Ben Shapiro (33:29)
That's kind of a fascinating take because again, President Trump was portrayed as somebody who didn't care what happened in Ukraine. Bringing down the oil prices undercuts the Russian market. That's kind of the idea here. Russia is making its money by selling oil at bargain basement prices and then shipping it through third parties to places including Europe. The United States has filled in a lot of that gap. If Saudi were to start pumping at a serious rate, then they would be undercutting the Russian oil prices as well. And then Russia would basically be strangled in terms of its own economy. So it's fascinating. He wants more money from Saudi but lower oil prices at the same time he is reaching out to the Saudis. Well, in later news, the Oscars are upon us. The nominations are out and they are as absurd as you might believe they were. They are just ridiculous. So first of all, they will be hosted by Conan. Now listen, I think Conan used to be one of the funniest people in America. I'm not so sure he's still got it. I haven't seen anything funny from Conan for years and years and years. He's a safer choice than somebody like a Ricky Gervais, for example. But will he be better than Jimmy Kim? Anybody would be better than Jimmy Kimmel. A bag of flaming dog crap would be better than Jimmy Kimmel at this point. Then there are the actual nominations and man, are they woking up the joint. Whoa, whoa. These nominations are the wokest Hollywood nominations for Oscars I've seen since like last year. Like, this is wild but, but actually really, really, really, like insanely woke. So the number one movie in terms of nominations and close to leading in the all time nominee list is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life. It is called Emilia Perez. It is legitimately a bottom five film. I have seen thousands of films at this point in my life. Emilia Perez is one of the five worst movies I have ever seen. Now, ironically, another best picture winner, the Shape of Water, is also in that list. But Emilia Perez is, if anything, worse than Shape of Water. If you wish to see a full scale 20 minute review of Amelia Perez, head on over to our YouTube page where I actually reviewed it. Soup to Nuts went through all the numbers. It's horrifying. It's a musical, for those who don't know, about a transgender Mexican drug cartel leader who contacts a lawyer played by Zoe Saldana to help him transition into her and then ends up in a bizarre familial situation with his ex wife, Selena Gomez, who's having an affair with another guy. Well, I mean, she doesn't know she's having an affair because as far as she knows, her husband's dead. It turns out that her husband isn't dead. He just chopped off the, the, the appendages and it's a musical. It's awful, awful, awful. This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers. Tired of mystery meat at the grocery store? Make new meat your new year's resolution@goodranchers.com subscribe now using Code Wire to get $25 off free express shipping and your choice of add ons for an entire year. Good Ranchers. American Meat delivered. Now, it's not just that this has received 13 nominations, almost as many nominations as All About Eve, one of the great films of all time. With 14 nominations, it came in, basically, it's tied for second for the most nominations in Academy awards history. History, which is just absurd on every level. One of the nominees is a person named Carla Sophia Gascon. Now, Carla Sofia Gascon is a dude and is nominated for best actress. Best actress. This person is a man. This person is a man. This man started transitioning in, I kid you not, 2018. In 2018, this person completed most of, quote, unquote, her gender transition. This person is 52 years old. So this person started becoming a woman in quote, unquote, her 40s, and now is defeated. Listen, ladies, if you want to demonstrate your first, your full scale inferiority, it seems to me that nominating a man to win best actress is a pretty good way of doing that. By the way, can't sing, not a particularly good actor. Carlos Sophia Gascon then do anything in the role, really. In fact, the only time Carlos Sophia Gascon is actually convincing is when, quote, unquote, she is playing a man at the beginning. Because guess what, dude? That would be a dude. The song El Mal is nominated for best original song, which is ridiculous because it's not a good song at all. It's a terrible film. And of course, the only reason it's being nominated is because it's everything, right? It's everything having to do with Trump. This is all just an anti Trump Hollywood bleep fit. That's all this is. It's a story about Mexico, which of course Trump thinks is terrible, and it's a story about a man who believes that he is a woman. Okay, the movie's so bad. I mean, honestly, I don't want to do a re review of the movie. Go check out my review at YouTube. All I will say is that the entire movie glorifies a man who decides to mutilate himself, abandon his family, and is a drug cartel leader. And that's the hero of the film. So, yeah, it's also. The music is just. It sounds. The music sounds as though a deaf and dumb rapper wrote it. That's what it sounds like. Meanwhile, other prominent nominations. Sebastian Stan has been nominated for best actor in a leading role for the Apprentice, which of course is a movie about Donald Trump. That movie failed at the box office. Nobody really wanted to see it. I haven't seen it myself because frankly, I didn't find it all that interesting. First of all, if you're going to do a movie about Donald Trump as young man, it can't be a drama. It sort of has to be a comedy. We all remember Donald Trump as a young man, at least those of us who are older than the age of 20. Donald Trump's been part of our public life since the 1970s, so I don't know. So he. He gets nominated. That, of course, is just a way of. Of slapping Donald Trump. Of course. The other nominees for best picture are Anora, a charming story about a prostitute who falls in love with a Russian gangland leader's son. That. That's an aura. The Brutalist, which I have not yet seen, but I'm interested to see, which is about a Jewish refugee who comes to the United States and is apparently an amazing architect and his experiences with American capitalism. I'm not sure I'm going to love the thematic of it, but it is Adrien Brody and Guy Pierce and seems at least somewhat interesting. A complete unknown which is the Bob Dylan movie Conclave, which, which is a horrifying piece of trash. Conclave, as I talked about. I didn't even see the movie. I just read the book. When I read the book, I was like, there's no way you're going to put me through seeing this movie. No way. Spoiler alert. The twist ending in Conclave is that the new. The whole thing is about the Pope dies and it's the College of Cardinals figuring out who's the new Pope. Spoiler alert. It's the trans lady from. From Amelia Perez. It's actually an intersex person. And it turns out that some of the cardinals know this and go along with it because it's too late to reverse it. Which do you even Catholic, bro. That is not a thing. Dune Part 2 is nominated, but certainly will not win because it's the best movie of the year. So we can't have that. We can't have nice things, so we'll not. I mean, nobody's even mentioned Dune Part 2 as a possible winner. Nobody's even like it's, I believe, except for Wicked, the highest, the highest box office on this list and nobody's even mentioned it. Emilio Perez. I already mentioned a movie called I'm Still Here, which is a foreign film about a person who was disappeared by the Brazilian government in the 1970s. A movie called Nickel Boys, which I'm not sure did anything at the box office and is. It's sort of the. The Academy sop to covering race this year. So again, it's an issue movie based on the Colson Whitehead book about a boy's school, a racist boys school in the south in the 1960s. A movie called the Substance, which is a body horror film starring Demi Moore as an aging actress who decides to do terrible things in order to assure that basically a doppelganger of her, a young doppelganger of her can become a star. And Wicked. So terrible list of films. Truly bad list. I mean, really, really, really bad. And to be fair, I've seen four of these films. I believe Dune 2 is by far the best of these films and it will certainly not win for best Director. Emilia Perez's director won a best director award slot, which I. I don't understand at all. And then you have the directors of Anora, the Brutalist, the Substance, and a complete unknown actor in a leading role. You have Adrien Brody for the Brutalist, he's supposed to be terrific. Timothy Chalamet for a complete Unknown, he's supposed to be terrific. I'm not a big Chalamet fan, but he's supposed to be really, really good in this film. Coleman Domingo, as in the movie called Sing Sing, which I don't. I don't. I've never even heard that movie. I don't know what that is. Ralph finds in conclave. Meh and Sebastian Stan for the Apprentice. So, yeah, again, you have a couple heavy hitters going up against one another in that particular category. Actress in a leading role. The only thing that matters here is that you have a dude who's in this category. First of all, I just want to know, why does the Academy insist on having separate actor and actress? Because obviously these. These categories mean nothing. You could just combine them, especially since in Hollywood, we're now supposed to say that actresses are actors. You're not supposed to say actress in normal conversation. When you go to Hollywood and you meet an actress, you're supposed to call her an actor because she might be a man or something, because it's a sexist category. So I'm not sure why the Oscars continue with this except as a form of affirmative action to, I would say biological women. But it's no longer even relegated to that. Other nominees include Cynthia Erivo, who I think was terrific in Wiccan, Mikey Madison in Anora, which I haven't seen. To me more, who's supposed to be good in the substance, and Fernanda Torres in I'm Still Here, which I have not seen when it comes to documentary feature film. The only other issue here is that no Other Land, which is a wildly anti Israel piece of propaganda agit prop, was nominated. Am I racist? The number one documentary of the last decade, did not receive a nomination from the Oscars. But again, I don't think that is a complete shock. So there you are, a bunch of trash movies nominated for the highest awards in Hollywood because that's how all of this works. All right, coming up, we'll be getting into the media and their failed response to President Trump's winning again. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro. Check out for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.