Little Gold Men's 100% Correct Oscar Predictions

13:55Hillary:Which is going to win the Oscar and we can all move on to the next category. Yes.

13:58Rebecca:Yeah. It's won all the lead ups to this in original screenplay. It won at the WGA over the weekend. So I think we all feel pretty good. For a while, we kind of thought that might be the only thing sinners won. So it feels good to just know that that is the winner.

14:16Hillary:No matter what happens, Ryan Coogler gets an Oscar.

14:18John:Yeah, this is the entire Academy being like, woo, moving on. All right, I'm going to do the next one, too, because they're related. Adapted screenplay. We've got Begonia, Frankenstein, Hamnet, One Battle After Another, and Train Dreams.

14:36Rebecca:This is going to One Battle After Another. Thank you, Rebecca.

14:40Hillary:So, yes, PTA gets one, Coogler gets one. Regardless of what else happens, both of them are going home winners.

14:46Rebecca:It does feel good to know that, I think. For us. For us. And for voters, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's done. So, yeah, the question will be how many other Oscars are each of them winning. But those two, feeling good.

15:03Hillary:Yes, done and dusted. Best Actress also, I can read the nominees. So we have Jessie Buckley, Jessie Buckley, Jessie Buckley. No, it's Jesse Buckley, Rose Byrne, Kate Hudson, Renata Reinsva, and Emma Stone. The winner is Jesse Buckley, but—

15:20John:It's the most acting of any actor this year. So we just, you know, just like Emma Stone in Poor Things, the most acting across all categories is going to win. And she does it in the last scene, and it's nonverbal, and she does a whole range of emotions on her face, and it's magical.

15:44Hillary:It is, and people have been hating on Hamnet, I feel like, because we need, like, an Oscar villain. But I gotta say, I was just, like, thinking about the ending of Hamnet the other day, and I started getting teary. So honestly, like, it is a very effective movie.

15:59Rebecca:They keep showing that clip in every awards event I've been. and I'm like crying at every single luncheon. And I'm like, please stop showing that clip. Show any other clip. So it gets me every time. But yeah, the Hamnet hate is kind of wild.

16:13John:I think that's just like a film, Twitter, cranky pants thing. I think that's a real bubble.

16:19Hillary:Yeah, but where do you think I spend all my time, John?

16:21John:Yeah, I think people are pretty supportive of this film. People that are like, it's sad and it's trying to like play at our, you know, tug at our emotions. It's like, well, yeah, I mean, the book is sad.

16:35Hillary:It's like what art does.

16:37Rebecca:Yeah, that's what art, yeah.

16:38John:So, enough of that.

16:40Rebecca:All right, we'll move on to another pretty obvious category here, Best Song. The nominees are Dear Me from Diane Warren, Relentless, Golden from K-pop Demon Hunters, I Lied to You from Sinners, Sweet Dreams of Joy from Viva Verde, and Train Dreams from Train Dreams. I mean, it's golden. We can also move on probably from that. Yeah, it's pretty obvious that that one is going to take it. And we'll see that one performed on the stage along with I Lied to You from Sinners, which is also another big win for, I think, both those performers. A giant loss for anybody who is like, what is Viva Verde?

17:20John:It is obvious, except if people are like, I didn't vote on this category because I didn't know the other three songs. And then the pool of voters becomes much smaller. And there's a world in which sinners could win.

17:37Hillary:I think that's wild.

17:38John:It's crazy and wild. I totally agree with you. But I'm just putting it out there because we're trying to, like, you know, run all the numbers.

17:47Hillary:Sure, there's a world of infinite possibilities. Diane Warren could storm the stage. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

17:51John:That's not a world.

17:53Hillary:I'm not saying she could win. I'm saying that she could walk onto the stage.

17:58John:No, I'm just saying there's a world in which the pool becomes much smaller because other people don't vote. And the pool of people who vote are part of a center surge or really feel that that is a stronger song in the film. I mean, it's crazy, but it can happen.

18:18Hillary:But it's also very easy to just listen to the songs without having seen the movies. And therefore feel as though you are qualified to vote in that category. That's true. Okay. So, moving on.

18:30John:I'll do it. Best score. The nominees are Begonia, Frankenstein, Hamnet, One Battle After Another, and Sinners.

18:38Hillary:Okay, here's where Sinners is going to win again.

18:41John:Yes? Yeah. I think so. Yeah.

18:43Hillary:We can agree with that. I mean, the score is very good. Everybody loves Ludwig Gornzen. He's already won twice, right?

18:50Rebecca:Yes. He's beloved by the Academy. He's got beautiful hair. He won the one award that was not aired during the Globes, right? Which was a real insult to him, I think, and made people want to back him even more. So that's who I think we all would pick.

19:06Hillary:Okay. So let's close out the first half of our predictions. Let's talk about the new category that is going to begin at the Oscars this year. We have Best Casting. The nominees are Nina Gold for Hamnet, Jennifer Venditti for Marty Supreme, Cassandra Kulakundis for One Battle After Another, Gabriel Dominguez for The Secret Agent, and Francine Maisler for Sinners. This seems like a race too, or is it obviously Sinners?

19:30John:I had to do this one for our prediction, and it's Francine Maisler for Sinners. Francine Maisler is like beyond a legend in this field. She cast the first Spider-Man, like the Kirsten Dunst, Tobey Maguire Spider-Man. So the breadth of her career, plus it just has all the parts that you need. And the fact that Sinners won Best Ensemble at the Actors Awards, I just can't see a world in which they don't give it to her. She found Miles Caton. She put together this ensemble cast.

20:08Hillary:She split Michael B. Jordan in half. Yeah, she split Michael B.

20:11John:Jordan in half. I just feel pretty strongly that it's got to go to her. But let me know what you guys think.

20:16Rebecca:No, you make a good argument. I'm with you. I don't even know who I would consider in second place. I guess Cassandra. Yeah, Cassandra won battle. Yeah, I mean, because that movie has an incredible cast, and she discovered Chase Infinity. You're right, that's a strong sort of second place. I mean, Cassandra's also a legend, so they both have that going for them. But I think Francine, the way she was thanked at the SAG Awards, I thought was a really, you know, she was on stage with them, was another sort of feather in her cap here. It feels like she's definitely going to win this. And I think it's a great winner.

20:53Rebecca:I mean, for the first time, because she is such an icon in the field, I think that's a great start to this new category.

21:02Rebecca:All right, we're going to take a break. When we get back, we'll share the rest of our predictions, which include a lot of the very contested categories. Don't go away.

21:20Rebecca:I'm Craig Melvin.

21:22Hillary:Cheers. Cheers.

21:22Rebecca:Cheers.

21:23Katy Mullan:I've always been a glass half full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week, and who knows? You might just come away with your own glass half full.

21:44Hillary:Search Glass Half-Hole with Craig Nolten from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.

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23:34Rebecca:Welcome back to Little Gold Men. So much like on Oscar night, we're going to build up to the biggest and most up in the air awards. And we should say for all you completists out there, we did discuss the shorts on last week's episode. So you can go ahead and listen to that one if you haven't heard our picks in those categories. So now let's turn to some of the craft categories in our official predictions for the site. Vanity Fair had Frankenstein taking a bunch of them. Costume design, makeup and hairstyling and production design. Have either of you changed your minds on that, or do you feel like you mostly agree with our official picks?

24:10Hillary:I think that's right. Yeah. I don't think anyone, like, loves Frankenstein, but people love Guillermo del Toro, and they love that he creates these worlds. And, I mean, you know, makeup is so important to the movie. It's how you create Jacob Elordi's monster, and it's very effectively used. I don't know. I don't see any reason to doubt that.

24:27Rebecca:Yeah, I thought maybe the only thing is like if there is some sort of sinner surge and costume design goes to them too or something. But I think it's it still feels like Frankenstein is probably in the lead with all of these three categories.

24:41Hillary:OK, should we move to best sound? Yeah. OK, conventional wisdom says F1 is going to win. Vroom, vroom. Hong Kong. Yes.

24:52John:Yeah, it's going to win and it should win.

24:55Rebecca:Yeah, I wrote this one up for us and I looked back and a lot of movies that win are sort of like the most sound, you know, like Top Gun Maverick, 4G Ferrari, even the Dune movies. There's been exceptions. You need vehicles. Yeah, like Zone of Interest one, but that was a real sort of one-off situation here. So I picked F1 as well.

25:15John:And for visual effects, I predicted this one. It's going to Avatar, Fire and Ash. The other nominees are F1, Jurassic World, Rebirth, The Lost Bus, and Sinners, which there's a world in which I think they could give it to Sinners because of the effects work that you had to do with the twins. But Avatar is literally entirely special effects. So it just seems impossible to me.

25:42Hillary:In fact, John, I predicted that one, but I agree with you.

25:47John:Wait.

25:47Hillary:I should take credit for Hillary's work. I did visual effects, yeah.

25:49John:I've lost touch with, like, what I'm doing or what. What did I—I don't even know what I predicted then. Well, anyway, Hillary, really good idea. Really smart prediction. Right on.

26:02Hillary:Yes, as I wrote. The first two avatars also won. Yeah. So just putting it out there. Okay, we can move on to best editing. For best editing, we have F1, we have Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sentimental Value, and Sinners. this could go a few different directions because it could go with whoever wins best picture. Often editing and picture go together. There are arguments to be made for either one battle or sinners, depending on which one you think is going to win picture.

26:28Rebecca:It also, I think during the show, a lot of people wait to hear who wins this because it gives you a clue. So the stakes are incredibly high for this blue line category, which is sort of wild. And I'm glad I didn't have to do this one. Chris Murphy did this one for us and he picked one battle after another which is probably what I would have done as well I mean I feel like the editing is very strong in that movie and as we're saying it ties with Best Picture so you know to me that feels like the smart choice

27:01Hillary:Yeah I mean it's a long movie that doesn't feel long because the pacing is so good it's an action movie it's like a comedy those are categories where you need to have really good editing and you know really seamless cuts. I do think it's going to win, which I guess is a hint as to what we think is going to happen later, but we can keep those predictions to ourselves for now.

27:22John:Yeah, ditto, ditto.

27:24Rebecca:Let's jump to Best Cinematography, which I think has become a much tighter race than I first anticipated. The nominees are Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sinners, and Train Dreams. I felt pretty sure that Autumn Durald-Archipa was going to win for Sinners, which would also make history as the first woman to ever win this award. But I feel like there's been a real surge for one battle. No.

27:55John:No, because this one I remember writing. So I predicted her, too, for my predictions. But I said in my predictions, whoever wins the ASC award is going to win the Oscar.

28:06Hillary:This is the American Society of Cinematographers.

28:09John:Yeah, which happened this past weekend. Which happened on Sunday and is really the only indicator really that we can have. And Michael Bauman from One Battle won. And to me, that's what we're going to see on Oscars. I hope I'm wrong because history would be made. But I think that one battle winning the ASC is hard to overlook.

28:38Rebecca:Yeah, I mean, there's obviously voter overlap with that group. But at the same time, that ASC group is very specific to cinematographers. So it is a smaller sample size. You know what I mean? Like everyone, every voter can vote on this category. Yeah, and these are all Best Picture nominees, too.

28:53Hillary:Right.

28:53Rebecca:So people have seen all of these movies. Right. It's tough. And I also feel like though Train Dreams is not really predicted to win anything, the cinematography in that movie is incredible, you know, and the cinematographer has won a couple. He won at Indie Spirits and a couple other things. So it's like, I think it could go a bunch of different ways. I don't envy the pressure she must have on her with this.

29:14John:I know.

29:15Rebecca:This label following her around. So we'll see.

29:18John:All right, let's move on. Animated feature. Arco, Elio, K-pop Demon Hunters, Little Amelie, or the character of Rain, and Zootopia 2. Thoughts?

29:30Hillary:I mean, K-pop Demon Hunters is not a theatrical release, which is the only thing standing in its way. I mean, Zootopia 2 made a billion dollars. Yeah. But K-pop Demon Hunters is like—

29:40John:More than a billion. It made like 1.8 billion.

29:42Hillary:I mean, that's an insane amount of money. It's an insane amount of money.

29:45John:Yeah.

29:46Hillary:But yeah, K-pop Demon Hunters would have made that much if they had put it in theaters. Oh, I think so, yeah. Yeah.

29:51Rebecca:I mean, me alone, I would have seen it seven times. We don't know because of...

29:56John:Sony has a very different take on that. And they believe that the Netflix option was the best way to go. And maybe they were right. But K-pop Demon Hunters and Zootopia 2 are like two of the most popular films of the year, bar none.

30:13Hillary:But the big box office winner doesn't always necessarily win even an animated feature.

30:18John:No, it doesn't. And then last year it went to an indie animated film.

30:22Rebecca:But I would say Flo actually spoke to the international makeup of the Academy. And K-Pop Demon Hunters has that going for it too. So for me it feels like a lot. It's an international phenomenon.

30:33Hillary:It was every Halloween costume that I saw walking around my neighborhood last Halloween. I just feel like its cultural reach is very far. Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

30:42John:It would be crazy if it didn't go to K-Pop Demon Hunters. But maybe we're in for crazy Oscars.

30:48Hillary:It's very possible. Should we talk about documentary feature? So there we've got The Alabama Solution, Come See Me in the Good Light, Cutting Through Rocks, Mr. Nobody Against Putin, and The Perfect Neighbor.

30:59Rebecca:I feel like this is pretty strongly going to The Perfect Neighbor. It feels like the film that everyone I talk to has seen. But again, if John's theory is right, that people who have not seen all these movies will not vote, that could change this one a lot.

31:13John:Not all of them. Just more of them than before will opt out because you get the guilt message being like, are you a liar? Are you a liar? They're in the entertainment industry. To confirm that you're not a liar. And then some people are like, I don't know.

31:32Rebecca:It's still a Netflix release. It's gotten a very high profile. It's a very affecting, moving film. So to me, I would definitely put my money there. You guys? I might vote for Mr. Nobody, though.

31:45Hillary:I think that that's, I don't know, something topical, something international, like it's about war. They want it BAFTA too. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. So I feel like that's actually where I'm going to put my money, my theoretical pretend money. John?

31:59John:I don't have. I mean, I'm going to go with the perfect—

32:03Hillary:John checked, no, I have not seen these movies. Yeah.

32:05John:The Perfect Neighbor because it's the most popular. But in my pool, I'm saying The Perfect Neighbor.

32:12Rebecca:All right. Let's talk about best international feature. we talked about these five nominees a few weeks back but just as a reminder they are The Secret Agent It Was Just an Accident Sentimental Value Surat and The Voice of Hin Rajab I think this is a real toss up how are you guys feeling?

32:30John:Yeah

32:30Hillary:I'm gonna go off on what I thought before and then you guys changed my mind and now my mind is back to thinking it was just an accident and it's gonna win Wow Because because of the war in Iran I think that this is on people's minds more I think it is a great movie I think it lost some momentum because The Secret Agent just kind of bubbled up. But I think that giving Jafar Panahi an Oscar right now is meaningful beyond just the Oscars and giving him a stage and giving him a place to speak. I don't know. I think that this will be a calculation that voters are making. So even though Sentimental Value got nine Oscar nominations and is one of the most nominated movies at the Oscars, I don't think it's going to win.

33:06Hillary:And this is maybe crazy, but I am on the record.

33:10Rebecca:But in our official predictions, you picked Sentimental Value. So you're covered either way. I changed. I changed my mind, Rebecca.

33:16John:Hillary, I hear you, except people in Los Angeles are maybe a little duller than people in New York. And I'm not quite sure that the international politics has totally made its way to the academy. I hear where you're coming from, but I also, I actually think that there's a world where the secret agent wins.

33:53Rebecca:Yeah, I was going to say that too. You've been saying that for a while.

33:56John:No, no, no. I thought sentimental value because of the number. When we did our international podcast, I thought Sentimental Value because it had the most nominations, which means it was seen across the most number of branches within the Academy. And that's probably true. But there's something like, I can't describe it. There's something in the air about Secret Agent and also the fervor in which Brazil wants to win this award that is hard to pinpoint. But I see a world in which maybe it ekes it out and gets a win. What do you think, Rebecca?

34:39Hillary:Your tiebreaker, Rebecca. Or you say sentimental value. Yeah, you say sentimental.

34:44Rebecca:I think if I had to pick this category, I would pick sentimental value as my official choice. But I think what you're saying, John, about The Secret Agent is true because it is also a political film. If voters do want to support a political statement, that film is very much about that. Well, most of them are. Hinder Jabez. Yeah, sentimental value, I guess, is the only one that's about art and family. So I think the fact that sentimental got so many nominations is also throwing me off. I'll stick with sentimental value, but I think this is a really tough one. All right. Well, we've only got three more categories here.

35:22Rebecca:Let's talk about best director. We've got Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Josh Safdie, Joachim Trier, and Chloe Zhao. I think we probably all agree that it's Paul Thomas Anderson.

35:33John:Yeah, I think that this is one of the only ones that I feel is 100%.

35:38Hillary:Yeah, it's a body of work. It's not just this movie. It's the fact that he doesn't have an Oscar yet, which seems wild when you look back at his resume. Yeah.

35:46John:He's the most influential, one of the most influential directors of his generation. And this is the film that's going to get him his Oscar.

35:53Hillary:Yeah, this is his The Departed.

35:56John:Yeah.

35:57Hillary:Great. Easy. Yeah, done. All right. But you know what's not easy is Best Actor. Okay, so as you may remember, the nominees for Best Actor are Timothy Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke, Michael B. Jordan, and Wagner Mora. So there is an argument to be made for at least three of these people to actually go all the way. I will say that I did a straw poll of the VF staff right before we started recording this. We had an all-hands meeting, and it was a good opportunity to ask what people thought. Everybody there thought that Michael B. Jordan was going to win.

36:33Rebecca:That's because they just read my prediction. They were like, Rebecca's right, so we're just going to agree. Okay, so Rebecca, make the case. Yeah, I mean, I think we all spent most of the season assuming this was Timothee Chalamet's to lose. But then when he lost BAFTA to Robert Aramayo, who starred in this movie, I swear, and is not an Oscar nominee, obviously. And then he lost at the Actor Awards. To me, it's not about who won those awards. It's the fact that he lost both of them. Like, that's a really bad sign. And then, as we have seen, there's been sort of an insane blowback on him about hating ballet and opera.

37:11Rebecca:But in general, just about— That did happen at the end of voting, so who knows how much of it is. That was, I think, too late to affect this. But in general, there feels like there was a real shift in the way people viewed how he was sort of presenting himself in this campaign, which is, in my opinion, kind of unfair to him. I mean, we know this is supposed to be about the performances and it's an incredible performance, but I think we can all feel that that shift happened. And then when Michael B. Jordan won at the Actor Awards, that was a great moment for him. like during voting, beautiful speech.

37:44Rebecca:Like there's pictures of him just sort of being overwhelmed by emotion that were like all over my social media. Like that couldn't have gone better for him. And there was obviously a lot of sympathy about what happened to him and Delray at BAFTA and admiration for the way he handled it, which I think really helped his profile as well. And then I think that sparked more conversation about here's this guy who's playing twins. So I think the combination of Timmy losing and Michael B winning, It just feels like it's going to be Michael B. Jordan.

38:14John:I hear you. And I think it's going to be Michael B. Jordan. The only thing about Timmy losing the Actor Award is that he won it the year before.

38:24Rebecca:Right.

38:24John:And so to win back to back, like, your odds are stacked against you because people obviously feel like they want to spread the love. But the real thing, I mean, we just have to be honest. What's going on with Timothee Chalamet is that he has entered his brat winter. He started out humble Timmy for two weeks and that fell by the wayside and he is viewed as a brat. And I'm saying brat in the Charlie XCX. In the lime green. Just, you know, to be clear, it's the lime green brat, but maybe the lime green brat doesn't totally work for the golden Oscar. And so, despite the fact that a lot of people, I think, still think it's the best performance or the best acting performance of the year, the behavior and the sort of unconventional ways he's doing stuff, not just the ballet, comment, which happened too late.

39:34John:But he sort of went back to talking about how great he thinks his performance is and how much he thinks he really deserves this. There is a feeling in the room at the Actors' Awards that Michael B. Jordan, people were embracing that win and he was loved. And Timmy was like a little separated and people weren't coming up to his table as much. And I just think that that all is playing into what's going on here. But it's really, really close.

40:19Hillary:It's really close. I think this is a coin flip, too. I mean, yeah, I guess it kind of depends on what matters more. Like, Timmy playing more to social media and fans than to Oscar voters, like, how much does that ultimately matter? Well, the Oscar voters are the ones who are voting for the Oscars. So I don't know. Maybe if that is the deciding factor, it would make sense. Yeah. So I think I'm going to go with MBJ also. But if Timmy wins, I think it would be very exciting.

40:50John:And what do we think about Leo and Wagner-Mora?

40:54Hillary:I mean, no. I just—I think that, honestly, if Leo had campaigned, I think that he could have won.

41:01John:I actually think that there's a very small world in which Leo could be a surprise. because I think that the people that are like, oh, I was going to vote for Timothy, but I guess now I can't because, you know, he's a brat.

41:15Hillary:I mean, I would just so much rather Leonardo DiCaprio have an Oscar for this great performance than for The Revenant.

41:21Rebecca:I also don't think Leo should have done more campaigning. Yes, I agree. Because it would have looked thirsty for him and he already has an Oscar and that's a bad look.

41:30John:It's almost perfect. It's almost perfect. I think he ran a sort of,

41:33Rebecca:he showed up at the events that he needed to. and then he's filming another movie so he didn't come to a couple things but he did a few interviews tied to release that mostly paired I think with Paul Thomas Anderson and we just never saw him give an acceptance speech this season so it feels a little bit like he was missing from the conversation I don't think he's going to win I have heard the theory about Wagner Moore winning that man is so freaking charismatic in these rooms everyone wants to meet him He's been saying a lot of passionate things about politics in a world where not a lot of actors do that.

42:10Rebecca:There's a lot going for him, but I'm sticking with Michael B. Jordan, too. But I hear the theories.

42:16Hillary:Ethan Hawke wins the Oscar of my heart.

42:19Rebecca:Yeah. All right. Let's do it, guys. The big one. Best picture. I'll read the nominees, I guess, for people who don't live and breathe this every day. Okay. Okay. Begonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners, and Train Dreams.

42:40Hillary:Okay. Breaking in to say once more, poll of the room, the Vanity Fair staff was evenly split between One Battle and Sinners. Make of that what you will.

42:50Rebecca:As is my mind.

42:53Hillary:As they should be.

42:54Rebecca:It's really, really tough. I officially picked one battle after another. It's just, I had to go with what's on paper here, which is that they, that movie has won so many awards. Almost every time that those two movies have been up against each other, with the exception of the actor awards, one battle has won. I won at BAFTA, which speaks to the international audience. It's just on paper, one battle after another should win this award. However, my gut is screaming that Sinners is going to win this award based on the rooms I've been in, the conversations I've been having, especially the last couple weeks into voting.

43:39Rebecca:It's just hard because the PGA Award, as I think I've said on this podcast, is the strongest indicator of Best Picture because it is also preferential ballot and one battle won the PGA Awards. They've only gotten it wrong a couple times. They picked 1917 over Parasite. They picked La La Land over Moonlight. And I do see sort of a pattern in what they picked and what ended up winning Best Picture. When you look at Parasite and Moonlight, those are not, I'd say, traditional Best Picture winners. Whiter movies. You're picking whiter movies. Yeah, yeah. But Sinners is also, it's a box office hit. It's a commercial hit.

44:14Rebecca:Moonlight was not a commercial hit. So it's not the same, but the vibes feel the same is all I can say as to why I'm very unsure about my pick here.

44:24Hillary:Yeah, I think I might have changed my mind. I thought it was going to be one battle all season long. But, I mean, SAG does differ from the Best Picture winner at the Oscars with some frequency. So we should say that as a caveat. But I don't know. I think that A Sinner's Surge is real. I think it's not going to win 16 Oscars, but it's going to win, I think, a healthy number of Oscars. I wouldn't be surprised if it won more Oscars in total than One Battle After Another. And I think that given that, by a hair, I'm going to say I predict Sinners for Best Picture. All right, John.

44:59John:I'm going with one battle for all the reasons that you said, plus some conversations I had this weekend. It felt a little like the dust had settled and people were like, well, I picked one battle. And so the preferential ballad is ranked choice voting. But unlike La La Land and Moonlight, what happened with La La Land is people put La La Land way down on their ballot because they didn't like it, because people don't like musicals, people thought it was too twee. That's not happening for one battle.

45:37Rebecca:Right.

45:38John:And it's not happening for sinners either. So we're just talking about two movies that are in the top four of everyone's ballot pretty much. And so I just think that One Battle is just a little bit more on people's number one and it's gonna get it.

45:55Rebecca:I just wish one of these movies had come out a different year. Like, they each deserve to win Best Picture. So it's, I guess, a great problem to have that there are two incredible big studio movies that are really fighting to the last very second. That are good and that are original

46:12Hillary:and that made money. Yes. This is a great, like, congratulations, Warner Brothers. Like, good job.

46:18Rebecca:Just give it to both of them. Let's just call it a tie. I would be happy with that.

46:24Hillary:A tie would be fun if it could happen.

46:26Rebecca:Hilary, thank you so much for joining us. I'm going to leave you with one question before you head out. What do you love most about Oscar night?

46:31Hillary:What don't I love? Okay, so this is like I understand an unpopular opinion because every single year there's all this stress about like how do we make the show go like faster and how do we make it move more quickly and how do we not make it run overtime, whatever. I love bits. I want more bits. I think that Conan O 'Brien, who's hosting again this year, is really good at bits. He was such a good host last year. I want to see him do some stuff that is not just a monologue and then disappearing. Like, I want there to be scripted audience participation moments sprinkled throughout the show. I think he is the man to bring it to us.

47:05Rebecca:Well, Hilary, we'll see you out here in a matter of days.

47:08Hillary:Yes, see you guys in L.A., and thanks for having me.

47:13Rebecca:We're going to take another break. When we get back, my interview with one of the executive producers behind this year's Oscar ceremony. We'll talk about how the new casting category will be presented, where the producers watch the show from, and what makes a successful telecast. Don't go away.

47:36Hillary:If you were caught up in the Barbenheimer frenzy, if you love ranking the Mission Impossible films, if you are just an all-around movie fan, I have a podcast for you. Hello, I'm Amy Nicholson. I'm a film critic who writes for The New York Times, and I am also the co-host of Unspooled, The Ultimate Movie Podcast. Each week, my co-host Paul Scheer and I unspool famous films to see if they are truly all-time classics. From the original 1984 Karate Kid, to Children of Men, to more recent pictures to Dune, yes, to Citizen Kane, we cover it all.

48:03Rebecca:Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by MUBI, the global film company that champions great cinema. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there's always something new to discover. With MUBI, each and every film is hand-selected, so you can explore the best of cinema. Father, mother, sister, brother, the winner of the Golden Lion at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, is now streaming on MUBI in the U.S. This eagerly anticipated new film from Jim Jarmusch is a funny, tender, and gently moving exploration of the universal intricacies of family dynamics.

48:43Rebecca:Told in the form of a triptych, divided into chapters set in New Jersey, Dublin, and Paris, each story concerns the relationships between adult children, their somewhat distant parent or parents, and each other. It stars Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicki Creeps, India Moore, and Luca Sabat. To stream great films at home, you can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash littlegoldmen. That's MUBI.com slash littlegoldmen for a whole month of great cinema for free.

49:26Rebecca:Welcome back to Little Gold Men. Last week, I got a chance to sit down with one of the drivers behind this year's Academy Awards ceremony to get a sneak preview of what's in store on Sunday night. Katie Mullen has been an executive producer for the Oscars since 2024 and is back again this year. Katie, welcome to Little Gold Men.

49:45Katy Mullan:Thank you. It's lovely to be here, Rebecca.

49:46Rebecca:So I know what you do, but for our listeners who may not be aware, how busy are you right now and what are sort of your like main priorities as we inch up to the show?

49:58Katy Mullan:Yeah, I mean, we have the best team in the business, the best production designers, the best lighting directors, the best creative directors. So now is like the crunch time where all of this planning suddenly goes into action. So we are literally looking at scripts. We're looking at the production design. We're going to be looking at all of the set elements, all of the screen content, and essentially just locking down every single little detail. We're still, we have most of our presenters booked. So it's all of those final pieces falling into place. But it's ramping up to a really great show. So we're super excited.

50:33Rebecca:And so when you sort of zoom out, what makes you feel like the show is a success? What are you trying to deliver for audiences both in the theater and who are watching at home?

50:43Katy Mullan:Every year we look at what is the right feeling for the moment in time. So this year our theme is about really celebrating the human stories around cinema. And, you know, we're in this moment where AI is everywhere, everything is automated and accelerated, and you watch these movies and you look at filmmaking and it's just so unmistakably human. Like, you can see how human creativity is just completely irreplaceable with these films and in filmmaking. So we really wanted to try and find a way to express that and celebrate that, because I think we're all yearning for that at this moment in time.

51:20Katy Mullan:And then also, how do we bring people along so that maybe they see a clip of a movie in a nomination package or a Best Picture package, and it makes them actually want to go back and watch that film? And what's lovely about live events is that they still get people sitting on their sofa, talking, tuning in. Like, there's still a real excitement around it where, you know, a lot of TV has been on the decline, et cetera. There are so few of these amazing tentpoles. You know, we're in year 98 of the Oscars. So I guess, like, for us to feel like it's a success for everybody at home, it's just that people leave feeling like they've got fresh insights into filmmaking.

51:57Katy Mullan:We've celebrated these amazing nominees and we've entertained them along the way.

52:01Rebecca:Mm-hmm. Conan's returning to host again. I thought he was incredible last year, but what was it about him that you feel like really worked last year, so much so that we wanted to bring him back?

52:12Katy Mullan:Yeah, I mean, there's been so many amazing Oscars hosts, and I think what Conan brought last year was so much warmth and heart, as well as obviously being, like, brilliantly funny. He's got such a talent to navigate, you know, the moment we're in and make sure that it feels reverential and that we're making everybody in that room feel celebrated and having their moment in the sun. But also his humor is just pitch perfect when it comes to just being silly and having fun. And his jokes just really land in the way that it makes everybody feel like they're in on the joke. There's never any punching down.

52:49Katy Mullan:He has a great sensibility of what works, what doesn't work and what works for him. It's just such a joy to work with somebody who understands the assignment so well and always brings their heart and soul to it, as well as just being like devastatingly funny.

53:05Rebecca:Yeah, he's so great. I can't wait to see him do it again. So specifically this year, you know, we have a new casting category. Can you talk a little bit about how you're approaching introducing that to audiences?

53:17Katy Mullan:So in the past years, we've had something called the Fab Five, where we've had five winners talk to the nominees personally about their performance or their craft. And we're going to do that only once this show this year round, and that will be for the casting category. And I think what's really fabulous about doing that is there's an opportunity for us to see some amazing stars on stage. we get the personal connection between them and this casting director that they're speaking to and about. And also within that, not only do we get their personal connection, but we get a chance to give the audience an insight into what casting directors also do.

53:55Katy Mullan:I have learned a lot about it. I've learned, like, over the last few months, it's been really interesting to dive in, have the conversations with the casting directors, understand how integral they are to the filmmaking process. And so that's how we're going to approach it this year, make sure that it feels like a real acknowledgement of the category and a real celebration of the nominees.

54:14Rebecca:And so when the show starts, all your preparation is done, what do you most worry about once we're actually going?

54:22Katy Mullan:Oh, once we're going, it's basically just time, time, time. We are so lucky with the Oscars. We get a lot of rehearsal time. You know, I do a lot of live shows where you do not have that luxury, sadly. So the great thing is every department is really dialed in on the actual choreography of the show, what needs to happen. So that feels less of a worry because we are very, very well rehearsed. But it really is about staying on time because we're committed to delivering a show that's three and a half hours. And obviously if a speech goes long, that's a really hard decision if you have to play somebody off because you really want people to be able to finish what they're saying, especially if they're speaking from the heart.

55:02Katy Mullan:You really want to make sure that they have their platform and their moment and that it's brilliant. but also we have to make sure that, you know, we are coming in under three and a half hours. So that's the biggest, I think that's probably the biggest tightrope when we're getting. And then there's always the unexpected that you can never plan for.

55:18Rebecca:Yeah, that was sort of my next question is, you know, we all remember Envelopegate or the Will Smith incident. Has sort of your protocol and preparation changed since we have had these sort of high profile hiccups in the past?

55:33Katy Mullan:Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, those sorts of things are the things that keep all of us up at night. And the amazing thing about this show is that so many people have been part of it for a really long time. There's a huge foundational knowledge and infrastructure here. So there are protocols for everything. There are like checks and balances on absolutely everything. and I think that we always, every year, like freshly come at it and think about, okay, what this year, you know, could go wrong that we don't want it to go wrong and how do we avoid that? So I think it's a lot about preparation.

56:09Katy Mullan:It's a lot about having the right protocols in place.

56:11Rebecca:Do you have any specific examples of how, maybe on this show or other things you've worked on, you've had to pivot in the past, sort of live in the moment? Yeah, I mean, the first year that we did this show,

56:25Katy Mullan:we were working with Jimmy Kimmel and his amazing wife, Molly, and we were all set, ready to go for the show. We were about five minutes away from going live, and we looked out into the audience, and in Jimmy's monologue, he referenced a lot of the stars who were nominated. And we looked out into the audience, and we realized that a lot of those stars were not in their seat yet. So we then got a call and found out that Bob Iger was stuck in traffic outside the Dolby, and that there was a bottleneck. And so in that moment, we worked with ABC, we worked with the red carpet producers, we worked with the producers on the show to essentially extend the red carpet by five minutes so that we could bring all of the stars in, have them in their seats and start the show on time.

57:11Katy Mullan:And that could have been a disaster. And actually what was amazing about that was how everybody just went straight into action and it felt seamless. The end of the red carpet show expanded, you never would have known. we started five minutes late but everything as soon as we did start the show felt seamless from that moment on so there is always a workaround you always just have to have a really good plan in place and like I say we're so lucky with this show we have like the best in the world and all of these protocols so we plan for every eventuality

57:39Rebecca:I was there at that Kimmel show I don't remember it starting late so it was very smooth how you guys did that yeah all right we have a couple fun questions to wrap things up here for you. Where do you watch the show from? And do you have to have any specific, like a Diet Coke with you or something to get through it all? Like what's your setup?

58:01Katy Mullan:Yeah, so we are backstage at the producer's table, which is like our little cramped table. There's about four or five of us there and we have a big monitor. We have comms to everybody around the building. We're right next to Conan, his writing team. So they are there all through the show, scribbling, writing away, updating material as we go. We get to see all the music performers right before they go on. So we sit there, we have coffees, we have diet cokes, because by that point we haven't slept very much for several days. So there's a lot of caffeine happening, a lot of chewing gum, so that we can sit that closely to each other and be respectful.

58:40Katy Mullan:It's a really special place to be because you feel the energy of the room. A lot of these times on these shows, I'll be in a truck somewhere else. But we get to sit right there so that if anything happens or, you know, like anything needs to pivot in the show, we're all together. And it's a moment that we can kind of make really fast decisions and action them.

58:59Rebecca:All right. I'm going to ask you one last question. What is your favorite part of Oscars night? Is it the minute the show is done?

59:05Katy Mullan:Oh, gosh, that's a really good question as well. Gosh, let me think. It's honestly, it's such a whirlwind and it's almost a bit of a blur like the memories that I have from the last few Oscars are like they'll just you know of just looking around at my producing partners and someone will have given an amazing speech and I'll be in tears or someone will have said something brilliantly funny as a presenter that's worked that we weren't sure was going to work and there's a huge smile on everybody's faces so I think it's just like when you see the moments land and you feel like okay you know this is something that I think audiences are going to really enjoy I would say that and And then, yes, it's really nice when the show's done and you can have a little drink with your friends and toast the evening and toast everybody's hard work.

59:49Rebecca:Perfect. Well, Katie, good luck with the next few days and with the show. I can't wait to be there and see it live. Amazing.

59:56Katy Mullan:Thanks so much, Rebecca. It was lovely to talk to you. And I really hope you enjoy the show.

1:00:02Rebecca:Thanks for listening to Little Gold Men. This episode was produced by Michelle O 'Brien with engineering by Pran Bandy and mixing by Mike Kutchman. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino.

1:00:13John:And we'll be back on Monday after the Oscars to recap the highs and lows of the ceremony and party.

1:00:19Rebecca:And make sure you tune in to the VF Oscar Party official live stream starting at 10.30 p.m. Eastern, 7.30 p.m. Pacific on Oscars night on VanityFair.com and YouTube.

1:00:40John:Hey, y 'all, Sam Sanders here. It's finally awards season. But year-round, we celebrate the best in film, TV, and pop culture and share the real stories behind all of it, like the legendary costume designer Ruth E. Carter, who helped bring sinners to life, or the wonderful actor and newly crowned Emmy winner Jeff Hiller, plus the songwriter behind K-pop Demon Hunters, Mark Sonnenblick. Catch up on your awards season faves every week on The Sam Sanders Show. Listen in the KCRW app, wherever you get your podcasts, and on YouTube.