Podcast: Oscar's Self Destruction, Guild Prizes, and Sundance Winners
Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 7:00PM with Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl
In this episode Murtada and Nathaniel sound off on Sundance buzz, and the current madness of the awards race and Oscar's late-life identity crisis and one shockingly ill-thought-out decision after the next, ad infinitum.
Index (58 minutes)
00:01 Sundance buzz: The Farewell, Clemency, One Child Nation, Them That Follow , and The Report
17:25 Recent guild prizes: Bryan Singer & Rami Malek's Bohemian Rhapsody and how everything keeps going wrong this awards season.
22:34 Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade's surprise DGA win
26:00 Oscar's identity crisis and its increasingly terrible decisions. Murtada tries to talk Nathaniel off the ledge.
36:00 Spike Lee and Bradley Cooper at the DGAs and guilds confusion about Best Picture
45:40 Trying to survive Oscar's dwindling sense of self and we're back to Sundance to talk about next year's Oscar possibilities, especially in regards to Clemency
56:00 Annie Awards and wrap-up
Referenced in the Podcast
• Nathaniel's "Awards Season is Killing Me" Rant
• DGA winners
• Murtada's Sundance Coverage
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)
Off topic:
Michelle Pfeiffer just started to follow Glenn Close at Instagram.
I know that this doesn't sound something oustanding, but since I discovered that Glenn and Meryl are not close friends (only admires and respectful of each other work), I was terrified that my Dangerous Liaisons girls are on the same way. Thank God, not!
I hope, right?!
More doom and gloom on the Oscars front? Imagine if Bohemian Rhapsody (or Green Book) wins BP and Gaga wins Best Actress.
I tried watching "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" which I found a pretentious and fake as it's title.
@Murtada
You're saying Dianne's last name wrong. It rhymes with Frankenstein. There's also archival footage of her used in the movie Milk of her announces the murders of the mayor and Harvey.
Murtada looks like Joe Budden haha.
The Academy reserved their decision about former winners presenting in the acting categories this year.
Nathaniel, this should brighten you up a bit: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/all-four-last-years-oscar-winning-actors-serve-as-presenters-1182431
Yikes at last year’s acting winners. That was the year of the ham.
kris01 - Sort of, but the Bizarro Joe Budden who’s full of light and positivity and sunshine. Murtada’s smile instantly brightens my day. Nathaniel, hang in there! This season is almost over. I believe there are many in the industry that have the same qualms you do and are letting it be known.
So apparently last year’s winners are now presenting, but the rumor on Twitter is that they will be broken into duos and will present some non-acting categories. Ugh. I cannot for any reason see why the show producers think this will help them. As if someone at home is going to think, “Well, I wasn’t going to watch because I heard Tom Hanks was only presenting a screenplay award, but now that he’ll be presenting Best Actress, I’m totally in!”
I also just want this year's Oscars to be over at this point (and I can't recall ever feeling that way before, even though my favorites rarely, if ever, win). What an exhausting year.
The thought of Frances & Gary co-presenting something like Best Visual Effects and Allison/Sam co-presenting something like Best Makeup/Hairstyling is further reason to skip this year’s telecast altogether. I’ll just wait ‘til the morning to see who the winners are. Obviously last year’s acting winners are this year’s losers. How distressing it must be for McDoramand to sit in the audience with her Best Adapted Screenplay husband and watch somebody ‘more worthy’ than her presenting the Best Actor award...
Bruno--truly no offense, but please do not equate the supernaturally talented Gaga winning Best Actress with a victory for the vile Green Book or dumb Bohemian Rhapsody. Not even Close.
Nathaniel--I feel you, it's terrible, but please do not lose hope. I am still dreaming that Laura Dern will come to our rescue.
@brookesboy: No offense, but Gaga is "supernaturally" talented only at singing, not acting.
@Bruno: Agreeance. Gaga is perfectly competent as an actress but not much more than that, as of now.
Oldman could co/present one of the awards that Cuaron might win. Cuaron directed him in The Prisoner of Azkaban, the best movie in the Harry Potter series. (I know those films don't get much love at the Film Experience, but some of us are fans and would be into it!)
I enjoyed these rants, Nathaniel! It's a tiring season, honestly. Roma is the shining great hope to save us from a BP disaster. But call me crazy, I think the Academy will go high brow and save things at the last minute. Plus even though I'm not a hardcore Star is Born fan, I agree it's completely bizarre that Cooper is losing all his buzz to imitation performances... though Oscar does fall HARD for those "I played a real person" campaigns. It's too bad.
@eurocheese It's bizarre in the sense that imitations shouldn't be so elevated, but not in the sense that it's anything new. Especially in Best Actor, where it's almost a requirement these days that you're either imitating a real person or playing someone that seems like they might've been real that you're imitating (i.e. Jean Dujardin). At least Best Actress seems to have escaped the mimickry poison recently.
@Murtada - I'm curious if you are still for the idea of having certain categories off-air. You initially said (in a podcast) that you liked the idea and were happy about the change. I'm wondering if you have changed your opinion ... Or are you just not voicing that conflicting view with Nathaniel?
Jem - I've mellowed a bit on that issue. This year in particular has a few categories that could provide great TV moments, as we discussed on the pod. I still don't think the shorts should be there. They are a special group unto themselves and do not belong in a ceremony celebrating the film year.