Podcast: Pre Oscar Grab-All
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 at 12:15PM 
The gang gets back together as Oscar approaches. Nathaniel R, Nick Davis, Katey Rich, and Joe Reid discuss what they've been watching as they prep for Oscar night. How many movies do YOU still have left to see? (Or are you not a completist?)
Index (41 minutes)
00:01 What we still haven't seen
02:30 Loving Vincent & Animated Feature
08:40 Andrey Zvyagintsev's Loveless, Russia's nominee
12:00 Short Film categories
15:00 A Fantastic Woman & Foreign Film
20:00 Acting Categories
23:00 Lady Bird, actressy movies, messy trivia
29:30 Preferential ballot theories
33:00 Director/Pic splits and The Shape of Water
37:00 Who will present Best Picture?
38:30 RED ALERT: NICK IS GOING TO THE OSCARS !!!
40:30 The End
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?
Reader Comments (21)
I've been hoping for months that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway will be invited back to annouce Best Picture this year. It just seems like the right thing to do.
I can't wait to listen to this at home later on tonight.
Nathaniel, are y'all still going to do a smackdown for this year, like you did last year? That was the total best.
Remember in 2014 at the Emmys when Kate Mulgrew got the biggest round of applause on the night when she was announced for Orange is the New Black and then she lost to Allison Janney? I think we (royally) underestimated how much of an awards magnet she is, though I agree it's odd that she and Oldman especially have steamrolled as much as they have despite no major critics prizes. Is it that everyone in Actor has their pockets of support that can't amass around any individual performer enough to topple him? I just can't wrap my head around it the way I can sort of get how the Billboards actors are winning, even if I like those two performances the least. Hell, I think Janney's pretty good in I, Tonya. This set of "sure things" just feels weird to me.
Exactly NickT none of these performances are the best representation of that particular actors work,it's the collective thing Nat talks about we know nothing in Oct/Nov then in December all of a sudden every acting category is virtually iron clad,that's why people like the Manville nomination,it gives us hope they do watch screeners and are willing to single out a performer they feel was overlooked.
Great listen fellas.
great pod, y’all.
also, i think shakespeare in love may fit the questions: BA + BP wins with no best lead actor nom. unless i misunderstood the point?
Yay! Thank you, you just made my day :)
Nick is still the only person I've encountered who's seen what I see in Carmen Ejogo's and Colin Farrell's Roman Israel performances. Why are they so overlooked??
I wonder who will present Actress this year? I have a feeling it'll be Ashley Judd, Mira Sorvino, Annabella Sciorra, and the ilk. Seems like the right thing to do.
And who would have predicted that Lady Bird - hands down last year's best film - would have turned out to be so divisive?
@Nick Davis
McDormand is a Pet.
Water the Actress section of your site. Also, for Bit Players (formerly Slum Queens) are you profiling all Supporting Actress winners or just those who have Best Actress nods with no wins in that category?
I believe An Education fits in the teenage movie trivia.
Michael R, I don't think it's divisive. Defentely not in the way Three Billboards is. Just that plenty of people think of it as more of a it's fine/ok movie. Not best of the year.
@Brianna - Count me in as another Nick who really really likes those performances! It's a weird movie but super good. And boy is everyone well dressed.
@markgordonuk - Thank you! Also, just as a bouncing off point, since Oldman and Janney and I guess Rockwell are partially getting rewarded in that "How have you not been nominated/won before????" way, what performances of theirs does everyone think they should've been recognized for already? I'd say Dracula and The Contender for Oldman, maybe Juno and Margaret for Janney? Haven't seen any Rockwell before. Always fun to recommend good things from people you wish were getting recognized for better things - but again, I really like Janney a lot in her film, Metcalf's just my favorite nominee in any acting category.
NickTM Rockwell was terrific in Lawn Dogs and The Green Mile.
Very interesting comments from Katey.
Nick -- i think the performance of Rockwell's that probably had the best shot at a nomination was CONVICTION with Hilary Swank. he got great reviews for that one and if her campaign had worked, hismight have come along with it. I remember loving him in LAWN DOGS too though not an awards situation.
as for Janney, she's always had very small parts in movies... she's not remotely overdue in other words and she's been super well rewarded for her work on TV with multiple statues of various kinds. So i find the Oscar steamroll strange.
Luiserghio -- Lone Scherfig wasn't nominated so it doesn't count for that piece of trivia we were discussing (best director) but it is another high school movie that Oscar noticed, yes.
Jess: I meant in the sense that the people that do not like it REALLY do not like it and think it is a glorified Lifetime movie. I really thought it would do great on the preferential ballot for Picture and now I am not so sure. I hope I am wrong because it deserves to win.
Dead Poets Society was nominated for Best Director.
Not sure about chances, but MOON was definitely Rockwell's finest performance. Never seemed to get much traction IIRC.
Re: the "Dunkirk will win" theory from Katey's podcast: that argument is fundamentally flawed. I wanted to say this after listening to Little Gold Men, but there was no venue to comment on that podcast so I'll say it here!
Daniel's argument is that having more possible BP winners (like we do this year) will require more rounds where the film with the fewest votes is eliminated and its ballots are redistributed to the next highest film on those ballots. The idea is that having more rounds will mean that we go down to lower numbers on individual ballots and thus, the winner is essentially the film that's hated least. This prediction for how things will go down is compared to how he imagines things went down last year, where there were really only two contenders for the win and thus they started out closer to the 50% mark.
However, Daniel doesn't seem to have realized that when two films are relatively closely matched, that too should go the full number rounds. Imagine that La La Land and Moonlight each started with 30% of the vote and the other seven nominees each had 5-6%. If people basically like La La Land and Moonlight the same, then every eliminated film should basically give equal-ish numbers of votes to the two frontrunners. Imagining that each eliminated film gives 3% to the eventual winner, you'd still need to eliminate seven films before any film reaches the 50% mark.
Really, it's only when some film is far and away the frontrunner -- i.e., has maybe 40% of the vote at the start of the tally, that one can imagine you wouldn't need too many rounds. And then of course, no speculation of ballots would be needed because everyone would know who the winner was going to be.