2025 Oscar Nominations: Snubs, Surprises, and WTFs

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Big Picture – Episode: 2025 Oscar Nominations: Snubs, Surprises, and WTFs

Introduction

In this episode of The Big Picture, hosted by Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins from The Ringer, the hosts delve into the highly anticipated 2025 Academy Award nominations. Joined by Matt Bellany and later guest Gintz Zilb, the discussion covers the major contenders, unexpected snubs, surprising inclusions, and the controversies surrounding the nominees.

Oscar Nominations Overview

Sean Fennessey opens the conversation by highlighting Emilia Perez's impressive haul of 13 nominations, tying her with historical giants like Forrest Gump and Shakespeare in Love ([02:10]). This surge marks the highest number of nominations for an international feature, signaling the Academy’s continued appreciation for diverse storytelling.

Matt Bellany echoes Sean’s sentiment, noting that while many nominations were expected, a few surprises still emerged, keeping the race unpredictable ([02:43]). Notably, the film The Brutalist garnered 10 nominations, positioning it as a strong contender alongside Emilia Perez’s Flow.

Best Picture Race

The hosts identify Amelia Perez and The Brutalist as the frontrunners for Best Picture. Sean remarks, “This feels like Emilia Perez versus The Brutalists” ([04:17]), emphasizing the significant competition between these two films. Amanda Dobbins points out that Amelia Perez’s 13 nominations make it a historic contender, especially given its blend of international flair and audacious filmmaking ([05:12]).

Despite the dominance of these films, there are notable entries like Nickel Boys with six nominations and newcomer Anora, which secured eight nominations. The unpredictability of ranked-choice voting adds another layer of complexity to the Best Picture race ([04:11]).

Category Analyses

Best Director: Both frontrunners for Best Picture have first-time director nominations, indicating a shift towards fresh voices within the Academy ([08:05]). This year, seasoned directors like Daniel Craig were notably absent, reflecting the Academy’s evolving tastes.

Best Actor: Adrien Brody and Timothée Chalamet emerge as the main contenders. Sean comments on the emotional depth of Chalamet’s performance in I'm Still Here, suggesting it could significantly impact his chances if properly received by voters ([24:35]).

Best Actress: Cynthia Erivo secures a strong nomination alongside Ariana Grande, who for the first time receives a Best Supporting Actress nod. Quotes like Sean’s, “We are very excited about Ariana Grande making it into Best Supporting Actress” ([18:42]), highlight the buzz around these performances.

Supporting Categories: The competition in Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories is fierce. Sean expresses disappointment over missing out on nominees like Jamie Lee Curtis, while Amanda praises newcomers like Isabella Rossellini for finally receiving recognition ([28:39]).

Original Score: The Brutalist’s score, composed by Daniel Bloomberg, stands out as a potential winner. Matt notes its excellence, stating, “That’s a great score. I’ve seen the film. Good movie” ([10:56]).

Best Animated Feature: Animated favorites like Flow and Memoir of a Snail are in contention, with Flow being a front-runner due to its unique visual style and storytelling ([40:06]).

AI Controversy in The Brutalist

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around The Brutalist and the controversy surrounding its use of Artificial Intelligence. Sean narrates an incident where AI tools like MidJourney were used to generate architectural designs for the film, sparking debates about the role of AI in filmmaking ([48:00]).

Sean argues, “This is not gonna have a big and meaningful effect on the awards race except maybe in Best Actor” ([50:20]), suggesting that while the controversy is notable, it may not drastically alter the film’s Oscar prospects. Matt adds that AI was used as a tool for enhancement rather than replacement, emphasizing its collaborative nature ([51:43]).

Big Oscar Bet

Throughout the episode, Sean, Amanda, and Matt discuss their "Big Oscar Bet," where they predicted nominees and winners across various categories. They reveal a mixed performance, with both scoring around 50% accuracy. Amanda humorously acknowledges their blind predictions made months in advance, leading to half of their guesses being correct ([68:58]).

Guest Interview: Gintz Zilb on Flow

The latter part of the episode features an insightful interview with Gintz Zilb, the Latvian animation director behind the film Flow. Gintz shares his journey of creating Flow entirely by himself, from writing and directing to handling animation and music ([75:49]). He discusses the challenges of animating complex elements like water, emphasizing the technical and emotional aspects that bring the story to life.

Gintz states, “I think we just started in Cannes Film Festival, which was also a huge deal for us because they almost never select animation in competition” ([85:35]), highlighting the film’s unprecedented success and reception. He attributes Flow’s appeal to its ability to resonate with both children and adults, as well as its unique storytelling approach without dialogue ([87:42]).

Conclusion

Sean and Amanda wrap up the episode by reflecting on their predictions, the AI controversy, and the impressive achievements of filmmakers like Gintz Zilb. They tease upcoming discussions on other films and categories, maintaining an engaging and forward-looking perspective on the evolving landscape of Hollywood and the Academy Awards.

Notable Quotes:

• Sean Fennessey [02:10]: “But when you put it in context with all of the films that have gotten 13 nominations, the second most in the history of the Academy Awards, it's interesting.”

• Amanda Dobbins [05:12]: “Thirteen nominations for Emilia Perez is a very large number. It’s quite historic.”

• Sean Fennessey [08:05]: “All the best director nominees this year are first-time nominees, which also indicates shifting tides at the Academy.”

• Matt Bellany [24:35]: “I think he's got a real chance.”

• Sean Fennessey [50:20]: “This is not gonna have a big and meaningful effect on the awards race except maybe in Best Actor.”

• Gintz Zilb [75:49]: “I learned about writing and directing and animation and doing the music and sound. Of course, it's not perfect, but that's the best way to learn, is by making these things.”

This episode provides a comprehensive overview of the 2025 Oscar nominations, insightful analyses of key categories, an engaging discussion on AI's role in filmmaking, and an inspiring interview with an emerging director. Whether you're an avid cinephile or casual movie enthusiast, this episode offers valuable perspectives on the current state and future direction of the Academy Awards.

Transcript

[Sean Fennessey]

If you're a fan of the inner.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Workings of Hollywood, then check out my.

[Matt Bellany]

Podcast, the Town on the Ringer Podcast Network.

[Sean Fennessey]

My name is Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the.

[Matt Bellany]

Writer of the what I'm Hearing newsletter.

[Sean Fennessey]

And with my show the Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about.

[Matt Bellany]

We'll cover everything from why your favorite.

[Sean Fennessey]

Show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who'll eat lunch in this town again, Follow the Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Matt Bellany]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique.

[Sean Fennessey]

Insurance needs, meaning you can talk to.

[Matt Bellany]

Your agent to choose the coverage you need, have coverage options to protect the things you value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app, and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone.

[Sean Fennessey]

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. I'm Sean Fennesee.

[Matt Bellany]

I'm Amanda Dobbins and this is the.

[Sean Fennessey]

Big Picture, a conversation show about the 2025 Academy Award nominations. We will talk about the brutalist that.

[Matt Bellany]

Was the AI version.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, God. We will talk about that later in this episode. I'll be joined by Gintz Zilb, the Latvian animation director who was twice nominated this morning for his movie Flow in the best animated feature and best international feature category. I talked with Mallory Rubin about this movie at the end of last year. One of her favorite films. It's about a cat, of course. It's a beautiful treatise on surviving. We are also surviving here on the Big Picture. I hope you'll stick around for my conversation with Gintz after we talk about the nominations. But let's talk about those nominations. Amanda. Headlines from this morning. EMILIA Perez has 13 Academy Award nominations. I wouldn't say we're surprised.

[Matt Bellany]

No.

[Sean Fennessey]

But when you put it in context with all of the films that have gotten 13 nominations, the second most in the history of the Academy Awards, it's interesting.

[Matt Bellany]

Would you like to read the rest of the 13 nominations? Sure.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'll cite the films that it now sits alongside in history. That includes the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the Lord of the the Fellowship of the Ring, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The Shape of Water, Mary Poppins, Chicago, Forrest Gump, Shakespeare in Love, Oppenheimer, From Here to Eternity and Gone with the Wind.

[Matt Bellany]

Some great films in there.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Not all great.

[Matt Bellany]

Also Chicago.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Mostly great, or at least mostly historic. And so this is at least a historic thing. This is the most nominations for an international feature at the Academy Awards, something that I think is very indicative of where this award show has been going for the last five or so years. In addition, 10 nominations for the brutalist, 10 nominations for wicked, six nominations for anora, eight nominations for a complete unknown. Broadly your takeaway from what these nominations mean at 7:41 in the morning.

[Matt Bellany]

Been up since 5:30.

[Sean Fennessey]

Same. Same.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. Here we are. Mostly what we expected. And. And I guess I think they're okay nominations just because they validated my predictions, you know, like, that's the mindset that we're in right now. I mean, that's true.

[Sean Fennessey]

Crusades. Amanda has returned.

[Matt Bellany]

You feel the same way. Don't put me on an island with that.

[Sean Fennessey]

But there were surprises. It's not that they were without surprises, but for the most part, this went where we thought it was going to go.

[Matt Bellany]

So Emilia Perez, still incredibly strong. The Brutalist, quite strong. A complete unknown. Strong.

[Sean Fennessey]

Stronger than I would have guessed two months ago, that's for sure.

[Matt Bellany]

Absolutely. And Enora like hanging in, but I don't think that's gonna happen, you know, but we.

[Sean Fennessey]

But we should talk about it.

[Matt Bellany]

We've been there for a little while. That's true. Now, now that we know the 10, we can get into the science of ranked choice voting, which, like, gets very intense.

[Sean Fennessey]

Exactly.

[Matt Bellany]

But it does seem like it's Emilio Perez versus the Brutalists, I think.

[Sean Fennessey]

So at this point, that does seem to be the race. Now, the case for Nora with six nominations, and we can talk about those nominations, but they're the six key ones. They're picture, director, actress, supporting actor, screenplay, editing. Yeah, that's where you want to be if you want to be in the Best Picture race.

[Matt Bellany]

Where I want to be.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's where I'd want to be as well. Obviously, we really like Anora. I had felt like Anora was the Best Picture winner since I saw it in August. Thirteen nominations for Amelia. Prizes is hard to look away from. That's a. That's a very large number.

[Matt Bellany]

It is.

[Sean Fennessey]

A lot of these films, though not all did go on to win Best Picture that got that number. You know, movies like the Shape of Water and Oppenheimer in recent history have done It. And so that's very notable to me. That being said, it's a divisive movie.

[Matt Bellany]

It's a divisive movie. It also occupies the Netflix spot, and Netflix has had a lot of 10 and 11 nomination best picture nominees in the past few years that, like, still have not made it there.

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

Famously, the Irishman went over 10. Maestro did not do as well as it would have liked. Roma did not do as well as it would have liked. A lot of these movies that get a lot of nominations often fall short. I'm interested. I would say that the public Internet reaction to this Emilia Perez windfall has been very negative. But we know that filmmakers, actors, musicians love this movie. They have been celebrating this movie for months, ever since it premiered at Cannes. Greta Gerwig's jury at Cannes gave it prizes.

[Matt Bellany]

So don't point at me like that.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm just noting that's where this all started.

[Matt Bellany]

They also gave Anora the Palms.

[Sean Fennessey]

So it's like, okay, yeah. I think it's mostly chalk in terms of our expectations, with a handful of surprises. I think it's probably important to note that continuing shift towards both international filmmaking and a sort of more audacious filmmaking style. There were a couple of very exciting surprises. For example, you predicted nickel boys in Best Picture.

[Matt Bellany]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

I wasn't sure that that was actually going to happen.

[Matt Bellany]

And it happened.

[Sean Fennessey]

It happened. Which is tremendously exciting. My. One of my favorite movies of the year. I know you've just had a chance to see it, so we'll get a chance to talk about it in a week or so on the podcast. Thirteen nominations for Emilio Perez, but also five for the substance from a French filmmaker. It's a, you know, technically an American film in English, but also a deeply French movie. And then I think the real stunner of the morning, in my opinion.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Is I'm still here in Best Picture.

[Matt Bellany]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

The Brazilian film. And also Fernanda Torres getting in at Best Actress.

[Matt Bellany]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

So Fernando Torres, one of the Globes. Sure did that Globes win push. I'm still here forward in a way that it otherwise would not have. Because in the past we've sort of said, eh, the Globes, don't take them too seriously. They're televised. But maybe they don't have a big impact on the race.

[Matt Bellany]

In the past we've said that. But we've also said as the race and the Oscar season and culture at large gets kind of more spread out and more unpredictable, any sort of bellwether, any sort of ceremony, trophy given out does have the power to push something in front of people. I do also just want to say the Brazilian contingent, very powerful.

[Sean Fennessey]

Very powerful indeed.

[Matt Bellany]

And international, you know, so I do. They're dedicated and their hard work paid off this morning.

[Sean Fennessey]

Two foreign born directors in the best director race, which is becoming a trend pretty consistently here. That is one of the more high minded branches of the Academy. They medium well. They didn't nominate Edward Berger, which I guess is one of the sort of significant snubs to me. Shows a real weakness for Conclave. I'd been holding on to my maybe conclave at the last minute. Take that.

[Matt Bellany]

I don't, I don't think that that's gonna happen. But now we can just be like happy that we had conclave.

[Sean Fennessey]

We had conclave. It was a good movie that we had fun watching good memes, you know.

[Matt Bellany]

And it's still, we can make pope jokes, but you know.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes. The other thing is that all the best director nominees this year are first time nominees, which I think also indicates shifting tides at the Academy. Plus a lot of bold faced names that you might expect to see at the Academy Awards historically are not here. For example, Angelina Jolie. Not nominated. Nicole Kidman. Not nominated. Daniel Craig. Not always an Oscar contender, but certainly a very famous person. Not nominated. This is a, this, these award shows are different now. They are much more, for lack of a better phrase, critically minded. How that washes with Emilia Perez, I don't totally know.

[Matt Bellany]

I, I don't know. I really, it's. It remains the big mystery. I know I've been saying like, I would like to have someone who is actually enthusiastic about Amelia Perez come on the show. I would say that like, you know, I've had the occasional, I'm trying to be as kind as possible random person on the Internet volunteer. But even the very kind, respectful, random people on the Internet are just like, I like it. And that's cool. But I would actually like a filmmaking like defense of here is why this works and here is why this is in my estimation good. And I don't, I haven't found that person yet. I don't know where that person is.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I feel like the movie is actually waiting for its big moment and I'm wondering if SAG ensemble is going to be it because if that. So the SAG ensemble nominees are Anora, a complete unknown Conclave, Emilia Perez and Wicked. All five of those movies are nominated for best picture. We've seen moments like the parasite moment when that cast got recognized and there was a sense of Joy and exaltation. They were being celebrated at the Golden Globes together. But this would be a slightly different spin that I think would push forward the like. Is Amelia Perez actually happening story on the flip side? The Brutalist. The Brutalist, unlike Emilia Perez, has no songs, so it has a score, obviously, which was recognized. Daniel Bloomberg's amazing score that I've even got you singing now on the show.

[Matt Bellany]

Sure. Can we talk about score now?

[Sean Fennessey]

If you'd like. It's awfully early in the episode.

[Matt Bellany]

No, but it's not, because I do think I have already heard from multiple people this morning about the challenger snub. And you mentioned Daniel Craig not being nominated for Queer. The broader theme is that the Academy turned its back on anything related to Luca Guadagnino. Tough morning for Luka, which to me is just silly. And. And I do also think the. The number of people I've already heard about. Heard from about challengers and challengers not being nominated in an original score despite winning the Golden Globe. That seems like a mistake.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. It certainly undercuts what we're. What we're talking about here. The nominees for original score this year. Not the worst batch I've ever seen, but not necessarily an inspired batch. The Brutalist Conclave. Emilia Perez, Wicked and the Wild Robot.

[Matt Bellany]

Anyway, clears the way for Daniel Bloomberg and the Brutalist, which is. That's a great score. I've seen the. I've seen the film. Guess what? I've seen the Brutalist. Good. Good movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

We should definitely talk about that a little bit now, and I think we'll talk about it maybe more in depth. I do want to talk about the AI, I think, because people have been asking about the AI thing for ever since that story broke, including a fine young man at Legoland, where I was over the weekend.

[Matt Bellany]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessey]

You.

[Matt Bellany]

So you told me this. Can you give me the demo on this. On this gentleman?

[Sean Fennessey]

Gotta be mid-30s.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

I would say kind of a core, big pick. Listener.

[Matt Bellany]

Great.

[Sean Fennessey]

Mid 30s dad.

[Matt Bellany]

Great.

[Sean Fennessey]

Who loves the cinema.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Who was waiting in line for a ride at Legoland, as I was sort of.

[Matt Bellany]

Rides are there at Legoland.

[Sean Fennessey]

Emotionally intoxicating. No, they were. They're rides for little kids. They're rides for, like kids between the ages of like 3 and 9.

[Matt Bellany]

So, like spinning teacups and stuff, but not.

[Sean Fennessey]

But made of Legos?

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, sure.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, essentially. Anyway, that man wanted to know what I thought of the controversy as it was breaking in real time. Hadn't really gotten all the information at that point, as I was traversing Carlsbad for 48 hours. Nevertheless, you know, the, the Brutalist score, as you said, in a good position to win. I think the Brutalist is in a good position to win in a bunch of categories here. It's probably the biggest threat to Emilia Perez. I can't help but feel like where Conclave and even a Nora once was, in my mind, a complete unknown is slowly, slowly, slowly creeping up.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

You know, we got, of course, Timothy Chalamet. We got best adapted screenplay for Jay Cox and James Mangold. We got James Mangold and Best Director, which also happened at dga. Very rare. Do DGA and the Oscars match and I believe they did match this year. And Monica Barbaro and Monica Barbara, which is, which is great. That's one of our favorite nominations.

[Matt Bellany]

You know that just like that works out. Yes, I, you're right. It's creeping. I mean, it's, it's a really, really crowd pleasing movie. I, I put it on for my almost 3 year old and he was wrapped and it is. And well made performances. It's comforting.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Matt Bellany]

You know, it's familiar to a large group of people, but still good. And so I think like the walk hardness of it all that the Internet really loves is not really a problem for most people.

[Sean Fennessey]

Agreed. I think.

[Matt Bellany]

And you do need a throwback nomination. Like just kind of like a movie that feels like an Oscar 100%.

[Sean Fennessey]

It is the most standard of the films that are here. It does make a few creative choices in terms of like, where it charts Dylan and how it portrays Dylan. That is different from, say, Walk the Line, which I appreciate about the movie itself. And I think actually voters are literally responding to the specific choices that were made in the movie that differentiate it from past music biopics.

[Matt Bellany]

But I think they're just kind of responding to everyone looking beautiful and playing Dylan songs and you just kind of like fix it on the screen. I mean, I watched it, you know, Knox was just like, who's that? That's Bob Dylan. And then just didn't look away. He did also start asking for like a Rolling Stone, like two minutes into the movie. And I was like, well, you've isolated the central tension here. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean, there is something primal about that movie. You're right. And I think it is scratching that feeling of what old Hollywood does, for lack of a better phrase. But eight nominations is more than I would have guessed even two weeks ago. I didn't have Mangold in for my nomination.

[Matt Bellany]

I didn't either. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

So that reveals something kind of fascinating. And in any year where there is really no favorite, despite Emilio Perez having all these nominations. And to your point about ranked choice voting, you never know. We really never know. That's a movie that, as you say, makes people happy. And so if it gets a lot of number two and number three votes, that could help.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, I guess. So let's. Let's go through it. They're going to be the people who have Emilia Perez at number one. What is their number two anora? It could be the substance, maybe.

[Sean Fennessey]

The substance, yeah.

[Matt Bellany]

Because it just. In terms of, like, going for it.

[Sean Fennessey]

International, we should say that the substance got five Academy Award nominations, which is fucking crazy. Somewhere Frank Henin Lauter and Steve Yuznah and David Cronenberg are wondering how this monument to body horror that was built on their shoulders is being celebrated in this way.

[Matt Bellany]

It is amazing because it's popular.

[Sean Fennessey]

It is, but it is so gross.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, it's really gross. But you can also just forget about the last 40 minutes of it, you know? Yeah. And I think in the way it's been cannibalized in pop culture, like lots of references to it, but not to the last 40 minutes, even though they are, like, ultimately the point of the movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Elisa Sue Monstro, God bless her, May she rest in peace.

[Matt Bellany]

So I get it.

[Sean Fennessey]

So the Brutalist, the Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune Part 2, Emilia Perez, I'm Still Here, Nickel Boys, the Substance and Wicked. These are the best picture nominees.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

By far the most surprising one is I'm Still Here. The second most, I would say, is Nickel Boys, Though many people did have it in, and we had it in at various times over the last few months. Conclave and Dune Part 2 now seem to be relegated to a, like, congratulations on a nice year for your movie. Maybe you'll win one or two below the line.

[Matt Bellany]

Right. We liked seeing it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes. The Sussex.

[Matt Bellany]

Well, Dune Part two. I don't even know if they like that. Dune Part 2 seems real grudging across the board.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. How many nominations did Dune Part 2 get? I want.

[Matt Bellany]

It got production design. I want to say it got sound.

[Sean Fennessey]

Sound, visual effects, cinematography and production design along with best picture. So five nominations for it, which is less than it got last time, though some key below the line nominations. And that cinematography category is just like, cool. Just full of grand artists. And so Greg Fraser, who I believe won For Dune Part 1 Some years ago, maybe he didn't. I have to double check that. But it. It is not really competing for best Picture. And Denis Villeneuve did Not get best director, which we knew was going to happen. But not ideal.

[Matt Bellany]

Not that he didn't get nominated.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Not ideal.

[Matt Bellany]

Because you think because you want like a more popular include, you know, representation in best director. Just because you think Denis, he's a great filmmaker. Sure.

[Sean Fennessey]

Working at the highest levels of his capacity in the Dune films.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. Like, yeah, Jacques Odillard is there.

[Matt Bellany]

I mean, sure. But, you know, what were we gonna do? I think Denis is still working. I think he still has time. Still not my favorite Denis movie, so that's okay with me.

[Sean Fennessey]

That one wasn't nominated either. So, you know, I know it's not getting any better, Right?

[Matt Bellany]

That's true. What's up with all the letterbox love for ensondise? Encantise.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Matt Bellany]

You know, I don't know, like, how.

[Sean Fennessey]

Much it was widely acclaimed when it was released.

[Matt Bellany]

No, it's a good mov. But it like shows up as like top five letterbox all time. It's like really, really, really.

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean, big on letterbox. Letterbox. Like, the academy is very international and a lot. If you look at the highest rated, the top 250 that they have.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

You know, it's. It's often. There's lots of Japanese films. Edward Yang films are always near the top. So I think it's probably a reflection of that.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. I mean, that's cool. Good movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Again, very upsetting movie.

[Matt Bellany]

Maybe like, maybe number five on my Villeneuve list.

[Sean Fennessey]

But yeah, it's right around there. It was his major, but it's number.

[Matt Bellany]

One on a lot of.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, it was his pre Hollywood breakthrough.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

So. And maybe it's like there's some cool points to really liking it as well. Yes. Given this performative, letterboxd thing that we know, we all know is happening. Anything you want to say about Wicked? I mean, Wicked, 10 nominations, you pointed out. Mostly in craft categories, though of course, it's two lead performances. Cynthia Erivo in best actress and Ariana Grande made it into supporting actress, best picture.

[Matt Bellany]

Obviously it did not get adapted screenplay, which we had both predicted. Instead, that spot went to. Well, you had put Sing sing as the fourth and I had put Nickel Boys as the fourth or fifth.

[Sean Fennessey]

Anyway, and they both got in.

[Matt Bellany]

They both got in, which is wonderful, frankly. It's eligible in score and they're in score instead of challengers, which is one of the great outrages.

[Sean Fennessey]

That sucks. That's.

[Matt Bellany]

I mean, that's just.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's like crummy nominations.

[Matt Bellany]

You know, production design, costume design, all of. All of Sound, all of those things. It's represented. It feels like people really admire it and that they went for it. But it's probably not going to win much, is my guess now.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I wonder. I mean, I think it has a chance in costumes.

[Matt Bellany]

Sure. All the popular dresses were very good.

[Sean Fennessey]

You know, I think if the film were shot and lit differently, it actually would have had a really good case in production design because it was all practical sets that were built. It's not cgi. But because of that odd decision to backlight and the way that the color is graded, doesn't. Those sets don't look very good.

[Matt Bellany]

Oh, I'm so mad.

[Sean Fennessey]

So that's an interesting one.

[Matt Bellany]

Shout out to Mitch at the Academy Museum, who's a big picture listener and was standing. He was at this, the color exhibit. This is what made me think of it. Where Dorothy's shoes are. He was watching over Dorothy's shoes. And that is a great exhibit about how color is appropriately used in films, not unlike some other movies.

[Sean Fennessey]

Thank you to Mitch. Thanks for all your work.

[Matt Bellany]

Shout out to people who understand what color should look like.

[Sean Fennessey]

You mentioned Sing Sing not in Best Picture. I did have it in Best Picture. My predictions, I thought it was going to get across the line. It did get in at screenplay. And when that happened, I thought, okay, yeah, this is going to happen. And then Clarence Macklin, you know, that was one of the first nominations announced this morning. He did not make the cut for Best Supporting Actor. We'll talk about that category momentarily. So it feels kind of weak. Also. A real pain. Didn't make Best Picture. Now you've been one of the few. A real pain. Semi detractors out there.

[Matt Bellany]

Not a semi detractor. I think. I think this is appropriate.

[Sean Fennessey]

Sure.

[Matt Bellany]

I think it. It did get a screenplay nomination and Kieran Culkin was nominated. So I think right now we're at the appropriate level of recognition. Come Oscar night. We might tip back over into a little too much, but this is good. It's a good movie, an interesting screenplay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Well, I'm interested to hear what you have to say about Guy Pearson, the Brutalist. And also when you see. If you have not yet seen the Apprentice, because now I feel like you have to watch it.

[Matt Bellany]

I watched The Apprentice on January 19th.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, okay.

[Matt Bellany]

@ the night, you know, just to get ready for the day. And then I went to The Brutalist on January 20th. Wow.

[Sean Fennessey]

Hillbilly Elegy on the election day vibes there.

[Matt Bellany]

I did think of you.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. So not what Sing Sing wanted. I Genuinely just think that they bungled the Sing Sing thing and it should have just come out in October or November and this would have been a little bit of a different story. I think they could have just hid that movie after Toronto for a long period of time and then given it a traditional fall release. The fact that Nickel Boys did get nominated in Best Picture indicates that, you know, it was things like people couldn't watch it on vod, it wasn't streaming anywhere, you had to go to screenings. But yet anybody who did watch it found a way to make an emotional connection to it, at least people that I've spoken to. So it's. It's a bit of an. It's an odd miss, but you. You can see exactly why it happened.

[Matt Bellany]

Yes. The. The other piece of it is that that is a 24 film. And I do wonder how much of a 24's awards shifted to the brutalist with. With success. And whatever you think of that marketing campaign and I'm excited to talk about. Talk about it with you, it worked.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, so successful.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, it was so successful, so smart by them. And obviously they got a tremendous amount of nominations and now it's a front runner. So I think that's a shame.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think you're right. I think that actually is the most significant thing that happened, which is that. But they had already had the August release at that time and it was like, did they know at that time.

[Matt Bellany]

That even before Venice it was weak.

[Sean Fennessey]

And they needed an acquisition or. I don't know. But it's an interest turn of events because that's a movie that, especially with this Academy, I would have thought would have done a little bit better. And it's Colman Domingo did get nominated rightfully so Macklin was the performance I preferred of those two.

[Matt Bellany]

Me too.

[Sean Fennessey]

So that's too bad. Supporting actor is very, very competitive this year and there's a lot of really good performances. So it's a tough one.

[Matt Bellany]

No, it's not competitive. I mean, the spots were competitive. It's a foregone conclusion to Kieran Culkin. I don't understand.

[Sean Fennessey]

They're full of very admired performance. You know, like Yur Borisov is the big breakthrough. And then you've got a bunch of actors who people are like, that guy's the best actor. Like Guy Pierce, Jeremy Strong and Edward Norton. You know, this is Edward Norton's fourth nomination. He's not won before. Guy Pearce is having this like, why was he not Cary Grant renaissance going on right now.

[Matt Bellany]

Great questions.

[Sean Fennessey]

And of course Jeremy Strong, who's got multiple Emmys and who is widely admired by his colleagues.

[Matt Bellany]

He's very good.

[Sean Fennessey]

He's. No, he's very good.

[Matt Bellany]

Good performances by him and by Sebastian Stan. Nevertheless, really annoying movie, but whatever.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's interesting. I can't wait to talk to you about it.

[Matt Bellany]

It's like, I don't need it. I mean, you and Brian said it best. It's like, yeah, like, I get it on a number of levels and also I don't really care.

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, then let's talk about best actor and Sebastian Stan.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Because he was nominated not for A Different Man, I think the movie that we both prefer of his two performances. This does feel a little bit like the, A combo acknowledgment, you know, like we all settled on the Apprentice here, but that this is for a year in which he had two very challenging and interesting performances and that left Daniel Craig on the outside in this race. I'm okay with that. I, you know, queer to me. I, I'm very mixed on. I, I really don't know what's going to happen in this category and I guess it is somewhat related to the brutalist AI discussion that we can have.

[Matt Bellany]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

But I, it really does feel like a, like a death race between Brody and Chalamet.

[Matt Bellany]

I would agree.

[Sean Fennessey]

Although Chalamet's not winning a lot. Like, Brody was on a bit of.

[Matt Bellany]

An unbroken streak, but just like a complete unknown. It's climbing, you know, and like SNL's coming this weekend. He's, he's working hard. He's really good. And as the enthusiasm for that movie and that kind of old fashioned performance grows, I think he's got a real chance.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think he does too.

[Matt Bellany]

Here's my question. Do people outside of America care about Bob Dylan?

[Sean Fennessey]

He's an international.

[Matt Bellany]

I mean, I understand that he won.

[Sean Fennessey]

A Nobel Prize where Queen kind of translates to every language. I don't think he's quite at that level. He's certainly much more of an American institution. I don't think that really matters though, because I think actor transforms and learns to do something he didn't know how to do before is a tried and true Oscar playbook.

[Matt Bellany]

That's true. But I think as, as the Academy has grown, I mean, I like Rami Malek did win for that, but as you said, Queen International, I guess Renee Zellweger also won for Judy Garland, but Somewhere over the Rainbow is like, you know, the movie Song of a Lifetime for everyone.

[Sean Fennessey]

So, yeah, that's a movie about Hollywood royalty. Yeah, Queen is a. You know, that was like going to a rock concert. They seen that movie whether you liked it or not. Bob Dylan is slightly more esoteric, but he is iconoclastic and iconographic. You know, like, there is something about seeing that silhouette in the movie that I think is very powerful, and I think voters are drawn to it. And plus, Chalamet's just. He's got a tremendous amount of young movie star charisma. And Brody's already won before, but it.

[Matt Bellany]

Does feel a little bit also like the Leo thing, where it took Leo so long to win. And for not his best movie or performance.

[Sean Fennessey]

What would you equate this performance for? Chalamet. This is also, by the way, Chalamet's second nomination because he was also nominated for Lucasfilm.

[Matt Bellany]

Call Me by your Name.

[Sean Fennessey]

Call Me by youy Name. Thank you. Sure.

[Matt Bellany]

But was not nominated for Dune, which would be his Titanic. So then he's nominated here for. Was Leo nominated for Catch Me if youf Can? I mean, very different. The Aviator. Was he nominated for the Aviator?

[Sean Fennessey]

Let's take a look at these nominations. Worth. Worth scouring.

[Matt Bellany]

But again, the Aviator, in terms of.

[Sean Fennessey]

What'S eating Gilbert Grape was his first.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, sure. That's the Call Me by youy Name.

[Sean Fennessey]

And then the Aviator was second.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay, so this is the Aviator.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, yeah. Blood diamond was third, which is your favorite.

[Matt Bellany]

Sure, yeah. An incredible episode of the Rewatchables. If you are looking for a way to just escape, many people are saying.

[Sean Fennessey]

The Wolf of Wall street, the Revenant, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Of course, it took him Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I would argue that him getting Passover for Wolf of Wall street and Django is, like, bizarre. And then ultimately they gave his turn for Revenant. But, you know, you could have made the case that the Aviator is a movie. It isn't our favorite Martin Scorsese movie, but it's a very accomplished movie. He's really good in that film. Yeah, he's a little young to be doing some of the things he does in that movie, but you could make the same case for Chalamet.

[Matt Bellany]

Right. So that indicates to me that I don't really know if it's going to happen.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay.

[Matt Bellany]

But, I mean, we'll talk more about the Brutalist and about Brody and about that and that Golden Globe speech also, which, you know, he did have the opportunity, and I don't think he totally nailed the speech.

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, I think there are other issues that they're going to have to contend with. In that respect, let's carve out 15 minutes to discuss that at the end of this conversation. Supporting actress. This was also one of the most competitive categories because there were so many contenders. I was convinced that Jamie Lee Curtis was getting in.

[Matt Bellany]

So was I.

[Sean Fennessey]

And she did not get in.

[Matt Bellany]

No.

[Sean Fennessey]

Danielle Deadweiler also did not get in.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Margaret Qualley also did not get in. The nominees for supporting actress are Monica.

[Matt Bellany]

Barbaro, which does give credence to your Alphabet theory, because she took the question mark spot with that baby.

[Sean Fennessey]

On the other hand, Isabella Rossellini getting recognized does not.

[Matt Bellany]

Well, but I predicted it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Listen, you did.

[Matt Bellany]

I didn't realize this is her first nomination, which, when you think about it, makes sense. But she's Isabella Rossellini, so she's just like, in the firmament. You assume that she's been there. Really. It was just her mom.

[Sean Fennessey]

She's cinema royalty. And also, I don't think this was a factor at all because of when voting closed. But a lot of people are rewatching Blue Velvet right now since David lynch passed away. And obviously her performance in that movie is very tremendous and very upsetting and very powerful and kind of like etched into movie history. So it's not shocking to see her there. I had her as an alt. Ariana Grande. We mentioned already. Felicity Jones for the Brutalist some people were predicting would miss. I know you're probably gonna have some strong opinions about that character. And Zoe Saldana, who's almost certainly gonna win this category. Not a lot. Much like in supporting actor. Not a lot of tension or heat in this race. We were just kind of waiting to see who made the final spots.

[Matt Bellany]

Right. Who gets to show up?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes. So it's okay.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

I don't know. I don't really have any other notes.

[Matt Bellany]

Jamie Lee Curtis will probably still be there because she's an Oscar winner and a member of the Academy. So she'll get to have a nice night out.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes. You know that's right. Maybe she'll even present. You know, could be.

[Matt Bellany]

Loves to be in the mix.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes. She's a cheerleader for the industry. Actress in a leading role. We mentioned Cynthia Erivo has already made it. This is her second nomination. Carla Sofia Gascon with her first nomination for Amelia Perez. Mikey Madison, also her first nomination. Demi Moore with her first nomination for the Substance. And Fernanda Torres for her first nomination. Some. What is it? 27 years after her mom, I believe, was nominated for Central Station. So Fernanda Torres, you seen that movie yet?

[Matt Bellany]

No. And I'm pissed. Off.

[Sean Fennessey]

Because now you gotta watch it.

[Matt Bellany]

No, no, I was gonna watch it anyway because it's nominated an international feature. And I think. I mean, I think. I do think Emilio Perez will win there, so. But it's, It's a contender. But I, I thought I had it locked up where I would have seen everything that was nominated.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, interesting. This is the one you haven't gotten up and so.

[Matt Bellany]

And you know, so I picked the Apprentice for that reason. And you didn't.

[Sean Fennessey]

You did not believe in Fernanda.

[Matt Bellany]

Well, I went to see her Truce instead and I'm incredibly glad I did because that is an absolutely amazing movie. I was absolutely. I was bowled over by it. I can't wait to talk to you about it. I think Marianne Jean Baptiste should have been nominated. And that's one of the, you know, I haven't seen. I'm still here, so I can't speak to Fernando Torres. And we try not to do the taking away snub, whatever, but that's just a loss. That was an incredible.

[Sean Fennessey]

She would have been my pick to win. Yeah. Hard Truth was completely shut out. I had it, I think, in original screenplay as well. And the Academy, you know, over the years has really liked Mike Lee's movies. We haven't had an opportunity to talk about him too much on the show because I think he's only released one film in the last seven years. But, yeah, Fernanda Torres is clearly in that spot that at least I'd been holding for Marianne Jean Baptiste. And you mentioned the Brazilian contingent is very strong. This movie is resonating with people. It did not really resonate with me. It is a very important story and it's obviously deeply important to the history of Brazil and tragic in so many ways. The actual movie itself I didn't really connect with, but it is clearly connecting with lots and lots of people.

[Matt Bellany]

I will also say I saw Fernando Torres at the Debbie magazine best performances party. She looked very stunning and she very elegant. I'd like to age like that if I could. And also, you know, was like there in the mix, so I. She's. She's campaigning and that.

[Sean Fennessey]

Absolutely, that's. That's allowed for the longest time. I thought this was a very easy. Mikey Madison ingenue Best Actress coasting win. And now it just feels like it's Demi Moore to me.

[Matt Bellany]

More. Yeah, that.

[Sean Fennessey]

And that's just over.

[Matt Bellany]

Well, that's okay. That's nice.

[Sean Fennessey]

Is there going to be like, any surprises in the major categories?

[Matt Bellany]

Actor? We're not totally sure.

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean, it's a bit of a coin flip. I don't know if it'll be a surprise. We're getting a little bit in the acting categories because of the number of precursors that we now have and the level of visibility for those precursors.

[Matt Bellany]

This happens every year, so even more.

[Sean Fennessey]

So in the last three, though. The last three years, I think, going back to everything, everywhere, all at once. It was kind of pretty clear after SAG what was going to happen.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, but that SAG was pretty late and it flipped. I think we thought on nominations morning that it was going to be Cate Blanchett. And then once Michelle Yeoh won at sag, we were like, oh, it's Michelle Yeoh.

[Sean Fennessey]

And same for Jamie Lee Curtis.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

But then like that. That was a kind of concretizing of a potential narrative.

[Matt Bellany]

Sure. But, you know, we're not there yet.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's true. That's true. Okay. Any other critical surprises to you? I thought September 5th in original screenplay was a bit strange. It's a movie that I like.

[Matt Bellany]

I like it too.

[Sean Fennessey]

You know, very, like, well made, modest venture. I interviewed Tim Felbaum. That'll run on the show next week. The writer and director who's nominated here. Very competently written screenplay, very unflashy. We've often cited this category as the cool category. This is where the most interesting and transgressive movies usually go.

[Matt Bellany]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

No challengers.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. Disappointing.

[Sean Fennessey]

No hard truths.

[Matt Bellany]

No hard truths. No. A Different man, which was never going to happen. But, like, was a cool screenplay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Kind of a bummer.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. I don't really get it. It's a little bit like the. I call this, like, the Belfast category, which is, like, fine movie till it wins Best Picture, which it did it. You know, But I was just like, I kind of liked it. I like, very accomplished, but I'm not totally sure what's going on here.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes. There's a Gentleman 6 and a Ladies 7 and September 5th is a Lady 7. Good movie. I liked it. Four nominations for Nosferatu. As they were going through the nominations, you texted me and I was feeling exactly what you said.

[Matt Bellany]

I was like, oh, this could happen.

[Sean Fennessey]

Which is like, oh, man, is it really happening. It got in its cinematography, as I suspected it would. It got in at costume design. It got in at. Was it production design as well?

[Matt Bellany]

Believe.

[Sean Fennessey]

So what was the fourth nomination where it got in? I can't even recall.

[Matt Bellany]

Cinematography.

[Sean Fennessey]

Cinema. No, we said that already.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay. Production design, costume design, makeup and hairstyling. Oh, well, yeah. I mean, I haven't I'm going tomorrow.

[Sean Fennessey]

Makes sense. Yeah. When you see the film, you'll understand there's something very prominent related to Nosferatu that is very good in makeup and hairstyling. Didn't make it. Didn't make the cut in Best Picture. Did you see that Robert Eggers will be making a new film called Werewolf, and that film is spelled like this. W, E, R, W, U, L, F. And I believe there's an umlau over the U.

[Matt Bellany]

Cool.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's coming on Christmas Day 2026.

[Matt Bellany]

Is it really?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes.

[Matt Bellany]

That's a nice tradition that you guys have going. It's beautiful.

[Sean Fennessey]

It did feel a bit like AI, Tell me what Robert Eggers will do next. A little bit like this is deeply unsurprising. I'm sure I'll watch it and like it just because I enjoyed Nosferatu. My favorite nomination of the day is Soundtrack to a Coup d'etat, which is a documentary that I've talked about a couple of times on the show that is incredibly exciting. I told you that all the docs are streaming, but I don't think Soundtrack to a Coup d'etat is streaming yet.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay, so you like before 7am Is.

[Sean Fennessey]

That the first time we haven't.

[Matt Bellany]

We have nothing if we don't have trust, Sean.

[Sean Fennessey]

It was just a mistake. That's all that it really was. I was very happy to see that. I don't know anything else. Really blow your wig back about these nominations.

[Matt Bellany]

No, they aren't. Holy cow. Levels of nominations because we have discussed everything. They're pretty good for what I think was a strange year at the movies. And we've got some good stuff. And I would say that Marianne Jean Baptiste is the only. And challengers being the real disappointment. And also in Challengers, like, kind of an opportunity to bring in a different audience because that was also a real pop moment.

[Sean Fennessey]

That is the last thing which we touched on briefly with the Globes is, you know, not a lot of people have seen most of these movies. It's not the worst thing in the world. But at a time where the Academy is making a lot of decisions. Like we just saw the decision to not air, thankfully, the original song performances. Yes. Which we should talk about very briefly. That's in an effort, I think, to just have a more streamlined show and to get the show under a certain amount of running time, which I don't personally care about, but to also focus the attention on the movies, I think, as much as possible. We also saw in the announcement this morning that there's going to be a lot of efforts towards acknowledging and supporting fire relief and fire relief funds and acknowledging people who've been affected by everything that's been happening in Southern California. Janet Yang and Bill Kramer talked about that this morning before Rachel Sinnett and Bowen Yang presented the nominations. So it may be a more stately and quiet kind of Academy Awards.

[Matt Bellany]

Yes. They're also. They are bringing back the Fab Five presentations where, you know, five previous winners. Winners. Right. Give kind of like an individual tribute to the nominees before they are announced, which was divisive.

[Sean Fennessey]

Not my favorite thing.

[Matt Bellany]

I liked it. But I agree with you that it's like the energy comes down. I want to thank everyone who got in touch about the original song decision and. And thought of us. That was really nice.

[Sean Fennessey]

It was nice.

[Matt Bellany]

I. I think it's wise just because you can't live up to I'm just Ken ever again. Like, maybe that should be the last performance of all time.

[Sean Fennessey]

It showed a tremendous amount of foresight in knowing that it would be impossible to live up. I don't think that this is a permanent decision. I just think that this collection of five nominees is not a great one. I wonder if some of the Emilia Perez nominees were not comfortable performing, and if they were not, that might indicate that there was no reason to do it anyway because those are the only really standout songs that are nominated here. We've got an Elton John song and a Diane Warren song and, you know, a lot of songs.

[Matt Bellany]

Elton John. Don't say it like that.

[Sean Fennessey]

What do you mean? That song is fine, but it's Elton John.

[Matt Bellany]

You know, you don't have to be like, we've got an Elton John song. Like, people don't want another. We need another Elton John.

[Sean Fennessey]

He's not nominated for Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters. He's nominated for Never Too Late.

[Matt Bellany]

Listen, I haven't heard that song, but that's okay. It's still. It's Elton John. Just, like, put a little bit of respect on it.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'd like to know your take on the documentary Never Too Late, which I watched. Okay. And I wish I didn't.

[Matt Bellany]

I'm trying to remember which podcast that you did while I was out where you said that you were going to try to. Your critic friends were encouraging you to watch fewer movies and enjoy the movies that you see.

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Yeah.

[Matt Bellany]

And I would just.

[Sean Fennessey]

I watched three films yesterday.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

In theaters.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

So that was. I'm not really living up to my.

[Matt Bellany]

I watched one film yesterday with a member of your family.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's oh, that's great. That was great.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, it was very.

[Sean Fennessey]

I wish I was there, honestly.

[Matt Bellany]

It was. It was very cute.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's sad. I guess all we imagine is light mist across the board. Which one? It was not submitted by. It was obvious that it was not going to get into International Feature, but there was a push to try to get it into the spot that was ultimately occupied by I'm Still Here. And so it shows you that. That thinking, that strategy, I think is very good. Generally speaking, international feature is not exactly what I thought it was going to be. I guess we should mention it very briefly, particularly because flow got in there.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And I suspected it would as it started gaining steam just only recently. I didn't really think. I would not have guessed that a few months ago, but it's. I'm Still Here. The Girl with the Needle, Emilia Perez, the Seed of the Sacred Fig, and Flo. That's another category that feels fairly easy to predict. Animated feature, your favorite category. You've seen zero of these movies.

[Matt Bellany]

I have seen Inside Out 2.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, you did. That's right. We did a pod about that. That was the highest grossing movie of the year.

[Matt Bellany]

I do know that.

[Sean Fennessey]

Flow. Inside Out 2, Memoir of a Snail, which has just got major Amanda energy.

[Matt Bellany]

I did predict it. That was in my big Oscar bet.

[Sean Fennessey]

Thanks to Griffin Wallace and Gromit. Vengeance Most Foul.

[Matt Bellany]

I think I also predicted that. Thanks to Griffin and David. I shouldn't leave David out of this.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay, please don't. You're also cheating in the big Oscar bet by consulting them. And then the Wild Robot, of course. Wild Robot versus Flo.

[Matt Bellany]

Is it cheating if you're very open about it?

[Sean Fennessey]

I actually.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Real quick, hang on. You did not predict Memoir of a Snail. You did get Wallace and Gromit, but.

[Matt Bellany]

You did not cheat.

[Sean Fennessey]

You did.

[Matt Bellany]

You did Memoir of a Snail.

[Sean Fennessey]

Did I?

[Matt Bellany]

No, I loved memoir. I loved the title of Memoir of a Snail. What did I.

[Sean Fennessey]

Turns out I did. I have no recollection. At the end of this episode, we will go through where we stand with our big Oscar bet, which we made in September. It is probably laughably in shambles, but we will find out very briefly. Documentary, feature film, really quickly. We'll talk about these films a little bit more as the season goes on. But Black Box Diaries, no Other Land, Porcelain War, Soundtrack to a Coup d'etat, and Sugar Cane, I believe three of those films made their debut. Maybe four of them made their debut all the way back at the Sundance Film Festival, which starts this weekend and is loaded once again. With documentaries. I'll be attending virtually. You're actually going to Park City for a couple days?

[Matt Bellany]

No, I'm going for one night only. 18 hours. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

To see options.

[Matt Bellany]

To see one film.

[Sean Fennessey]

What about two films?

[Matt Bellany]

No, I'm going to see Opus and then I'm coming home.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay, well, so you won't be watching any docs. I encourage people that like documentaries and want to follow this race closely to start at Sundance because this has been happening more and more. And also this branch is very idiosyncratic and very serious. This is a very serious collection of five films. One other thing that jumped out, to me, this is like a fairly. Forgive this word, but a fairly progressive collection of movies. And I think if you're looking for a rationale for why the Academy is leaning into all of these films, most of them, I don't want to say they're like a rejection of the current American moment, but they feel responsive to it. And if you're wondering why 13 for Amelia Perez, if you're wondering why a movie like Anora is getting recognized, if you're wondering why a movie like a complete unknown, which harkens back to a time of social wherewithal.

[Matt Bellany]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

Which has.

[Matt Bellany]

Sometimes they are changing as, like, the emotional centerpiece of the film.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think it's fairly. Maybe so obvious as it's not even worth pointing out. But this feels when. A lot of times when you hear, like, the liberal Hollywood Academy, but like, this feels like a meaningful representation of it in terms of the kinds of stories that it wants to say it showcases. And also a lot of stories that not a lot of people have seen.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the documentary branch in particular is always very esoteric and very purposeful about rejecting kind of the mainstream, often Netflix sponsored.

[Sean Fennessey]

No, no Netflix documentaries here, which is unusual. They usually get one in. Daughters was the one. Many people thought we'd get in this year and did not get in.

[Matt Bellany]

I think we both did that for the Askabettes, so. But I would agree across the board. I mean, you could even lump the Apprentice nominations within that of kind of the Academy trying to respond to the world at large through the films and the performances and the perspectives that it is. It is honoring.

[Sean Fennessey]

100%. Agreed. Any other thoughts? We'll have time to go through some of these other categories over the next five or six weeks.

[Matt Bellany]

So we didn't finish going through our ranked choice. You want to do that mental exercise?

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay.

[Matt Bellany]

Well, I just. Yeah. So if you've got.

[Sean Fennessey]

You're talking about what we. Where we Think things stand because we're just going to do this again in like a week. Well, okay.

[Matt Bellany]

Like, it's. We got up at 5:30 in the morning. Like, what else are we doing? Let's stop.

[Sean Fennessey]

You know what? Can I tell you something? I accidentally set my alarm for five, not realizing it was 5:30.

[Matt Bellany]

Oh, really?

[Sean Fennessey]

So I've actually been up since five.

[Matt Bellany]

Well, so I woke up at 5:25 because I have that old person thing now. It's like when you're, like going to a. When you have a flight, you wake up every hour.

[Sean Fennessey]

It just changes. In your 40s, you don't know. And then it just changes. You're just. You just. You gotta pee 19 times a day. You just wake up at 4:47am for no reason and you can't go back to bed. No one told me about this. Okay.

[Matt Bellany]

I mean, it's so true, you know, it's just every day it's more and more true.

[Sean Fennessey]

I used to sleep till 11:45am routinely.

[Matt Bellany]

I mean, me too.

[Sean Fennessey]

Just remarkable. What's happening.

[Matt Bellany]

It was incredible.

[Sean Fennessey]

Best picture.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Number 10 is probably. I'm still here, so.

[Matt Bellany]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're doing it for everyone.

[Sean Fennessey]

I. Oh, you want to. You want to.

[Matt Bellany]

I want to game out the ballots for it. You know what I mean? So if someone. What do you mean?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Kornacki over here. Let's go, let's go.

[Matt Bellany]

That would be great. I would love to have more Steve in my life, but I did not tune in on election night for obvious reasons.

[Sean Fennessey]

We got to turn this into your big board. We got to get you to be able to move contenders up and down.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay. I mean, that would be fun.

[Sean Fennessey]

Zero in on the counties.

[Matt Bellany]

That would actually.

[Sean Fennessey]

What is Hancock park saying about Amelia Perez tonight?

[Matt Bellany]

And writing a bunch of things. I. I mean, I think I would be great at that, but I also meant like, let's bring back. Bring actual Steve.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, you want Koraki to be a part of this?

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Has he ever done Oscars? Content?

[Matt Bellany]

I don't think so. He does some super bowl stuff because I know he's a. He's a football guy.

[Sean Fennessey]

He does.

[Matt Bellany]

He's welcome anytime Steve come through. Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Holler at us.

[Matt Bellany]

But no. So if you put Amelia Perez as your number one, what's your number two? As a voter? Not you. An academy voter.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Matt Bellany]

Do you think it's an aurora?

[Sean Fennessey]

I think it's an aura. It could be wicked if you're like a musicals person and the sort of the showmanship of the movie.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

You know, and also the lack of self seriousness at times. I think there's something whimsical about both of those movies. So that's a kind of a sort of story that you like.

[Matt Bellany]

Is there any world in which it is the Brutalist? Because you're just European.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

[Matt Bellany]

You know.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Matt Bellany]

And I don't know, like, this is.

[Sean Fennessey]

A common criticism of the academy is that it is very Western Europe focused. Yes.

[Matt Bellany]

So that's. That's kind of. And that is sort of a European perspective on America in some ways. Not totally.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. I mean, Mona Fastball is Scandinavian and she's the co writer of the movie.

[Matt Bellany]

I think you're right that it's probably either a Nora or Wicked. And then the Brutalist is in like your top four for Emilia Perez, or is it?

[Sean Fennessey]

I think so.

[Matt Bellany]

Because I guess what I'm trying to get at is like, are they achievement?

[Sean Fennessey]

Right.

[Matt Bellany]

However you put Brutalist at number one, I don't think you're putting Emilia Perez at two or three.

[Sean Fennessey]

I also think you're putting Anora.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, I do as well.

[Sean Fennessey]

This is why this is like this for Anora.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

This is a lot of number two and three votes. Very few people hate Honora.

[Matt Bellany]

Right. But could there just be enough How. Okay, so love it.

[Sean Fennessey]

I can see the coming out of your ears.

[Matt Bellany]

Let's do the math. Okay. So number one, you're just gonna keep Emelia Perez at number one if you're voting again and again, Brutalist stays at number one if it's number one in your ballot. And Nora stays number two. And number three, I just. I'm just trying to. Who gets there first? Is it. I don't know if it's Anora.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think this is the opportunity to talk about the Brutalist story from last week. Because that story, which does have.

[Matt Bellany]

Identifies it as a frontrunner because, I.

[Sean Fennessey]

Mean, it's an attack. It is very clearly a coordinated attack. I don't know who it is from. We can speculate. I'm not going to do that right now. It doesn't mean that what's in the story is not true, because it obviously is true. And we can talk about the ramifications of that as well. But that story didn't just pop up out of nowhere. No, of course not. And that's something that is a tried and true Oscar tactic over the last 50 years. Harvey Weinstein was the most successful and demonic practitioner of the tactic of the. I don't know, the campaign smear, I guess would be the best way to describe it. So there's a story on a website called Red Shark News, which I know you have bookmarked at home, about the usage of artificial intelligence technology on the film the Brutalist. There were two instances of which it was used. The story, I still don't totally understand how it was reported, but one of the people who was interviewed for the film was David Jansko, who is the editor. And in that story he talked about the ways in which AI technology was used to kind of mold and shape and quote unquote correct some of the pronunciation in Hungarian that Adrien Brody delivers, I believe off screen whilst reading a letter in a two minute segment of the movie. And then the second usage was that an architectural consultant used midjourney, which is a generative AI technology to craft architecture designs like blueprints that appear at the end of the film. The production designer, Judy Becker then took those blueprints and then had an illustrator redraw them and I guess add to and redefine their designs. This is arguably the most hotly contested, argued, debated issue in all of Hollywood right now. In all of like the Internet and all of the creative arts. And it's extremely complicated. One great job on that campaign smear because this made a ton of headlines over a long holiday weekend.

[Matt Bellany]

If it's Chef's Kiss in terms of just old school Oscar elbowing, yes, they.

[Sean Fennessey]

Got a lot of attention for this story, at least on the Internet. And my takeaway is this is not gonna have a big and meaningful effect on the awards race except maybe in Best Actor. I don't think that this necessarily damages the film's chances as Best Picture, but that's okay.

[Matt Bellany]

I mean, sure, sure. And I understand that the actors branch is a particularly concerned. And listen, I rightfully to a degree group of people when it comes to.

[Sean Fennessey]

AI and likeness is very important to them. And there is language in the recent SAG deal that disallows this. Now obviously this work was done in this movie with the agreement of the actors who participated. This isn't something that was just done. Now the speculation is, is that one of the reasons that it was done is that this is a low budget movie that and this is a cheaper way to accomplish work. That's obviously something that threatens a lot of people in the industry because it is frankly cheaper to use AI to accomplish stuff like this. In my opinion, the language, molding, shaping to me is ultimately a non issue. In the interview, David Jansko, who is Hungarian, talks about the difficulties of nailing the Hungarian language. If you were a non native speaker. And that level of complexity to me is another. Just another use of technology that can be helpful. This is also a technology that is used all the time. It was used in Emilio Perez this year. It was used in the Killer last year. If you read David Fincher or Steven Soderbergh talk about what AI can do and how they feel about it, in this respect, it's becoming, if not industry standard, very common and in this case.

[Matt Bellany]

Is at least being used as support and enhancement as opposed to replacement. Obviously there's a precedent issue that is alarming anytime you talk about AI, but in this case it is being used at least for like an assist and.

[Sean Fennessey]

Also being done with consent from. From the actor.

[Matt Bellany]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

Which I think is meaningful. That being said, it's much easier to skew this one in a talking point about how that's not Adrien Brody giving the performance.

[Matt Bellany]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

That I think ironically, I guess hurts him more than the second thing, which I think is more insidious and complicated.

[Matt Bellany]

I, I do as well, though I have to confess. I. I don. Know enough about the practice of architecture to know how these modeling programs are used and like whether they were used for many years before in architecture and now they're just like called AI because it's the hip thing to do.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's, that's a great point. And it's kind of the key point, which is that we just use AI to describe everything.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

If you watch movies that have effects technology from Weta, for example, which works on Avatar, works on the Lord of the Rings films, Peter Jackson's company, they've been using machine learning technologies to evolve how VFX works in Hollywood for a long time. Is it exactly the same as ChatGPT or MidJourney? No. Is it using technicians to deploy a lot of those tools? Yes. Is it taking away from a specific living person right now? Not really, but it has obviated a lot of jobs that previously existed in Hollywood. This is like a story of technology and continuum. It's not one about one guy saying, I'm going to use ChatGPT to write my screenplay. So.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, but, but on the other hand, this. The production designer, Judy Becker, who is nominated for the Brutalist and has a very challenging job in realizing buildings that are a central plot point and also metaphor in the film and has to do that on a budget where you can't actually. I mean, spoiler alert, they didn't make the damn building. You know, and it's not.

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, this was used very specifically for the sketches that we see at the end of the film during a kind of. During the epilogue, sure.

[Matt Bellany]

But the case for her Oscar and for her achievement and the work that she did is about conceptualizing and presenting these buildings on film that are true to the script and represent something about the film's ideas and the character and what it's trying to communicate on, like, five different levels, architecturally, metaphorically, you know, historically. So, you know, if, like, there are some computers involved in conceptualizing what turns out to be, for better or for worse, like a central part of the movie, like, those are material to what's.

[Sean Fennessey]

Going on, I think you have to actually dig deeper into it. One, I wish they hadn't done this. I don't think it's a good thing. I don't want it in my movies. I think it is the slipperiest of slopes and extremely hard to navigate. That being said, this happens in a. A lot of films. Many times it's happening and you don't know it's happening. If this was not revealed in an interview, we would not know.

[Matt Bellany]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

Steven Soderbergh talked about this last week with the Daily Beast. It's interesting. I don't know that I fully agree with him, but he has been fairly hardline on this and the examples that he uses is, as a writer, that he sees not a significant difference between utilizing a tool like this, a generative tool that is gathering all of the available information in the world, versus you watch movies and you cull ideas from those movies, and you use them and you process them and you put your own stamp on them.

[Matt Bellany]

He.

[Sean Fennessey]

What he says is that AI cannot do what I can do because of my life experience. It can regurgitate true agglomeration of what has come before, but it cannot humanize it. You could say that that is him merely protecting a kind of technocrat, overlord approach. You could say that as a filmmaker, he is someone who has always favored the ceaseless push towards technology, forward decision making. And if you look at his movies in the last 10 years, they are made with evolving technologies. In this particular case, the thing that we don't know and may never know, is what happened between an architect consultant, right. Asked Midjourney for some pictures, and then those pictures appeared in the movie. What did Judy Becker do? What did her illustrators do? How did they evolve or change those things?

[Matt Bellany]

Sure. I guess we also don't know. The architect asked for pictures from midjourney in this one instance. Do architects do that all of the time? You know, and is like, are we living in a world where someone's vision then does get sketched out for a number? You know, is it. Is it an assist or is it creation?

[Sean Fennessey]

I don't know.

[Matt Bellany]

I understand you even use the word creation when it's. But you understand what I'm saying?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I did. No, of course. I mean, film is such an iterative medium. It is so every movie is connected to the movie that came before. And it is also one that is about the continuing flow of developing technologies from, you know, black and white to color, from silent to sound, from film to digital, from practical to cgi like this. There are always old roles that are eliminated and new roles that are created, old technologies that are removed. This movie is a really bad movie for this to be the case for. Because it is a movie that in the marketing, in the way that the filmmakers have talked about it, it is very much meant to be a celebration of the individualist creation, the idea of a person with an idea amassing a team and executing on that thing. So anybody who says, like this movie should be disqualified because of its intentions and its story that it's telling and the way that it got there in this specific case, I understand that it's.

[Matt Bellany]

A little bit dramatic.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think it's dramatic. I would also say in this debate, if you are an absolutist, if you draw a line in the sand around artificial intelligence technology and say, I won't watch this movie or I will not respect this movie within 10 years, you will not be able to watch movies. And so that's true. I don't know if I'm not saying that's a good thing, but that is what is going to happen. And so how do we find a way to understand and accept where an industry is going and then where artists will have to follow the industry in this particular case and if this is a watershed moment or not. I don't think so.

[Matt Bellany]

I don't think it is. I mean, I think it's just. It's another outside the like metatextual moment for this movie, which is fascinating in terms of. There's the conversation about the movie and there is this very, very intense, ongoing and filmmaker fueled conversation going on outside of it. And it's like, so I have a little bit. You. I mean, I don't know if I respect the campaign, but it's just. It is so in response to 3 months of what has been going on and it's brutal and just hits the target. Exactly. Totally so. But it does seem specific, not to the Film. But to the conversation about the film and, and the what it means to be a filmmaker and things that I don't wanna say they've invited it, but it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Of course they have.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. But it does really feel a piece of the argument that people have been having for three months. And, you know, it's one of those things where it feels very, very relevant now. And I think that conversation and all of this stuff outside the movie are the reason that it has so many nominations and that it's a front runner. Like, they've, they've played their hand really, really well, like in 10 years or 20 years when talking about the movie for a number of reasons. Whether it's because AI isn't everything or because the movie exists outside of this, this campaign, in this moment, it. It doesn't really matter.

[Sean Fennessey]

I tend to agree with that. Whether or not it like takes away from my enthusiasm for the movie is a lot of something a lot of people were asking me, which, like, not really, but I really don't like that they used Mid Journey. And I wish that that hadn't happened. And it feels like one of those things where, like, did Judy Becker even know that the consultant was going to do that?

[Matt Bellany]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

And if she did, why does she decide to accept those drawings and how much did she change them? And it's, it's. They're such small but perfect vessels for the debate. You know, like.

[Matt Bellany]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's kind of overwhelming. The speech technology thing. I continue to like, if Timothee Chalamet wins, a part of me will think that it's because some, some of this factored in.

[Matt Bellany]

Oh, because they, because actors will say.

[Sean Fennessey]

Like, you shouldn't do that to your performance.

[Matt Bellany]

Oh, okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

That, that is the thing they're saying, like, he's not actually speaking Hungarian throughout the entire film. It's not entirely his performance. It has been kind of massaged.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

With this technology.

[Matt Bellany]

To me, if that happens, that's also evidence that people just aren't like watching the movie because it's such a small. It's.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's a tiny part of the film. And he's, you know, say what you will about the movie, like, he's a fucking amazing in that movie.

[Matt Bellany]

It's incredible. And it's like. And it. I mean, it's like a three plus hour movie. And that's.

[Sean Fennessey]

And he's in all of it.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. And that's like two seconds of something of a pronunciation. I, I don't really get it. I mean, I think, I think you're probably Right. That in terms of how this affects the voting categories, like that's stickier, but that's kind of dumb.

[Sean Fennessey]

Anything else about that? I don't know. I think I said what I felt like I wanted to say. This won't be the last time AI comes up on the pod, that's for sure.

[Matt Bellany]

No, you did a good job, I think.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, can I add one thing? Yeah. I saw a movie, the movie the Night of the Fires. I saw Eno, which I was kind of hoping would be nominated here. It's a documentary about Brian Eno and it's a generative documentary. It uses an artificial intelligence, but the artificial intelligence that it uses is called only from the filmmaker's previous work. And so when you sit down to watch it, it's pulling from, I think, hundreds of hours of interview and archival footage from the life of Brian Eno. But every time you watch it, it's different. So tomorrow, if you search for the film online, you'll be able to stream it over a 24 hour period. It's playing on a loop. But every time this hour and 40 minute movie plays, a different version of it plays. It's a movie that is using these technologies, but is using them in more contained and constrained ways to more deeply focus on the kind of story it wants to tell over time. If that is that confusing. Am I making myself clear?

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. I mean, every time anyone has described this film to me, I'm like, I just. My eyes glaze over.

[Sean Fennessey]

But you know, in other words, there may be one focus on a period of time where Brian Eno worked with David Bowie. And then there might be one sequence where it works on his time working with U2. Sometimes those things may be swapped or maybe neither of them will appear and something else will appear.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

But it is all a part of this larger story of like his life and the way that he sees creativity. It's basically a choose your own adventure for filmmaking. But you don't get to choose. The film chooses the algorithm that is used, that is deployed. The software that is deployed is choosing. This is an interesting example of this technology that is defined by the people who have made work in the past that are making this movie, not the entire history of documentary. I don't want to eliminate the possibility for stories like this by saying, like, throw out the baby with the bathwater on all AI stuff. It is a tool in terms of filmmaking and film editing. It can be interesting. It's not good when you just say to a robot, give me this, and then that's all you make. Because that is what will lead to humans being replaced in full across filmmaking. And what we really care about movies ultimately is our human connection to them and the way that stories make us feel as people. So it's just a very nuanced and complicated thing to sort through. And I've been trying to sort through it for months.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. The only other thing I would say about the Brutalist, for me, what's interesting about the second claim, the architectural designs or whatever, is less precedent, though I agree with you. It's really important. And I don't want to watch AI crap for the rest of my life. Even though, again, I feel like I do all of the time, whether it's in a Marvel movie or whatever Princess Sophia bullshit I watched with your daughter, which is just.

[Sean Fennessey]

Sophia is very powerful. Sophia the first?

[Matt Bellany]

You're referring to Sophia the first? Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

Not made with AI, made by animators, but. Okay.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, but it just like, it looks like such computer garbage.

[Sean Fennessey]

This is the problem. Computer animation is not AI it looks like AI because we see AI animation and it's still crude. You're just talking about a somewhat crudely animated TV series on Disney.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, but it just like. I agree. But then that is what's being fed in, you know, it just.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's true.

[Matt Bellany]

The general, like, denigration of standards because we're relying more and more on computers or accepting what computers can make.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's true.

[Matt Bellany]

As a form of art, when it is not for me. But anyway, that's all important. But for me, what's interesting or complicated about the brutalist stuff is how the AI drawings are used in the film and what that use says about how the film is executed and what it does. And both where they're used in the film is quite interesting and we'll talk about it. But also it is a movie about building things and they are working with a small budget and can't build everything. So how do they choose to execute this? And what can they do? What can't they do? What works? What doesn't work? Do you feel the limitations of it? So, you know, no one will talk about that. But that to me, we will next.

[Sean Fennessey]

Week on the pod.

[Matt Bellany]

We will.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. That's an important part of this.

[Matt Bellany]

But that's not the buzziness of the claim. The claim is just about, you know, now all computers are gonna do everything for us. Which is also bad. It's bad.

[Sean Fennessey]

Bit of an overstatement on what actually happened. But this is Oscar campaigning in 2025. It's just as it was in 1995, as it turns out. That was a sniper hit, though.

[Matt Bellany]

It's, it's like, it's really good. And because it's like, because it's about computers and it's not anything truly. It's ideological rather than ugly. Yeah, it's. It's beautiful stuff. I mean, it just, you know, a tingle. It makes you tingle a little.

[Sean Fennessey]

This is really. That's your pleasure center is good for them.

[Matt Bellany]

You know, like, bring a little drama.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. Any. Any closing thoughts?

[Matt Bellany]

I like the Oscars.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay, Me too. I'm looking forward to them. Conan O'Brien will be the host.

[Matt Bellany]

Great.

[Sean Fennessey]

Very exciting. Great choice. I'm very happy about that. Hopefully he will bring some levity to what will at times be a serious.

[Matt Bellany]

I also trust him to, to walk the tonal line of what you need to do here in terms of not being too glib or too, you know, laudatory, but also trying to provide an escape and also trying to provide work for everybody, which is, I think, the main thing here.

[Sean Fennessey]

Agreed. Let's talk about our big Oscar bet very quickly. Bobby Wagner, when was it? It was before Amanda went on leave. September 10th, something like that.

[Matt Bellany]

Early September.

[Amanda Dobbins]

September 16th.

[Sean Fennessey]

16Th. So on the 16th of September, we predicted the nominees and winner in all. Was it all categories?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No.

[Sean Fennessey]

12 categories.

[Amanda Dobbins]

1, 2, 3, 4. 14 categories.

[Sean Fennessey]

14 categories. Of the 23, we did not predict Best Documentary Short because we are Cowards.

[Matt Bellany]

That was the funniest.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You didn't do the shorts and a lot of the below the line technical categories.

[Matt Bellany]

You did not do the. The presentation this morning was done by Bowen Yang and Rachel Sennett. And Rachel Sennett. And they, you know, they brought a maybe we didn't go to sleep last night energy to it, but they looked great. And then the only time Rachel Sennett, like really broke was after reading the documentary short titles. And she just was like this very serious, very serious subject matter.

[Sean Fennessey]

And then she did say yuck by Charlie xcx, which was funny.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, that was amusing. Rachel Sennett, I love you. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, Bob. So how. How'd we do?

[Amanda Dobbins]

You did. Not very good, but I guess good for the time that you did it.

[Matt Bellany]

Thank you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Because we did it a lot earlier this year.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. No short lists.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Many of these things were not out. No short lists. No. Like you hadn't even seen the Brutalist at this point yet. You were heavy on it. So, like this, this was kind of really flying blind here.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And actually I just double checked.

[Matt Bellany]

Sorry.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's only 11 categories. So out of a possible 60 points. So five for each of the ones that only get five, and then 10 for the best picture nominations. Out of a possible 60 points. It is a 30 to 30 tie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Wow.

[Matt Bellany]

@ the moment.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Between the two of you. So you're both batting.500 out of 60.

[Matt Bellany]

Wow.

[Sean Fennessey]

So we got half right.

[Matt Bellany]

That's bad.

[Sean Fennessey]

Four full months before the nominations were announced. For almost four and a half months.

[Matt Bellany]

I don't. I mean, I don't accept a score of 50% in any walk of life, you know, even a bad age.

[Sean Fennessey]

Imagine what you were like in high school.

[Matt Bellany]

I mean, it was awful.

[Sean Fennessey]

It must have been a tough hang. You turned out so well.

[Matt Bellany]

I think I. It wasn't my fault, but you're like.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm competitive, but you're like, I gotta be right. Which is a different thing.

[Matt Bellany]

Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse you.

[Sean Fennessey]

Excuse me.

[Matt Bellany]

I'm not the only person at this table.

[Sean Fennessey]

No, it's true. I didn't care about grades in school, though, and I think I sent you grades.

[Matt Bellany]

Oh, I vividly remember the first test I failed.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, really?

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. Which was in. Which is a. Calculus senior year. You know, you get to, like, limits and some other. I mean, my brain just doesn't work that way, you know? And I got to that point and I was like, okay, we will. We will no longer be pursuing this. But, yeah, that sucked. I failed that test.

[Sean Fennessey]

So 30 hours.

[Matt Bellany]

Didn't fail the AP exam, though. Don't worry.

[Sean Fennessey]

I didn't take AP math. I was not good at math. Best Picture, what did we have? What were our Best Picture nominees?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Uh, well, so you had six out of 10 correct. And Amanda, you only had five out of 10 correct.

[Sean Fennessey]

Intriguing. What were they?

[Matt Bellany]

I did the room next door. That was tough.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's true. Uh, you both had Gladiator 2 in that did not get nominated. Yeah, Sean, you had Saturday Night.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I remember that one.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You both had blitz. You both had Sing Sing.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, you were so young.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I think that. Oh, Amanda. And the other one you had that didn't get it was Piano Lesson.

[Matt Bellany]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

You know, I felt pretty good about that too, coming out of the festivals. That movie just got completely blanked today too. No, Daniel Deadweiler. Yeah, it's too bad.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Now, notably, the. The. By our rules, you get an extra two points if you predict the winner as well. So the winner is worth three and getting a nomination.

[Sean Fennessey]

Right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Is only worth one. So out of a potential 11. Correct. Sean, you still have eight winners in contention.

[Sean Fennessey]

Wow.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And Amanda, you have seven winners still in contention.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So you could get 14 more points, and Sean, you could still get 16 more points. So upside, Sean, you're, like, slightly ahead, but depending on what actually wins.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How different are we in the.

[Sean Fennessey]

In the winners?

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah, in the winners, there's a lot.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That you overlap on. Like, Best Picture, you overlap on. You're different in director, same on actor, same on actress. Who do we have a supporting actress? You had Sean Baker, and Sean had. Had Brady Corbet.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's a tight race.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, same on the Wild Robot. You both predicted for animated feature, so. Yeah, so there's a lot of overlap, but there's still some possibility, depending on. I think it hinges on director, mostly.

[Sean Fennessey]

How many did we each get? Right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Supporting actor as well.

[Matt Bellany]

This is when you find out that I placed the AI story. Just kidding. I didn't do that.

[Sean Fennessey]

I believe the author's name was Adrian Pennington, and I was like, is that an AI name?

[Matt Bellany]

That sounds made up.

[Sean Fennessey]

What were our nominees for Documentary.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Documentary.

[Matt Bellany]

I mean, these were.

[Sean Fennessey]

This is a hard category to predict. Did we get any?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. So, Sean, you got two out of five, and Amanda, you only got one out of five.

[Matt Bellany]

I can't believe I got one.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The one that you got was Sugar Cane.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Which Sean, you also got. And then your second one was no Other Land. You both predicted daughters to win, so you're kind of out of contention on that one.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay, thanks so much.

[Sean Fennessey]

Tough one.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay, well, that's interesting. It's so tight. That's great.

[Matt Bellany]

We. So we never.

[Sean Fennessey]

We gotta do that in, like, November. We can't do it in September. Maybe we should keep. Maybe. You know, my friends at the Gold Derby podcast, they do one in March. They do one immediately after the Oscar.

[Matt Bellany]

Oh, that's fine.

[Sean Fennessey]

I don't want to steal their idea, but that's a great idea to just, like, the flying blind predictions, which is amusing because we think we know what's going on. But, like, I would not say that the Apprentice was really on my radar at this time. Last year.

[Matt Bellany]

You saw it at Telluride, right?

[Sean Fennessey]

I did, but I wouldn't. I wasn't like, this is an Oscar movie. Yeah.

[Matt Bellany]

Well, a lot of things felt different in September.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's very true.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah. We could do it again in September.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. All right, cool.

[Matt Bellany]

It's funny.

[Sean Fennessey]

Great.

[Matt Bellany]

What are we going to do for the winner this time? You never really collected on that debt.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's right. If I win again, you have to pose in front of my Physical media library, and we post it to the big picture social media feed.

[Matt Bellany]

I mean, that is punishment. So.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. And you have to say, it's so beautiful in here.

[Matt Bellany]

Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

What do you think?

[Matt Bellany]

Sure. Do I get to pick things to take home?

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, it's more of a lending library than a store, but we can talk about it.

[Matt Bellany]

Are you gonna feel so uncomfortable? You're like, no, give them back to me. Give them back.

[Sean Fennessey]

Collection's getting strong these days. I don't know if I can give anything up. I'm feeling good about it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Are you gonna film her like the Joker in the Dark Knight when he has the hostage videos and you're just behind the camera, like, squealing at her?

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I'm the guy with the phone stitched into my chest, but it's a Blu Ray of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

[Matt Bellany]

I'm just gonna immediately start rearranging everything.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, God. You know?

[Matt Bellany]

I know. There it goes.

[Sean Fennessey]

Is that what you want to do if you win? Just spend two hours rereading, color coordinating.

[Matt Bellany]

Throwing out the ugly ones. Not this. Not this.

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Wow.

[Sean Fennessey]

That actually is giving me a panic attack. Okay, this was fun. We will be back next week where we'll talk about this more, but we'll also talk about completely different movies. Don't worry. Movies. So let's go now to my conversation with Gint Zilbalatus. What's the best time of day to get a deal? All day with Jack in the box's all day, big deal meal. You get to choose from four entrees like the supreme croissant and five tasty sides, plus a drink starting at $5. So hurry in or take your time. You've got all day at Jack. Every bite's a big deal. Very happy to be here with Gintz Zilbalotis, director of Flow. Gintz, I was reading about your previous film Away, and the fact that you made it all by yourself. Is that accurate? Literally alone, just you?

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Yeah, the credits are very short. It's basically my unofficial film school because I didn't actually go to a film school. So I thought I would do that film. And my goal was to eventually work with the team, but I didn't want to do it the traditional way, which is that you start in the studio and kind of a lower like job and then gradually grow and get the opportunity to direct. But I just wanted to start, and I made that film from the age of 20 until 24. And, yeah, so I learned about writing and directing and animation and doing the music and sound, of course, it's not perfect, but that's the best way to learn, is by making these things. And of course, I didn't become an expert in these fields, but I think I learned the basics and this allowed me later to work with the team and I could understand what everyone was doing.

[Sean Fennessey]

I was wondering specifically about who you felt you needed for a team as you developed flow and what kind of talents you needed to surround yourself with. Because obviously directing, as we usually understand it, is about delegation and entrusting your department heads. And there's all. You know, it's a managerial role in many ways. But when you've made your first film all by yourself, how do you figure out how to do those other parts of directing?

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Yeah, well, a way I would maybe describe that I was the filmmaker of that film, but I wasn't really a director. There was no one to directly. And so the difference is that when I have an idea, I can just make it. I don't need to explain it to anyone. And that can be good because then you kind of go into a more, I don't know, cinematic direction. Like, but it can be difficult because, like, when you have to explain things, then they get challenged and tested and you have to actually articulate everything and then everything has a reason. So with flow, I think that's a big difference, that everything is more polished because it's gone through many kind of tests by having me explain it to people hundreds of times. But I also tried to find a balance with flow as to. Not to over explain certain things. It was important that there are like some things left for interpretation. But. But yeah, it's about finding that balance where things are explained but also open. But. But yeah, going back to. It's. Yeah, I. There were certain things that I felt easier that were easier for me and certain things were harder. Like, I really enjoyed designing the camera. The kind of. In this case, it's a virtual camera, but it's still the same principles. You adjust the lens, the lens size, the focal length, the everything. So I really enjoy kind of blocking these scenes and creating the. The layout and telling the story through that. Because especially when there is no dialogue. That is like the main way of expressing everything. It's not just like decorative. It's really like the. The bulk of the storytelling. I really enjoy doing the music. Even though it was my first time doing the music. I've never studied it. I don't play instruments and I don't read sheet music. So I started by. I did it on an app on my phone at first, which is kind of like riding a bicycle with your, like, safety wheels on, which doesn't allow you to make mistakes. So I learned the basics using that and then I graduated to a professional software. But still it's all electronic music. But I love that because it's so fast compared to animation. You get instant results and it's very impactful. Like. Like you can create a piece of music and it has more impact on the final film than some. Something that an animator would work on for months, which is a bit unfair. But it's the way music works that it can kind of really dominate everything. And, and, and yeah, so I didn't feel like I was great at actually animating. So on Flow, I was very happy to really delegate that. And, and I didn't animate any of the characters and we had a great team. And also on Flow, I didn't work on the sound. We had, like, people much smarter than me doing that. But with the music and the camera, I did want to be involved with the camera. I did everything, but with music on Flow, I ended up collaborating as well with another composer. So I would do the initial sketches and it's important also for me to do it myself because I write these sketches really early while I'm writing the script. Usually music is the last thing you do, but for me it starts with the music and then everything is built around that. So I do these sketches and I edit the film using my own music instead of like temp music, music from other films. And this allows me to, yeah, integrate the music into the film. It's not like overlaid on top, it's really guiding everything. But once I've done done that, we brought on another composer, Richard Zellip, who is a lot more experienced and he would really, like, add more layers and depth to everything and make sure it's all cohesive. And then he recorded it with real instruments and orchestra. And it was, I think, the best of both worlds, where I am very hands on and involved, but it's also very collaborative. And once Richards came on board, I wasn't precious about kind of like preserving everything I've done. It was very kind of back and forth process.

[Sean Fennessey]

Given that there's no dialogue in the film and you are looking for collaborators, animators, co composer. Can you describe what the script looks like and what it is that you're sharing with them? Are you pitching the idea to them or are you handing them a screenplay and saying, here's what the story will be?

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Yeah, with Flow, it was actually the first script that I've actually finished on a way. I just wrote an outline and basically improvised it visually. And I could do it because it was a micro budget film and there wasn't as much oversight, but because Flow had a much bigger budget still. Still much smaller than most US animated film, but still bigger than my micro budget film. So we needed the script for funding purposes. And. And so yeah, I worked with the co writer who also later become. Became the main producer. And so yeah, the script is only 35 pages, which is about one page per two minutes. Usually it's one page per one minute. But in this case there is no dialogue. So the text is more dense, there's less white space and. But that the whole story is pretty much there because I think writing is really like figuring out the structure and the motivations of the characters and the whole kind of relationships they have. And the dialogue is just the last thing you add. And so this is pretty much the same as any script, but you don't just add the dialogue at the end. And it's quite similar to the final film, but it's not exactly the same because. So when the script was finished, only the financiers would read it and the producers. But no one in the crew read the script. Instead, after finishing the script, I start making the animatic which is like the. Or it could be called Previous. It's like the rough edit of the film. And instead of creating storyboards, which is a typical way of making animated films where you draw everything, I would just do this in 3D. I create a 3D set and I can explore it with the virtual camera. It's like location scouting in live action where a director comes on set and discovers ideas. So it's very improvisational and spontaneous and there are many happy accidents. And so I. I create. Create these shots in 3D. And a reason for that is because I need to. You. I move the camera a lot and I have these very long shots, some of which go for almost five minutes. So you can draw that. You have to do it in 3D. So I do design this whole film and edit it with the music and. And it. This is what we show to everyone on the crew. Because I think it conveys the emotion a lot better than the script does. The script is really. You get the. All the beats, the action, but you don't really sense the more kind of intense emotion which you can't really describe with words. It's more kind of the reason for making this film is because I Need to kind of express these feelings I have, but I can't really do it any other way. Besides, making this film like this is my way of kind of expressing some more deeper things. It's very therapeutic as well. I don't know exactly what I'm expressing at first, but I find it and discover it on the way. So, yeah, I think with the music and the lights and the motion, we can express these things that the script couldn't.

[Sean Fennessey]

Can you tell me a little bit about where the idea came from then? Obviously, you had something calling to you to express yourself. I know you also have a cat, I believe. I don't know if the cat was the pure inspiration for it, but where did it come from to make a story like this?

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Well, I had two cats growing up. Currently, I don't have a cat. But, yeah, when I was in high school, I had two cats. And I made a film back then, a short film about a cat who's afraid of water. So it's the same concept, but. But it's quite different in terms of presentation. But, yeah, so I made a bunch of more short films, and then I made my first feature, and I had this opportunity to work with a team for the first time. And I wanted to tell a story about this very experience of how I'm learning how to collaborate and how to trust others, which I'd never done. And I thought a cat would be a great protagonist for such a story because they're very independent. And that could be its start of its character arc. So I revisit that concept. I started when I was 15, so I've been with this story for half of my life now. And I added a bunch of more characters. I also added a dog, which is inspired by two dogs I had and these other animals. So in the short, it was really about the fear of water. But in flow, the feature version, I'm more interested in the cat's fear of others. It's really all about the relationships they have, and everything is really built around that. And it was also important that these characters are. All of them are kind of relatable, or at least we understand them. So none of these main characters, at least, are good or bad. They're both good and bad. Each of them, which was important that each of them have their own kind of journeys and character arcs, which is quite complicated to do without dialogue and in this confined space. And so there are a lot of limitations in terms of storytelling that actually, yeah, it's challenging, but also that can be good because in animation, you have endless opportunities. You can, you can do whatever you want. So it can be great to have some limitations. It gets you going at least.

[Sean Fennessey]

The environment is interesting to me too. It's hard to place where the story is taking place. When it's taking place. Is it even taking place on Earth? There's certainly a post apocalyptic kind of feel to what's transpiring. Why did you decide to make those choices and also not necessarily explicate all of those things at the same time?

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Yeah, I think of this place as like an alternative universe. So we did study real places and took references to make it feel grounded, but we made our own kind of architectural styles. And my goal was for it to feel kind of timeless, that there are no modern day buildings, there are no cell phones. So it could be said at any time. And hopefully this will make it relevant in many years as well. It will stay fresh. But yeah, we look, looked at places in Southeast Asia, in Central America, also in Europe and Tibet and Nepal and, and combined them and made something new. But because there's no dialogue, this environment is really telling the story. It's not just decoration. So. So great. The great thing about designing everything ourselves, we can do what is necessary for the story. We're not constrained by existing places. And yeah, so it's all there to kind of express what the cat is feeling. And yeah, I wanted it to feel like an adventure, the whole story. So I wanted it to feel like we've never seen these places, just as the cat hasn't seen them. So that was important that everything is kind of seen from the cat's point of view.

[Sean Fennessey]

I've read that animating water sequences is incredibly complicated and that's an essential part of the story that you're telling. Can you just talk about your experience trying to accomplish that?

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Yeah. In any kind of film, whether it's animated or not, they tell you to avoid water because it's so hard to control. And also. Well, maybe in this case it's not as big as a problem. But they also say you should avoid using animals. That's right. But yeah, so we had to.

[Sean Fennessey]

And children too. I think that's the third one. So you didn't have to worry about children in this one.

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Yeah, but yeah, animals are also tricky, but water is complicated because there's no one way of doing water. There's a river, there's a lake, there's a storm, there is a puddle. And each of them require completely different types of tools and systems that need to be developed. And usually in Bigger VFX heavy films or animated films. There are dozens of people, like their whole department of doing all that. We had just two people doing all the water effects. And despite like most of the film being set in water. And yeah, the complicated thing is that you need to understand the physics, the technical part of it, which I really don't understand myself. But these people also need to have a very good eye and ability to tell stories because water in this film also helps us to understand what the cat is feeling. It's like a metaphor for its feeling. So when the cat is afraid, the water is very scary and aggressive. And then as the cat learns to trust others, the water calms down. But yeah, I wanted you to be inside this water. So the camera goes in and out of the water within a single shot. And that was important, that it feels kind of tangible and you can feel its wetness and you feel very immersed in this world.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's incredibly effective and fascinating because it feels somehow both realistic and otherworldly. So the way that you've pulled that off is amazing. I can't believe how successful this film has been. You know, it's done really well at the box office. You know, I wish you the best. With the Academy Award nominations tomorrow. Are you stunned by the way that the film has been received? Are you surprised? Like, how are you feeling about the way that this relatively micro budgeted animated film with a small crew has found its way into the world?

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Yeah, I am stunned and it is crazy. It's quite unprecedented. Well, we were hoping to have a festival release and we were hoping to get some distribution, but. But yeah, this is a challenging kind of pitch because it's hard to compare it to something. And you're always asked to compare it to something because it works both for kids and adults. So people see it as neither. In this case, when you're pitching it, I think it actually does work for kids and adults. So that's, I think, part of the appeal that kind of helped it break out of that festival circuit kind of art house films, and that there are families coming to it. But, but yeah, in terms of the, the whole visual style and everything, it's unlike most animated films. I think that's also what helped it to be noticed because it feels like we shot it in this very kind of almost documentary way, but also with these long takes, which is quite unexpected. And, and, and yeah, I think we just started in Cannes Film Festival, which was also a huge deal for us because they almost never select animation and competition. And then everyone really Took notice and we got like distribution because we only got distribution after, after Cannes and, and then all these festivals and, and so I've been traveling pretty much since Cannes in May for seven months now, which has been pretty exciting, but also very exhausting. But it's a very good problem to have. And, and, and yeah, also in terms of Latvian films, this has been incredibly successful. And because, yeah, like here we're the number two film of all time in the Latvian box office and on our way to being number one very soon, which is like, we also don't typically watch these kind of independent animated films. So it really came as a surprise to us. Us as well. But I think this has shown that there is an appetite for different types of animated films. And now that there are like these free tools that we used. So we made it with Blender, which is a free open source software, we can have these smaller studios taking bigger swings and trying out new things. And I'm sure we're going to see more of these kind of films because this has shown it can be successful. So I'm sure that people will like follow this path and hopefully it's not like the same type of, like they don't copy it. Like just being stories about cats like this means the all kinds of independent films. You don't have to like very directly copy this. But, but yeah, and also like, yeah, it's a very young team. Like we were all very new to this. I think the lack of experience helped us kind of discover some new ways of dealing with things and finding new solutions. So, yeah, that's, I think part of it.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's an amazing accomplishment and the film is beautiful. So. Congratulations, Gins. We do end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what is the last great thing they have seen. Seems like you're a cinephile. Have you seen anything great lately?

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Yeah, well, this is kind of sad, but I've been rewatching some David lynch films and so, yeah, I watched Lost highway, which actually hadn't seen before.

[Sean Fennessey]

What did you think of it?

[Gint Zilbalatis]

It's. I thought it was really amazing. Like, it's. I don't know, it's. I was. There's this. I don't know, it's really hard to describe, but yeah, that like, I love when. I've been also listening today with lynch interviews now and. And he's been like reluctant explaining what his films are about. And I've been very inspired by this approach as well. That's why I'm also very. I hope the film speaks for itself in my case, and I think in his case as well, you can. You shouldn't really try to describe it. You should really embrace the ambiguity. And it's just an experience that I really loved. And. And it's very kind of dark, but also naive in some ways at the same time, which makes the darkness feel more dark and the lightness feel more light, which feels very relevant, I guess, nowadays as well, with all of these extreme emotions and. Yeah. So I loved the Lost Highway.

[Sean Fennessey]

Beautifully put. Gins, thanks so much for doing this. Good luck with the film going forward.

[Gint Zilbalatis]

Thank you.

[Sean Fennessey]

Thanks to Gen Zil Baladas. Thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Amanda. Next week, a brief respite from the Oscar race and an acknowledgment of dump you area. So here's what's on the list of.

[Matt Bellany]

I think some of these are unfair as well. I understand that. It's. It's not necessarily that they're bad. It's just that the studios have put them in January for a lack of.

[Sean Fennessey]

We are not dumping on them.

[Matt Bellany]

Confidence.

[Sean Fennessey]

They have been dumped into January.

[Matt Bellany]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

And we are reflecting on their dump status.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

So we're gonna talk about Better Man. We're gonna talk about one of them days. We're gonna talk about flight Risk, Wolfman.

[Matt Bellany]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Back in action.

[Matt Bellany]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

And Presence, Steven Soderbergh's new film. And Soderbergh will be on the show.

[Matt Bellany]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

And I did ask him a question in your honor.

[Matt Bellany]

I know.

[Sean Fennessey]

And he did answer it.

[Matt Bellany]

I'm really excited. Did you cite me when you asked him?

[Sean Fennessey]

I did.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

He also said your name out loud.

[Matt Bellany]

Okay. Oh, all right. Well, I did just, like, get a little palpitation right now. Like, this is why I don't do the interviews. And I'm, like, a little stressed out now, but I'm excited for it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay, well, tune in next week. We'll see you then.