Critical Darlings: The Oscar Nominations Recap (And Also Some Talk About F1)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Blank Check with Griffin & David –

Episode: Critical Darlings: The Oscar Nominations Recap (And Also Some Talk About F1)
Release Date: January 22, 2026
Hosts: Richard Lawson & Alison Wilmore
Producer: Ben Frisch
Summary by [your name]

---

Main Theme

This episode is a spirited, granular recap and post-mortem of the just-announced 2026 Oscar nominations. Richard and Alison bring their signature wit and deep industry knowledge to dissecting surprises, snubs, shifting Oscar narratives, and what this year’s field says about filmmaking and broader culture. The episode gives special attention to breakout nominee “F1,” the international film shakeup, and how Oscar voting processes and Academy “vibes” shape the race.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mood of Oscar Nominations Season

• Richard and Alison kick off with the palpable sense of excitement for this year’s nominations, noting the unusually high general public investment:
  • “Normally...I’m kind of like, ugh, whatever. We already know everything. But this year I didn’t know everything and it felt great.” – Richard [01:15]
  • Alison highlights that this year, “the world is watching” for better or worse [01:51].

2. Sinners’ Record-Breaking Haul

• “Sinners” receives an astonishing 16 nominations, breaking longstanding records (Titanic, All About Eve, La La Land).
  • “Record breaking amount of nominations. Sixteen, which blows past Titanic, All About Eve...That’s huge.” – Richard [02:40]
• Discussion of what contributed: new casting category, unexpected acting nods, earlier signals from SAG.

3. Hamnet vs. Sinners – Villain/Hero Narratives

• Speculation on the unfolding Oscar narrative, with Sinners and “One Battle After Another” locked as rivals while “Hamnet” underperforms—potentially draining toxicity from the “spoiler” discourse:
  • “For my...sanity...I’m like, okay, maybe from now until the Oscars, the discourse will be a little less fraught and more fun.” – Richard [03:18]

4. Craft & Technical Category Surprises

• Cinematography for “Hamnet”: Lost to “Train Dreams,” which both hosts agree is “lusher, more alive.” [05:12]
• Notable mention that “Frankenstein” looks “a lot worse” [05:40].
• Max Richter’s “original score” nomination for “Hamnet” sparks a fun digression about his omnipresent music and Elisabeth Moss’s appearance in one of his videos [06:41].

5. Oscar Nominations Process Clarified

• Richard and Alison walk through the technical mechanics of shortlists, nomination voting (by branch), and final ballots:
  • “Each individual branch will vote...I’m in the sound branch, I’m voting for Best Sound and Best Picture...” – Richard [09:09]
  • Discussion of voting windows and how game theory and “freshness” can influence results (e.g., “The Father” and Anthony Hopkins’s surprise win) [10:32].

6. How ‘Surprise’ Nominations Happen—Voting Dynamics

• The “Olivia Colman effect”: when presumed frontrunners leave voters “free” to cast a passion vote, yielding unexpected winners.
  • “I’m convinced until someone tells me otherwise that [was] exactly how Olivia Colman won.” – Richard [12:23]
  • “There are definitely stubborn Academy members...like, ‘No, I’m going to defy that.’” – Richard [13:16]

---

7. Roundup of Notable Snubs

• International Category:
  • Panahi’s “It Was Just An Accident” misses Best Picture; “F1” gets nod with Iranian government backing [17:30–18:22].
• Blockbusters:
  • “Wicked Part 2” gets zero nominations, a sharp reversal from last year’s 10. Discussion of “category inertia” and how sequels can get snubbed if competition is fiercer [19:59].
  • “Avatar: Fire/Nash” also misses major categories, breaking Cameron’s Best Picture streak [23:13].
• Acting Notables:
  • Jesse Buckley stands as “sole representative” for “Hamnet”—hosts foresee this as fitting [06:20].
  • Amanda Seyfried (“Testament of Anley”) and Paul Mescal (“Hamnet”) both snubbed; the latter feels “not like a true snub,” just no room [31:36].
  • Kate Hudson's surprise Best Actress nod for “Song Sung Blue”; the hosts highlight its "old-school" Oscar performance traits [26:20].

8. Stacked & Fluid Acting Races

• Ethan Hawke (“Blue Moon”) and Wagner Moura (“Prison”) praised for category-reshuffling performances [33:42].
• The long list of actors who faded out this season—Joel Edgerton, Dwayne Johnson, Jeremy Allen White, Oscar Isaac, Jesse Plemons, Daniel Day Lewis, Russell Crowe—lampooned in a rapid-fire “in memoriam” [36:00–39:41].

---

9. The Curious Oscar Fate of ‘F1’

[Key Segment: 49:43–65:56]

Why Did ‘F1' Break Through?

• The episode’s second arc dives deep into the surprise Best Picture nomination for the Brad Pitt racing pic “F1.”
• Technical Admiration:
  • Got Best Picture, Editing, Sound, and Visual Effects; tech branches and star-power clearly powered the push.
• Hollywood’s Movie Star Mythology:
  • “Hollywood likes movie stars. They like fast cars. Look at ‘Ford v Ferrari’ and all that stuff.” – Richard [50:22]
• Parallels with “Top Gun: Maverick":
  • Joseph Kosinski repeating the concept of making a film that “enshrines" an aging star as irreplaceable [51:20]
• Brad Pitt, Persona and Tabloid Backlash:
  • “There is a big enough contingent in Hollywood that’s…like, ‘no, that's not my business. He’s like one of our greats.’" – Richard [54:26]
  • Alison posits, “He is load-bearing within the industry in ways that other people have not been.” [55:24]
• The Movie’s Vibe:
  • It's technically slick, a “masculine Hollywood product.” F1’s chilly, blue-tinged look compared to “Top Gun’s” golden hue [56:01].
• Discussion on why “F1” succeeded where “Ferrari” didn’t: F1 is “easier to drop into,” less dynastically complex, more American mythmaking [58:14].

Will ‘F1’ Go Further?

• “I don’t think there is a single person in Hollywood who’s like, ‘F1’ could win Best Picture.” – Richard [65:25]
• Hosts see its journey as likely over: “Solid 10th place,” with some realistic chances in the technical categories.
• Anecdote: Richard never saw F1’s ending after leaving a screening to make a Pride event [61:04].

---

10. Oscar Voting Structures and Their Impact

• Discussion of whether the 10-nominee field creates more “walking dead” films that are there in numbers but not in real contention [64:41].
• “When like an F1 gets in, it’s just the industry being like, ‘Well done.’” – Richard [65:33]

---

11. Personal Picks, Regrets, and the Spirit of the Season

• The hosts each air out “in memoriam” for movies and performances that never really had a chance but were personal favorites (Ben Whishaw in “Peter Hujar’s Day Beyond”; “Weapons”; Julia Lochtev’s “My Undesirable Friends”; breakthrough supporting performances like Asap Rocky [67:10–68:20]).
• Alison closes with the hope that Amanda Seyfried could have been more present on the circuit “because she’s a delightful, genuinely eccentric person in press” [69:05].

---

Notable Quotes (with timestamps & attributions)

• On Sinners’ 16 nominations:
  “Record breaking amount of nominations. Sixteen, which blows past Titanic, All About Eve...That’s huge.” – Richard [02:40]

• On Oscar voting strategy:
  “It’s like volunteering to be club treasurer…this thankless job, but I’ll do it.” – Richard [08:32]

• On the unpredictability of Best Picture nominations:
  “It’s also funny that a movie with 13 nominations is not the leader. Like, that’s crazy.” – Richard [12:23]

• On Kate Hudson’s surprise nod:
  “It’s a big, broad kind of old school performance...You could probably go back to like the early 2000s, the late 90s, and all five Best Actress nominees would be giving this kind of performance. It’s just that kind of old fashioned thing, I feel like.” – Richard [27:38]

• On Brad Pitt’s career durability:
  “You can feel that Brad Pitt is load bearing within the industry in ways that some other people have not been.” – Alison [55:24]

• On F1’s purpose in the Oscar field:
  “F1 is Top Gun but they’re on the ground and the stakes are lower, but it has that really…exciting to watch.” – Richard [55:47]

---

Key Timestamps

01:15 – Oscar morning excitement & public engagement
02:40 – “Sinners” breaks the nomination record
03:18/03:34 – On expectations and predictions gone wrong
04:51 – Hamnet’s nomination fortunes
08:02–09:09 – The nomination process explained
12:23 – The Olivia Colman ‘surprise winner’ effect
16:37 – First “Let’s talk snubs” segment
17:30 – Panahi missing out, international shakeup
19:59 – Stunning shutout for “Wicked Part 2”
23:32 – “Avatar 3” doesn’t get in – first James Cameron shutout in decades
26:20 – Kate Hudson as the surprise Best Actress nominee
33:42 – Praising Hawke’s old-school “transformative” acting
36:00–39:41 – Lightning round: snubbed actor “In Memoriam”
49:43–65:56 – Big “F1” discussion (Hollywood mythmaking, technical branches, Brad Pitt, why it hit)
65:33 – F1: “taken as far as it’ll go”; industry/Academy congratulation
67:10–68:20 – Honorable mentions and performances that deserved more
69:05 – Alison misses Amanda Seyfried’s likely can’t-care eccentricity

---

Tone and Language

The episode is infused with sharp humor ("he is not aging, he’s developing a patina"), industry savviness, and empathy for both the craft and the heartbreak of Oscar races. Both hosts are playful but—when breaking down technicalities—precise and accessible. The show is equally comfortable poking fun at Oscar mechanics as it is sharing personal anecdotes from real-world Oscar nights.

---

Memorable Moments

• Richard discovers Elisabeth Moss is in a Max Richter music video after YouTube suggests it the night before [07:15].
• Extended laughs imagining Kate Hudson’s “old-school” Oscar bait performance and the deep bench of “vibes” actors almost in the running [26:20–36:00].
• The segment where the hosts ponder which remaining movie stars could next get the “Kasinski mythmaking” treatment (Mark Wahlberg? Dwayne Johnson?) [51:50–52:34].
• Richard’s story about leaving the “F1” climax to join Pride festivities, leading Alison to joke that the film ends with Brad Pitt dying and the cast breaking into song [61:04–62:46].

---

Conclusion

The episode is a lively, candid, and authoritative Oscars analysis, dissecting statistics and narratives but embracing the emotional, unpredictable “vibes” of the awards race. Richard and Alison blend hard reporting, personal insight, and mirthful cynicism—demystifying the industry for listeners while keeping the stakes human and fun. The discussion of how “F1” nabbed Best Picture and the evolving dynamics of international cinema mark this as a crucial recap for anyone following the 2026 Oscar season.

Next Week: The hosts will deep-dive into “Train Dreams,” the surprise darling in cinematography and other technical fields.

---

Critical Darlings is a Blank Check Production in association with Vulture. Hosted by Alison Wilmore and Richard Lawson. Produced by Benjamin Frisch.

Transcript

[Marie]

Welcome to Critical Darlings, a conversation about the awards season. Conversation one contender at a time. Please welcome to the stage your hosts, Richard Lawson and Alison Wilmore.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, thank you, Marie, for that spirited introduction, as always, but especially today. I mean, exciting morning.

[Alison Wilmore]

This is the day we've been training for all our lives.

[Richard Lawson]

We are at the final base camp before we summit.

[Alison Wilmore]

We're about to have a very confusing F1 race in which no one knows the rules, but we're going to beat them somehow.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. Yeah. We're alone in studio today. Our producer Ben Frisch is on the line in Mexico. Hello, Ben. Hello. Now, did you decide to hide out in Mexico because as one of the lead producers of Wicked for Good, you're kind of licking your wounds.

[Ben Frisch]

I'm deep in shame in a mezcalita right now.

[Richard Lawson]

Is mescalita with you? Paul also snubbed. Paul Mess.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Ben Frisch]

Yeah. Well, he's at the. He's on the other side of the beach.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, I see. Yeah, I take your meaning.

[Alison Wilmore]

He's looking sadly there, reciting to be or not to be.

[Richard Lawson]

As you do in Spanish, though.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Just for fun, though, you know, it was genuinely an exciting morning. A friend texted me right before being like, I'm so excited. And normally this for Oscar nominations, morning. Sometimes I'm in Sundance and it's like, you know, six in the morning or whatever, and I'm kind of like, ugh, whatever. We already know everything. But this year I didn't know everything and it felt great. And my sister, like, literally two minutes into, like, Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman talking, my sister called me on the phone and I texted her and I was like, oscar nominations are happening. What's wrong with you? And then she told me that someone had died. But anyway, not anyone I know, but I was like, oh, shit. But were you excited?

[Alison Wilmore]

I was excited. I mean, I think there is something about this year. We're also. There are a lot of movies that people have been talking about, so it doesn't feel like. Like the general public has been, you know, in a way that I feel lends extra energy. So there are times where, you know, you're like, oh, there are a lot of films getting nominated that are near and dear to my heart, and I am invested in this and no one cares, you know, like. Like you. The outside, this is so. It's too insular. The outside world is just not invested. And in this case, I feel like, for better and worse, the world is watching. Including.

[Richard Lawson]

But not for good.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, but not for good. I will say Also, I feel like this. This time last week we were recording and you're like. We're like, oh, any surprises? And I was like, I think Sinners is not gonna get any traction. I'm just getting bad vibes. Feelings like things are going. So never let me talk about vibes again because clearly my radar is very hot.

[Richard Lawson]

Record breaking amount of nominations. Sixteen, which blows past Titanic All About Eve. There's one other in there, but that's huge. And huger. Lalaland La La land. Oh, right.

[Alison Wilmore]

14.

[Richard Lawson]

All of those got 14, lest we forget. Yeah. So two more things then a record that, you know, before Titanic All About Eve held for a very long time. And then Titanic held for about 20 years. And now just what, eight years later, here comes Sinners. Part of that was that they had the two extra acting nominations, like in Delroy Lindo and when we misaku that we weren't sure were gonna happen, but maybe the SAG Award nominations should have indicated that that was actually gonna be a thing.

[Alison Wilmore]

They also had casting, which is like this brand new, exciting category. And I think, I mean, there is something about if you're going to get the casting nomination, then also it feels like you're getting this. They're vouching for the fact that you did a good job with the actors in your movie. So probably sign.

[Richard Lawson]

And the dreaded thing of like Jack o' Connell getting nominated with Delroy Lindo. Not I was like, what if that happened? Or Hailee Steinfeld and novel people sucked. So, you know, good things happen. And I think also, you know, we talked a bit last week about, like, Oscar villainy and Hamnet. Hamnet sort of underperforming while Sinners overperformed. I think for my, like, sanity and peace of mind, like, I'm like, okay, so that maybe from now until the actual Oscars, the discourse will be a little bit less fraught and more sort of fun.

[Alison Wilmore]

I think so. I hope so. It could be now set up to be, depending on where you fall, Sinners and one battle after another getting chosen as the Oscar hero and Oscar villain. Yeah. You know, and there could be plenty of toxic discourse around that. I'm sure we can pull it off. But for now, yes. I feel a lot better, frankly, about those two movies duking it out than about, like, Hamnet. Yeah. Being cast as this, like, spoiler that everyone. Cause it just, I think, like, potentially brings out a lot of like, just ugly, ugly stuff that is not related to the movie itself.

[Richard Lawson]

No, right, right, exactly. Like Hamnet, you know, it's gonna win its actress prize and that'll be enough. And, you know, maybe it'll. I mean, I don't know. Hamnet, like, not getting in. Cinematography was interesting. She got in.

[Alison Wilmore]

She got in. Chloe got in at directing.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, that's true.

[Alison Wilmore]

Which is big, you know. Yeah. Cinematography, I kind of. I get the feeling that, like, they were like, we can give one. One slot to kind of Malikian dreamy, like, nature footage y tableaus. And it's going to go to Train Dreams instead. Sorry, only one space.

[Richard Lawson]

You know, honestly, having watched both of those again fairly recently, like, I would give the edge to Train Dream, like, especially because they did so with, like, a lot less budget. And, you know, they were really out there in the middle of nowhere, like, just looping those cameras around, you know, like, Hamnet, you expect to be stately and look elegant, and it does. But Train Dreams, I think, yes, it's doing Malik Pastiche, but, like, it does it well. And I think it's one of the chief, like, selling points of that movie. So.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, I think also, I mean, it's a little. Not that you couldn't also aim this at Frankenstein, which frankly looks a lot worse, but I think Hamnet tends to be a little. A little careful, you know, like, it really is like, look at this shot a lot of the times. And Train Dreams is lush and beautiful, but also feels a little more loose in that sense, a little more alive in terms of how the camera moves. And I think that. I bet that helped.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, it for sure did so. But that still, nonetheless, Hamnet not getting in there was a surprise.

[Alison Wilmore]

Do we think that Hamnet. It's Jess at this point. Jessie Buckley, potentially even not. But.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, her, the art musical artist, her recorded an original song for Hamnet. So I think that, you know, Rogue and Peasant Slave, it's called. No, I really do think that Buckley will, at the end of the Oscar ceremony in, you know, six weeks or whatever, like, will stand alone as the sole representative of that movie. I think the other seven nominations are just, like, honored to be here.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it was funny to me that Max Richter got the original score also because, like, the talking point there, not his original score, but the famous track he wrote a long time ago that everyone.

[Richard Lawson]

And it has that weird echo of Remember when the Arrival score either. It did get nominated. Right. But the problem was that everyone thought that the Max Richter thing that's also in Hamnet, was part of that score, but it wasn't actually. So Max Richter just kind of like Weirdly drifting through.

[Alison Wilmore]

I wonder how annoyed he is about that track at this point being like.

[Richard Lawson]

Guys, do you remember that Elisabeth Moss is in the music video for on the Nature of daylight?

[Alison Wilmore]

No.

[Richard Lawson]

YouTube suggested that video to me the other day. It's like, you know, however many years old. Neither did I until yesterday. So here we go. It's. I think it's just Elizabeth Moss, like, kind of wandering a street, looking sad. And then it cuts to other sad faces. I didn't watch much of it, but I just think it's funny that there's a video for it at all and.

[Alison Wilmore]

That Elizabeth Moss is in it. Amazing. Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. Ben, do you have any questions about, like, how this all goes down? Because I think you might, you know, some of our listeners might not know.

[Ben Frisch]

So my question is, like, obviously you've got a large voting body for the best picture nominees. Right. How do the actual nominations happen? Is that a smaller group within each body or is it the same bodies voting?

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, I mean, so the first step of the every Oscar voting year is the shortlist. So there are certain categories as varied as animated short to makeup and hairstyling. The songs. You know, those are. That's like a smaller subcommittee. I believe it's largely people who volunteer to do that.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, that would make sense. I think that in the same way, like, international features, animated features and short films also have, like, volunteers who can nominate them.

[Richard Lawson]

It's like volunteering to be like club treasurer. You know, you're like, okay, fine, this thankless job, but I'll do it.

[Alison Wilmore]

Or you're like, I just want to be involved and coach.

[Richard Lawson]

So that's what happens before the new year. And then after that, once the shortlists have been figured out, there's only really a five day window for voting. So this year it was January 12 through 16. So that was the Monday after the Golden Globes to that Friday. And then it closes and then they announce the nominations less than a week later.

[Alison Wilmore]

Right, well. And they. So like, they also. The shortlist voting was like in December and that was also like four days. Right. One week. So they did one week shortlists, one week nominations.

[Richard Lawson]

Yes.

[Alison Wilmore]

And then the final voting will be. Will start on February 26th and go through March 5th.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. So they're really short. They're small windows, I think, because they don't want to allow too much like gaming and whatever. But. But who's doing the voting on those nominations? So each individual branch will vote for. You know, if I'm in the sound branch, I'm voting for Best Sound and best Picture. If I'm in makeup branch, I'm voting for that. And Best Picture, everyone in the voting body does Best Picture, which I think is kind of how like a movie like F1 gets into best Picture because the tech branches clearly like that movie. Yeah. And then once the nominations are set, everyone in the Academy votes on every award for the actual winners.

[Ben Frisch]

And how do you actually like submit a movie?

[Richard Lawson]

So you have to have played for a week in. Well, they just expanded. It used to just be New York and LA and now it's. I think there's multiple markets you can. But you have to have played for at least a week in a first run theater and then it counts. And I'm sure, yeah, they do. You have to submit your film because they have to put it on the Academy screening platform and all that. And then there are.

[Alison Wilmore]

And then there's gamesmanship with that too, where like places will be like, we're not going to put our. We're going to be like, oh, we're working on it, getting the screening in. And they try and be like, well, if it gets up really late on the screening site, maybe it'll be the last thing people watch before voting. So it'll be the last thing in their mind. But that obviously can backfire as well and people just don't see your movie.

[Richard Lawson]

There is some thought that the year that Anthony Hopkins won best Actor for the Father, when everyone thought that Chadwick Bothin was going to win this posthumous Oscar, not me, I called Hopkins at Sundance that year and then changed my mind. But, but that, that the Father was one of the last things that the Academy saw, I think kind of for that reason. And they were like, okay, so he was just freshest in everyone's mind, ironically, given the subject of that film.

[Alison Wilmore]

But Right, right. Great film though.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. I think there are probably def. There are little stratagems that happen here and there, but it's a pretty set process. And I actually do really like that it's a short window because like, if people could have like a month to figure out who they wanted to vote for for nominations, I think that really screwy things would happen. I mean, maybe fun screwy, but, but.

[Alison Wilmore]

But I feel like you would get a lot more people being like, well, I talked to my friend and they voted for this already, so I'm going to vote for this. Or, oh, then I assume that everyone else is also voting for like say Hamnet. And I feel like you could make the case that like there are movies that everyone assumes everyone else is voting for. So they are freed up to vote for this more wildcard choice.

[Ben Frisch]

And is it first past the post or is it like ranked choice?

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, so it's ranked choice for best picture when they're deciding a winner. And then in nominations, I believe it's also ranked. So it's, you know, they've tried to ensure ways for like, to get more consensus rather than just sheer majority, but, you know, it's not a perfect process. But I think this year they gave us a pretty varied. You know, there were enough surprises and I think they did a good job of like, representing the bigger movies of the year without it feeling too heavily weighted. I mean, yes, Sinner's got 16 nominations, but like, you know, wanna battle's right behind them with like.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, I mean, also like, those were the two kind of like, biggest talked about kind of like possibilities. So the fact that they both did quite well, that they were like kind of these top heavy nominations, I think is a good thing.

[Richard Lawson]

It's also funny that a movie with 13 nominations is not the leader. Like, that's crazy. But yeah, to the idea, Alison, that like, voters kind of feel like they're left let off the hook when it seems like, oh, everyone's gonna go this way, so I'm just gonna vote my passion pick. Convinced. I'm convinced until someone tells me otherwise that that's exactly how Olivia Colman won.

[Alison Wilmore]

Oh, yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Everyone in the Academy was like, well, Glenn's gonna win because it's her year. I didn't really like that movie or I didn't even see that movie, but, like, she's gonna win. So I loved that British actress in that weird, you know, Queen movie. And then enough people said that and there it went. Yeah.

[Alison Wilmore]

And yeah, and she also, I mean, I think she has the benefit of being like just kind of a. A kind of natural seeming, quirky person who's very charming and warm and, you know, and you're like, oh, that helps with the underdog thing. You're like, oh, you're not like, you're not like everyone else. Unexpected. Let's choose you.

[Richard Lawson]

And I think there are definitely stubborn academy members who don't like feeling that their hand is being forced in one direction. And they're like, no, I'm going to defy that.

[Alison Wilmore]

I'm going to narrative. I reject your narrative.

[Richard Lawson]

You can't get me to vote for Sylvester Stallone. I'm voting for that weird British guy.

[Ben Frisch]

David.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yes.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

This episode is brought to you by mubi, the global film company that champions great cinema. It champions it.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Unlike the others.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

No, they cry it. Barbarian it. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there is always something new to discover with mubi. Each and every film is hand selected so you can explore the best of cinema.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

You can log on to MUBI and check out all the movies they got art house, you know, cool indie stuff, foreign stuff.

[Richard Lawson]

Okay.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

This is awesome.

[Alison Wilmore]

What?

[Sponsor Voice 2]

There's a movie star movie now streaming on MUBI in the US Covered on blank check soon.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Well, I think that's the headline.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Die My Love.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Yes. You're gonna need to watch it if you want to keep up with the show.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

True, true. I mean, I guess, you know, do what you want. You don't have to. But we recommend viewing the film.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Please view the film.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Die My Love. Lynne Ramsey's film.

[Alison Wilmore]

Great.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Came out last year. It was a canon that came out last fall in 2025. It's a visceral and uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, who was nominated for Golden Globe. Robert Pattinson. It's kind of mostly those two, so very heavy on the two of them.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Yeah, some top shelf Nolte. I was gonna say some seasoning of Nolte and Spacek, but this is dry.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Age, let me tell ya. Oh, yeah, you've got them in there, but yeah, it's a lot. It's a big showstopper movie for J Law and rpats. Yeah, he's playing sack and fiddle.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Sure.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

But then there's busting out the cello.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

A lemon pepper dry rub of Nick Nolte.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

I love lemon pepper, guys.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

I love Nick Nolte.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

I love Lick Nolte, too. Look at Lynn Ramsey making her eagerly awaited filmmaking return. Obviously, that's why we're covering her podcast. We've been waiting for her.

[Richard Lawson]

Yes.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

To make another movie. And it was on the shortlist for cinematography of the 90th Academy Awards. I didn't even know that.

[Ben Frisch]

That's awesome.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

It's a passionate, complicated, destructive love story between two major stars in Lawrence and Pattinson who'd never been together on screen before.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

I know.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

I guess that's not that surprising. But they are quite a pair.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

The Bat and the Cat. K A T N I S S oh, Katniss. Yeah.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

The Bat and the Steek Nistique.

[Richard Lawson]

That is.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Oh, sure.

[Ben Frisch]

Yeah.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

It's an awesome movie.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

It's a stique. And the freaks. Is that something. He's played a lot of freaks. Sure, sure.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

The spoiler alert for the episode, but I was a big fan of the film. I know you were, Ben.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Have you seen it yet?

[Richard Lawson]

I haven't seen it yet.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

I think you're gonna like it a lot.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

It's also based on a book by Ariana Horwitz.

[Richard Lawson]

Mm.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Anyway, there's so much good stuff to watch on movie, but there's also.

[Richard Lawson]

Awesome.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Other good look, if you're not a member, this is a perfect month to sign up in order to keep up with the show. To stream the best of cinema, you could Try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.comblankcheck that's M u b I.com blankcheck for a whole month of great cinema for free.

[Alison Wilmore]

Wait, can we talk about some. Let's talk about some snubs.

[Richard Lawson]

Let's do it.

[Alison Wilmore]

Okay. I guess it's not entirely surprising. I feel like its momentum had been fading a bit in recent. In recent. The last few awards. But the Panahi film, it was just an accident, did not get in for Best Picture. I was kind of assuming it would. You know, we've been having a lot more breakthroughs of international films into Best Picture lately. This was a Neon film. Neon had this very strong slate of these kind of international films. They're very good at pushing them though maybe this year they just had to divide their efforts a lot, you know. But I think a lot of people assumed it won the Palme d' or, had an incredible narrative behind it. You know, Jafar Panahi, his. His travel ban overturned. He was allowed to actually go to places with these films. He's really funn, you know, as a presence. He's great at talking about his films. Even though he hasn't done that, you know, in person.

[Richard Lawson]

He did enough Q and A's that both you and I have moderated Q and A's with him this season. So I mean, I think that that was, you know, on the ankler pundits thing. I got nine out of 10 best picture nominees, right? And the one I got wrong was that I had. It was just an accident there. What I forgot, and maybe listeners don't know is that F1, which did get nominated, has the full backing of the Iranian government. So I guess that just the power apparatus, you know. Yeah, they do. The car represents something political, I don't know. But yeah, I think that was disappointing. But I think probably it just came down to with voters, like we've got. I've got these two political, somewhat esoteric non English language movies. Both did very well at Cannes and something about the bright color and sort of sex and music of Secret Agent just sort of won them over.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. I think we've said this on this podcast before, or at least we've said it in talking about it. Like, the Secret Agent is a much weirder movie than it seems at first. It is not a typical thriller, but I do feel like it has a bit. Yes, it has this kind of old 70s movie swagger to it. I mean, it is set in the 70s. It has these incredible colors. It has Wagner, Mora.

[Richard Lawson]

It's also partly about, like, movie theaters. I mean, just a little bit.

[Alison Wilmore]

Literature has a bit of that. Yeah, it is about kind of like political oppression. It is about like banding together in the face of it. But, yeah, it's sexy. It feels very vibrant.

[Richard Lawson]

I mean, for me, snub wise.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Picture this. You're in Los Angeles, or maybe you're in London, or maybe you're in New York and you have a little viewing party of the nominations. And it's all the people you spent months and months with, Artisans, actors, filmmaker, whatever. And you're all wearing your Wicked green. And they start reading the nominations and then category after category after category, your name, your movie's title is never said. Not once. Wicked, the first part got 10 nominations one year ago. Wicked part two got zero. I mean, that is a stunning rebuke of that movie from Hollywood.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. And also not good for me, given my. My movie draft. I. In an act of cynicism, I feel like I was like, well, this is gonna. This is gonna be. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

I mean, I had Wicked in pretty much every craft category in my ankler predictions. I had it in best song. I mean, it not getting in. In best song. And like, costume design is crazy song especially.

[Alison Wilmore]

Even though everyone seemed to hate the new songs, but they like, they. You know, the classic thing of inserting some new songs into a musical. Especially, like, on top of being like so many other songs in this are just like either from movies no one knows or remembers, like the Diane Warren documentary, or just like they're tacked on to the kind of like the end where you're like, this is not really part of this movie. It's kind of.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Ben Frisch]

Can I ask why you guys thought it was gonna do well if it. Nobody seemed to like it. It didn't do that well last year, right?

[Alison Wilmore]

It didn't.

[Ben Frisch]

What did it win last year?

[Richard Lawson]

Well, I mean, it got those 10 nominations. I just thought that there would just be sort of like inertia. It would just be like, well, we nominated it there, you know, last year, so let's just do that again.

[Alison Wilmore]

Well, I think it also, it's like, it's a musical. It's, you know, like it does a lot of stuff that seemed like kind of to speak to the academy and the industry in terms of old fashioned, you know, show business. Song, dance, costumes, fantasy settings. You know, it had a lot of kind of show business stuff that seemed to appeal to people.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, it won two Oscars last year for costume design and production design. The first movie did.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

So I just thought there would be that sort of inertia. And I also thought that there are plenty of examples of movies that like, aren't beloved necessarily, but have all of those craft elements that people, people enjoy. I, I was sort of out on like Grande or Erivo getting in. I think Erivo was out of it for a long time and Grande was sort of just, maybe she was sixth or seventh place in, in the voting. But to not get anything for makeup or production design or anything like, that's to me is just like wild. But I guess they really hated that movie or maybe resented what it stood for or maybe Universal just made a mistake and they should have held it. They should not have done it in back to back years.

[Ben Frisch]

How important is it to have like, for a best picture nominee to have like the craft categories and the actor noms as well?

[Richard Lawson]

I mean, it depends on the year really. Like you think about a year like Spotlight, which only had a couple. It did. Certainly Spotlight wasn't getting in like production design and visual effects or whatever. They had, you know, the one acting nomination and Rachel McAdam or two, I guess it was Ruffalo and McAdams.

[Alison Wilmore]

Right.

[Richard Lawson]

But Keaton didn't get in. So, you know, there are some years where the smaller sort of less, you know, high style movie. But I think that for, you know, a year like this, when you have not only critically acclaimed, thoughtful, politically idea driven movies vying for it, those movies also are enormous productions. Maybe that's where Wicked gets blanked because they're like, well, we have to slot Sinners and one battle after another in pretty much almost every technical category. So that takes two away for every single one and now there's only three to kind of take.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, I think that's a great point. Think in general also in a year in which it was like Hamnet and Wicked for good and then not Sinners and not one battle after another, you know, like, I think maybe Wicked would do better because it would be the kind of like Hollywood commercial Counterweight scene. But, like, there are bigger movies that, you know, this year that have been doing fine, that also have, like, big ideas behind them. So I think there's just no space. No space for Wicked.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. And look, there are plenty of Oscars past where, like, a movie comes in with 11 nominations, including deep in the tech categories, and goes home with nothing, you know, so it's not a guarantee that you're gonna win something just because you got a ton of nominations, but it certainly helps as you enter that evening as like, one of the.

[Alison Wilmore]

On that note, imagine a watch party. All of these fans dressed in blue. Blue makeup.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, yeah.

[Alison Wilmore]

You know, lightly dusted with.

[Richard Lawson]

You're talking about Samsung bl.

[Alison Wilmore]

You know, having learned to speak. Na' Vi watching the feed.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Alison Wilmore]

Does get some nominations.

[Richard Lawson]

Costume design.

[Alison Wilmore]

Somehow when Best Picture comes up, is there any Avatar Fire? Nash? There is not. This feels like another one that would have benefited if, yes, it had needed to be a counterweight to a whole bunch of, like, indies or smaller international films. But in this case, yeah, again, just.

[Richard Lawson]

The cultural footprint thing. But this is the first James Cameron movie in 28 years to not get an Oscar Best Picture nomination. He's only made three, but. Or three feature films.

[Alison Wilmore]

Banging them out.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, but, you know, I mean, like, you know, the second, the Avatar sequel, Way of Water, getting a best Picture, it was like, okay, so maybe this just gets it every time. It's not gonna win, but it gets, you know, gets among the 10. But yeah, I think that that movie just really was not greeted. Again. Same with Wicked. They just didn't wait long enough. If they had waited, like five more years and people were really champing at the bit for another Avatar movie, I think it would be a different story because the drop. I think it is not as good as the past two Avatar movies, but the drop in quality is not that significant. It's not wicked to 1 to 2.

[Alison Wilmore]

I mean. That's right. It just felt a little too much like the last one, I think, to your point. Like, if.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, the battle is the same at the end. And, you know, I mean, the thing is, I was really looking forward to doing an episode about Avatar on this podcast because Blank Check, our parent podcast, they don't. They've never seen those movies. They don't have any interest in them. No, I don't think they even know who James Cameron is. So this was. This was like buying Czech listeners one chance to hear about Avatar movies. So, sorry, guys, but we just. Our hands are tied. Speaking of blue, we're At a watch party, same setup, you're at a watch party, you're Kate Hudson, and you somehow get in as best actress, which honestly, like, I'm bummed for Amanda Seyfried. I thought that would have been pretty cool. But I also think that, like, maybe Emma Stone could have just sat this one out.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, I mean, I feel like she didn't really campaign at all. Even they just, at this point, they just give her nominations. And for a movie that was by no means a kind of like overwhelming favorite, Begonia, like, on the scale of Yorgos movies like this was not one of his most beloved. As divisive as his movies often are.

[Richard Lawson]

Would you have ever guessed, like back in the day watching Alps or Dogtooth being like, someday he'll just be like an Oscar favorite, like perennial Oscar darling. It's so funny making this movie about.

[Alison Wilmore]

Incest amongst siblings who've been locked in of compound their entire lives.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, but Kate Hudson, I mean, I think that's like that. You know, it's hard when there's only five slots and you're like, there are great performances that just can't get in. And Kate Hudson is really good in song. Sung Blue.

[Alison Wilmore]

Can I confess something? This is the one that I haven't seen yet.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, well, well, well. How about that?

[Alison Wilmore]

I will. I will watch it.

[Richard Lawson]

I mean, it's not a. I don't think it's a bad movie. I think it's a little bit hokey or something. Hugh Jackman is maybe kind of oddly miscast, even though he's literally the only movie star in working today who could do that role. He's also miscast somehow. But Kate Hudson, she's doing this kind of Midwestern Milwaukee, I guess, accent, and she sings and she's a beautiful singer and she has a lot of levels to play, from falling in love to recovering from a terrible accident to sort of drug addiction to grief. There's a lot in this movie that kind of advertises itself as just this kind of uplifting movie about the songs of Neil diamond making people happy. And yeah, I think that when I saw that movie at Savannah, I was like, this does have some kind of academy juice to it. And there it is proven.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes people like a lot of acting. And if this sounds like it's a.

[Richard Lawson]

Lot of acting, yeah, it's a big, broad kind of old school performance of the sort that like, there were probably. I don't have it in front of me, but you could probably go back to like the early 2000s, the late 90s, and all five Best Actress nominees would be giving this kind of performance. You know, it's just that kind of old fashioned thing, I feel like.

[Alison Wilmore]

I mean, also, as opposed to Amanda Seyfried, who I think is great in Testament of Anley, but like, I think Testament is Anley. You can imagine a lot of people walking out of that movie being like, what was that movie? You know, like, she's incredible in it. But like, what? Like, it's a harder movie to understand. It is less friendly, it is much less commercial.

[Richard Lawson]

You know, it's much less commercial than the Brutalist, which has basically the same creative team behind it, you know, And I think people were making that comparison, like, well, okay, so the movie that the man directs and the stars, a man like that wins all the. Or gets nominated for all these Oscars and wins a big one. And then his wife's movie that she directs doesn't. And it's about a woman, doesn't get anything. But they are very different enterprises. One is about, like World War II and architecture and America and this. And Lee is about like religious ecstasy and an obscure cult with also music.

[Alison Wilmore]

Right. And also like, about kind of channeling your domestic trauma into a revelation from God in which you're like, sex is bad and your husband is like, what?

[Richard Lawson]

Not between us though, right? We're fine.

[Alison Wilmore]

No, I think a great and interesting movie, but not a friendly one in terms of letting the audience in.

[Richard Lawson]

And Seyfried did just do an interview where she was like, you know, I'm not doing this for awards. A nomination would be great, but blah, blah, I think she'll be okay. I just think it's a little bit surprising in some ways, despite, you know, the difficulty with subject matter, the sort of strange music that this lushly mounted movie that eventually got picked up by Searchlight and was at Venice and was at Toronto, was from a long distance. Like maybe this summer, like, viewed as like one of the bigger Oscar potential movies of the year. Like in Lee just didn't hit anywhere. It just. Yeah, yeah.

[Alison Wilmore]

But it also, like, it sold to Searchlight at the end of September.

[Richard Lawson]

Kind of late.

[Alison Wilmore]

Like, that's really late, you know, like, it had to compress a whole run, which is not impossible. Right. But like, it had to compress a whole run starting after its Venice premiere.

[Richard Lawson]

They would have needed that engine to really to be moving at Venice or before Venice even. And I think my theory about why that sale happened late, you know, was that like Searchlight was like, you know, We've done some screenings. I don't think this Bradley Cooper Will Arnett comedy movie is gonna be Oscar Y. So what else is out there that we could snap up real quick and to do something for it? And it just happened to be this pretty esoteric, I think lush, beautifully mounted and beautifully performed movie about religion and yeah. Trauma.

[Alison Wilmore]

What else have we got? Oh no. Paul Mescal as.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. Which I think, like, that's okay. I think I, I, I was, I was texting with somebody who's like, I wonder if he's relieved. Yeah, in a way. Cuz, would you want to be the person who denies Delroy Lindo getting a nomination or whatever?

[Alison Wilmore]

Like I think also he obviously has plenty of time and I feel like, I think he is very good in that movie if given like some impossible tasks, as we discussed. But I mean, like the acting story there is Jesse Buckley's, you know, like it has been so Jesse Buckley's from the beginning and I think that's fine. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, in some ways actually Mescal not getting nominated despite the fact that he's a pretty large presence in the film is actually truer to the book where his Shakespeare, William Shakespeare is like not really in the book much at all. And it's all on. So now the academy has leveled that out to where it should be, I guess, you know, and I don't feel like that's a snub for some reason. I don't know why. I guess I kind of know a snub when I see it. And that just feels like a, eh, like there wasn't room and we had other things we wanted to do in this category.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, I know. I feel like people kind of took it for granted, but yeah, he'll be fine.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, I think so. He said this morning he's still in bed. Maybe he was a little sad when I left the house, but. No, but he seemed okay. I mean, Best Actor went pretty much as expected. I say that three weeks ago. I would not have said it went as expected because like, I thought Joel Edgerton was gonna get in. I, you know, I wasn't so sure about the Wagner Mora thing. Ethan Hawke kind of came up really quick at the last minute. But if you'd asked me a week ago, yes, this would have been my five.

[Alison Wilmore]

Okay. Yeah, this was what I expected. But I will say we differ here. I never thought Joel Edgerton was going to was a surefire nominee. I, I mean that's a, it's a little film. I am impressed by how well it did, you know, in the nominations, this, like, it certainly overperformed, but I felt like this was a really crowded category. It was understood to be a crowded category even, you know, even when it was packed with like, people who have since faded away. Right. Like your George Clooneys, et cetera.

[Richard Lawson]

But I think was George Clooney in a movie last year?

[Alison Wilmore]

I never heard of it.

[Richard Lawson]

I don't know.

[Alison Wilmore]

But I think that you, you know, you have like a lot of people vying for this and like kind of rising up to suddenly become like the, I don't know, kind of the second I feel like he's.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, it helps. You look hot as shit at every single precursor.

[Alison Wilmore]

You go to like, and just comes in and like, charms the hell out of everyone. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Whereas, like Joel Edgerton, I. We're going to talk about Train Dreams next week, more in depth. So I don't want to say too much about it, but like, you know, I went to a dinner with him at the Savannah Film Festival and like, he's a nice guy and like, clearly, like, very dedicated to the film and to his craft and all that, but he's not like giving a ton in a room. You. And I think that Wagner Mora, who is brilliant in his movie, has been great in other things in the past, again wearing these great suits, giving lovely speeches and also just being off old.

[Alison Wilmore]

School leading man in that movie and in prison. And I think that helps a lot. Whereas, like, Edgerton is like very self contained in his roles. That's usually what he gives. Right. Is that he is like a guy who kind of is carrying a lot inside.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. And he barely speaks in Train Dreams. Like Will Patton, the narrator speaks way more than. And is never on screen. So. Yeah. And I think, look, Ethan Hawke, that's so great. Again, kind of with the Kate Hudson of it all. That's a really old school transformative performance. And they had to shoot him from funny angles to make him look tiny. And it's verbose and it's about the American theater and all that. I think that's really cool. And I thought that that would be the one representative of Blue Moon, but it got a screenplay nomination and I thought that was surprising to me.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, I. I figured Ethan Hawke was getting it. I feel, I feel like he does something. I mean, like you said, it's an old school kind of transformative performance, but I think it's also just a really good one, you know, like, he is. He's doing a lot without feeling like he's making you like, look at his work. Which is sometimes the case when someone is, especially playing a real person, you know, where you're like, oh, like. Like, I get it. You watch, like, listen to a lot of tapes of this person talking or like. Yeah, you spend a lot of time in the makeup chair every morning. I feel like he just really inhabits that character and he allows it to be a little bit of a fantasy, you know, like, this was not, like, a real night in his life. Like, this is, like this incredibly theatrical, like, idea of, like, picking which one pivot. Like, he plays into that so well, and I feel like it frees him up to play that character. As a character.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. I mean, as I've said about that movie a billion times, if he did it on stage, they would hand him a Tony. A Curtain called. They would not wait till June. He would have it wrapped up. He is really good. I also love the screenplay nomination because it is a great, dense, clever screenplay. So the guy who wrote it, Robert Kaplow, he has written one other screenplay, which was for Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, which did not get an Oscar nomination. He's written a lot of books. I think, like, nine or something. But he mostly was a film and English teacher in high school until fairly recently he retired. Imagine if your teacher just got nominated for an Oscar. That would be pretty exciting.

[Alison Wilmore]

That is pretty exciting. I will say one thing about that screenplay. I do like it a lot. I cannot stand the moment where he gives E.B. white the idea for Stuart.

[Richard Lawson]

But that's actually. That actually happened. Yeah. That's when the movie tilts from, like, charmingly old school quaint to, like, cloying.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. Today we call them computers. Yeah. Let's just take a moment, though, since before we leave Best Actor behind, this was a category where, like, every major actor passed through. So let's take a moment to salute George Clooney, aforementioned, for a movie we don't know about.

[Richard Lawson]

No, I think it was.

[Alison Wilmore]

It was odd that he was in the race but didn't have a movie.

[Richard Lawson]

But it just happened that way.

[Alison Wilmore]

The Rock.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, yeah.

[Alison Wilmore]

Remember the Rock?

[Richard Lawson]

He was in there briefly talking about.

[Alison Wilmore]

How he had been ruthlessly pigeonholed as an action star who only wears khaki colors, and he had no control over that whatsoever. He definite had not executive produced all of the movies that he. He was in in which he played the same character over and over again.

[Richard Lawson]

He should have done Song Sung Blue.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Might have worked out better.

[Alison Wilmore]

It would have been incredible. Jeremy Allen White, uh, huh. Yeah. Giving it his all in their classic, you know, angsty biopic. Weird movie. Just picking a really odd sliver of life, but still haven't seen it. Yeah, well, it's my song Blue. Yeah, It's. Men will literally write a hugely critically acclaimed album instead of going to therapy. Is. It's kind of.

[Richard Lawson]

I am proud, though, that of the music movies that both of you and I have not seen, I made the right choice because mine didn't get nominated for anything. So now I don't have any reason to watch it.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. All right.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, you have to watch it. Don't worry. It's kind of long.

[Alison Wilmore]

Oscar Isaac.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, yeah. For Frankenstein.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. I think really miscast in that.

[Richard Lawson]

But we'll talk more about that in a future episode.

[Alison Wilmore]

But.

[Richard Lawson]

But he's, like, genuinely bad in that movie, right?

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, I think he's actively bad. We're going to try to find someone who disagrees.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Alison Wilmore]

We need to find someone who'll fight back. Brendan Fraser, Jesse Plemons.

[Richard Lawson]

Plemons, I think, probably came really close.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. I just, like, I'm so unenthusiastic about that movie that it has been hard for me to.

[Richard Lawson]

He's really good, but he's also kind of good in the way that you think Plemons is going to be good.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Emma Stone is good in the way you think she's going to be good. It's a Yorgosanthemos movie in the way you think it's. You know, again, we're going to talk about it later because it's the best picture nominee. But. But I think that my hunch, given how much they liked Begonia elsewhere, my hunch would be that Plemons was sixth.

[Alison Wilmore]

Just barely. Yeah, I would agree. Oh, also, Russell Crowe, Nuremberg, another real movie that definitely once in a while.

[Richard Lawson]

That premiered at Toronto. Right. I feel like every couple weeks from September to now, someone would sort of drift out of the woodwork in my life and be like, I think Nuremberg might be doing something quietly at these little regional festivals. And it never stuck in my mind completely, but it was always sort of there in the background. Except that when you just said that, I was like, oh, I forgot about that.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, that's a movie that came out this year. Also, shout out to Daniel Day Lewis for coming out of retirement to support his son for Anemone, a movie that also.

[Richard Lawson]

It's a real case against nepotism.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

You know, he was happily retired. Went out on such a high note.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. Like, you know, maybe like, making shoes by Hand or doing all, you know, whatever. Daniel Day Lewis, he and Rebecca Miller.

[Richard Lawson]

Just fixing their yurt or whatever they were.

[Alison Wilmore]

Exactly. And then look at that came back back was like, I'll do this for you, my son. We will work on this together.

[Richard Lawson]

People hated that movie. I didn't even hear much good about him. Like his performance, which is. That's really rare.

[Alison Wilmore]

I know you're like, this is like.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Alison Wilmore]

I think everyone's like, this is the greatest actor of our generation.

[Richard Lawson]

We're talking about a movie called Anemone, by the way. I don't think we said that. See, that was another problem with that movie is that no one could say the goddamn title.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, yeah. Wow.

[Richard Lawson]

That were a lot of best actors.

[Alison Wilmore]

I know Lee Byung Kun even. Like that was an outside case.

[Richard Lawson]

What do we think about. About the. No other choice of it all. Because that. It feels like that was very much in the mix for a long time and then yet didn't.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. I don't know. It was not one that I got the feeling, as we've discussed, my vibes assessments are never wrong. I did not get the feeling that it was getting that kind of traction again. Neon had all of these international films, these lauded international films that were in contention. This was one of those. Them. I feel like it's just not as good a movie as, you know, some of these others, including Seurat, which got sound and international Surat. But like. Yeah, it. I don't know. I mean, I think like, like, like I think Lee Bhunh is very good in it. I think he's, you know, got a great kind of. He's also got a great narrative behind it. But like that was also Wagner Mora's, you know, like they, they were kind of on the same track of like these are actors who have been and who have rattled around in Hollywood to a certain degree but like have gone back, you know, and made movies that like just showcase their incredible leading manness in their home turf.

[Ben Frisch]

Those are old Neon movies.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

So Neon. The only international feature film nominee that Neon didn't have is Voice of Hinrjab, right? Yes. They don't. No one has that.

[Alison Wilmore]

No. I think that Willa is distributing it, but a very small distributor. Yeah. And they. That they had started campaigning before the distributor came, so they were kind of going it alone. But yeah, like Secret Agent. It was just an accident. Sentimental Value and Seurat are all Neon movies, as is the Park Chan Wook film.

[Richard Lawson]

So there was. It was easily. Could have been five or five for Neon, which would have been. Which would have been remarkable and like, good for them in a way. But also, I think increasingly I'm a little bit worried about Neon's stranglehold on these movies. Like, yeah, I mean, maybe it's. No one else is touching them or. I don't know.

[Alison Wilmore]

I don't know. I mean, it feels like, like it's also. You're like, okay, they are good, I think, at marketing them. Some go do better than others. These are not easy movies to always market, but it does feel like, you know, what we're commending them on is mostly an incredible act of shopping at Cannes.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, exactly.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

I mean, I think the thing about the shopping of it all is like, were it not for Frankenstein, which over index, I mean, it did so much better than, again, we're going to do an episode on it. But like, I don't like that movie. I'm happy for Elordi, that's cool. But like, were it not for Frankenstein, we've said it before on the show, like, they were fucked. But they did a good little bit of shopping at Sundance and bought Train Dreams there. And like, so they were always probably gonna be on the board with Train Dreams for something. And then Frankenstein ended up like picking itself up and writing its campaign. But you know, the George Clooney movie that doesn't exist and the Catherine Bigelow movie, those were completely DOA for Netflix, so. So yeah, the shopping aspect at festivals can count for a lot. I would really be curious to see. And this is something we can talk about in the future too. But like, Neon has barely produced any of their own movies. I think they did Spencer, right. The Diana movie with Kristen Stewart, I think that was homegrown.

[Alison Wilmore]

That sounds entirely possible. But yeah, they don't. They don't.

[Richard Lawson]

Unless I got drunk and funded that because I've done that before. So I don't know.

[Alison Wilmore]

I've told you, I've warned you about that. Just like, you know, just like. And then suddenly you've just plunked down like $5 million on this.

[Richard Lawson]

Like, I got Natalie Portman that Oscar nomination, didn't I? For Jackie.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, I. I mean, their model has been much more about acquisitions or like co producing. Right. Like, I think like when they do get into something early, as when they're stepping into something that is already kind of in the works with funding from many different places to kind of co produce or something. So unlike say a 24, which has. Has a lot more on their own. Yeah, Neon has Been much more about betting big on international films and kind of like stepping in. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

And I bet, you know, speaking of a 24, I bet they're pretty happy this morning. You know, like Marty supreme, which is their big play, did just about as well as I expected it to. I think it ended up in all the categories I thought it would. Screenplay, actor, picture director. I was maybe starting to think that there could be a little momentum for Gwyneth Paltrow or even for Kevin o', Leary, because, like, people have talked about those performances a lot, but I think ultimately the supporting categories were just a little too stuffed for.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. And no Odessa.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, I guess that was the other one that people were talking about. But that performance seemed to have been polarizing. Or it wasn't the performance. It was more like I saw on Twitter, people being like, this person literally didn't exist two days ago. And now all of a sudden people are talking about her getting knocked and it's like, well, no, she was on a telev television show for a long time. Isn't she.

[Alison Wilmore]

Isn't she on I love la?

[Richard Lawson]

She's also on that. Yeah, but I think that's what people were saying. They're like, all of a sudden she's this co star of an HBO show. She's getting Oscar buzz for this Timothee Chalamet movie. But I did. No one knew who she was.

[Alison Wilmore]

And she's a nepo baby, of course. So I cannot remember if we talked about this last time, but someone. One of my co workers brought up that someone on Twitter had been like, ferociously defending Odessa by being like, she's not a nepo baby. How can you call. The child of a voice actor is not a nepo baby? And I was like, well, that's really kind of downplaying Adlon's career overall. Like, was a voice actor on, like, a network animated show that ran for.

[Richard Lawson]

Like 14 and is now. Yeah, exactly. It is.

[Alison Wilmore]

Like, like, that is actually probably one of the more lucrative things. Yeah, the more lucrative things. Jobs you could pick up. You know, she's.

[Ben Frisch]

She's Bobby Hill.

[Richard Lawson]

She's Bobby Hill. But is she. Is she not Bobby in the new one? Because he's grown up?

[Alison Wilmore]

I don't know.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh, she is. She still is. Okay. We're getting a thumbs up from off stage. So anyway, Odessa will be fine.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

You know, I met her mother at the Vanity Fair Oscar party. Pamela Adlon is her mom. And it was the year that the New York Times had run this really kind of mean and I think actually, I'm not saying it's out of brand loyalty, but like genuinely inaccurate piece about how the Oscar party had sort of faded and it wasn't the cool party anymore. Yes. Look like that party, like Madonna has a party. There are other cool. Jay Z has a party. Like there are cool parties to go to that night that aren't the VF Anyway, so all of us at VF that we were feeling a little glum about, like, oh, is anyone going to come? And it turned out to be a perfectly fine evening. But anyway, I was outside and Pamela Adlon, not to out her bummed a cigarette off me back when I was smoking and I brought some reason. I brought up that New York Times article and she. Or no, she brought it up and she was like, fuck them. Fuck the New York Times. This is the greatest party I've ever been to. And I was like, thank you, Pamela Edlin. So I'm forever rooting for her and her family for cheering me up at that time.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yes, yes, that's. I mean that's lovely. And I support her coming out in favor of branded parties of kind of.

[Richard Lawson]

Grotesque displays of displays, opulence.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Yeah.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

David.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Uh huh.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Stop checking your watch. You keep looking at it, waiting for it to tell you that it's the right time for better health.

[Alison Wilmore]

Health.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Okay, I, I shouldn't let the watch dictate this time.

[Alison Wilmore]

The time is now.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

The time is always now. My watch must be broken and the answer is AG1.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

My watch is just saying 10:52. I don't know what that means.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

AG1 is my best friend in the world. It is the easiest and most impactful habit that you can implement this year. And we hang out all the time. By hang out I mean every morning. I put one scoop of AG1 into water, drink it and I live to see another day. Sustainable health is about consistency, not perfection. Simplify your nutrition with AG1 multivitamin, pre and probiotics, superfoods and antioxidants in one scoop. If you are someone like me who perhaps does not have the most balanced diet, it's certainly very helpful to have some one stop shopping nutrients in your body to kick off the day. Yeah, this is first thing in the morning.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

This is kind of holding the door right as your diet's trying to get through.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

AG1 is the opposite of complexity. 20 seconds.

[Richard Lawson]

It's very easy.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

One scoop. Eight ounces of water. Done. I shake it. I'd recommend shaking it. That wasn't in the copy. I tend to shake it. You drink it first thing before coffee before checking your phone. Try sometimes we fail on that one. It will become a microhabit that anchors everything else. And the new next gen formula, they updated it. They've added more vitamins and minerals.

[Richard Lawson]

British.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Yep, that was for you than ever. Clinically proven to fill common nutrient gaps. And now also they added new flavors. I use this every single day. People know that's the most truthful statement I could possibly make.

[Richard Lawson]

I cannot lie.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

He's telling the truth.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

And any day I don't use it.

[Richard Lawson]

Is a bad one.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Barely constitutes a day. You should too.

[Richard Lawson]

By the way.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

AG1 now comes in original as I mentioned. But the new citrus berry and Tropical. I'm jamming pretty hard on citrus right now, but I'm really enjoying the variety. Sure. I'm gonna mix it up every time I run through a pouch. AG1 has over 50,000 verified five star reviews. I'm probably 40,000 of those. And it comes with a 90 day money back guarantee. So please, please go to drinkag1.com check to get their best off offer. Get a free AG1 flavor sampler and AGZ. This is their new sleep aid. Oh AGZ sampler to try all the flavors plus free vitamin once again for David D3 plus K2 and AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. That's quite a large amount of things. It is. This is what you got to do. Drink ag1.com check. Drink ag1.com check.

[Alison Wilmore]

Please, please.

[Richard Lawson]

Please sir, please.

[Alison Wilmore]

I feel like as we, as we come to the end of these initial observations, maybe it is worth talking about one of these movies. The movie that was the surprise. Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

One of F1.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. Like was. I would say, I mean like people have been calling this. People have been, you know, Davis Variety, Shout Out.

[Richard Lawson]

He did call it, I guess.

[Alison Wilmore]

Sean Fennesee apparently for months also. For months and months has been calling it. So like people have been. Have been.

[Richard Lawson]

I had it at one point on my anchor. I'm not making that up. I really genuinely did. But that was a long time ago.

[Alison Wilmore]

I mean it is not one I would have predicted though. I feel like it does not entirely surprise me that it got in there.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, I think that kind of going back to Ben's question about how this all works, everyone's voting on their own category, their own branch, but they're also all voting on best picture and there are a lot of technical categories. And I think the tech people really admire F1. That's one component of it. The other which you have Said Allison is that Hollywood likes movie stars. They like fast cars. Look at Ford v Ferrari and all that stuff. Like there's enough to satisfy two different sides of academy voters to get it in there.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. So it also, in addition to Best Picture, it got editing, it got sound, and it got visual effects, you know, so like those are your classic, like, this is a blockbuster kind of nominations otherwise. But for all that, I don't think anyone was ever talking about Brad Pitt as a best actor contender. I do feel like a large part of why people like this movie is because it showcases Brad Pitt in a, like enshrines him in this as a movie star in this way that is like.

[Richard Lawson]

And it's about that. It's about how great he is and people try to like replace him, but actually he's kind of irreplaceable.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, yeah. Like it, you know, it was directed by Joseph Kaczynski. It echoes like Top Gun, Maverick a bit. Also funny in both of them that they're like, you know, in Top Gun, you're like, when he's young, he's right all the time. Like he's the young hotshot, but he's like, he's the right all the time. And then when he's older, he's like, he's the. The experienced voice who's right all the time.

[Richard Lawson]

Exactly. Okay, so wait, who do we think? So Cruise has gotten this treatment now and now Brad Pitt has, who is another big older male movie star who's currently straightening his tie and making sure the bouquet is right as he is about to go into Joseph Kasinski's office to be like, can you do that for me? Can you make a movie about how I am actually irreplaceable? Is there another movie star who would fit that?

[Alison Wilmore]

I feel like it'll be someone like Wahlberg who does not have the presence.

[Richard Lawson]

Please, Mr. Katinski. I've been good. Please, sir.

[Alison Wilmore]

But you know, I don't think he has the same presence, but I feel like that's maybe the kind of thing.

[Richard Lawson]

That's a good one. That's a good call. I mean. Yeah, he never, he wasn't quite at that echelon. I mean, I mean, honestly, at this point. Maybe Dwayne Johnson.

[Alison Wilmore]

No, Yeah, I know he could definitely. He could use the help as well. Yeah. But it's just funny, like when Brad Pitt walks into this movie, he is wearing like, I feel like this array of slightly hippie ish looking, but like beautiful, like kind of knit, knit tops. And he does not look ageless, but he looks great for his age. And like, in this way that suggests he has, like, a bit of burnished patina, you know, as a. He's not aging. He's developing a patina. He's like, crinkling at the corners of his eyes.

[Richard Lawson]

He's like brass hardware in your kitchen.

[Alison Wilmore]

It's just aging exactly like it is. Like, the movie, like, enshrines him in this way. That is very much. And I wonder if there's.

[Richard Lawson]

And you have Carrie Condon just being like, hi, Hachi Machi.

[Alison Wilmore]

Like, hello. Yeah, I mean, I feel like. And I wonder also if there is a little bit of. For like, kind of like older, slightly contrarian members of the academy to be like, I don't care about the stuff about his personal life. Like, I don't care. You know, like, this is. He is unreplaceable. You know, like, you cannot. He is irreplaceable. Like, he's doing something that no one else can. Like, look at that. Like, I don't have to bother about all of the stuff that continues to, you know, emerge from his incredibly, you know, know, bitter divorce battles.

[Richard Lawson]

We have definitely said on this podcast, and I do agree with this, that, like, for the most part, Internet discourse does not really get into, like, voters heads. That said, I do think there is some sort of tabloid discourse that does, and they're really resistant to a lot of it. You know, there is, like, a lot of, like, credible enough stuff about Brad Pitt, like, and what happened with him and angelangelie and the kids that, like, you know, a lot of people are like, I'm done with him, but whatever. But I do think there is a big enough contingent in Hollywood that's like. Like, no, that's not my business. And we will never know for sure. And he's like, one of our greats. And, you know.

[Alison Wilmore]

Right. I think it's also. I mean, it's always been easier, you know, as we've. As we've continued to litigate, like, what actually sticks to people, which just seems to be almost nothing like the idea that this was, like, within his household. Right. Like, that, like, we've. It feels like we have essentially decided, like, domestic stuff is not, like, part of any public calculation, or at least the industry seems to have decided that. And so I don't know. I know some people have described F1 as this act of, like, rehabilitation for Brad Pitt, but frankly, I don't think Brad Pitt has ever, like, in the public eye, needed it. Needed it.

[Richard Lawson]

I think that he Won that Oscar and it was sort of like, like we, you know, we love you here. Thanks. Thanks for all the fish, you know, basically. And now post this. You can do whatever you want. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, it stuck for like Kevin Spacey because Kevin Spacey was apparently a nightmare to work with.

[Alison Wilmore]

Right.

[Richard Lawson]

And wasn't making people nearly as much money.

[Alison Wilmore]

Right, right. And. And Brad Pitt, like, as a producer, produces a lot of like, you know, respected and like Best Picture winners. Exactly. And often deal with like very serious kind of topics as well. So, yeah, you, you, you can feel that Brad Pitt is load bearing within the industry in ways that some other people have not been. Or easier to discard. Have been proven easier to discard.

[Richard Lawson]

And F1, you know, is Top Gun. But they're on the ground and the stakes are lower. But it has that really, you know, it's exciting to watch. It's shot pretty well. I thought it looked a little tinny at some times.

[Alison Wilmore]

No, it's a little antiseptic in terms of.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, that's the right.

[Alison Wilmore]

The look of it is like a.

[Richard Lawson]

Little too slick, whereas Top Gun felt a lot more like golden hued and like sort of more.

[Alison Wilmore]

Because obviously it's all taking place as Tom Cruise is dying after blowing up in this cat.

[Richard Lawson]

If people have not read Alison's amazing piece about how almost all of Top Gunman isn't yet.

[Alison Wilmore]

I mean, I do feel like that's the only way to really explain the kind of like amazing oddness like, of the look of that movie where it is almost entirely in golden hour. But yeah, like, like F1 is not in golden hour. It is like a little blue tinged.

[Richard Lawson]

It's a little chilly. It's cloudy.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, it's, it takes place in, in the uk, a lot of it, and then like bouncing around Europe. But yeah, it looks chilly. It has like a kind of undertone.

[Richard Lawson]

And cool, you know, could be greeted as sort of slick. And, And I do think that, like, here's a big budget Hollywood partnership with a major brand, you know, in F1, like, the movie is essentially advertorial. You know, F1 is so pop. It's finally getting really popular in the us. It was a great smart bit of like, cynical business synergy for, you know, the studio and F1 to do this movie. It performed very well and it's like a big, robust kind of masculine Hollywood product that doesn't involve boy princes riding sandworms or singing witches or whatever. And I think that there's a Definitely contingent in the academy. That's like, oh, good. And you might say, well, then why didn't they do that for Ferrari? Ferrari is a lot weirder movie. Like the Michael Mann biopic with Adam Driver. Like, it's American actors doing weird Italian accents. It's, like, very much about, like. It's, like, very interior. There's not much racing in it. And then when there is, there's a horrific.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Like a really terrible accident. Yeah. Like, and whereas F1, where, you know, suspenseful things happen, it is, for the most part, about, like, the roaring engines of the cars, the roaring engine of Brad Pitt, movie star, and the roaring engine of Hollywood, you know, and there you go.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, it is. It's a much easier movie to drop into because. Yeah. It's also not about, like, a dynastic infighting or things like that.

[Richard Lawson]

You know, like Euro people, you know, it's like, real American guy.

[Alison Wilmore]

You know, A real American guy.

[Richard Lawson]

Like, I think Ferrari, in a weird way, probably subconsciously suffered from being close enough to House of Gucci.

[Alison Wilmore]

No. Yeah. You know, I would agree.

[Richard Lawson]

Where people were like, am I just watching that movie again?

[Alison Wilmore]

I think also, I mean, like. Like, it does, you know, make the case for this kind of, like, this American swaggering into this, like, much more international scene and doing things in his, like, kind of perverse American exceptionalism way. Yeah. Of being like, I've just got this talent. Like, I've just, like. Like no one else, and I've got this true passion. Like, I've got, you know, like. And. Yeah, but I think also, like, there is a. You know, he. There's. It's not an accident that he kind of looks Paul Newman esque, you know, when he into this movie. I think it is, like, very much wedding that tradition of, like, movie stars who also dabble in racing Queen. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, and it really wants to. It. I think that there's something about that. I think there's something about this Frankie Munis associations that people like, you know, like, it. Like you. Like you said, it is, like, very kind of, like, traditionally masculine, but also, like, it has this long kind of, like, Hollywood tradition of, like, looking cool. Like, these are actors leading men, but they also look at this cool thing they're doing.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. So it is, like, it's a surprise best picture nominee in that, like, it was not being spoken about, but it was always there. It was always a possibility. You know, the academy has done things like this before where they just, like, a big piece of technically proficient Hollywood product that Is a cut above, you know, your sort of standard. Standard commercial release. And that was enough. I mean, I think it's. You know, it was never going to get acting nominations. I don't think Kosinski was ever going to get in for director.

[Alison Wilmore]

But I also feel like this is an Apple film. Famously expensive one, though. It did make a lot of money at the box office, but, like, you know, for all the. Apple, like, with Coda, had this, like.

[Richard Lawson]

Freak incident of which Coda cost more, though.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, coda cost, like, $450 million.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, they had to buy the state of Massachusetts.

[Alison Wilmore]

Well, you know, and then they tried to sell it, you know, but at a loss. It was at a loss. It appreciated in that time. No, but I mean, like, I. I don't feel like Apple gave it much of a push. You know, I got like. I feel like, yeah, one or two.

[Richard Lawson]

We weren't being courted as members of the New York film crew. I mean, probably because they were like, the New York film circle is not going to give F1 anything.

[Alison Wilmore]

But cinematography. Didn't we once to. Did we get to something?

[Richard Lawson]

I don't know. But we gave Maverick something.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, that's true.

[Richard Lawson]

But that was. That was different.

[Alison Wilmore]

That was different. But, yeah, I. I mean, it feels like this was just one of those things where it felt relatively organic. You know, it was not just the result of, like, someone pushing this relentlessly. It was that people were like, I like this movie.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. It's just lingered in people's minds. You know, I think of. Yeah, definitely. I know. Out of the 10 Best Picture nominees, F1 is the only one whose ending I have not seen. How I went to go see it in theaters. Oh. So I tried to go to a press screening.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

Even though I had just been told by my former boss that he didn't want reviews anymore and there was no reason for me to go to screenings. And so I was like, hmm, well, I'll try to get. I don't know. I'll go. Anyway, the air conditioning was broken, and it was one of those days last summer when it was literally, like, 100 degrees.

[Alison Wilmore]

I would just like to say I watched the movie at that screening where they handed us fans, and we're like, the air conditioning is broken.

[Richard Lawson]

I walked in and I was like, absolutely not.

[Alison Wilmore]

It was actually, like, kind of endearing because you would look down at the crowd and it was like, you know, almost like a church service in the summer. Like everyone fanning themselves. Sure, yeah, sure.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Drinking sweet tea.

[Alison Wilmore]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. So I guess it was June, so I didn't go to that. So I went to go see it on my own in, like, at Regal Essex, downtown Manhattan. And it was a Sunday in June. It was the last Sunday in June, if that tells you anything. I had to go to a pride thing. It was Pride Sunday in New York and I was meeting friends at a great bar in the East Village called Boiler Room. And I forgot that there were going to be 20 minutes of ads and pretty, or maybe 30 actually in this case. So the movie started half an hour late and I was gonna be late to meet my friends for this big pride thing that we were gonna do. And I chose pride over F1. So literally, he was getting into the car to do the last race and I was like, well, I gotta go. Sorry, Brad.

[Alison Wilmore]

Sorry, let me spoil it for you. He was dead all along. It was all a death dream that he was having. Exactly as the plane was exploding, every head, his car is crashing and it was all a death.

[Richard Lawson]

And then you saw someone's head sitting behind them. And you think it was maybe Mark Walre suggesting the movie to come.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yes, exactly.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. So I'll have to go back and watch F1's at least its ending, but without spoiling anything. Does it end in a way that sends the audience out of the theater feeling, like, excited? I would imagine so.

[Alison Wilmore]

Sure. Of course. Everyone breaks into song and then, you know, the girl in the puff sings you out singing. Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Promo Voice]

This episode is brought to you by FX's the Beauty Official podcast. Join host Evan Ross Katz on the official podcast for FX's hottest new series, the Beauty, taking you behind the scenes with its amazing stars as they discuss the show's most jaw dropping moments. Featuring Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Ashton Kutcher, Rebecca Hall, Bella Hadid, Meghan Trainor, Isabella Rossellini, Jessica Alexander and Ari Graynor. Search fx. Is the Beauty wherever you listen to podcasts?

[Ben Frisch]

So are there other movies in the past that have kind of come in and surprised like this?

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, I mean, one of the. A bad surprise years ago was when Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close got a Best Picture nomination. And I think maybe didn't get anything or got one other. Max von Zyto, I think, was nominated for a supporting actor for that. But it was like a total. Like everyone hated that movie. It was based on a book that people, I guess, kind of liked. It was 9 11. Sandra Bullock or no, Tom Hanks dies really early on in the movie. Like, it's just kind of like. So that was a weird one. You know, there are other sort of sadder examples where like selma, the Ava DuVernay film, only got Best Picture and Best Song nominations and like David Oyoloa didn't get Best Actor nomination. So there are definitely these kind of lone, like, rogue best Picture nominees in the past. I'm looking to see if they're.

[Ben Frisch]

Is that kind of a consequence of the having the 10 categories is that you have these big movies that have the best picture nom, but not a lot of other noms, and they just sort of feel like they're walking dead.

[Alison Wilmore]

I feel like there are also, like, there will be movies that will get in like best Picture and then some kind of craft categories and that's it. Like that. I feel like that always happens. Right. Like, or at least like since there have been this many.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. Like, I think Coda Koda winning Best Picture with only three nominations total was a big deal. It won all three awards it was nominated for, which is kind of crazy, but normally a Best Picture winner is probably going to be more deeply represented in other categories.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

So, yeah. When these. When like, like an effort, I don't think there is a single person in Hollywood who's like, F1 could win best Picture.

[Alison Wilmore]

It's not.

[Richard Lawson]

It's just the industry, or at least the industry as reflected in the academy being like, well done.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, we like this movie. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

So, yeah, I think we can probably say that F1 has probably gotten as far as it's going to get this season. I mean, something crazy could happen. I mean, it could win in the tactical categories, which, like, yeah, you know, but Best Picture, this is no.

[Alison Wilmore]

There's no way it's gonna win Best Picture.

[Richard Lawson]

You've got a solid 10th place.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yes.

[Richard Lawson]

In this.

[Alison Wilmore]

You know what, it's honor just to be nomin, et cetera, as we close.

[Richard Lawson]

This nominations episode out. I'm curious, Alison. Do you want to bid adieu? Say, you know, do an in memoriam for one of your little hobby horses?

[Alison Wilmore]

I will say I was hoping for weapons to get in 10 slot. I think that would have been a great fun pick. I know that was one you were talking about. I also, I mean, like, the dot category is impossible to predict. Like, it is such. It is so, like, weird and like, maybe more subject to the whims of like a harder to parse group than any other category. But my undesirable friends, Julia Lochtev's like five plus hour. It was always going to be a tough road anyway. Like, it was campaign without distribution. It's five and a half hours long. It is told in chapters. So they had to get, like, a special. They had to get a ruling that it, you know, did not get. Fall under the O.J. made in America rule and get declared actually a TV series. But, like, I think probably that hurt it as well. It got a lot of critical awards, but it did not get in for Best Doc.

[Richard Lawson]

Asking Academy voters to watch something that long. Yeah, that might be. That's difficult.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. And I can see people being like, this is not a movie. Like, excuse me, this is a TV show.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, my Immemoriums would be stuff that was, like, never gonna happen. Like, wouldn't it be cool if Ben Whishaw had had some attention for Peter Hujar's day beyond, like, you know, like, he has a Spirit nomination, I believe.

[Alison Wilmore]

I mean, Josh o', Connor, Mastermind. I think in a much slower year that, like, he would have been talked about more. Instead, he was, like, never a possibility.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. I thought maybe, like, maybe. Sorry, Baby. Could get in. In screenplay. Maybe 28 years later, could have gotten in, like, a technical category, cinematography or something.

[Alison Wilmore]

If I had legs, I was hoping for more. I mean, Roseburn got in for. But that was it. That could have been an interesting screenplay for sure. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. Cinematography, editing. Yeah.

[Alison Wilmore]

Oh, I think that asap. Rocky gives, like, really one of the great, like. Like, for supporting, for highest to lowest. I think, like, that is one of the great, like. Like, kind of breakthrough performances of the.

[Richard Lawson]

And he's good enough. I had likes.

[Alison Wilmore]

He is really good in that, too. But, yeah, like, I thought he was, like, mesmerizing in highest, lowest.

[Richard Lawson]

Well, look, yeah, there's a reason. I mean, we could have a. We should have a breakthrough performer Oscar or something.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. Something so hard to be like, what does it mean that someone's breaking.

[Richard Lawson]

Yes, yes.

[Ben Frisch]

Special appearance.

[Richard Lawson]

Kate Hudson is kind of a breakthrough.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

But she hasn't been doing much acting. Right. You know, by the Paltrow. I think my biggest, though, that we've already kind of talked about is, like, I don't love. Love the movie as a whole, but I. I thought Seyfried could have. Could have pulled it out in the end and then didn't. But.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Richard Lawson]

But otherwise, I don't know. I feel weird. I'm happy.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yeah, No, I think they're good. I mean, honestly, what I mostly miss about Seyfried, beyond the fact that I think she's. She's very good in that movie, is that she's such a kind of delight, genuinely eccentric person in doing press and I would have liked to see her do more on the awards circuit.

[Richard Lawson]

She is someone who does not seem to care about public image in really any serious matter.

[Alison Wilmore]

Yes. That is a rare quality that needs to be cherished.

[Richard Lawson]

I agree. Well, Alison, thank you for breaking this down with me. It's been fun.

[Alison Wilmore]

I know.

[Richard Lawson]

We've got a lot more movies to talk about in the coming weeks.

[Alison Wilmore]

I know. We did it, though. We made it here.

[Richard Lawson]

Yeah. Again, we're at the final base camp. We're getting our alums adjusted.

[Alison Wilmore]

And leave our corpses somewhere near the summit as is.

[Richard Lawson]

Oh. For all to see as they attempt awards podcasts in the future.

[Alison Wilmore]

Feel like we were here.

[Richard Lawson]

Our frozen bodies be a warning to you. We'll see you next week when we will be talking about Chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga. Train Dreams. Is that good?

[Alison Wilmore]

It was beautiful. It was a really unexpected way for that movie to begin, but I thought it was surprised.

[Richard Lawson]

Yes. Anyway, we'll be talking about the Ripper and Comedy Train Dreams next week, so give it a watch if you haven't yet. It's on Netflix. Easy to find.

[Marie]

Critical Darlings is a Blank check. Production in association with Vulture. Hosted by Alison Wilmore and Richard Lawson Produced by Benjamin Frisch Executive produced by Griffin Newman and Neil Janowitz Video production and distribution by Ann Victoria Clark, Wolfgang Ruth and Jennifer Jean.