Podcast: Instant Reactions. Oscar Nom' Morning
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:38PM 
Oscar Nomination Morning has always been like Christmas day to me. I sleep restlessly. I wake early. I tear open my presents. When I first met Nick Davis ten years ago, we knew we were kindred spirits since it's also like that for him. In some ways it can be even more exciting than Oscar Night. More to celebrate / complain about. We lean celebratory as best we can here. Congratulations to you and you and you and you... and okay, you too.
You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen right here at the bottom of the post. If you haven't yet seen the nominations, we have a full chart.
podcast topics include but are not limited to...
- Oscar as Christmas. Troubled sleep.
- "Man or Muppet?", Bret McKenzie and Original Song
- Blockbusters and how they performed in their categories.
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and War Horse overperformed while The Help underperformed
- Echo chambers and their limitations ... especially in the various craft categories.
- Tilda Swinton's Oscar trajectories
- NINE BEST PICTURES? Spreading the wealth.
- Iron Lady's makeup and Harry Potter's nominations.
- Brad Pitt happiness.
- Congratulations to all the nominees... except you.
- Actually we breeze through everything!
Here's our instant reaction to the nominations!
I did no editing on this one so when you hear only silence that is Nick and I both furiously reading names on a screen rather than paying homage to The Artist.
Other New Oscar Posts
Here's an FYC for next year ;) | Virgin Oscar Nominees | What would you say if you got an Oscar nom? | Prediction Stats
Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, Muppets, Original Song, Oscars (11), Podcast
Reader Comments (21)
That was deliciously messy. Thanks guys. Again!
(I love how Nick laughs in this one. And the silences before someone speaks.)
And Nick, there are people who call me and ask me when you're going to post lists and/or write-ups of your honorees. I'm telling them you're very busy at the moment but they just won't listen! They're so spoiled!
Can't WAIT to hear this. And I rarely use caps like that.
Nathaniel, congrats on calling some of those surprises. Mark Harris is claiming on his site that he was the only one to foresee the Fassbender omission, but didn't you predict that as well?
Interesting thoughts on Oldman/TTSS. I don't agree, but I hadn't really thought of it as an ensemble film. I think Oldman is nominated simply because of the lighter/reenactment scene.
@ Jon - Harris is claiming a lot of things I heard lots of people say.
On a side note, is it unreasonable to get very angry when you hear or read someone make a comment about the Oscars that is clearly misguided?
I heard someone say Hugo's 11 noms makes it the clear frontrunner, while someone else said it was shocking that The Help didn't get a directing nod. What the what?!
Thanks, everybody, for listening, even to our totally unprocessed thoughts. Nathaniel, you are so the perfect person to talk to on Xmas morning. I *need* people in life who have instant Mark Bridges recall.
I don't think Mark Harris literally meant he was the only person voicing skepticism about Fassbender, but it's true, I think a lot of tides had swung away from him in the last few weeks. But that may just be the sample group of my friends, since Anne Thompson, Kris Tapley, Sasha Stone, Steven Pond, and Scott Feinberg ALL kept him in final predix even when some of them voiced skepticisms.....
I'd love to be all shouty about I PREDICTED IT but in this case it just makes me sad because I love Fassbender.
@Nick, first of all, I love listening to you and Nathaniel on the podcasts. You two have a fun/intelligent back and forth and you always manage to cover the topics I most want to hear about.
As for Harris, he wrote of Fassbender's omission "(foreseen by nobody but yours truly, and I’m kind of shocked that I was right)..." That's pretty unambiguous.
http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/41877/oscarmetrics-the-yes-the-huh-and-the-what-the-hell-of-nominations-day
Brian - I know right! Hearing normal people talk about it scares me. "David Fincher and Tate Taylor were snubbed in Best Director!" And I was like uhh, no.
Philip - My favorite was someone claiming that The Artist could win because "two years ago The Hurt Locker won, despite being one of the biggest financial bombs of that year." Huh?
@Jon: I'd seen that, and I totally take your point. I just think there are echelons of prestige (and pay!) in terms of these predicting venues, and among the small, small group of people who are most often polled, and who actually get paid for their opinions - like the people I mentioned above - he might have been (or felt like) the only person predicting Fassbender's exclusion. I predicted it, too, but I know where I am in the food chain. (I am krill.)
That said, I think we all agree that Nathaniel is way, way up there in terms of people whose votes should register within that exclusive company. And since he called it, that's at least one "anybody" right there!
Thanks for kind words about the podcast. I'm glad there's still such a spirit of FUN around these things on this site.
I'm glad Nathaniel and Nick were as happy with The Tree of Life nominations as I was. Do either of you think there's a possibility this year could play out like 2002? Consider the parallels (I have no life).
Harvey Weinstein's film (Chicago/The Artist) is a throwback period piece (musical/silent film) and is the frontrunner to win Best Picture. However, the director of the film is a relative unknown (Rob Marshall/Michel Hazanavicius) and the film is considered too light-weight to win Best Director.
Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese has his own period piece passion project (Gangs of New York/Hugo) that is more admired than beloved, racking up multiple nominations in a tech sweep. Everyone thinks Scorsese could win the Director category even though no one thinks the film can win Best Picture. So many people predict a Picture/Director split (Chicago/Gangs of New York, The Artist/Hugo).
On Oscar night, many are pleasantly surprised when the Picture/Director split does occur, but to the benefit of another acclaimed (but aloof) director who made a very personal, almost autobiographical film that is beloved by critics, and the absent director receives a standing ovation at the ceremony.
What I'm saying is, couldn't Malick's The Tree of Life play the role of Polanski's The Pianist this year?
Nat, I thought immediately of Rooney Mara too when you were talking about nominated performances as Muppets, lol! You need to put your unparalleled Photoshopping skills to work on that one!
Also, my dirty mind went straight to that scene where she tortures the guy with a dildo and tatooing device, as performed by a Muppet. So wrong, but so right.
Steph -- that's an intriguing thought actually but i think Malick's main problem is that he is not well loved by actors, due to his notorious habit of editing them right out of the pictures or reducing them to cameos or whatnot.
Drew B -- !!!
@Steph -- what Nathaniel said. Also The Tree of Life was shut out at the Guilds while The Pianist still scored PGA/DGA nominations.
Maybe the better parallel is a win for Woody Allen since both Allen and Polanski share a predilection for under-aged girls.
Thank ya'll for another fun—and funny—podcast.
There were some zingers in today's announcement, but I must say none left me colder than the EL&IC nominations. (Stop validating non-starter qualifiers, AMPAS! It just ends up reinforcing a crooked release strategy.)
Fassbender was hardly a shock, although I had hoped he and Shannon would bounce DiCaprio, which was a delightful omission. (Maybe AMPAS feels that Fassbender has been rewarded amply enough...down there.)
Swinton's Oscar win (and on her first—and still, only—nomination seems more and more like a miracle, the genius of that performance notwithstanding.
The song category is a joke (with two nominees, why even bother?), but on the bright side of everything, no Cars 2!
Jokes about "Albert Nobbs" and Janet McTeer's infinite clothing will never get old. Great fun listening to this podcast!
BTW, I believe it's the animation branch that does the same scoring system as original song. Typical.
So excited for your Arianne Phillips interview! She is SO talented and lovely.
Harris also says that everyone was counting Moneyball out. ORLY?