Thursday
Oct102019
Got a question for the podcast?
Thursday, October 10, 2019 at 1:41PM Tomorrow Murtada and I will be discussing Parasite and another random goodie perhaps but we'll have time for listener questions. So have at it in the comments, won't you?
Reader Comments (21)
With Oscar season at our door (yeah!) here's a question I've been asking myself for a while:
Do you guys think that Glenn Close devastating lost this year may partly be explain by the new more inclusive rule by the Academy to have younger and more diverse member? Don't get me wrong I think those changes are great but I was thinking maybe these new members don't follow the usual Oscar scenario like overdue for a win...
Do you think Jack Black should be cast in the old Rick Moranis role in Little Shop of Horrors seeing how they are re making it next year.Black has a great voice mostly recently heard in Bernie.
There's an observed "trend" where the incumbent party in the White House has much better odds of winning re-election if the most recent Best Picture winner is generally happy in tone, uplifting, or ends on a hopeful note. Think The Artist, Return of the King, and Braveheart. By contrast, if the most recent Best Picture winner before a presidential election is dark in tone, depressing, or about a very heavy subject, that portends trouble for the incumbent party, as what happened when Spotlight, No Country for Old Men, American Beauty, and The Silence of the Lambs won.
Given how imperative it is that the horrible, ignorant, racist, sexist, corrupt dictator currently calling himself Commander-in-Chief is voted out of office next year, which depressing, brutal, harrowing, and/or sobering Oscar hopefuls should we be rooting for to win Best Picture on February 9th, 2020?
Any predictions on what the performative liberal cause will be for this year’s Oscars?
My money’s on climate change.
If Joker ONLY got Actor and Production Design (the only things even detractors concede are well done) nominations, would that make sense as an Oscar result?
Volvagia - don't forget Hildur Gudnadottir's score. I am no fan of the film but Hildur's sublime work deserves recognition.
A24's best shots are The Lighthouse, Uncut Gems and The Farewell, unless Waves makes a big splash (ha). Sandler will have a tough time getting in for Actor and honestly, both male categories are crowded, so The Lighthouse will have trouble finding its light (ha) too. Wouldn't they be smarter to make The Farewell their big push? Actress and Original Screenplay at a minimum seem very possible, and given the reviews/success, a BP push could sneak it in.
Is it possible that many in the AMPAS won’t be deterred by Scarlett Johansson’s recent bad press, thus giving her a Best Actress win anyway? The Oscars have proven time and again to march to the beat of a different, less woke drummer. Furthermore, I suspect many in the industry (privately) agree w/ her stances on Woody Allen and “colorblindness”. Several of our faves have worked with Allen in the last few years (Kidman, Blanchett, Stone, Phoenix, Chalamet); and look no further than Soderbergh’s The Laundromat and Crowe’s Aloha for recent examples of questionable casting choices. Last but not least, we don’t have to look back very far to find the last problematic thesp (albeit in a more blatantly sinister way) to win one of these.
Will Parasite do in 2020 what Roma couldn’t this past year—be the first foreign language film to win Best Picture?
I'm kinda shocked that Parasite has become such a frontrunner in the Oscar circuit, even despite it being a great film. Why do you think it has so many pundits so sure of its Oscar chances in a way that most foreign films -- and certainly foreign genre films -- fail to do?
And an unrelated question: if you had an Oscar-bait film you were distributing and you could release it any time of the year, when would you opt to release it?
If you have any stories about how your love for film paid out in a random encounter, that would be fun to hear. Did you ever randomly click w/ stranger (maybe to your surprise) when you both learned of your mutual love of cinema?
Protests have picked up in recent years — and there is more and more coverage given to how witty protestors’ signs can be. What would your sign say at a protest rally, if it were a movie-themed or actress-themed sign? (Protest topic of your choice.)
If you could single out any of Parasite's actors for Oscar glory, who would it be?
Which actresses and actors do you all dream to see Almodóvar directing in his films?
Actors and actress around the world.
Academy Award nominee Jennifer Lopez must happen! Do you think she can Melissa Leo her way to a win? Or, would that kind of thirst be off-putting for someone who's already a huge star? Kate Winslet was super thirsty and look where it got her.
No Oscar nom for JLo. Gross
What things have you seen so far in films this year deserve praise, but don't belong in an Oscar category? For example, I thought Alex Weston's music in "The Farewell" was perfect for the movie, but I recognized many of the pieces as adaptations - so it would not be eligible for score.
Would this year’s Best Actress be considered stronger if some of the campaigns were more visible? Awkwafina, Julianne Moore and Lupita seem to have faded into the distance (although here’s hoping there’s a second wind), whereas the decision to release Clemency so late feels like a real misstep for Alfre Woodard’s campaign. Why aren’t more campaigns seeking to solidify their prospects now? Or is everyone just assuming that Charlize Theron and Saoirse Ronan are going to just slide in with relatively little competition? Where’s the Ann Dowd in Compliance-style campaign? That was always going to be an uphill battle, but she received some hard-won, deserved nominations from the pre-cursors AND it did wonders for her career.
Hey guys, any news on when the 1957 smackdown will be held or has it been cancelled?
P.S. Don't know if you both saw the Danish film, Queen of Hearts yet, but Trine Dyrholm has irrefutably given one of the most complex and quietly shattering performances of the year. Not that she would ever get nominated (clearly she is nowhere to be found in your lists). At any rate, I think the scene where she gives an unsimulated blowjob to a 16 year old teen (the character, not the actor), would cancel her chances faster than the mouse spinning in Trump's head! Do you agree?
Finally, after looking at my list of Best Actress potentials in the first half of 2019 that seemed to be contenders (and now doubtlessly destined to Oscar oblivion), is there any one in particular that I should despair over as a 'soon to be ignored' calamity?
LEAD
#1. Elizabeth Moss - Her Smell
2. Honor Swinton Bryne - The Souvenir
3. Mary Kay Place - Diane
4. Tao Zhao - Ash is Purest White
5. Karelle Tremblay - The Fireflies Are Gone
6. Kaitlyn Dever - Booksmart
7. Julianne Moore - Gloria Bell
8. Victoria Carmen Sonne - Holiday
9. Paula Beer - Transit
10. Carmina Martina - Birds of Passage
SUPPORTING
#1. Juliet Binoche - High Life & Non-fiction
2. Deirdre O'Connell - Diane
3. Nora Navas - Pain and Glory
4. Lily-Rose Depp - A Faithful Man
5. Bennu Yildirimlar - The Wild Pear Tree
6. Tilda Swinton - The Souvenir
7. Bille Lourd - Booksmart
8. Sylvia Chang - Long Day's Journey Into Night
9. Nora Hamzawi - Non-fiction
10. June Diane Raphael - Long Shot
Is Crash really THAT bad?