26] with subtitles, no English dub yet. And you don't speak German. So that would make that tricky one.

[01:34:31] But I think you got to listen to a couple interviews with the director and sound engineers about that

[01:34:36] film. Yes, I did. I need to go back and actually get into that a bit more.

[01:34:45] It was a bit difficult for me to, I guess,

[01:34:47] appreciate that sound without actually watching it.

[01:34:50] But they did.

[01:34:51] Right, of course.

[01:34:51] I hacked a lot into it.

[01:34:54] So zone of interest aside, what are your overall thoughts

[01:34:58] on the nominees?

[01:34:59] I think the creator stood out to me the most.

[01:35:04] And I would say that's because of the weirdness I think the creator stood out to me the most.

[01:35:05] And I would say that's because of the weird voice stuff

[01:35:11] that they did with the human voices being somewhat mechanical

[01:35:16] yet human at the same time.

[01:35:18] I never really heard anything like it

[01:35:20] in terms of vocal performance.

[01:35:22] You've got the human voice, but at the same time,

[01:35:25] it occasionally went into more of a mechanical kind

[01:35:31] of AI voice with certain characters in the film.

[01:35:35] And that really stood out to me.

[01:35:37] When it comes to the basic sci-fi sound effects,

[01:35:41] I think those were probably normal, I would say. I think

[01:35:45] the vocal performance is really stood out in terms of the characters and the creator.

[01:35:51] Yeah, I mean, I agree that I think we did a review of the creator on the Lourhounds,

[01:35:58] David Jean-Annai. And we knocked the writing and the story side, but everything, the acting and the technical

[01:36:06] side.

[01:36:07] This is also, this is my favorite for VFX, actually.

[01:36:10] But yeah, I do have to say my favorite for sound on this one is probably the zone of

[01:36:15] interest just because, just because, you know, in that one interview that I shared with you,

[01:36:23] they were talking about it as, you know, they created two films. They created the film in the garden where the family lives.

[01:36:31] And they created the second film on the other side of the wall in Auschwitz and

[01:36:38] layer those over each other. And that's really is kind of what makes the movie what it is.

[01:36:44] And that's really is kind of what makes the movie what it is. And that makes me want to see the film a lot more.

[01:36:47] I know, I know. I've been looking for it.

[01:36:50] I'm like, where's the dub? Come on.

[01:36:52] Exactly.

[01:36:53] It's an English director.

[01:36:55] But yeah, I mean, there are all five strong contenders in different ways.

[01:37:00] It's a really strong category because, you know, mission impossible and Oppenheimer,

[01:37:04] obviously like the classic type of nominees for this category with all, you know, the

[01:37:09] action-based Bullywork and the Mission Impossible movies. And of course, like, at Bomb in Oppenheimer.

[01:37:15] Oh yeah. Yeah. Good chance Oppenheimer wins just because Oppenheimer,

[01:37:22] good chance Oppenheimer wins a lot of awards this year.

[01:37:26] I'm thinking it will. I would imagine it might just take almost everything home, although, I mean,

[01:37:34] it hasn't happened yet. So who the heck knows at this point? I don't think that will probably

[01:37:38] take a lot home though. Yeah, yeah. But you said you liked it better than you expected.

[01:37:44] Yeah. You said you liked it better than you expected. I really did. I mean, it's been quite a while since I've been in high school,

[01:37:50] but there were some things that were covered in the film that we never really went into.

[01:37:54] And I think that was certainly captured in terms of vocal performance,

[01:38:01] and especially with the Foley and all that when it comes to sound.

[01:38:08] The bomb certainly stood out to me and when the audio description narrator was describing

[01:38:16] certain things that the main character was seeing, they went into this interesting, I would have to

[01:38:23] say, well, it almost reminded me of sci-fi sound effects when he was seeing all of the the particles on screen.

[01:38:29] I'm not really sure how to describe those scenes because it really didn't narrate a lot of the scenes where he was kind of considering the atom and things like that.

[01:38:40] But that sound production stood out to me there. Yeah. Yeah, because actually I have to say, I think the sound is one of the strongest

[01:38:48] things in the film, even like I think the sound of the bomb is stronger than the visuals of the bomb.

[01:38:54] Right.

[01:38:55] But yeah, a lot of a lot of the scenes, there are some scenes that have some really cool visuals

[01:39:01] where he's almost hallucinating things.

[01:39:03] And that's how we get a peek into what's going on inside his head.

[01:39:07] But in most cases, it's a lot of scenes in them sitting in room.

[01:39:10] And it's really the sound that's doing the heavy lifting there.

[01:39:12] Definitely.

[01:39:14] Um, and yeah, and what did you think of Maestro?

[01:39:16] I mean, that's an interesting addition in this category because it's, it's

[01:39:19] since it's about a composer, it's really the music that's carrying that sound mixing there.

[01:39:24] Yes, that stood out to me first and foremost, because you have, of course, a live

[01:39:30] orchestra. And I was glad that they were able to provide that. And I'm, I don't

[01:39:36] really know for sure. I haven't done my research in terms of the music that they

[01:39:41] selected, but I would imagine all of that is stuff that he wrote.

[01:39:45] Yeah.

[01:39:46] And I like that.

[01:39:48] I like that at all really dependent on the music there because of course it's the life

[01:39:52] of a composer and I've only seen it once.

[01:39:56] But you know, toward the ending there, when we have that, that tragic scene, you don't

[01:40:01] hear any music.

[01:40:02] I remember there was that one scene

[01:40:05] where he was just kind of screaming into his pillow.

[01:40:08] You just heard him and that was it.

[01:40:11] And I think that really stood out to me there.

[01:40:14] So we can help listen in that moment.

[01:40:16] And I love that there was no music there toward the end

[01:40:19] when you had the main protagonist

[01:40:28] and having to go through what he had to go through in terms of watching someone having to struggle with the terminal illness there.

[01:40:33] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[01:40:36] So will you be watching on March 10th to see who takes home the prize?

[01:40:41] I will be watching, indeed.

[01:40:43] And you're rooting for the creator, I take it?

[01:40:45] I am, although I am not going to be opposed to Oppenheimer taking it away.

[01:40:50] Yeah, fair.

[01:40:53] And where can people find you?

[01:40:55] You can find me on YouTube and Twitter under the handle,

[01:41:00] Dead Eye, Jedi, Bob.

[01:41:02] Excellent.

[01:41:03] And yeah, thank you for lending us your time to talk

[01:41:07] and for doing all that movie-watching homework.

[01:41:10] You were very welcome.

[01:41:11] As I said, when we were talking previously,

[01:41:14] it was quite a lot of fun in terms of homework.

[01:41:16] So that's my kind of homework.

[01:41:18] All right, speak to you again soon.

[01:41:21] All righty.

[01:41:22] Okay, Jean, what did you think?

[01:41:24] I agree as the creator.

[01:41:27] Yeah.

[01:41:28] I agree as the creator.

[01:41:30] But maybe for different reasons.

[01:41:34] I'm not one to get too technical waiting in the weeds, right?

[01:41:41] I know what causes me to react viscerally and

[01:41:46] this just before when we spoke about the trade, I said,

[01:41:49] I could just turn off the sound and watch the visuals, right?

[01:41:52] Right.

[01:41:54] I can close my eyes and just listen to this movie and just

[01:41:59] be taken and transported into a different world without the visuals.

[01:42:04] And it would have been that way the first time I saw the movie or

[01:42:09] the fifth time that I've seen the movie.

[01:42:12] So to me, that is really hitting every marker that I could want out of a film.

[01:42:20] Yeah, there's no real comparison.

[01:42:24] It's just, it's just so well done.

[01:42:28] The voice acting, the nomad, just the way that it is.

[01:42:34] Just striking and just, yeah.

[01:42:38] Yeah.

[01:42:39] Yeah.

[01:42:40] I mean, technically it's an incredibly strong film.

[01:42:44] And I'm glad that it's getting the recognition on the

[01:42:47] sound side. I do worry that Oppenheimer will take this one just because of Oppenheimer.

[01:42:54] I'm pulling for the zone of interest though because the zone of interest like I was saying

[01:43:01] to Bob, they made two separate movies of sound.

[01:43:05] Right.

[01:43:06] And then layered them together

[01:43:07] to create this unnerving experience.

[01:43:09] So I think they really told the story

[01:43:11] through sound in that film.

[01:43:14] Interesting.

[01:43:15] But then yeah, so the sound of course,

[01:43:18] it's not only about the fully work and the sound effects,

[01:43:21] it's also about the music,

[01:43:23] which brings us to our last two categories.

[01:43:26] And let me just start off by saying before you get into the who's who, the who's not, where's the

[01:43:34] purple? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, actually, yeah, before we list who did get nominated, just like,

[01:43:41] let's pour one out for the ones who are out out. There's yeah the color purple definitely should have been on there.

[01:43:49] Well I was gonna talk about that more in the best song but for me the best score

[01:43:55] of this entire year was for a Polish film called The Peasants. I brought it

[01:43:59] up in the last time I was talking about animation. It's a film with like that,

[01:44:05] with the impressionistic art style animated.

[01:44:10] And it's, the soundtrack was actually made by LUC,

[01:44:14] who he made like, he's a rapper in Poland,

[01:44:17] who made a rebel babble film orchestra band,

[01:44:21] and then created this this really hardcore folksy mix of modern and antiquated

[01:44:30] sounds with horns and strings. It goes so hard. It's such a good dark folksy soundtrack.

[01:44:39] But yeah, they always miss my favorite. They always miss my favorite. Last year it should have

[01:44:44] been Emily by Abbeau, Korsen Yowski, and the. Last year it should have been Emily by Abell Korseniyowski

[01:44:46] and the year before it should have been

[01:44:48] Cyrano from the National, just saying.

[01:44:51] But yeah, the ones that did get nominated

[01:44:53] are Oppenheimer with the score by Ludwig Gorundsen,

[01:44:57] poor things with the score by Juriskin Fendrix,

[01:45:00] Killers of the Flower Moon,

[01:45:01] score by Robbie Robertson,

[01:45:03] American Fiction, score by Lara

[01:45:05] Carpman, and Indiana Jones in the dial of Destiny, score by John Williams.

[01:45:11] So did you get a chance to sample these scores, Joe?

[01:45:15] I did, and I'm here to report that Oppenheim is going to win.

[01:45:21] Yeah, I mean, I agree with you on that one.

[01:45:25] We will, by the way, I'll link to some playlists on Spotify and user because yes, I don't

[01:45:30] use Spotify in the show notes so that you can listen to them yourselves.

[01:45:34] But I think that you're right.

[01:45:37] I think poor things is the least likely to win in this category because I think the score,

[01:45:44] there's like theremin music and a lot of experimental music and it works well in the context of the

[01:45:50] movie which is supposed to be the point of this award but in reality people are like listening

[01:45:55] to the music by themselves and the winners tend to be scores that work well on their own.

[01:46:00] Right, for my two cents it should be American fiction.

[01:46:05] Yeah. Okay. That's, I mean, that could be the Dark Horse. It's like a very jazzy score,

[01:46:10] only female nominee on the list, by the way, Laura Carpman.

[01:46:14] Yes. And she also did the scores for What If, season one, Ms. Marvel.

[01:46:20] Oh, wow. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I think American fiction should win the category, but it will be

[01:46:27] up and on. Yeah. Yeah. Oppenheimer. It's a so the score. Gordon's in he's a frequent collaborator

[01:46:36] with Childish Gambino. And like he's worked with the Dell, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, etc, etc. And

[01:46:42] you can just feel the inventiveness in the music. It's like a classic film score, but more modernized. Yeah, it is. No, no, I won't put on. Will you put that on?

[01:46:55] I mean, to be honest, the only if of any of them in this list, probably that one, but the one that

[01:47:02] I'm going to be listening to is the peasants. That's the one that I'm going to be listening to is the peasants that's the one that I'm gonna be putting on yeah but yeah it

[01:47:07] Gorrinson by the way he composed the book of Boba Fett theme song and also

[01:47:11] scored tenet oh wow and he won an Oscar for his work on Black Panther that's

[01:47:15] amazing so this would be his second Oscar yes you're still should be American

[01:47:20] fiction giving all of that given all of that, given all of that, give me a lesson.

[01:47:25] Yeah, but we've also got John Williams in the mix, who's always a player.

[01:47:29] Like he's been nominated so many times since 1968 that they have a separate, separate Wikipedia

[01:47:33] page listing them.

[01:47:34] Well, he's nominated.

[01:47:36] He's won five times, but the last time was in 1994 for Schindler's list.

[01:47:41] So do you think he gets a achievement award here?

[01:47:45] I mean, he's already won five times.

[01:47:47] I think people are like, we get it, you're good.

[01:47:50] Okay.

[01:47:51] I mean, it's a good score.

[01:47:52] It's a good classic, like the movie, you know,

[01:47:55] it's a classic score tinged with nostalgia and comics.

[01:47:58] Yeah, it did enjoy it.

[01:48:00] The movie didn't do it for me, so.

[01:48:02] Yeah, you watched it.

[01:48:03] I did.

[01:48:04] It was okay. Yeah yeah, you watched it. I did it was okay

[01:48:05] Yeah, just okay. Yeah, and I have to shout out also the killers of the fly moon also had a solid score

[01:48:12] I would have been going for that

[01:48:15] Previously, but yeah, also another point about that is that the the score was done by Robbie Robertson

[01:48:22] Who he was a lead guitarist for Bob Dylan in

[01:48:25] the 60s and 70s and Rolling Stone has him on there as 59 on their list of greatest

[01:48:30] guitarist of all time.

[01:48:32] Freghance of course says he collaborated, but sadly he passed away in August.

[01:48:36] So this is his last chance to win.

[01:48:38] Yeah, that's thanks.

[01:48:40] Yeah, very sad.

[01:48:41] I mean, I guess glad he went out on a high note, but

[01:48:49] we've learned also with the Chadwick Bozeman debacle that they don't always reward people posthumously. So

[01:48:50] right, right. Still think it's up and I'm er,

[01:48:54] yeah, I do. Unfortunately, let me not say unfortunately, a lot of people

[01:48:59] enjoyed that some way more than I did. So

[01:49:01] they'll be happy.

[01:49:03] No, I mean, for me, it's a, yeah, it's not my favorite film, but it is the score that I'm rooting for, I guess.

[01:49:10] Yeah. Right in campaign for the peasant starts now.

[01:49:16] All right. And that brings us to our last award of the Blockbuster's technical category.

[01:49:23] And that's original song. It's starting with a double header by Barbie.

[01:49:27] This is where Barbie is most likely to win

[01:49:30] if they don't split the vote.

[01:49:31] So we've got,

[01:49:33] what was I made for?

[01:49:35] By Bailey Eilish,

[01:49:36] who's most likely about to win her second Oscar

[01:49:38] with her brother Finney's panel.

[01:49:40] And then the other one is of course,

[01:49:42] I'm just Ken with Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt.

[01:49:47] I'm rooting for I'm just Ken personally.

[01:49:49] I think it's unironically good.

[01:49:51] Yes, I will have to agree with you that I would like to see.

[01:49:55] I'm just kidding.

[01:49:56] I don't think it will.

[01:49:58] Yeah.

[01:49:59] This team did win previously for shallowallow from a Starsport show.

[01:50:05] Oh, yeah.

[01:50:06] Yeah.

[01:50:06] They are good writers.

[01:50:08] I mean, we all win at least.

[01:50:10] We're going to see.

[01:50:11] I'm just Ken performed at the Oscars.

[01:50:12] So I hope they have like, please get Simu Lu up there or something dancing in the black

[01:50:17] t-shirt.

[01:50:20] By the way, there could have been three songs

[01:50:21] nominated for Barbie if it were allowed.

[01:50:23] Oscar has a rule, only two songs max per movie

[01:50:26] But dance the night by do a leap. Oh was another one that people were talking. Oh wow. I didn't know there was a rule

[01:50:32] Yeah, because there was also I think at the Golden Globes all three were nominated

[01:50:36] Okay, yeah, Bailey alish one

[01:50:38] but if Barbie does split the votes then the other contenders are there's Killis of the Flower Moon. The song is called Waza Zae, a song for My People.

[01:50:48] And this is from George Scott and performed by the Osage Tribal Singers.

[01:50:53] But it's a lovely basically like a powwow jam song.

[01:50:58] So it's just honored to be nominated.

[01:51:00] And then we have two one movie Wonder nominees.

[01:51:04] We've got American Symphony, the John Baptiste Doc,

[01:51:08] and the song is called It Never Went Away, written with Dan Wilson.

[01:51:11] Are you a John Baptiste fan, Jean?

[01:51:13] I am. I am. I think he's a great musician.

[01:51:16] And that's another on my list to watch is American Symphony.

[01:51:19] Yeah, it's a doc on Netflix, and it shows him touring and winning Grammys

[01:51:24] while his wife is battling cancer and

[01:51:27] writing also a Pan American Symphony. Pedro in the last episode was talking about he was a fan of

[01:51:32] the documentary. I was middle on it personally. He's a really talented musician. He's a really

[01:51:38] talented musician. He's a really talented musician. And yeah, I'm very curious. I want to see this

[01:51:43] American Symphony that he pulled together. I kind of wish that the movie focused more on that because they're just

[01:51:47] right. He's is about all the different groups he was pulling together.

[01:51:50] I was like, I want more.

[01:51:51] I want to know more about this about that.

[01:51:53] Right. Yeah.

[01:51:55] And then the final nominee is it's Diane Warren because it wouldn't be in Oscars

[01:52:01] without Diane Warren getting a song nomination.

[01:52:05] This time there were three contenders this year and the winner was the fire inside

[01:52:10] and flaming hot, which was born by Becky G.

[01:52:13] Diane Warren has been nominated 15 times, seven in a row.

[01:52:18] She got an honorary Oscar in 2022.

[01:52:21] We thought it might stop, but nope, she still keeps getting nominated.

[01:52:23] her in 2022 when thought it might stop. But nope, she still keeps getting nominated.

[01:52:28] It's not gonna stop.

[01:52:32] It's gonna stop until she wins or dies.

[01:52:39] Oh, I wouldn't mind her winning at some points. It would be kind of funny if this was the year.

[01:52:43] But she has written, she's written some truly iconic songs. Like she wrote, Nothing's gonna stop us us now if I could turn back time because you loved me on break my heart.

[01:52:49] I don't want to miss a thing like the woman is a legend but the movie we have to watch because of her nominations are often stinkers so this one was really it wasn't bad.

[01:53:02] It wasn't that bad. So Flaming Hot, it's available in Hulu, Disney Plus, and it's like the very embellished,

[01:53:10] like, floor-ishified version of the story of inventing Flaming Hot Cheetos.

[01:53:14] I mean, shrug.

[01:53:17] Eva Longoria's directorial debut, like, good for her.

[01:53:21] Do you have any interest in this one?

[01:53:23] No, I don't.

[01:53:24] I don't even like

[01:53:26] flaming hot chibos. I like spicy but I'm not a fan of powder cheese on. Yeah. I'm

[01:53:35] helping God bless but yeah no thank you to the movie and the chibos. It was yeah it

[01:53:40] was it was okay. I watched it with my friend. We did a movie marathon with three movies.

[01:53:46] And that was the third one we watched and she was like, oh.

[01:53:50] But also like the two we watched before that had us crying and feeling things.

[01:53:54] Oh, okay. Yeah.

[01:53:55] This one was like, a nice change of pace then, definitely.

[01:53:59] Yeah. So that wraps up the technical awards.

[01:54:02] Do you feel ready for the Oscars, Jarlin?

[01:54:05] Are you gonna tell people

[01:54:07] who they should vote for in the Oscar polls?

[01:54:10] No, I'm not gonna tell you on who to vote for.

[01:54:12] But yeah, I think, you know,

[01:54:15] I going back to Mike's earlier point is that

[01:54:21] we just would love to see more diverse view of what makes good art.

[01:54:28] Right.

[01:54:29] You know, not just a more diverse view of whose stories are told, but how those stories are told.

[01:54:36] So hopefully that's something that as you know we progress in the 21st century, get a little bit more of that shift. That's what I want to see. Yeah, absolutely

[01:54:47] And so I guess the movies you're rooting for are

[01:54:51] Barbie the creator. Yes, yes barbie the tree

[01:54:55] fiction

[01:54:57] Or just American fiction for the score

[01:55:01] and

[01:55:03] across the Spiderverse.

[01:55:05] Yes, okay.

[01:55:07] Everything else is just.

[01:55:09] Have you seen pneumonia though?

[01:55:11] Have I seen?

[01:55:12] Nemona, the it's well, it's

[01:55:14] no, I haven't seen it.

[01:55:17] Nemona is another one nominated for the animation.

[01:55:20] And that's yeah, I haven't seen it.

[01:55:22] I'm torn between rooting for Spider-Verse and that one.

[01:55:25] Huh, okay. Tommy, a little bit. It's- It's uh, so it's basically- I'm torn because it's- like I

[01:55:34] think that across the Spider-Verse is a technical and artistic achievement and like great character

[01:55:40] and stories and just everything is great about it, but then Nemona is also great character and stories and just everything is great about it. But then pneumonia is also great technically and story wise. But something about

[01:55:49] pneumonia has been just living with me like certain scenes from it stuck in

[01:55:53] my head and certain ideas from it have been stuck just stuck with me more.

[01:55:59] It just nuzzled a little deeper into my soul for some reason.

[01:56:03] That's that's really cool. You know, because I feel the same way about across

[01:56:09] You know, I love that movie. Yeah, no, I know but there are scenes that have stuck with me in that from that film

[01:56:16] You know, there are themes that you know has stuck with me from that film

[01:56:21] So about storytelling and guess the best film was 23.

[01:56:27] Yeah, no, it's definitely in my in my top films of the year too. But yeah, that's I think that's a

[01:56:34] great note to end on. That's exactly what we want for movies. We want we want scenes to creep into

[01:56:41] our minds and stick there. And yeah,. And we have the people who are nominated

[01:56:46] in the categories we talk about today

[01:56:48] to thank for a lot of these indelible images and sounds

[01:56:51] and songs that make these movies come to life for us.

[01:56:56] Yeah, and we wanna celebrate all of those people.

[01:57:01] Even the ones that we don't even watch

[01:57:03] or may not be fans of.

[01:57:05] Yeah, somebody loves them always. Yeah.

[01:57:08] There's always somebody who even gold.

[01:57:10] Even.

[01:57:14] You're a golder.

[01:57:18] Well, we're not going to do the full outro today because David's not here.

[01:57:23] So David will he'll be back personally

[01:57:25] to thank especially all of the lower masters,

[01:57:27] you know who you are and we appreciate you

[01:57:30] so much, John and I as well.

[01:57:32] Yes, we do.

[01:57:33] Thank you for the voicemails, the emails for this

[01:57:37] and everything that we do.

[01:57:39] Thank you for the Discord talks

[01:57:41] and here just the whole community.

[01:57:44] We really do appreciate your support and your feedback.

[01:57:48] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:57:50] And just to shout out the other affiliates on the network.

[01:57:54] So we've got our first official episode

[01:57:56] of Rings and Rituals out of Maryland's new podcast.

[01:57:59] So she's going back through the rings of power

[01:58:04] and looking at just getting a little deeper

[01:58:07] into the cultural lore in both Tolkien's world and our world.

[01:58:14] And we've also got a properly Howard new season is coming up soon with something in Fugazi,

[01:58:21] I forget. And also the properly Howard guys and David and John are

[01:58:27] going to be covering Severns season two in the Severns channel whenever that comes out.

[01:58:34] I'm thinking and might be next year to be honest. And yeah, of course, I have to shout out

[01:58:38] Worship Dust, which is diving back into the Dune world and of course prepping for Beacon 23 season two coming up in April.

[01:58:46] Yes.

[01:58:47] All right.

[01:58:48] Thank you so much for having me, Alicia.

[01:58:51] Thank you so much for being here, Jean, and thank you everyone at home for listening

[01:58:55] to our mumbles and musings.

[01:58:58] Ha ha ha.

[01:58:59] Take care, everyone.

[01:59:00] The Lourhounds Podcast is produced and published by The Lourhounds. the law.