← The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Town with Matthew Belloni
Oscars Preview! Timmy Trouble, a ‘Sinners’ Surge, and a Big Lead for 'One Battle'
00:36:52
Loading summary
Transcript170 lines
- [00:00]
A
This episode is brought to you by TaxAct. Like an expert coach, TaxAct offers step by step guidance and guaranteed accuracy when filing taxes. Get tips along the way. Add Expert Assist to talk to tax experts and let our experts do your taxes for you. With Expert full service, TaxAct helps you find the deductions and credits you deserve so you can get them over with. Visit taxact.com to learn more. Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details.
- [00:32]
B
This episode of the Town is brought to you by the Madison, the new original series on Paramount. Plus Academy Award nominee Taylor Sheridan's most intimate story yet. Unlike anything he's ever done before, the Madison follows a family raised in a world of digital distraction, forced by tragedy to truly see one another and come together. Authentic, normal, multilayered and did I mention starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell. Don't miss the Madison new series streaming March 14th only on Paramount. It is Wednesday, March 11th. It's Oscar week. Craig and I will be there on Sunday. Look for us. We'll be quickly escorted away from the real red carpet to the side carpet for the non famous people. It's been a fun if kind of paint by numbers awards season One battle after another has pretty much dominated all the precursor awards all season, except for for the Actor awards, formerly the SAG Awards. That top honor went to Sinners, which some people think could signal it's going to pull off a major upset. It did get the most nominations ever with 16, though 44% of movies that lead the nominations do not end up winning best picture. One battle and sinners are facing off in a record 11 categories. That makes this one of the most epic contests between two contenders ever. And either way, great for Warner Brothers. It's very rare for studio heads like Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdy to sit there in the crowd knowing they're going to win regardless of which way the Academy leans. I'm a little skeptical of the Sinners narrative, but for the real expert opinion, we've got Michael Lasker back on the show. Michael is not a professional awards prognosticator. He's actually a talent manager at Mosaic, has some great clients in the comedy world, but he's also a longtime Oscar watcher and knows this stuff from the inside, meaning he actually talks to the voters and goes to the events that aren't necessarily for media. So today we're going to get into the Oscar narratives that Hollywood will be watching. One Battle versus Sinners, Timmy versus Everybody and the races that could surprise us all from the ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. Okay. We are here with Michael Lasker, talent manager, producer, and Oscar Ologist. What is this? How many times have you been on the show now?
- [02:44]
C
I think this is my fifth, actually.
- [02:46]
B
Five timer. You are a five timer guest. Craig, we need a jacket like SNL that you get in the Five Timer club.
- [02:54]
C
Yeah.
- [02:54]
D
It's bright orange and hideous.
- [02:56]
B
Yeah. And it's got a picture of Ana de Armas on the back.
- [02:58]
C
I'll wear it on the. I'll wear it on the next. The next time we come on.
- [03:01]
B
It's you and Lucas and Rich Greenfield.
- [03:04]
C
Exactly.
- [03:04]
B
A very exclusive club.
- [03:06]
C
Amazing company. Are you kidding me?
- [03:08]
B
All right, so it's Oscar week. We are talking about the big narratives. You, as the consummate insider, you not only pay attention to the Oscars, you also talk to the voters a lot, unlike some of these prognosticators out there that claim to be experts. So I want to go to the big narratives this season. And we got to start with Timmy, Right? Timothy Chalamet. Can we just, first of all dispel this stupid narrative that he blew his Oscar by criticizing ballet and opera?
- [03:41]
C
Yes, that has been dispelled. First of all. All that happened after the voting was done. And. And also if you watch the interview with him and McConaughey, it's a little taken out of context. And to be clear, Timmy Chalamet is a genius, brilliant actor, whoever he wants to work with. He's amazing in the movie. He was amazing last year. I thought he was going to win last year. Actually. He's doing fine. I think what's at play here is a. Is a couple of key things, right? One of the big things that a lot of people have covered, and it is true, is that when there is a phenom style young male actor who just explodes into the business, and I'll give you three examples. Dawson Hoffman, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio. It has taken them a very long time to get their eventual Oscar, right? So Dustin Hoffman, 1967 graduate. He doesn't win till 79, his fourth nomination. Kramer versus Kramer, Pacino, 1972, the godfather, doesn't win till his eighth nomination. 92, son of a woman. And then, of course, Leo. People forget this who know Leo, his work today. Nominated in 93 as a kid for what's Eating Gilbert Grape wins on his fifth nomination in 2015 for the Revenant. I would put Timmy into that category of these phenom style actors where I think people look at them and they say, you're so great. You can do anything. You're going to keep doing this for a while, and maybe we're going to make you wait a little bit. So I think that's narrative one in
- [04:58]
B
a way they don't for the actresses. And Kyle wrote about this. Kyle was on the show talking about this, but he was the favorite. And I was so confident that his campaigning and the narrative was so good, I actually switched my vote for him. I was Team Leo. And I went to Timmy right around when it all went to shit. And people started saying, oh, it's actually going to be neither of them. It's going to be Michael B. Jordan.
- [05:20]
C
I think that. I think that brings in the second narrative. And the second narrative is. Is twofold, which is, first of all, Marty supreme, which I thought was great, has just lost all of its momentum to one battle in Sinners. Those are the only two movies that have any kind of, like, wave behind them. But I think the second thing is that we've seen this trend in the last five, six, seven years where really celebrated movies have been, have gotten many, many nominations and then one zero wins. So in 2023, Banshees had nine nominations, zero wins. TAR had six nominations, zero wins. By the way, a lot of people thought Cate Blanchett was going to win that Oscar, and she didn't. Killers of Flower moon, I think 0 for 10 or 11, and Irishman over 10 in 2019. So I think what's happened is that Marty supreme, which I thought was a great movie, and by the way, you could argue, I think we're not going to cover all the categories. Clearly, people think that Francine Masler, who's a legend and part of the reason why Casting Oscar Got Invented, is going to win for Sinners. And I think that would be a great win. But, I mean, you could also argue Marty supreme should win for casting that's got the most inventive casting of the category.
- [06:21]
B
It does. Although Mr. Wonderful bugged the crap out of you.
- [06:24]
C
I thought he was great.
- [06:25]
B
Keep going.
- [06:26]
C
I thought he was great, but. So I think you have that momentum loss of the movie that its only shot is to win for. For Timmy. And another thing I looked at, and this is like, I'll admit it's a little flimsy. I was testing this out on some friends this weekend. I went back to 1990, and from 1990 to 2025, there are only best actor wins, where the actor is the only Oscar win for the movie. Those wins are. They're basically like Denzel for Training Day, Pacino for Son of a Woman, Nicolas Cage for Leaving Las Vegas, Philipstown Rob for Capote. And what those wins are, is there either kind of like a nostalgia, it's time when, hey, we didn't give Denzel Malcolm x92. Let's give it him for train day in 2001. Or what it is, is, it's like, oh, my God, Phil. Seymour Hoffman gave the best performance I've ever seen, which is Capote. And I think that Timmy is somewhere in the middle of that because it's not really his time, because he's not
- [07:19]
B
gonna be his best that he's ever gonna do.
- [07:21]
C
Right. And ultimately, even though he's so amazing in the movie, it's just an incredibly loaded category. I mean, I've talked to people that are voting for Ethan Hawke. Another thing I was thinking about is.
- [07:30]
B
Or Wagner Mora. Wagner Mora has a lot of the international votes.
- [07:33]
C
I mean, Sean Fennesee has been on that hill. I don't know where he's gonna land on Thursday when they announce their picks, but he's been on that hill for a while. Wagner Mora was unbelievable. I loved that movie so much. What's interesting about this category, I was thinking about it this morning. You have four child phenoms that have become men in the category. We met Michael B. On the wire, right? And now he's this incredible, you know. You know, adult actor. Met Ethan Hawke in Explorers, you know, back in the mid-80s before, like, dead Poet Society and of course, Leo and Timmy. And so you could argue that it's a lot of their time now. Leo is the elder statesman now. He's barely campaigned. I'm assuming he's coming back from Prague from the Scorsese film to go to the show. But I don't know.
- [08:10]
B
He will be there. He will be there.
- [08:12]
C
He's got to, you know, and I think. I mean, I'm very. I loved everything this year. I loved Sinners One Battle was my favorite movie. And I think Leo is just unbelievable in that movie.
- [08:21]
B
I think what happens here, and this is going to hurt Timmy, is that increasingly the voters like a movie and just vote it down the line.
- [08:29]
C
Yes.
- [08:30]
B
And we saw that last year with the Nora where there was a lot of chatter about other categories going to other people. And it turned out Mikey Madison won. Sean Baker ended up winning three Oscars. Like it's. And I think the question is, are voters going to fall on the side of Sinners or One Battle and vote it down the line?
- [08:48]
C
Well, I would say Two things, which is I think I still believe the voters will lean towards one battle for best picture, which is why I think they're veering towards Michael B. Jordan for Best actor because it's a way to kind of, you know, divide it a little bit.
- [08:59]
B
So if you had to vote, you would say, Michael B. I think he's going to win.
- [09:02]
C
I think he's the.
- [09:03]
B
The cow. She odds. I was going to put some money on Timmy because He's like, only 30% at this point.
- [09:10]
C
Yeah, you can make money.
- [09:11]
B
Craig is betting on Timmy.
- [09:13]
C
Craig is, like, in a hotel room in Vegas right now, just like, he
- [09:16]
B
hasn't been sweating the entire night.
- [09:18]
C
No, you can make some money.
- [09:20]
D
I'm opening accounts left and right to bet on Timmy. Well, the odds have just changed so much, and a lot of them changed after the voting window closed.
- [09:27]
B
Well, they changed after the SAG Awards when Michael B. Won and there were a few days left in voting. And then after the whole controversy came up, I think people in the real world don't recognize that voting was over and they're. They're going against Timmy.
- [09:42]
D
Well, and there's also a big difference between Timmy's odds on a book like fanduel, which has, like, its own equation to kind of come up with the odds versus Kalshee, which is public influenced.
- [09:53]
B
Yeah.
- [09:54]
D
And the public thinks Michael B. Jordan is going to win much more than Vegas thinks Michael B. Jordan.
- [09:58]
C
And by the way, I want to point out, this is a good moment to do it. I mean, and it's fun now that Kalsh and all these things are betting on everything, although they're betting on certain things that should not be bet on, like, you know, wars, obviously. But people have to remember that the only people who vote and who matter are in the Academy. And so this is just kind of like you said, what the public thinks. And also a reminder, there's not a single of the precursor awards that in any real way mathematically match the Academy body. I was saying to Craig earlier, there's 150,000 people in SAG that can vote. I don't know how many people voted. Obviously, there's 1300 actors, you know, in the actors branch of the Academy, so.
- [10:32]
B
And a lot of them are international. And SAG is heavily us. That's right. SAG did not vote for any of these foreign films that got into the Oscars. So, yes, I agree. People put too much credence in the SAG winner, which is why I think the Michael B. Jordan momentum is a little bit Mistaken.
- [10:50]
C
You could be right. But I'll give you one more theory and I will toot my horn because this is what I said to you last year. Everybody had to me last year. And I came on your show and picked Mikey. And it was simply because I felt like if you saw the movies, Mikey was in every inch of the film, obviously, and to me is really only in half the movie. I think something that's been neglected in this whole narrative is that Michael B. Plays two characters and he plays them unbelievably well. I mean, there's all these quotes where, like, the other actors are like. I could see the back of Michael B. Jordan when he'd walk into a room and I could tell if he was smoke or he was stack. And so I think when you look at the cumulative effect of people love that movie, it's the most nominated film of the night. I'll come back to that stat in a second. And he played two people and he did it so convincingly and he's somebody that we've loved for so long. And I think it's just. I mean, it would be so fascinating. They'll never do it. This would be one of the most fascinating races ever to actually see the vote tally because I think all five guys have a real shot.
- [11:44]
B
Please, Academy, someday, maybe a hundred years. We talked about it on this show. They need to release the vote tallies and they need to do a countdown on the show of the top 10 movies and have them stand up and somebody gets eliminated American Idol style.
- [12:02]
C
And.
- [12:02]
B
And then the final three are on stage and the winner is crowned. Why? Why can we not do that?
- [12:09]
C
Go pitch it to YouTube. Maybe it's coming. You know, maybe it would be amazing in a couple of years.
- [12:13]
B
All right, so let's talk about that momentum. The one battle versus sinners conundrum here. I don't think it's a conundrum. I think that it's going to be one battle down the line.
- [12:23]
C
I completely agree. I mean, I basically have right now one battle winning six and Sinners winning four. Off the top of my head, I feel like one battle is going to win. Picture, director, adapted screenplay, supporting actor, editing and cinematography. Those will be at 6.
- [12:37]
B
Oh, supporting actor is good for Craig. He bet on. He bet on Sean Penn.
- [12:40]
C
Yeah, I think it will be Sean Penn. And then Sinners I think would be actor, original screenplay, original score and casting. So six to four. Now, that could vary, obviously. You know, if all of a sudden sinners wins editing, that's going to be a Huge bellwether that maybe it's going to Sinners. If Delroy surprises, you know, if they surprise a supporting actress, potentially, which they could. Although I feel like Teyana and Amy Madigan are really the two people that are battling in that one. And so I think people have to remember I went back actually to 2000, from 2000 to 20.
- [13:10]
B
25.
- [13:10]
C
25 years of Oscars. Only 10 of those 25 years did the most nominated film win Best Picture. So oftentimes the most nominated film, it's simply because it's a period piece. Now, to Sinner's credit, because it broke the record. Even if they hadn't added the casting category, it would have broken the record. The record was 14. A couple movies have it. It would have gotten 15 without casting. So you have to give it all this credit. I mean, it's been.
- [13:33]
B
There is widespread support amongst all the branches.
- [13:36]
C
Yes. And I have to point out that Ludwig and his wife Serena are parents at our preschool. So, you know, you gotta root for that. They're great people.
- [13:43]
B
Oh, he's winning. He's winning.
- [13:45]
C
He's gonna win for original score.
- [13:46]
B
That would be, what, his second Oscar. He won for Oppenheimer.
- [13:49]
C
He won for Black Panther and Oppenheimer.
- [13:51]
B
Oh, wow.
- [13:51]
C
Yeah.
- [13:52]
B
No, he's very nice guy.
- [13:53]
C
Very nice guy. So n. And people love him. And, you know, he came up in the comedy world, like on Community, and he's. He's unbelievably talented. So I think. Yeah. And at the end, look, people pointed this out. Fenase. He's talked about it a lot. The amount of precursor when you throw in, like, the Critics awards, plus all the award shows outside of SAG ensemble, which I'll get to in a second, what One Battle has already won. It would be completely unprecedented if it lost Best Picture. And the thing on SAG Ensemble, what SAG does often is they just vote for literally what they think is the best ensemble. So literally, last year, they voted for Conclave, they voted for Black Panther, they voted for the trial of Chicago 7, the SAG ensemble, and they did vote for Sinners last week. But the SAG Ensemble winner is not that predictive for Best Picture.
- [14:36]
B
Also SAG Best Actor. They voted for Timmy last year and he lost. That's correct.
- [14:40]
C
That's absolutely right. So I think One Battle can't be stopped. Look, both movies are brilliant. I love Sinner so much. I love One Battle. They're both about much more. They both have a lot to say about today's America. The past of America, You Know what's coming and so forth. One thing I'm thinking about a lot is that there's a lot of maverick, incredible, you know, legendary directors that never won a Best Director Oscar, right? To name a few. Stanley copy, Reiner. Well, Rob Reiner, sadly, was never nominated. He was nominated for the DGA many times for his brilliant movies. He's clearly going to be celebrated on Sunday. They've already announced they're going to do some stuff to honor him, but I'm talking about, like, Robert Altman, Kubrick, Hitchcock, Norman Jewison, Sidney Lumet, a lot of huge names that never, ever won a Best Director Oscar. I cannot believe that that could be pta. This is his time, and I think that's just going to power the whole thing. Like, there's been a lot of splits in the 21st century. I don't see there being a split. And when you talk to people who loved One Battle, they, like, worshiped one battle, and it's going to have a lot of support.
- [15:41]
B
Sinners has a lot of those people, too. The whole backstory of Coogler insisting on the copyright and everybody saying it was going to fail and then it becoming a huge hit, like, that's. That's good for that movie.
- [15:53]
C
I agree. And obviously, it's going to be a great Sunday for Warner Brothers and for Pam and Mike. And, you know, somebody will have to do some kind of pool on how many times if David Zaslav is thanked, you know, because if they haven't, they haven't. They haven't been thanking him. You know, I'm just.
- [16:09]
B
I'm just reporting somebody mentioned his name at the Globes. I wrote in my newsletter that he was not thanked at the Globes. And I was helpfully reminded by David Zaslav, Zaslav fan, that may or may not have been connected to David Zaslav, that he was thanked once by the One Battle producer. But.
- [16:25]
C
Yes, that's right. That's right.
- [16:27]
B
I don't believe that that will likely happen.
- [16:29]
C
Look, and by the way, we're being. We're not trying to be mean. Part of it is that these people, they don't have a relationship with David Zaslav. They have a relationship with Pam and Mike. You know, all the other stuff that's going along, going aside, you know, they don't, you know, they never had a relationship the way they. People have relationships with, like, Bob Iger when you work at, like, Disney just is what it is. Lifelock, how can I help?
- [16:49]
E
The IRS said I filed my return,
- [16:51]
F
but I haven't 1 in 4 taxpaying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.
- [16:55]
E
What do I do?
- [16:56]
D
My refund though.
- [16:57]
B
I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix this.
- [16:59]
F
LifeLock fixes identity theft guaranteed and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage.
- [17:04]
E
I'm so relieved.
- [17:05]
C
No problem.
- [17:06]
D
I'll be with you every step of the way.
- [17:08]
F
One in four was a fraud paying American. Not anymore. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply.
- [17:18]
B
All right, so is there a one battle weakness?
- [17:20]
C
The one battle weakness would be if there's going to be a split and all of a sudden you have it just picking up like it's going to win director and it's going to win adapted and I believe it's going to win editing. Now if all of a sudden doesn't win editing, you're going to know that it's going to be a Sinners night and it's going to flip. And Sinners is going to go from four wins, the four I named to and ad editing. Maybe it picks up one of the supportings.
- [17:41]
B
Well, that's the thing is they often do supporting actress first or second.
- [17:45]
C
Yes.
- [17:46]
B
So if, if they don't win supporting for one battle, then are all bets off.
- [17:52]
C
A previous Oscar telecast that I think is very similar to this and I'm going to get real nerdy and probably bore you, is the 2000 year Oscar. 2001 was the show, but it's the 2000 Oscars. It was the Gladiator Traffic year. Okay? In that year, Traffic is nominated for five Oscars and it wins four. And so early in the night it's like, boom, it wins best supporting actor for Benicio. Boom, it wins editing for Steven Marioni. Now it wins adaptive screenplay for Steven Geoghegan. And now it wins director for Soderbergh. By the way, nominated twice in the category for Brockovich, Aaron Brockovich and Traffic, Gladiator ends up winning and not even
- [18:26]
B
under his own name.
- [18:27]
C
What do you mean?
- [18:28]
B
Doesn't Stouderberg edit under Peter Andrews?
- [18:32]
C
He didn't edit Traffic. Steven marioni. No, he DPs under he DPS.
- [18:36]
B
No, you're right. He DPS under Peter Anderson. Yes.
- [18:39]
C
And so it was not nominated, even though the photography in that movie is brilliant. So meanwhile, Gladiator, early in the night, wins sound, visual effects, costume design. And then now this would connect to Sinners winning and then Russell Crowe wins best actor. He'd been nominated the year before for the Insider. Genius performance Loses to Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. And now he wins for Gladiator. And then Gladiator wins best picture of the night. So they win five, Traffic wins four. You could have a night like that where you could have one battle come out fast and then maybe the Michael B of it all powers Sinners. Now, I don't think that will happen, but again, these are the only. I mean, one thing I was thinking about right now, there's only four movies that really likely will win more than one Oscar. One Battle, Sinners, K Pop and Frankenstein. Everything else is just going to be one. People think, like F1 would take sound, Avatar, take visual effects, stuff like that. So it's just, it's all about one battle and Sinners, which, by the way, not to sound like a nerd, I think is amazing. I, I, I, you know me, I mean, I'm all in on movies. All in on movies being in theaters. I think this was a great year for movies. Of the 10 movies nominated, I could name 10 others that were great. So this is good.
- [19:46]
B
Well, you're forgetting Jessie Buckley for actress. She's a shoe in.
- [19:49]
C
She's a shoe in. Yeah, but that will be Hamnet's one off that it's only going to win one is my point. Yes, she's the shoo in of the night. I mean, Rose Byrne was incredible. There's definitely a lot of support out there for her, but she's definitely the shoo in. So, you know, I think the, you know, unsupporting actress, I mean, people are still waffling, is Amy Madigan. Is it Tiana? One thing I thought, and this would connect with Sean Penn, you know, the supporting winners oftentimes are villains. Ruth Gordon famously won for Rosemary's baby back in 68. Obviously, on the supporting actor side, you have a lot of Heath Ledger, Joe Pesci, Christoph Waltz. So I rewatched one battle last week on a plane, and from the moment you're on Sean Penn's face when Tiana puts the gun on him, you're just like, he's doing something so wild, so different. And I think, oh, yeah.
- [20:35]
B
When I left the movie theater, I said, penn is winning. But he wasn't really that kind of heralded for much of the season. It's only recently people have come around.
- [20:46]
C
I think what happened was everybody came out of that theater and said, this is a gonzo level, legendary performance. He's going to win his third Oscar. He's 1 2, 2003, Mystic River, 2008, Milk. Then the Narrative was, wait a minute. Benio is even better because Benio was so subtle. And I thought Benio was genius in that movie. Then the narrative. Yeah, exactly. Then the narrative was, oh, Stellan, it's Stellan's time he wins the Golden Globe. But Sean Penn, I mean, again, I always look at it like, if you really think hard and long about the movies, there's no way to deny how great Sean Penn is in that movie and how wild a performance it is and how he holds the whole movie together.
- [21:25]
B
You don't think that having two Oscars hurts him?
- [21:27]
C
I don't think it really matters. I mean, look, it's like, let me put it this way. I don't think Cate Blanchett lost what would have been her third Oscar in 2023 for TAR. Because people didn't want Cate Blanchett to have three Oscars. She's a genius. I just think that Michelle Yeoh, that was the mania of that year.
- [21:45]
B
It didn't hurt Emma Stone for Poor Things. But I do believe that if Leo had never won an Oscar, this season would be very different.
- [21:54]
C
100%. But he has. He's so unbelievable in that movie. And I said to Craig, it's so funny, we were talking about how we will not name names. There are certain actors in Hollywood who don't want to look their age and certain actors who are willing to look their age. And I think that one thing that's great about that movie is that Leo's like, I'm 53, and I can look 53.
- [22:13]
B
But no, no, he's 50.
- [22:14]
C
Or 50.
- [22:14]
B
50. Okay? Trust me, I monitor these things.
- [22:16]
C
But. But the point is, at the end of the movie when he gets his iPhone, he's 51. He's 51.
- [22:21]
B
51. Sorry. Thank you.
- [22:22]
C
When he gets his iPhone and he winks into the camera, you're like, man, Leo, he's still got it. You know, it doesn't matter if he's got gray hair and if he's got scraggly, you know, goatee. Doesn't. Yeah, I thought Leo was. I mean, that to me, was a Jack Nicholson, Robert Duvall, RIP, Gene Hackman level 1970s.
- [22:40]
B
But he's not going to win.
- [22:42]
C
No. Because he's the elder statesman and he hasn't campaigned. I don't really think you have to campaign, quite frankly.
- [22:47]
B
He's done Q and A's, though. He showed up at the DGA Awards. He's been around for him. I think he's done stuff.
- [22:53]
C
He has. But I guess what I'm saying is I think there's a difference and I'm not even convinced campaigning totally works. I think there's a difference between doing what you should be doing and what you're doing to support a movie that is a likely best picture winner versus going to like everything. You know what I mean? There are certain people who like, yeah, yeah. Who are like, you know, I'm going to go to every single cocktail party, every producer's house, every salon, you know,
- [23:15]
B
but those are typically the people that do not already have a profile. They're the ones who are introducing themselves to the town over the season. The Lupita Nyong', Os, the Eddie Redmaynes.
- [23:26]
C
Well, you know what?
- [23:26]
B
It would have Mikey Madisons.
- [23:28]
C
Yes. And famously. And he thanked her in his speech when he won adapt a screenplay. It was like Billy Bob Thornton in 96. He thanked Elizabeth Taylor because, like, people like Elizabeth Taylor were like getting him out there. You know, they were throwing parties for him because they love sling blades.
- [23:41]
B
There are academy influencers that are connectors and we know them where they throw parties and they introduce you and they sort of. It's the LA version of a social society where you are welcomed in and introduced around town and ultimately it helps you win this. To be honest, this is why I voted for Kate Hudson and I won money on her because I knew she would get nominated because she has that internal industry support system. People have known her since she was a kid and via her family and via working for 25 years. She is part of the community and that still does matter. As international as the voters are, it still matters.
- [24:21]
C
Well, and she's unbelievable in that movie. I've known her for a long time through mutual friends and randomly was part of a group FaceTime on the morning of her nomination. And that's a really fun thing to see. I've. I've been a part of it a couple times for clients, for friends. Seeing somebody like two minutes after a nomination is unbelievable. They're just like, yeah, people care. It's the greatest morning of their life. I mean, it's funny because for all my clients, I get these. I get like 10 emails a day. Not anymore, because it's done where it's like, Mikey Madison is presenting Amy Madigan and weapons, you know, in the movie theater the Four Seasons.
- [24:54]
B
And you know, this year the, the winner for that one is Hamnet. I swear to God, every single night there was a screening introduced by some filmmaker. I mean, they got Seth Rogen to do a screening for Chloe. They had, you know, they had Denis Villeneuve. I mean, they went above and beyond because they knew Hamnet was not a movie that you would want to watch on the portal. You want to watch it in the theater where you get past the tough stuff and get to the end.
- [25:20]
C
Yeah. Oh, that's something we should talk about. Speaking of the Portal. So, you know, one of the new things this year is that when you vote, you have to, like, basically check these boxes that you've seen in movies. And I have done. Yeah, I have done a bit of a straw poll. And it's interesting. The good news is people are really trying to respect the honor system. And what I have found is that there's either people who actually watch everything and watch the shorts and, like, they're voting for everything, and they take it really seriously, which I think is, by and large a lot of people, because people do take it very. It's a real honor to be in the Academy.
- [25:51]
B
Kirsten Dunst. I watch everything.
- [25:52]
C
Yeah, yeah. Oh, a lot of people do. And then there's the second level of people who are not watching the shorts or the docs, but they're doing the marquee ones because they've seen enough of those movies. And then I have talked to people who did not vote because they were busy shooting stuff. They had a crazy year. They were out of the country and they were like, I didn't see enough, and I don't want to. I don't think it's right that I vote.
- [26:13]
B
And so more so than usual because of this new system.
- [26:16]
C
Yes, yes. And so I think it's actually good, you know, I mean, they're not trying. Look, you can cheat the system. I mean, you can just say you watched everything.
- [26:23]
B
Yeah, but I think maybe you did. Maybe you went to a screening at a. You know, at a public event.
- [26:28]
C
Yeah. You don't have to. You don't have to do it on the portal. If you do it on the portal, it, like, checks the box for you. But my point is, I think what's good is people, by and large, are taking it seriously. And maybe I shouldn't vote for something if I. If I hadn't seen all the nominees or seen enough of the movies to really know.
- [26:41]
B
But do you think that will change the outcome here? Because a cynic would say that what it's going to do is it's going to prevent the groupthink that permeated before. I mean, look, people would just go by what the community is talking about or ads they have seen or podcasts like this and just vote across the board for Sinners. Because that's what everybody is talking about. Even though they haven't seen the other movies.
- [27:08]
C
Everybody I've ever talked to in every year, you know, that I've had friends and colleagues voting, people take it pretty seriously. And I think it's not a. It's, you know, listen, I've talked to people who are like, I'm voting for Michael B. Because I think one battle is going to win most of the other awards. I talked to somebody who is voting for Train Dreams cinematography because, like, hey, it could win cinematography. The cinematography is unbelievable in that movie, you know, and that is going a little bit against the norm because people think, well, it's either one battle or it's Sinner. Sinners had all the different lenses and aspect ratios. And that dp, who's absolutely brilliant, has done a lot of press. And so I think that people just, you know, they're trying to vote what they think is special. They're trying to sometimes vote a bit of a variety of like, well, I'll kind of, like, spread it around a little bit. I genuinely think people take it seriously.
- [27:54]
B
But you don't think that the new rule could produce a shocker because certain categories will have so few people voting in them?
- [28:01]
C
No, because. No, I don't, because I think ultimately people take it seriously and I think enough people do. I mean, I don't think they ever release the numbers of how many people actually show up to vote, but I
- [28:10]
B
think people take Academy release the numbers.
- [28:13]
C
Well, also the thing too, and I know that there was like some bellyaching a couple years ago when the portal came, and now there was some announcement the Academy's, like, not doing screenings. But I mean, come on, it's 2026. Like, we all watch everything on our, you know, huge.
- [28:27]
B
Most of the people. That's phase two. Most of the people have seen those movies already.
- [28:31]
C
Yeah, that's right.
- [28:32]
B
Be honest. That's right. A lot haven't, but most have, especially in la. So. All right, last question. Give us some big shocker that we're all going to be. Whoa. But you're going to be like, you know what? I knew it was going to happen.
- [28:44]
C
One thing you could do for all the people out there listening, maybe do two different pool sheets. You know, your. Your party on Sunday. You could go Rose Byrne on Best Actress, even though Jesse's a lock of the night. People worship that performance.
- [28:55]
B
I thought she was not happening.
- [28:57]
C
I get it.
- [28:58]
B
I'm just saying.
- [28:59]
C
I'm just saying. If you want to.
- [29:00]
B
If Hamnet was a contender in other categories, maybe. But this is the way to honor that movie.
- [29:06]
C
I completely agree with you. I'm just saying, if you're looking for surprises, okay, here's a surprise. And this is not sexy.
- [29:12]
B
Two birth scenes.
- [29:13]
C
Here's a.
- [29:13]
B
She's got two birth scenes in the
- [29:15]
C
movie and watching her kid die. I get it.
- [29:17]
B
Yeah.
- [29:18]
C
Here's a surprise. That would not shock me. And few people have seen it, but it got a lot of nominations. It was on the early committee ballots. Seurat for sound. Because if you've seen Seurat, the whole movie is sound. It's like the craziest soundscape you've ever seen. Because that's kind of the point of the movie.
- [29:35]
B
It's like when. What was the Holocaust movie?
- [29:38]
C
Zone of interest. Yes, exactly.
- [29:39]
B
Zone of interest. That one sound, right?
- [29:41]
C
Yes. I mean, people think it'll be F1 because F1, obviously, you know, vroom, vroom. But. But I think Seurat could upset there. That's really it. I mean, it's going to be sinners or one battle. It's not like, you know, international film, I think will be sentimental value. There was a lot of push for Secret Age, and a lot people talk about the Brazilian contingent, the Academy. But one thing to point out is that one thing I always love about the Oscars is that you can always get new information by the nomination day. And the big thing we learned on the nomination day is the sentimental value was stronger than we thought, because, remember, it got no SAG nominations, and everyone's like, oh, SAG doesn't want to do international film, and blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden, it gets two best supporting actress nominations and Yocum Sherer gets into best director over Guillermo. So Sentinel value is a lot stronger than people were giving it credit for. And I feel like in the international film, there's almost this feeling of like, well, it's an international film, but it also feels kind of like an American film because some of it's in English and Stella and Ellen. And even though Stalin is not American, but he's been in so many American films and American tv. And so I think that could win. Secret Agent would be the runner up. But that whole category is amazing. All those foreign films, it was just an accident. Is an incredible film. Kind of lost some steam. I don't really know why. Great movie.
- [30:51]
B
All right, well, I'm going to start a cow sheet for whether Timothee Chalamet will perform opera or ballet on the show.
- [31:00]
C
Exactly.
- [31:02]
B
Exactly. All right. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate you coming on.
- [31:04]
C
You're welcome.
- [31:05]
B
Thank you.
- [31:05]
C
Thanks for having me.
- [31:08]
B
We are back with the call sheet. Craig, how much are you following the Jeff Shell saga at Paramount?
- [31:14]
D
Typically wouldn't be something that I care about, but you've been writing about it a lot. It was in your newsletter Monday night, which is great. That people should subscribe to if they're not yet, but thank you. Kim Masters got into kind of all the questionable hiring situations going on at Paramount right now.
- [31:29]
B
Yeah. The Shell one is particularly interesting because he is the president of Paramount and he was brought in by their investor, Red Bird J. Cardinal, who was on the show, and he's the former CEO of NBC Universal. And he left that job because he had some allegations against him of harassment. He got into it with a CNBC anchor who made some claims against him, was fired from that job, and then picked up by First Redbird and then installed at Paramount as the president. But now he's in this bizarre saga where this professional gambler guy named RJ Cipriani has essentially made a claim that Jeff hired him or was using him as his personal PR consultant. They were introduced through a lawyer that they share and that Shell had made some comments and texts to him that revealed company secrets specifically related to Paramount south park deal, their UFC deal. And he actually sued. Earlier this week, he sued Paramount and Shell, claiming that he's owed a bunch of things, but in particular that Shell agreed to make a reality show or a show. Not a reality show, a show based on a Spanish language show that this guy's wife was involved in. It's. It's a bizarre situation because this accuser is not a reputable guy. He's done some whistleblowing in the past, but he's like a professional gambler in Vegas. He's been arrested there, although the charges were ultimately dropped. And he's kind of become involved in a number of different scandals. But the Shell of it all, like now Paramount is investigating. And my prediction today is I don't think that Jeff will survive this. I think ultimately he's going to be asked to leave or step down from Paramount.
- [33:23]
D
Why is this one different? As Kim wrote about, Paramount has a lot of questionable ties right now. People like John Lasseter. They promised to make a movie with Brett Ratner if they were to make Rush Hour 4 again. Why is Shell different? Is it because it's more of a threat financially to the company and the shareholders could be upset?
- [33:37]
B
Well, first of all, yeah, they are a public company. And if it is shown through this investigation that he leaked secrets to this guy and told him things that violate his fiduciary duties to the company, then I think they would feel like they need to let him go. His past situation where he already came into the company with one strike against him, this would be another kind of judgment moment, although very different from the sort of harassment allegations of the past. And I think it's, it's one of those where this guy both can be true, this accuser can be sketchy, he could be trying to extort the company, he could be trying to get money out of them and, and you know, raise a, a ruckus for his own personal benefit. But it also could raise these issues that rise to the level of something that Paramount has to do with it. I don't know if it's going to, that what the actual investigation by Gibson Dunn is going to show, but I think that he's been so tainted now that given everything going on and the work ahead for Paramount that Ellison is probably going to cut ties. It doesn't help. I don't think that a lot of people internally at Paramount haven't loved Shell. There's some resistance to him even outside of all this stuff going on. And you know what? He's a, he's, he was brought in as, as a deal guy. He has experience in sports and TV and movies from running NB Soul. He had the right background and maybe he survives. But I, I do think that they're going to ultimately end up cutting ties here.
- [35:08]
D
If he does get cut, where does he land next? I'm speaking like he's in, he's like a NFL player.
- [35:12]
B
I know he's going to go to the Bengals. He'll probably go to the Bengals. Maybe in a.
- [35:16]
D
Supporting Bengals do need help actually, especially from a deal making standpoint. But where, where will he land if he leaves Paramount?
- [35:23]
B
I don't know. But I'm guessing it will not be a public company because two strikes against you and you probably don't, don't end up getting hired by a public company, but there's a lot of opportunities out there. He's got the right background. It's just these, this judgment lapse. Not great. Not a great look. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Michael Lasker, producer Greg Horlbeck, editor Jon Jones and I want to thank you. We'll see you a couple more times this week.
- [35:50]
E
Two good and coffee creamers are made with farm fresh cream, real milk and contain 3 grams of sugar per serving. That's 40% less than the 5 grams per serving in leading traditional coffee creamers for a rich, delicious experience. Whether you enjoy your coffee hot, cold, bold or frothy, two good coffee creamers make every sip a good one. Two good coffee creamers Real goodness in every sip. Find them at your local Kroger in the creamer aisle.