The 2026 Alternative Oscars, a.k.a. the 6th Annual Big Picks! Plus: The Craziest Awards Season in Years.

4:23Sean Fennessey:When my voice failed. Yeah. Remember Parasite winning? God, that was so fun.

4:28Amanda Dobbins:Oh, you know what I think about all the time. I mean, that is great, but I think about Coda winning all the time. Yeah. That was a Zoom Oscars episode. I mean, but think about it. Is this the right order? Did it go Green Book, Parasite, Coda?

4:44Sean Fennessey:No, Nomadland. Nomadland.

4:45Amanda Dobbins:Oh my, Nomadland.

4:47Sean Fennessey:That was Whiplash City back then.

4:49Amanda Dobbins:Wow.

4:50Sean Fennessey:Every year was a rejection of the previous year.

4:53Wesley Morris:I mean. But also, both Nomadland and CODA were overshadowed. Nomadland was the second to last award given out that night. And the last award was the presumptive best Oscar for Chadwick Boseman that instead went to Anthony Hopkins. Who wasn't even there. So the very last thing you saw was like Anthony Hopkins' Zoom acceptance. And then Coda was the slap.

5:18Sean Fennessey:Wow. We're going to talk a lot more about previous iterations of the Oscars and what impact they are going to have on this race. Before we do that, we have to talk about Paramount and Warner Brothers because, you know, that news broke late Thursday afternoon. I'll set the scene for you. sitting at my daughter's music class, 3.30 in the afternoon. Jack texts me the news. Hey, this happened. Do you want to address this? Wrote my little cold open while sitting in the waiting room of the music class, raced back to the office, looked down the barrel of that camera, shared some immediate thoughts. And then over the weekend, you know, it does seem like the industry is kind of on fire.

5:58Sean Fennessey:You guys were at my place last night where we watched the Actor Awards and invariably it led to a discussion about Paramount and Warner Brothers and the acquisition of the company, Amanda.

6:09Wesley Morris:Yeah. I feel awesome. I'm excited. No, are you kidding? What? Okay.

6:14Amanda Dobbins:Come on now. That was a little... No. That was a little ivory detergent. It was a little ivory detergent.

6:21Wesley Morris:No. Once again, we live in hell. It's horrible. And I think the fact that everyone who knows, quote unquote, has been predicting this since the beginning and really... Wait, since the beginning of what? Since the original Netflix deal.

6:36Sean Fennessey:Once the offer was out there. Once it was announced that they were going to be sold, basically. Okay.

6:40Wesley Morris:And even when Netflix announced, oh, we've, you know, agreed to a deal for Warner Brothers, everyone was saying, no, no, no, it's not going to go through and it will be paramount. That was the talk around town. That was what people who understand Hollywood, business, and angry rich people said.

6:59Sean Fennessey:I remember vividly we were at a holiday party like a day after it was announced and all the people who were there who totally were plugged in were telling us and i think even before that

7:08Wesley Morris:when the warner's discovery merger happened it was like a this is a built to sell situation that built to sell yes and that listen i i have no business degree you know i'm self-taught um but

7:24Amanda Dobbins:wait wait but i'm gonna absorb a woman in stem yeah but the common wisdom or the industry people

7:33Wesley Morris:were saying that, I mean, this has just been a series of like merger Legos that people have been building and put together for a long period of time. So, you know, was it foretold in a like spreadsheet sense? Sure, maybe, but it feels terrible all the same.

7:56Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, it mostly feels awful.

7:58Sean Fennessey:there was some reporting about it this weekend or i guess this morning actually which relates to the impact it'll have on the things that we cover and care about in general um six billion dollars in uh budget cuts expected which is going to mean the loss of a lot of jobs and these are redundant like so-called redundancies right marketing business affairs all these spaces where they're going to have a lot of overlap but also an intention to make 15 movies at paramount and 15 movies at Warner Brothers and have those two groups operating still with some continuity. A little unclear how that's actually going to shake out.

8:34Sean Fennessey:And then in addition to that, the proper merging of Paramount Plus and HBO, that those two streaming services will come together. I think there's a lot more that's going to come here.

8:42Amanda Dobbins:Hopefully, hopefully they're not coming together.

8:45Sean Fennessey:I don't know how we actually were talking about this last night.

8:49Amanda Dobbins:You can come over here and you can come over here. There's no coming together.

8:52Sean Fennessey:I don't. Well, we would all love to come together normally. speaking, but I think I just, the 30 movies thing is hard to believe. That's going to be hard.

9:00Wesley Morris:It's all, it's all hard to believe. This is all the talk that happens while you're waiting for approval and you're trying to get everyone to sign on the dotted line and you're trying to get like Casey Boyce to not jump ship, uh, which, and, and his whole team. I don't want to dismiss the entire team at HBO. Uh, and it's, it's just like Ted Sarandos was on the town last week saying the business will remain largely unchanged. That was his line. Largely is doing a lot of work. This is our plan. As much work as his jeans were doing last night.

9:29Amanda Dobbins:I listened. Those jeans were working. Yeah. Man wore, uh, was, what, was he also in a double-breasted velour tuxedo jacket? Yeah. With, what, like, it's not velvet. Sorry. It could be velvet. Excuse me. I will, I retract that. He just got

9:49Wesley Morris:$2.8 billion for free.

9:51Amanda Dobbins:I will take and I love that you just put it right in his pocket. It just goes right. Well, that is one which makes the jeans even more deplorable, to be honest. Business up top. I mean, yeah, listen, he got out.

10:05Wesley Morris:He's not in a bidding war anymore. And so he's he's wearing jeans.

10:10Amanda Dobbins:He's relaxed. Yeah. I just sort of want to remove the people from this for a second. Like, yeah, though, you shouldn't.

10:16Wesley Morris:Because one thing about this is it's two point eight billion dollars is not going in his pocket, but the way that this deal is enriching a few number of executives who were put in place to execute this Lego plan is enraging. Continue.

10:31Amanda Dobbins:I think the reason I just sort of want to think about what all of the bad news, the people losing jobs, the delusions we're being asked to accept about the reality, the sort of paradisical reality of what awaits us on the other side of the signing of this deal, the approval of it, which is almost certain to happen now because, you know, Larry Ellison be partying with the MAGAs?

11:03Sean Fennessey:Yeah. The California State Attorney General has said that they will fight this, right? That there is an attempt to, I don't know about fight it, but they will evaluate it aggressively. I don't know if they have enough strength to block it. There's also, I guess, fewer questions about international approval than there would have been with Netflix. The Netflix deal would have been harder to go through because Europe might have just said, no, we see this as a monopoly based on our standards. Less true for Paramount and Warner Brothers.

11:28Amanda Dobbins:I think. It's just such a I mean, I don't this is like the ultimate signifier. I've got many other like little things that have sort of signified that this could happen. But now that this is happening, there are so many other things. Well, first of all, like, I would love to hear you guys talk to me about why this even needs to happen. It doesn't. It doesn't.

11:54Wesley Morris:Other than the, it only needs to happen in the business spreadsheet shareholders leveraging, like, in this building block of nonsense that has nothing to do with art or movies or TV or anything or jobs. but just the structures that were put together financially 10, 15, whenever, 20 years ago, according to the business people.

12:22Sean Fennessey:But it doesn't. It's just like an outcome of conglomeration that once a studio becomes something that is only a piece of a larger puzzle and that synergies within larger conglomerates are more valuable, that you need to basically plug into something that has more than just the one output of a movie studio. You need to have a streamer. You need to be related to telecom.

12:42Amanda Dobbins:They already had all these things. They didn't have a larger tech apparatus.

12:47Sean Fennessey:And that is the case that David Ellison is making.

12:50Amanda Dobbins:What is the Pokemon that you really needed to complete your set?

12:55Sean Fennessey:I'm not justifying the acquisition because I've said the same thing that Amanda just said. This didn't have to happen. It's happening because of greed. But if you believe David Ellison, if you accept him at his word, he's going to say, we're going to change the way that Hollywood operates by using technology, which is at our fingertips because my father is the head of one of the most powerful technology companies in the world and one of the richest more importantly anytime you were talking about

13:16Amanda Dobbins:a business transaction by saying the words my father it's really not it's not good hang up

13:22Sean Fennessey:the phone hang it up well yeah david zasloff did not hang up he accepted and uh this is so this is where we're at series of problems i don't i it's gonna take a while for this to get approved i don't you know i don't know like probably a year is that what feels like it feels like we will look at January 2027 maybe for when this would be approved, which would be while the Trump administration is still in office. The midterms will have happened by then, which will be an interesting turn of events in the event that it is not approved by November. In the event that there is a big blue wave, maybe Congress makes more noise around this than they normally would.

14:01Sean Fennessey:That's yet to be seen.

14:02Wesley Morris:But does Congress have anything to do ultimately with the approver? it's the DOJ

14:07Sean Fennessey:I don't know

14:10Amanda Dobbins:I do not see the FCC or you know to quote a different show that talks about this stuff all the time Pamela Jo Bondi choosing to do anything other than stamp yes because there might be a seat on a yacht yeah

14:29Sean Fennessey:we're working at that level

14:31Amanda Dobbins:I mean I just think it's that simple I don't know So I don't know that Congress, I mean, of course, traditionally Congress has a role to play. I don't know if they'll be allowed to play their role or if the role they play will matter ultimately.

14:47Sean Fennessey:You know, Ruben Gallegos, the senator, he over the weekend said basically like, sure, keep merging and building up these mega companies because as soon as we're back in power, we're going to start breaking them up. He was very vociferous about that. He's one of the very few Democratic politicians who is as full-throated about that kind of thing.

15:05Amanda Dobbins:But I, like with all these things that have happened in the last 14 months, I wonder how much of what has transpired can be de-transpired, right? How much can be reversed? They very rarely get broken up. I just don't see this happening in the way that, I mean, it's a great thing to promise. to try to do. I just don't know how doable it will ultimately be. But again, now I'm sort of coming back to what this is going to look like for my Friday night.

15:41Sean Fennessey:Mm-hmm.

15:42Amanda Dobbins:Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Either at home or at the movies. What am I doing on Sundays? I mean, Sunday, for millions of us, it's like... HBO time. It's HBO time. It's still, after all these years, was HBO time.

15:58Sean Fennessey:Yep.

16:03Amanda Dobbins:And Paramount's second biggest movie in the last year is something called Scream 7.

16:12Sean Fennessey:Yes, the number one movie at the box office this weekend.

16:15Amanda Dobbins:Their second biggest movie is the seventh Mission Impossible. Is it the seventh one? The eighth one? Yeah, eight, right? I mean...

16:24Sean Fennessey:The final reckoning.

16:24Amanda Dobbins:It's clear they needed something to happen, but I'm like, can y 'all study the legacy of Sherry Lansing? I mean, there's a whole history here. I mean, again, I'm probably down here when really we need to stay up here because they don't, they don't even, I am talking about this, like they're experiencing a creative crisis when the reality is what I'm just, what is one person's jewel is another person's excrement and you know they can find a way to turn this shit into money whether whether

17:01Sean Fennessey:it's an actual gem or it stays shit or not i think amanda's uh lego metaphor is apt i think that this was like an acquisition of a lot of individualized pieces of legos and one of them is a big batman lego and one of them is a harry potter lego and one of them is a game of thrones lego and they're going to like stack them and try to build a beautiful tower of content and try to synergize them across technology and make a lot of money. Okay. That's the plan.

17:25Amanda Dobbins:But all right. So is it going to work? I don't know. Maybe we just watched the former SAG Awards last night. This is the thing I think about all the time. Like I'm a big fan of like, where is, where is this person right now? Where is X? Like what happens to X? I can name 15 actors. This isn't like a real actor crisis, right? Whether you're at the bottom of that ladder or at the tippity top. This is less for everybody. Less work, probably money. Work and money. Those are the two most important things. I don't know. I just don't know. So I just, this feels apocalyptic in ways that, I mean, I'm sure the people who are experiencing this on the receiving end understand what a cataclysm this is.

18:23Amanda Dobbins:But I don't know, has the public ever really protested? No, and they won't hear. One of these situations, because I feel like if you lay it out, I mean, in a way, in a much more articulate way than I could, like, what really is about to happen? What is three years from now, if this goes through, what does it look like? Does it feel like what things felt like during the pandemic or the streak?

18:49Sean Fennessey:I mean, maybe a little bit more because this is actually a really interesting topic. I was just talking to Amanda right before we started recording about how Neon is effectively changing ownership right now. That a new investor is coming in. To do what? 30 West is moving out. This company, Department M, is coming in. My guess is that it's to supercharge Neon to make them a bigger studio. And so there is about to be a moment because we're taking a legacy studio off the board. We took Fox off the board seven years ago. MGM and Amazon merged. So there's like a bit of a vacuum here to your point about jobs and opportunities.

19:22Sean Fennessey:So Neon and A24 are trying to backfill. Mubi's trying to be A24 now. There's something there's like a shift. And then behind them is like Black Bear is in. Roque is in. All these smaller indies are in. And there's an attempt to kind of like rebuild a couple of bigger studios and then backfill the indies behind them. And whether or not that can happen, it's harder now than it used to be.

19:40Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, but there's two giant pack people out there. Pack people. Just like pack entities that like the minute Neon builds itself into something, you know, gobbleable.

19:52Sean Fennessey:Somebody will gobble it.

19:53Amanda Dobbins:Somebody will gobble it.

19:54Sean Fennessey:People have been saying that about A24 for years and that may happen. You know, the fact that Apple didn't buy and has not bought A24, I still find to be really interesting. Have they tried?

20:01Amanda Dobbins:I mean, but that's a company with integrity as far as, I mean, at least business integrity, right? Like all these companies are built to sell.

20:09Wesley Morris:I think it's just also that they haven't had as much business success with, you know,

20:14Amanda Dobbins:it's a drop in the bucket.

20:15Wesley Morris:Yeah. Why would they? Oh, you mean Apple. Yeah. Why would Apple got, oh, you meant A24. Sorry. I'm sorry. A24. No, no. Of course. A24, I love you. Sure. Don't email me. Don't, bros, don't email me. But no, Apple. Apple buying it doesn't seem to make any sense just because like what Apple's forays into.

20:32Sean Fennessey:I think if they just really want to be in a more aggressive horse race around building a content library, that's something that, that's really the only case for it. This is like not our area of expertise. I just think it's really interesting that if you, by taking that huge player off the board, you're going to have fewer jobs, fewer opportunities, fewer films, fewer television shows in all likelihood.

20:50Amanda Dobbins:But I like being stupid about it because my lack of education knowledge about how business deals work. I mean, it allows me to sort of think about what really it's going to mean for my TV watching and movie going life and the things I don't know. It's just like these people are fucking with our dreams here. No, I mean, you they are. They are fucking with how we develop as a culture, how we come to understand ourselves as a people. what this country ought to or should look like 40 years from now. You know, I'm in the middle of, y 'all have heard me talk about this for 11 years, but like I'm almost finished.

21:38Amanda Dobbins:And, you know, like I've been using this opportunity to work on this book to understand that the history of our country, pretty much the entire history of our country can be told through American movies between like 1915 and like formerly today. And in all kinds of ways, like the farm crisis of the 1980s has been documented in Hollywood movies. Yeah. Like it's still happening.

22:18Sean Fennessey:Yeah. It is in one battle after another. like it may not be exactly how you want it told but it is a contemporary portrait Sean and Sinners and both are Warner Brothers movies right right but let's

22:29Amanda Dobbins:just really dial that back a little bit right because I'm not talking about movies that even go to the Oscars right right I'm talking about movies that just got made you're right and nobody went to see them but they're still with us or like they they were kind of hits but you know the Academy didn't want to do anything with them I'm talking about an entire ecosystem that existed purely for the sake of art itself and rolling the dice on the possibility that if we put Jessica Lange in a movie about her Nazi father and she discovers that he's a Nazi and then she defends him in the courtroom trial.

23:12Amanda Dobbins:This is a music box, a very good movie from 1989. Somebody might want to go. Amin Müller-Stahl. It's a good movie.

23:20Sean Fennessey:Is it Costa Gavris?

23:21Amanda Dobbins:Costa Gavris. Ding, ding, ding, ding. So I'm just saying, like, there's like a whole, there's a whole kind of star we don't get. There is a whole, like, mode of acting that never gets developed. I think you're right. I mean, I'm just, I'm, I'm just thinking about this from the standpoint of history. And we're already in the cataclysm. We've been in it for 15, almost 20 years now, where the priorities have just completely shifted. And what it's going to look like to know what this country was like just by going to the movies is going to be harder to discern. It's just not reflecting reality. And not that the movies were reflective of the actual reality, but every prong of every crisis can be found in a national crisis, like local crisis can be found, you know, up to like, I would say like maybe the early 2000s.

24:17Amanda Dobbins:in our movies. And I would include the, you know, the 2000s themselves as being still interested in what it is like to live in this country at that moment in real time.

24:29Sean Fennessey:We talked about this through 25 for 25. And our top three were movies where we were sort of like past, present, future, where we talked about There Will Be Blood, 25th Hour, and The Social Network as this kind of trilogy of movies that we're reflecting on where we came from, where we are, where we're going. and I think movies will still do that. They can still do that. There's still going to be a lot of, you know, Universal, we were saying last night, is like, maybe it's licking their chops a little bit. At least when it comes to movies because they're going to be like, we're going to have a lot of opportunities here.

24:58Amanda Dobbins:I think we agree that Donna Langley is the single, not the single most interesting because everybody's, everybody on the board is interesting. But I feel like anytime I talk to somebody about like what it's like to be out here and like how things are, like studio people. There is a kind of like, I love Universal. I love the idea of Universal. What's going to happen to Universal? And I just feel like, I don't know what they're, I don't know what, I don't know how this looks to that company. I think it's probably very scary

25:34Sean Fennessey:to have to compete if you're Universal, which is also, you know, a broadband cable company, to have to compete with a Paramount Megalith plus Netflix plus Amazon and Apple's unyielding financial power. However, they've done a really smart thing in the last 10 years by basically re-centering to being like, we're a filmmaker studio. We're the home of Jordan Peele and Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg and we sign up A-plus talent. That's what we do. And we make cool movies.

26:01Amanda Dobbins:And we do okay. We do really okay.

26:04Sean Fennessey:So in that respect, I think it's okay. For the broader, what does this mean for Peacock? I mean, Peacock was not in a good place before. I can't imagine they're in a better place now.

26:12Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, I don't know. I just feel like this is really, really, really, really, really, really bad. And I would love somebody to say Wesley. It's not that bad.

26:23Sean Fennessey:No one has said that. No. Nobody is saying that.

26:26Wesley Morris:Nobody is saying that. I mean, the other thing we've talked about on this show that echoes what you're saying is just as movie people and as movie people who came of age when movies were still like the dominant American art form. and an art form that wasn't created here, but certainly, as you said, the roots in how and what the America is and how it's been expressed and sold to the world are here. And it just the movies are no longer the center of culture and they are no longer the way that we investigate ourselves the way that they're not what people look to anymore. Yeah, I and this feels like well, but this feels like I just a confirmation like another like a really big chip off the mountain just of what we had as a movie going culture keeps going.

27:25Wesley Morris:And even the fact that the details of these studios are sort of like a footnote in what's going to happen to Warner Brothers and what will happen to Paramount and how they will make movies.

27:38Amanda Dobbins:Like in the way that we're talking about?

27:40Sean Fennessey:No, they're less important than what is going to happen to Batman. Exactly. That's actually how this is being consumed.

27:44Wesley Morris:Is that it's just kind of, oh, and, you know, we'll figure out.

27:47Sean Fennessey:Well, there's no thought about the legacy of Warner Brothers going into this acquisition. It's about the legacy of what Warner Brothers has. Yeah. I think. I mean, I think that's what's most valuable to David Ellison, and also to Netflix. I think Netflix wanted it for that reason, to kind of optimize the access to those worlds.

28:07Amanda Dobbins:What about the dangerous liaisons first?

28:11Sean Fennessey:I mean, yeah, we can build that out. You want to expand that universe? That's a Warner Brothers property. Glenn Close is still alive.

28:16Wesley Morris:Could be good. Or eight. I don't know how many cruel intentions there are.

28:20Sean Fennessey:I'm going to pivot us to awards season, because we could talk about Paramount for months and months, then we probably will. But if there is somebody out there

28:27Amanda Dobbins:who's got some good news with respect to all of this, I would love to read that, hear from that person.

28:34Sean Fennessey:We're not going to know, honestly, what it really means for 24 months because it's going to take a year to clear and then another year to green light a bunch of new movies that will be like, oh, this is what Paramount Warner Brothers is.

28:46Amanda Dobbins:That's a long time from now. Before we move on, I just, I guess...

28:49Wesley Morris:But the Beatles movies still won't be out. It'll still all happen before the four Beatles movies.

28:57Sean Fennessey:That's so crazy. Is it one?

28:58Amanda Dobbins:They're doing one a year? No.

29:00Sean Fennessey:No, one a week. April 2028.

29:02Wesley Morris:We're just hanging on. Yeah.

29:04Sean Fennessey:Those will be our final episodes of this show. That's when Amanda and I, we move to Hawaii after that. We're done. Oh, well. But those episodes will be 24 hours long. Each one. We've been preparing our whole lives.

29:15Amanda Dobbins:You guys are crazy. I am, I've got a lot of feelings about, I mean, like, knowing how you feel. I mean, you know. About the Beatles? Yes. Yeah. It's a religion. I've got a lot of questions.

29:27Wesley Morris:We didn't even talk about Harris Dickinson last night, but that's a whole other... Was he there? No, which is why...

29:33Amanda Dobbins:Which is why what?

29:35Wesley Morris:Which is why he didn't come up in the list of, you know...

29:38Sean Fennessey:Men that Amanda wants to fuck. Yes.

29:40Wesley Morris:Excuse me. It's not quite like that. Amanda has an appreciation for.

29:45Amanda Dobbins:I'm like immune. I guess we differ in every way except for your husband. I know.

29:52Wesley Morris:But it's a lovely place where we meet you.

29:54Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, I just like, none of your men are my men.

29:57Wesley Morris:Yeah, last night I spent a lot of time defending Jacob Lorty to you.

30:01Amanda Dobbins:Not defending. Not defending. I understand it. It's just nothing happens. Wait, but seriously, I, are you, you guys talk to filmmakers. I don't talk to filmmakers. Yes, you do. I mean, I don't. I really don't. I don't, I've not talked to a real, I mean, I don't talk to the people you talk to is what I would say.

30:24Sean Fennessey:I think they're scared. They're scared? Of course, yeah. It's hard to get stuff made. It's harder than ever to get stuff made. And it's harder to get stuff made with big conglomerates. And when you go into those situations with fewer options, it's harder to make more money. It's harder to get something off the ground. I think it's interesting to look at what like James Mangold is somebody I think a lot about in this configuration, right? like really like older craftsman who has a ton of respect who has been an Academy Award nominated and he's like, I really want to make a Star Wars movie, you know, and he's going to make a thriller with Timothee Chalamet but he's also working on a Star Wars movie and there's a certain class of person who's already like crossed the threshold of being able to work but they know that to keep working at scale and to get their smaller movies made, they really do got to participate in the big old franchise game and Paramount's going to up the ante on that stuff too.

31:17Sean Fennessey:So that'll be interesting. Now, younger filmmakers, it's fucking hard, man.

31:21Amanda Dobbins:Well, this was, you know, my little purity tests that I used to maintain are like not against the filmmakers, but against the industry insisting that like, you know, the Edward Schultz's of the world can't go into the tractor beam because look at what they have to offer the world. Yeah. Like. Or, you know.

31:44Sean Fennessey:They can go to TV. I mean, and I think a lot of Eggers. I mean, there's so many.

31:49Wesley Morris:But that is already contracting and will contract. It is.

31:52Sean Fennessey:I think Eggers is a really good case for the future might be okay. I think he is using IP, but he's using it very thoughtfully.

31:59Amanda Dobbins:He's doing smart things with it. I just worry. I mean, I think, I mean, I remember thinking like Chloe Zhao, the first thing she does after she wins her Academy Award for Best Director, isn't it Make the Marvels? It is. Yeah.

32:14Sean Fennessey:Eternals.

32:15Amanda Dobbins:Eternals, sorry. I just was like, well, here we have it. But I think I have to stop with that because it's not fair to the environment for these people. I'm not letting the industry off the hook, but people have to eat.

32:32Sean Fennessey:She did the same, yeah. People have things they want to say.

32:37Amanda Dobbins:And I can't, it's really none of my business what the artists choose to do. I would just say that if given given the option of doing 10 more Nomadlands and 10 more Hamnets, if you're if you're Chloe. I don't I can't think for her, but I don't know if I mean, having seen what seen the Eternals and having seen the other movies, I'm I'm convinced that one thing is a better use of her than the other thing. I don't know. I don't like she feel free to disagree. But I do think that having these artists make these choices and have the choice be a question of, well, either I'm working or I'm not working.

33:27Amanda Dobbins:And at what point do my principles – because also, the bigger these companies get, the more politics becomes an issue. Right?

33:35Sean Fennessey:That's a whole other rabbit hole. Yeah.

33:37Amanda Dobbins:And you're then making a whole other series of choices about –

33:41Sean Fennessey:amount about like what is the character of their films what what what is the messaging for lack of a better term what are the who gets to work yes who gets to work i mean what does it look like

33:51Amanda Dobbins:i mean we know he's fine at universal if but like let's just say there's a long there's a long-term impact guess what look guess what the pipeline's gonna look like for non-straight white men to make anything? We're going to find out. If there's somebody in the company who's just like, nope, DEI, DEI, you know, I don't know what that looks like.

34:16Sean Fennessey:I think I do think... I mean, I do know what it looks like and it's grim. I do think historically in this business, money wins. They do have to lift the gate sometimes, but they're not going to not hire somebody if they think they can make them money while being controlled by them. So that will be a component of this decision. making.

34:35Amanda Dobbins:I don't know, man. Like, can you be a five-star general? Is that an option? I just think a lot about Lloyd Austin getting fired. The minute they came back into office, Lloyd Austin was one of the first Negroes to lose his job. And this is a highly decorated person who was running the Department of Defense. Or not even, he was a Joint Chiefs, I think. And just see ya we don't need you this is like I'm just also we don't need you because once you made a video where you were just like yeah it is hard to be a negro in the American military and I have a lot of historical I bring a lot of history with me to this job and I'm watching what's happening in the streets right now and it's making me sad that was enough you know I just feel like I know we're going to start talking about awards.

35:34Amanda Dobbins:I just feel like it's interesting to have one battle after another and sinners be at the top of that conversation and the lesson and be Warner Brothers movies. What are the lessons that are going to be learned?

35:46Sean Fennessey:I think a lot of people are seeing this news and even this award season as like a kind of a Viking funeral that this is like a send-off of an era. I don't know if that's going to turn out to be the case. You know, the Odyssey is going to kick ass. Like it's not like movies are going away forever. Like, it's going to be fine in that very specific short-term respect. Yeah, but for 10 people, what does newness look like?

36:08Amanda Dobbins:Also, yeah, it's Christopher Nolan doing the oldest story ever told. Yeah, that's movies, though. Story by Christopher Nolan and Homer.

36:17Sean Fennessey:Does it say that? Is that the credit?

36:19Wesley Morris:The IMDb credit page was that for a while. Yeah, I mean, which is, you know. Actually, I respect it. I deserve to stand alongside Homer. That's not Christopher Nolan stating it, but yeah.

36:28Sean Fennessey:Okay. There were a number of precursor award shows over the weekend. The first was the Ace Eddie Awards. That's the editing group. They gave best edited feature film drama to Sinners and best edited feature film comedy to one battle after another. Much like the Golden Globes, that tells us nothing.

36:46Amanda Dobbins:Also, they're breaking it down like that too?

36:49Sean Fennessey:I don't understand. I mean, I guess there are different editing rhythms to those different genres that are worth noting, but I find splitting up best film awards to be very strange. the Producers Guild Awards of which I am a member and voted transpired on Saturday and One Battle After Another won the Daryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures so just to give you guys some context One Battle After Another has now won the Critics' Choice Award the Golden Globe for Musical or Comedy the BAFTA for Best Film it won an Ace Award it won the DGA for Paul Thomas Anderson it won the Producers Guild Award And it's probably going to win the WGA award for adapted screenplay.

37:31Sean Fennessey:That is the strongest best film package in the history of the Academy Awards.

37:34Amanda Dobbins:Really?

37:35Sean Fennessey:And yet.

37:36Amanda Dobbins:And yet.

37:37Sean Fennessey:And yet. And yet we will get to. Sinners has not won a single major best picture precursor. No critics groups. No CCA. No Globes. No BAFTA. No PGA. Just cinematic and box office achievement at the Golden Globes. However, here is one historical data point. it has won SAG Ensemble, which you will get to momentarily. It has won an Ace Award, and it is also almost certainly going to win the WGA Award for original screenplay. And no movie who's had those three awards has ever lost Best Picture. Oh my God. So we have... It's two undefeated... Two trains.

38:15Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, yeah. On a track. Yeah.

38:16Sean Fennessey:We can talk about what we think is going to happen there. It's very strange for a movie. It would be the biggest upset in Oscars history if Sinners wins. Like Spotlight won the Spirits and the LA Film Critics Circle, National Society of Film Critics. Moonlight won the Globes and all four major critics awards. Parasite won the Palme d 'Or and major critics groups.

38:38Amanda Dobbins:Talk to me about COTA. Talk to me about COTA.

38:41Sean Fennessey:COTA won.

38:42Amanda Dobbins:Something at Sundance.

38:44Sean Fennessey:It won SAG. Like many years before. Yeah.

38:47Wesley Morris:And Troy Kotzer won as well at SAG.

38:50Sean Fennessey:What awards did COTA win? Let's take a quick look at that.

38:53Amanda Dobbins:I'm just saying, like, Koda is my favorite best picture win story of all time.

38:57Sean Fennessey:Yes, and Koda was a late surger, for sure.

39:01Amanda Dobbins:Well, we know what happened. I mean, we've discussed this before. I love this. I love that it happened because it's such a, this is what y 'all all get. Now, I like Koda a lot.

39:13Sean Fennessey:Koda won the Spirit Awards.

39:15Wesley Morris:Hmm.

39:16Sean Fennessey:Oh, no, sorry. It did not. That was Troy Kotze. I was about to say, I don't think it even won that. it was this is a really good question oh coda won pga oh did it okay but because because you know what happened when coda won pga that's when everybody was like oh actually it's coda it's

39:34Amanda Dobbins:definitely not power but i but have i told this story to like i've talked to you about this before like i feel maybe i've talked to bill about it like i just remember maybe i just texted somebody after this happened. But like, you know, I watched it at home like everybody else. And like the minute they get to the audition for Berklee. I mean, I'm... When she sings both sides now? I'm crying. Yeah.

40:02Wesley Morris:Who's not crying?

40:03Amanda Dobbins:It's incredible. I'm crying. And I said, this isn't fair. This isn't fair because if this is happening to me in my living room, it's happening to everybody else. in their living room. And it is, I watched it during open, while the ballots were still open. And I'm like, there's no way, I'm not in, you know, I don't vote for anything, but like, there's no way if I'm an academy voter that my ballot is sitting here unsent. And I'm not like, ding.

40:36Sean Fennessey:Well, so I think that's very, putting it first. I think that's very notable and resonant in this particular race because the conversations that we were having where like The Power of the Dog is a very well made film by a hugely admired filmmaker who had not won in that category before.

40:52Amanda Dobbins:And nobody I knew liked one second of watching. Right.

40:55Sean Fennessey:And Coda is from

40:57Amanda Dobbins:a filmmaker we've never heard of. There was an Apple movie

41:00Sean Fennessey:that premiered at Sundance but everybody was like that movie makes me feel good.

41:03Amanda Dobbins:Yep.

41:03Sean Fennessey:And sometimes a movie that makes people feel good just wins. And this year I think it's Sinners. And it was a time that we wanted to feel good. I think Sinners is the movie that people are like this movie makes me feel good. Now that doesn't mean it's going to win. Those movies don't always win.

41:18Wesley Morris:I do think I think Sinners does make people feel good or at least excited. And we've seen that at every single awards show that we've watched or attended. Like there's a Kugler Hive. I'm a proud member. You know, I had to get involved with that. And what does me?

41:35Amanda Dobbins:What do you mean get involved?

41:36Wesley Morris:That's a quote from when he was on Amy Poehler and talking about discovering the soda fountain, the soda machines at the movie theater. the flavors.

41:46Sean Fennessey:He was like, I was not really, I didn't used to be a soda guy. And then I saw you could mix the flavors and I had to get involved with that.

41:52Amanda Dobbins:All I want is Ryan Coogler starring and curb some more enthusiasm.

41:58Wesley Morris:Exactly. Totally what it was. So there's, there's like a huge, huge, huge amount of enthusiasm for that movie. But I don't think that one battle has the same problems that Power of the Dog has. And in fact, there is,

42:13Sean Fennessey:Simmons famously once called it the power of the nap. No, there is like an equally passionate group of people who love not just PTA, but this film.

42:23Wesley Morris:And we're like really energized by it. You've seen it how many times now?

42:27Sean Fennessey:Seven. Yeah. Seven times on the big screen. I thought four was a lot.

42:30Wesley Morris:Right. So I think it's, you're right that there is some like emotional pull to sinners. And I think that that really could push a lot of voters this way. But it's not like replacing, you know, a lack of enthusiasm on the other side, the way that Coda was.

42:49Amanda Dobbins:Can I present something here? It's Sunday on the West Coast at.

43:02Amanda Dobbins:Nine o 'clock p.m. On the 15th. and Sinners is just one best picture what is how do I put this what does it look like for one battle after another to have lost the best picture Oscar for whom

43:32Sean Fennessey:because like is it a culture war is that what you're asking no God oh my God I didn't even consider that I think there'll be ugly takes in the aftermath in either direction in either direction there they are people

43:43Amanda Dobbins:people gotta stop wait is this a thing these movies are being pitted against each other well they're just

43:49Sean Fennessey:they're the two leading contenders so I think they're both beloved however they both have strong detractors yeah like any favorite

43:56Amanda Dobbins:I am I am I'm gonna talk to one of my favorite people who is a vociferous detractor for one battle after another but I think that the, I mean, the wonderful thing about these two movies being at the top of the pile is they are speaking to each other. Yeah. Like these movies are the, one of the great best picture double features ever. Totally agree. We've been saying it for months and they don't like it's, I mean, one can definitely exist without the other, but the fact that they both exist together to me,

44:29Sean Fennessey:it makes me feel like we're in the seventies where you would be like, gosh, I don't even know what to pick. Yeah. I don't know. That was the fun time.

44:34Amanda Dobbins:I mean, I think part of what I'm wondering here is, like, I know there's a world where it's like Sinners loses, and it's like Sinners had a great— It was—Sinners did the most. It had the greatest run. Everybody loved it. It had the most nominations. But I feel like if one battle after another loses, it's just going to be another one of these, well, gosh, Paul Thomas Anderson just can't get it over the line, can he?

44:58Sean Fennessey:But then he—I think if that happens, then he goes—because this is his best chance, right? this is he'll never have a better chance than this this is the biggest movie he's ever made it is the most success the the the run of precursors is crazy town i mean it's been dominant you've been saying it ever since way before the academy award nominations you were like this gets decided very early a movie usually goes on a crazy run this movie has done that as pretty much as strongly as oppenheimer if he doesn't win he immediately goes into that on the I agree. Okay. I agree too, but that's fine. Not even close.

45:35Sean Fennessey:I think he immediately becomes... Brandon Wesley. It's like Kubrick, Hitchcock. I'm sorry. There's that short list of master filmmakers, geniuses of their era, who don't win. And he goes into that canon.

45:48Wesley Morris:But here's the thing. And then maybe he wins for some other movie he makes

45:51Sean Fennessey:when he's 76 or whatever. I don't know.

45:53Wesley Morris:No, no, no. Here's the thing. I do think that Paul Thomas Anderson is a lot for director.

45:57Sean Fennessey:He is.

45:58Wesley Morris:So that is interesting. And you see in the coda Power of the Dog Year, there was a split. Jane Campion did one director. I don't like this either, though. You don't like the split? No. Well, then why give out a Best Director Award at all?

46:13Amanda Dobbins:I don't like the history of the split. Okay. Because now we're at a point of elite Hollywood politics, although we can talk about what Hollywood politics even means with this Academy now. but we're at a point where the with the politics of this show and this award where

46:36Amanda Dobbins:we don't have a black director who's won this prize yet

46:39Sean Fennessey:do not

46:39Amanda Dobbins:no and I don't like the idea of best picture being a consolation prize because

46:47Wesley Morris:is it a consolation prize I feel like director is a consolation prize I feel like

46:51Amanda Dobbins:it's just happened Steve McQueen sure Barry Jenkins I don't enjoy this right where I just like let a brother win best director I'm I don't know and you know what's funny you know what's funny I don't I'm saying this and it's completely untethered to an argument about the directing of both these movies I think every time I watch Sinners I'm just like

47:24Sean Fennessey:wow yeah I know we talked about this last week

47:29Amanda Dobbins:I mean Paul Thomas Anderson like it's very very hard because somebody's gotta not win

47:40Sean Fennessey:and however this is unusual and I want to talk about the actor awards because they're related to this but you know in all likelihood they could both get two they could both get two They're both going to get screenplay. And PTA is almost certainly going to win director. He won at DGAs. And then if picture goes to centers, then Ryan gets one too, and then it's two to two. And then that would be the most harmonious balance that I think that the Academy could land on.

48:12Amanda Dobbins:These guys have punched it out so many. I still think one battle is going to win. It's hard to not assume one battle is going to win. For six months now. It's like. Oh yeah. And they're buddies. I don't. I mean, I don't even like the idea of... Again, I don't believe these two movies are in opposition to each other in any other way. They're not, but this forces... The artificiality of this okay. This experience forces it.

48:33Sean Fennessey:So the thing that happened... Let's talk about the actors in full. Sinners did win Ensemble, which was predicted, and I think follows... Frankly, the Actor Awards, the SAG Ensemble Award, is a much more generous award to black films and black actors than the Academy Awards are. recent winners include Black Panther Ryan Coogler's film Hidden Figures you know it also does not

48:56Amanda Dobbins:I forgot Hidden Figures

48:57Sean Fennessey:it does not really correlate typically with Best Picture last year you may recall Conclave won Best Ensemble not Anora despite Anora having a dominant Oscar night

49:05Amanda Dobbins:yeah but I think those people are voting for the right reasons right like I feel like I feel like that ensemble in most cases I understand I under these are people who I mean you guys told me who all is in SAG-AFTRA last night. Yes, it is actors,

49:24Sean Fennessey:but it is also radio and television broadcasters and weathermen and influencers. But to be clear,

49:30Wesley Morris:not the three people sitting at this table. That's true.

49:32Sean Fennessey:Not necessarily in that union. However, I will say, I think less than 5 % of the membership of SAG votes for the Academy Awards. Right. Like it's a small number of people. So be careful in terms of trying to make correlation.

49:43Amanda Dobbins:I'm not, I have no correlation to make. I just want to say they understand what an ensemble is. Generally. They really do understand And even in the nominating, you know, what it turns out to be, I think One Battle After Another is the best casting directed movie of the year, of last year. But obviously Sinners, just for Miles Caten alone, is an achievement.

50:08Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

50:10Amanda Dobbins:You know, Secret Agent wasn't part of the situation at the SAG Awards.

50:14Sean Fennessey:None of the international features were.

50:16Amanda Dobbins:Like just one of the great, great cast movies of, great casted movies of 2025.

50:22Sean Fennessey:It's a funky award. I always point to 2020 as this award being maybe not as relevant. Do you remember which movie won in 2020 for Best Ensemble?

50:30Wesley Morris:For the films of 2020? Yes. So not, because Parasite won in February. Yes, the films of 2020. Okay, so 2021.

50:38Sean Fennessey:This is a great footnote. Wasn't, oh boy.

50:41Wesley Morris:What movies came out in 2020? So not Nomadland.

50:46Sean Fennessey:Not Nomadland. Obviously an outlier year for the Academy Awards given the number of releases, but think hard.

50:52Wesley Morris:Hillbilly Elegy.

50:53Sean Fennessey:No. The answer is The Trial of the Chicago 7. Oh, sure.

50:58Amanda Dobbins:Another Netflix movie. But again.

51:00Sean Fennessey:Nomadland not even nominated in the category.

51:03Amanda Dobbins:That's a well-cast movie though.

51:05Sean Fennessey:Nomadland?

51:06Amanda Dobbins:Yeah.

51:06Sean Fennessey:Similar actually to One Battle After Another with a lot of non-professional actors.

51:10Amanda Dobbins:I mean, I don't love that movie, but casting wise, I'm not arguing with it. Anyway. But I get that. I mean, listen, listen. Trial of the Chicago 7.

51:20Sean Fennessey:Your favorite film of that year.

51:22Wesley Morris:That's a movie that happened.

51:23Sean Fennessey:An astounding achievement that we will forever remember.

51:27Amanda Dobbins:Are they sure they weren't? I mean, I'm sure most people thought they picked up their Emmy ballot. Yeah. Big time HBO original movie vibes with that one.

51:37Sean Fennessey:So Sinners wins ensemble. And the reason that I got all excited to talk to you about this is that the biggest surprise of the night and the best moment of the night, in my opinion, was Michael B. Jordan winning Best Actor for Sinners, which I would never in a million years have predicted. Some people have predicted it. I got to give it up to Clayton Davis from Variety. He has been holding the line on this, and he hard predicted this last night.

51:58Amanda Dobbins:He must have blown out of his house.

52:01Sean Fennessey:Yes, and he has been holding on Sinners winning Best Picture. He had Ensemble. He has been saying, this is going to happen. Now, we've been talking Timothee Chalamet in this race for many, many months. He showed weakness at BAFTA when Robert Aramaya won.

52:16Amanda Dobbins:He showed weakness.

52:18Sean Fennessey:He bent the knee to the film, I swear. And now I feel like his odds are going to plummet, obviously, not winning SAG. He won SAG last year, and no one has ever won SAG two years in a row. That has also been noted quite a bit. Yes. So maybe they were just trying to pivot. They said we gave it to him last year. Who knows? Could Michael B. Jordan win Best Actor at the Academy Awards? you actually right before the award was announced you turned to us and you were like I feel like people are not saying he's really fucking good in this movie

52:49Amanda Dobbins:I had to say it to myself I had to remind myself I'm like writing something about how it is how easy it has been to sleep on him well he made it easy he has made it easy but I think that there is something about the like he's talked about Ryan Coogler in his speech last night in a way that was so not we're homies and friends it was, oh my god, I might start crying. It's like, you see something in me. Thank you for seeing what my talent can do. That's not a like, yo man, I've been telling you for years, we got this on lock. You and I, we keep doing it together. I'm picking up this penis-less trophy.

53:37Wesley Morris:Amy Madigan. we'll get to her

53:39Amanda Dobbins:it doesn't have a dick she is like that is that is like real statue criticism 101 do most statues have dicks that's the problem statuettes

53:48Sean Fennessey:most statues do right yes they do sure he does yeah but does Oscar doesn't

53:53Amanda Dobbins:that et is doing a lot of work yeah don't whatever don't even get me started about emasculating statues but what he the way he talked about Coogler was so like genuine and it was almost as though like Scorsese had given him the part or you know Spike Lee had given him the job

54:15Sean Fennessey:he tapped him on his shoulder at an early stage at a pivotal stage of his career with Fruitvale where he was like coming out of The Wire and Friday Night Lights and he cast him in his debut feature and now they work together on every movie and they are Scorsese and De Niro I mean that is what they're doing

54:31Wesley Morris:and they do also

54:33Sean Fennessey:I mean he's right

54:35Wesley Morris:respect to Michael B. Jordan for understanding that like Kugler like understands and helps him do something.

54:42Sean Fennessey:He's writing with MBJ in mind.

54:44Wesley Morris:He does not, that MBJ doesn't always find in his other performances and his other films.

54:48Amanda Dobbins:But if you watch the movie, I mean, if you, I don't know, I now have recently watched it, watching only what he's doing. And I guess it's easy to miss for a number of reasons. And I don't know if this, I mean, we can talk about this later, but like not the greatest line reader. No. Not the most emotionally variant. He's a stern-jawed leading man. He doesn't have whatever range is. That's not his thing. But Coogler understands that there's this inner fire in this man. And I don't know how he directs actors or Michael B. Jordan. for that matter. But there's something about this gauge that he has that he, only in his movies, does that temperature fluctuate in a way that transmits emotion to an audience.

55:53Sean Fennessey:I always think of it the way that watch a movie, watch a Tarantino movie with Samuel L. Jackson or Christoph Waltz. Tarantino knows how to write for those actors. better than anyone. And you see Christoph Waltz in Frankenstein and you're like, why is this not interesting? Why is this annoying? And you watch him in one of the Tarantino movies and you're like, why is this the best actor on earth? And same for Sam Jackson. Sam Jackson reading Tarantino lines. And I feel that Kugler really, really knows how to write for MBJ and that that is why he is, literally his top five performances are just in Kugler movies.

56:26Sean Fennessey:And that's great. And they should be rewarded for that. I mean, you could say the same for De Niro, that he's frequently doing his best work when he's working with the person who understands him the best as an actor.

56:34Amanda Dobbins:I just was very moved by how moved and touched he was and to remember that there's a world where all I'm doing is selling Alexa in a bathtub.

56:46Wesley Morris:Yeah.

56:46Amanda Dobbins:And having that be the most important work I've ever done. Because listen, that was important work. Do you think he can win?

56:56Wesley Morris:I really have no idea. I really. You said Wagner Morrow. I think he can. Certainly. I think your interpretation that like Timmy's kind of out is and I think that was really confirmed at BAFTAs because. But what is. But talk to me about that. What is what are we really saying when we say he's lost the momentum and voting is open right now. And there has always been a pretty loud resistance to it. Not for me. To him?

57:26Sean Fennessey:He hasn't given a speech in weeks.

57:28Wesley Morris:To him and to...

57:29Sean Fennessey:That's just the best way to put it.

57:32Wesley Morris:And the reason that I had written Wagner Mora off, which I think January 8th after the Golden Globes, I was like, it's Wagner Mora. You did. It is like, this is happening. Never underestimate Brazil, Leslie.

57:47Amanda Dobbins:No.

57:49Wesley Morris:You out here, I'm like, they speak Spanish. I don't...

57:55Amanda Dobbins:I've never.

57:56Wesley Morris:I have never. Right, no, yeah. But so, Wagner Mora also has just not given a speech since the Golden Globes, you know, and that's because... But he gave a speech.

58:05Amanda Dobbins:He got to give one.

58:06Wesley Morris:He did. But I think it's just, at this point, it is a little bit who's in front of people's eyes right now.

58:14Sean Fennessey:It's just very confusing because Wagner Mora, to me, would be a very representative new Academy win, right? It's a movie that made it into Best Picture. It's a movie that has a tremendous amount of admiration. It's a Cannes film. He won Best Actor at Cannes. He won the Golden Globe. But then he didn't even make the shortlist for BAFTA, and he didn't get nominated at SAG. They release a shortlist? They do.

58:35Wesley Morris:Yeah.

58:36Amanda Dobbins:I don't know how I missed that. Whatever's going on over there. I'm sorry.

58:40Wesley Morris:Yeah.

58:40Amanda Dobbins:Did y 'all see what happened during the broadcast?

58:43Wesley Morris:We did.

58:44Amanda Dobbins:Did we need to know that happened? Was it a two-hour delay? And we still found out? And they edited other things out? I mean, come on. I mean. Not good.

58:52Sean Fennessey:very strange award show honestly we've always had a little bit of a critical distance from on this show we've been criticized for not engaging with it and there's a reason why we don't love engaging with it

59:02Amanda Dobbins:they've always made some battling choices I just don't understand I don't know

59:12Sean Fennessey:the Aramaya win though in that category I think is really what throws this into a sense of disrepair and you know what honestly fucking A. This is so great.

59:23Amanda Dobbins:It makes it fun. For such a big award

59:25Sean Fennessey:to be in, like the coin is in the air until March 15th is so fun. Yeah. I honestly don't know what I'm going to predict. The reaction in the room

59:32Wesley Morris:was electric. I mean, first of all, so Viola Davis was presenting. And she couldn't, I mean, I love it when. It was great. It was wonderful. She had her moment. Already some great memes

59:42Sean Fennessey:of her reacting. Yeah, totally.

59:44Wesley Morris:You asked me what she was up to and it's like Delta and now memes. But, and everyone was so excited and I think a little bit of it was the excitement of surprise and then and if you watch the reactions which I have many times Jesse Plemons immediately very excited Ethan Hawke immediately very excited Timmy putting on his vest I'm happy for him space Leo not there

1:00:08Sean Fennessey:not there he's making a movie with Martin Scorsese

1:00:13Amanda Dobbins:this is really fascinating like I great speech by the way great speech amazing

1:00:18Wesley Morris:Also taking his mom for like driving him through the tunnel. Yeah. So lovely.

1:00:24Sean Fennessey:Very good. Really, really, really like a rare like awards moment. A little show moment where you're like, this is what it can be good. This can be good.

1:00:31Wesley Morris:And also after much debate over the course of the night, we decided it was a good suit. We liked the suit.

1:00:37Amanda Dobbins:Tom Ford. No, I didn't change my mind about that.

1:00:39Wesley Morris:No, you said good suit.

1:00:40Amanda Dobbins:But the pants were.

1:00:42Wesley Morris:Listen, there is a problem with men's tailoring.

1:00:44Sean Fennessey:There was. There was some angle issues as well.

1:00:48Wesley Morris:And there were some angle issues.

1:00:49Sean Fennessey:There were some camera issues. The whole show is a little complicated for the actors.

1:00:54Amanda Dobbins:I mean, can I just like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Boys and girls.

1:00:57Sean Fennessey:No one can see this. Can anyone see this? You want to stand up on the thing?

1:00:59Amanda Dobbins:Like, I will take my shoes off because I'm a New Yorker. Like, you can't... Nobody wants to see this. This is why we flew you out. Nobody wants to see this. It's okay. I mean, you got to just take it in a little bit more so nobody can see your inner scene.

1:01:18Sean Fennessey:I agree with this.

1:01:19Amanda Dobbins:I agree with you. Yes. Like you gotta just cinch it. Yes. Also, two breaks. You don't need two breaks on a tuxedo. You don't need two. Especially if you've got a wide, wide leg. No. What are we doing, people?

1:01:36Wesley Morris:The breaks were such a problem across the board that I did think - I've lost control. I did think some of it had to do that. So all of the feature films, the ensembles were presented by, you know, a group of cast members. And it's just a very strange below the stage upwards angle, which helps no one. Like, why are we doing this? I can't tell if that really is the issue here. But it did accentuate the breaks. Like, the breaks were sort of, were Greenlanded, if you will, within the frame. I'll give you that.

1:02:07Amanda Dobbins:But this now means that these stylists have a new job.

1:02:11Wesley Morris:Well, they've never been able to get men's tailoring.

1:02:14Amanda Dobbins:Hey, Jacob, stand on this box.

1:02:16Wesley Morris:Yeah.

1:02:17Amanda Dobbins:And I'm going to get down all the way down here with my camera, and I'm going to see, like, is this button ruching up on your double-breasted jacket? I don't know.

1:02:29Sean Fennessey:That's an amazing physical performance for you today so far.

1:02:32Amanda Dobbins:I just don't. I don't know. It just really. Delroy Lindo knows how to wear a tuxedo and knows what notes to offer. I don't know who's dressing him.

1:02:41Sean Fennessey:But he was also just wearing a much more classical tuxedo. And taller.

1:02:45Wesley Morris:He is taller. He is taller.

1:02:46Sean Fennessey:That's a factor, too. He was the tallest guy on stage.

1:02:50Amanda Dobbins:Jacob Elordi is like nine feet tall.

1:02:51Wesley Morris:Well, I think Jacob Elordi might honestly be too tall. You know, he's like beyond sample size on the other way. I'm stunned to hear you say that. Not for me. But in terms of, listen, men are finally learning what it is to get dressed. Justin, the sample sizes are made for one exact body type that is like basically yours, which is really annoying. It's definitely not. If you're not sample size, they don't know. It takes a lot of extra effort.

1:03:18Sean Fennessey:We were joking last night that I can usually pull off off the rack and in a way that is very satisfying for me. And we hate you.

1:03:24Wesley Morris:I impulse ordered so much this morning from the RealReal because you've changed your plans for Oscar night. It's okay. Oh, yeah. Well, we'll see.

1:03:31Sean Fennessey:No guarantee that I'll be able to do that in time. No spoilers for our outfits for an Oscar night.

1:03:37Amanda Dobbins:I cannot wait. Thank you. I was already going to watch, but you sold the ticket.

1:03:43Sean Fennessey:Quickly, precursors for Best Actor. Vognar Moore Globe, Chalamet Globe, Timothee Chalamet Critics Choice, Robert Armio Bafta, Michael B. Jordan Sag. Just simply put, your prediction for the winner of Best Actor at the Oscars. Amanda and I will hold ours till next week when we predict.

1:03:59Amanda Dobbins:Oh my God, Michael B.

1:04:01Sean Fennessey:Jordan's going to win an Oscar. Oh, that's so nice. That's great. I really think that could happen. And that is just crazy.

1:04:07Amanda Dobbins:I think Michael B. Jordan's going to win a MLS Cup.

1:04:11Sean Fennessey:He would be literally my fifth pick three months ago. Totally. I'd be like, he's in fifth place.

1:04:16Amanda Dobbins:If I'm voting, I don't know if I'm, I mean, although, you know, I've spent this time with this performance now and I'm just like, yeah, but listen, come on, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. No, but this, I mean, listen, I am saying that there's a world in which he'd win, in I am going to burst into tears because also young black men, right? I mean, just like, there's a lot of history that comes into these things at some point and you just really, my historiometer starts going a little bit nuts and I'm thinking like how old was Forrest Whitaker when he won? How old was Jamie Foxx when he won?

1:04:52Amanda Dobbins:How old was Denzel? I mean, they're all around the same age. Denzel's the rare, he got one very early for glory. Oh wait, I'm sorry, I was thinking about Malcolm X, sorry. For best actor. For best actor. Just those two guys. And Poitier, Sidney Poitier would have been 32? They're all like 35. I mean, Jordan is what, 35? They're all, Jamie Foxx, Forrest Whitaker, Sidney Poitier. I think Forrest Whitaker was older.

1:05:22Sean Fennessey:I think he was in his like mid-40s when he won for Last King of Scotland.

1:05:26Amanda Dobbins:Okay, we can look that up. That's probably true. That's probably true.

1:05:29Sean Fennessey:And Mahershala for supporting, he was in his 40s when he won both of those.

1:05:33Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, but supporting, that's anybody can win. But it's more like best actor because what, I mean, if Michael B. Jordan wins, what are we at? Four? Four black actors who've won best actor. Four black men who've won best actor?

1:05:47Amanda Dobbins:So that's... It could happen.

1:05:48Sean Fennessey:It could not happen. It's five. I'll tell you what.

1:05:50Amanda Dobbins:Four winners, right?

1:05:51Sean Fennessey:I'm also not writing off Timothee Chalamet.

1:05:53Amanda Dobbins:No, but well, can you talk to me about the resistance? Is there resistance to this movie?

1:05:58Sean Fennessey:I don't think, well, you know, Well, one, the movie. Not in this seat. We both love the movie. You like the movie too. Yeah, I really, really love it. I think one, the movie had a smear campaign against it. Obviously, there was a dramatic story written about the Safdies that I think has definitely influenced the campaign somewhat. I think also more specifically in this case. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But more specifically, I think it's the whiplash of the Timothee Chalamet campaigning for the movie's box office success. Right. and the swaggery style that he was bringing to that campaign to the pivot to I'm awards campaigning.

1:06:34Sean Fennessey:And now you can say it, Sean.

1:06:36Amanda Dobbins:I was black over here and I'm white over here. And I apologize, everybody.

1:06:43Sean Fennessey:But now if I were him, I would not have done anything different. He made that movie a massive success. We were talking about it last night. This was the final step in him elevating himself over basically all of his peers as the standalone movie star of his generation. and it worked for the movie, he may be paying the price for it right now. There is also just a little bit of the,

1:07:04Wesley Morris:I don't like this character. I don't endorse this character's actions and how those things overlap and then how someone walks out of a movie and what their review is. And I think, you know, we three, well, I won't speak for you. I don't endorse many of this person's actions, but I'm also taken in by him, you know, like understand it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, Marty, the character.

1:07:30Amanda Dobbins:Oh, no, he's an asshole. There's no, there's no, that's, I mean, I don't know. Also, I'm, I'm breathing air. Yeah. Like I feel like,

1:07:38Wesley Morris:but there are many people who walked out of that movie and I, and I found younger viewers who were like, yeah, no, like I don't want to spend time with this person. I don't like him. I don't like him. Yeah. And so I think that sometimes when people are voting the same way, They vote for Koda because like that made me feel something. Maybe this. I don't know. I can't really deal with it. But isn't this. It's a good point. Isn't this. I can deal with it.

1:08:00Amanda Dobbins:Like an aspect of the difference between the Academy and like 1994 and the Academy now, which is like in 1994, Timothee Chalamet might not even gotten nominated because the performance was so difficult. And or the character is so difficult. The performance is great. versus now where you've got them. In 94, the Academy would have been much more like American born versus now we're like, what did you say? It's 60-40?

1:08:36Sean Fennessey:Non-American, American? Oh, in the Academy? Yeah, it's in that range, yeah. I just feel like other people's cinemas

1:08:43Amanda Dobbins:have a much higher tolerance for the Marty Mousers French people love that shit, yeah. So I don't know. I just feel like everybody else is not as like for Thursday.

1:08:56Sean Fennessey:That's what I was going to say is the same case that you can make for Wagner Mora is the case you can make for Sheldon. Right. Which is like, this is a movie that the international voters are not going to be like, oh, this isn't for me. You know, it's not. That being said, it is a very American story.

1:09:09Amanda Dobbins:Also, a Nora won last year. I don't know. I feel like I feel like he's still likely to win. But there's something about there was something about I know that you're also it's important to remember what you've already said, which is like, what is it? You said one percent overlap, five percent overlap.

1:09:27Sean Fennessey:I don't know what the total number is, but I think it's less than five percent of SAG as Academy voting members.

1:09:32Amanda Dobbins:But I do, for whatever, to the extent that, like, whoever was aware of what happened last night and got to watch it and hear what happened in the room. Wouldn't you love, wouldn't you love a little bit of that? A lot of people would. Yeah.

1:09:47Sean Fennessey:I think that was a big moment for the race. And voting is open until Friday.

1:09:50Amanda Dobbins:Yeah. It just felt like, I mean, again, every time, I don't know what is going on with me and Michael B. Turner right now, but, like, just, like, he's making me cry. like I just feel like and sometimes you know the other thing about him as an actor is he's so recessive right there are there are so many movies you watch him in and you're like come on buddy like

1:10:13Sean Fennessey:give it to me I can take it as a star though he does remind me a little bit of Leo in so far as he's like kind of out of the limelight doesn't really do a lot doesn't give a ton of interviews kind of just like sticks to his projects and does his thing he's not like a massive celebrity in the same way that somebody like Chalamet right now feels like a force of nature culturally.

1:10:35Amanda Dobbins:Right. Right.

1:10:35Sean Fennessey:There is a distinction there. And I wonder if maybe there's something considered like more honorable about that for MBJ. I also think like there's I think one thing that might be working against him here is

1:10:48Amanda Dobbins:he is still pound for pound a bigger star than Timothee Chalamet. You know what I mean?

1:10:54Sean Fennessey:Like when it comes to more bigger movies. Right.

1:10:57Amanda Dobbins:And some of those movies people went to because It's close. It's close. The Dune movie's kind of leveled the playing field there. I'm not, I retract that statement. But I mean, he is at least inarguably a movie star, right? Totally. And the thing about, the thing that was so exciting about Sinners was, you know, I mean, when Van and Bill and I talked about that show on the Rewatchables, the question, the who won the movie question, like, hands down, who won the movie was Ryan Coogler. Yeah. the reason I went back to the performance was I wanted to know what I had missed. I do this, the acting thing I do every year.

1:11:36Amanda Dobbins:I like find a bunch of things I like about performances. I didn't, I didn't include him. And I just was like, I, I'm very curious to see what is when he, once he got nominated, I was like, okay, I really, I just want to see what I missed. Not because the Academy was right but just because I was so happy for him.

1:12:01Sean Fennessey:And... Well, there's something off the bat which is that he's playing twins and so that is he's giving two performances.

1:12:07Amanda Dobbins:But there's the accent. The twins are as it turns out not as mutually discernible as maybe a different actor would have made them.

1:12:20Sean Fennessey:I agree but I do think he is putting a character in both of those movies. men that you can tell in the performance style. What I was about to say is... Vocal intonation, the posture, they're different.

1:12:28Amanda Dobbins:They are different, but it is so subtle, but it is so satisfying to leave that movie and be able to tell Smoke from Stack because Michael B. Jordan figured out what the difference was between these two guys.

1:12:41Sean Fennessey:I agree, and I think a win like this kind of like pulls out that conversation. It lets you say like, okay, what is good about this performance? And then actually talk about it in a nuts and bolts way that I think is interesting. And we'll see what happens. if you're going with MBJ. Male actor in a supporting role. Sean Penn won again. He did not show up again.

1:12:59Amanda Dobbins:Where did this come from?

1:13:02Wesley Morris:It's Los Angeles. I've been telling you. It's a weird town.

1:13:05Amanda Dobbins:I've been telling you. Yeah. I mean, of all the things you, where are your, I mean, look, this is a great performance, but let's just talk about that. Like, I don't know. It just,

1:13:15Wesley Morris:I mean, I agree with you.

1:13:17Amanda Dobbins:Of these five guys,

1:13:22Sean Fennessey:to your least favorite? Oh, no. At SAG?

1:13:25Amanda Dobbins:I'm sitting here being like, actually, you know what?

1:13:29Sean Fennessey:But, I mean... At SAG it was Benicio, Jacob Elordi, Miles Caton, and Delroy Lindo were the other nominees. Sean Penn won a BAFTA. Everybody was like, oh my goodness. And now this feels like confirmation that he's going to win. However,

1:13:41Amanda Dobbins:I think... Stellan Skarsgård. Yeah, he's still in the mix. Stellan Skarsgård. There's no way he's losing this Oscar.

1:13:46Sean Fennessey:I do think that Sean Penn is basically trying to throw it. He already has two. He is not going to any events that he doesn't have to. He did not give a speech last night. He did not give a speech at BAFTA.

1:13:57Amanda Dobbins:Was he there last night?

1:13:58Sean Fennessey:He was not there.

1:13:59Wesley Morris:He was at the Golden Globes.

1:14:01Sean Fennessey:He was the only winner who did not give a speech. He was at the Golden Globes, but he didn't win. And this has been a weird race, too. Skarsgård won the Globe and the LA Film Critics Circle. Illordi won the CCAs. Benicio won the New York Film Critics Circle. Delroy Lindo hasn't won anything, but he did give the last speech of the night last night for best ensemble. I was just about to say,

1:14:21Amanda Dobbins:yeah. And he's nominated and he's the kind of person who wins surprise Academy

1:14:26Sean Fennessey:awards.

1:14:27Amanda Dobbins:Well, can I tell you my crazy? Yeah. Like I'm going to sit forward.

1:14:31Sean Fennessey:Sorry.

1:14:32Amanda Dobbins:Lean in. I'm usually going to, I usually have an Oscar dream. Oh, okay.

1:14:36Sean Fennessey:Like a dream the night before or one that you hold onto for a couple nights

1:14:39Amanda Dobbins:before the Oscars. I have a dream. They never come true. I had a dream that Sean Penn was going to get nominated for something that he didn't get nominated for. like this is like a weird it was like I'm not rooting for Sean Pennish because it was a dream um oh Carlito's Way this was like when I was in college I had a Carlito's Way dream and it didn't happen um I think there's a world because you I mean it's just worth remembering that Sinners has is it how many 14 16 16 nominations I just think there's a world where like there's a world where a Kana wins many of them.

1:15:20Sean Fennessey:I think so, yeah. We're going to know probably pretty early in the night if there's a weird Sinners Wins 9 Academy Awards thing happening because Wonmi Masako could win.

1:15:32Amanda Dobbins:And that could still happen.

1:15:34Sean Fennessey:It could still happen. And if Delroy Lindo wins, then I'm going to be like,

1:15:38Wesley Morris:this is happening?

1:15:40Sean Fennessey:Yeah. That will show an incredible sign of strength. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think so. I think Sean Penn and Skarsgård are stronger in this race significantly, personally.

1:15:49Amanda Dobbins:Being prepared for the possibility that everything just gets thrown out the window. Yeah.

1:15:55Sean Fennessey:With this movie. It's just really funny that he just didn't go. Presumably just because he was like, I don't want to. Yeah. Also, he'd never won SAG before, which is interesting. He's a two-time Academy Award winner who'd never won a SAG prize. Let's talk about female actor in a supporting role. Amy Madigan won.

1:16:11Wesley Morris:Yes.

1:16:11Sean Fennessey:and if Michael B. Jordan had not won she easily would have given the best speech of the night she was incredibly charming

1:16:17Amanda Dobbins:it was a wonderful speech

1:16:18Wesley Morris:she ran up to the stage doing the weapons kids arms yes which is amazing she was the one who remarked upon

1:16:26Sean Fennessey:the statuette and the way that it's anatomy and it's relationship to Ken when she was playing with her Barbies as a kid she was just bringing a lot of like Chicago gal born in the 20th century you know like really talked a lot about her union and what SAG means to her and her being a union person. And she's very similar to Delroy Lindo. You know? Yeah. Just like in the fabric of Hollywood.

1:16:49Amanda Dobbins:A person who's been around for a long time and has never won anything.

1:16:52Sean Fennessey:Yes. And everybody likes her and everybody thinks she's good at what she does. Yeah. And she's been given a very showy part and a villain. And villains win a lot in supporting categories. And she's a really great villain. That's a very memorable character.

1:17:03Amanda Dobbins:I just, you know, part of me is just mad that Austin Abrams will get to him. completely been overshadowed by how good she is in this movie.

1:17:12Sean Fennessey:He will be the star of Zack Greger's next movie, the Resident Evil movie, Austin Abrams.

1:17:16Amanda Dobbins:Oh, really? Yeah. Okay.

1:17:20Amanda Dobbins:Anyway, I'm happy for her. I think this race is still a crapshoot.

1:17:25Wesley Morris:I do as well. I think she's too American. I don't think the international voters care about Field of Dreams. Well, you know, here's a - I really don't. Because when you see her, don't you see her giving the speech at the PTA meeting? I still do.

1:17:39Amanda Dobbins:that's the funny thing that you think about. You know, I've been like keeping track. Oh, here's a great little,

1:17:44Sean Fennessey:is it about catcher in the rye? What is it? What is the book that she's talking about? That's being banned. I think it's, I think it's catcher in the rye.

1:17:49Amanda Dobbins:Um, those were the days. I know. Um,

1:17:57Amanda Dobbins:I'm keeping track of people who slide in movies, movie slide. What do you mean by that? Like, there's a moment where she comes out of that, that, that hearing and fill the dreams or that, you know, that, that, I don't even know what's happening there. But I have a very clear memory of her like blasting out of that door and sliding across the hallway. I'm like, Amy Madigan, I am proud to say you've made the sliding motion pictures list. So anybody who's got some slides, all the obvious people have been accounted for, but just if you've got some like side door sliders, let me know.

1:18:30Sean Fennessey:That's a good one. Interesting data point. If Amy Madigan wins, she would become the ninth person to win best supporting actress as her film's sole nomination. Can you think of anyone? Amanda's looking at the list. Can you think of anyone for whom that applies? This goes back to 1941. Nine times this has happened.

1:18:51Amanda Dobbins:Mira Sorvino? No. Was he nominated for screenplay?

1:18:54Sean Fennessey:I think screenplay was nominated, yes, for Mighty Effort 90.

1:18:56Amanda Dobbins:This is for the winner,

1:18:57Sean Fennessey:right? For the winner. Oh man, I love this question. These are great games. This is my calling.

1:19:03Wesley Morris:You got to stop putting it in the doc so that I can play along. I know.

1:19:06Sean Fennessey:I know um hold on I gave you the trial of Chicago 7-1 that was that was a good trivia question yeah oof you're gonna get 10 seconds here for the sake of podcasting

1:19:17Amanda Dobbins:oh no that's wrong too

1:19:19Sean Fennessey:there's one very very famous one in the last 30 years

1:19:23Wesley Morris:wait did you just you he said Marissa Tomei didn't he no he didn't oh sorry no what did you say

1:19:29Amanda Dobbins:that's a great one uh I don't even know what I said but it was wrong oh you said Mira Sorvino

1:19:35Wesley Morris:oh Mira Sorvino okay

1:19:36Sean Fennessey:A different Italian-American actress. I apologize.

1:19:40Amanda Dobbins:Marissa Tomei is great.

1:19:42Sean Fennessey:Okay, give me a year. I'll give you a recent one. 2008. This one's funny. Same filmmaker as Mighty Aphrodite.

1:19:54Amanda Dobbins:Penelope Cruz? Correct. Huh.

1:19:56Sean Fennessey:Okay. Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Okay. In order, in history. Mary Astor won in 41 for The Great Lie. Okay. Claire Trevor won for Key Largo in 1948.

1:20:05Amanda Dobbins:that's the only nomination that Key Largo got

1:20:08Sean Fennessey:that was my thought too

1:20:09Amanda Dobbins:that was how heavy the hitters were yes

1:20:11Sean Fennessey:Margaret Rutherford won for the VIPs in 63 a Burton and Taylor joint

1:20:16Amanda Dobbins:it's a very bad movie

1:20:17Sean Fennessey:Goldie Hawn won for Cactus Flower oh sure Gene Sax's adaptation of Neil Simon's Cactus Flower Linda Hunt won for the Year of Living Dangerously

1:20:25Amanda Dobbins:wait that was the only nomination for the movie because I thought about her okay

1:20:28Sean Fennessey:I did not know that that was the only nomination Merce Tome okay and Angelina Jolie for Girl Interrupted and then Penelope Cruz of course in 2008. So anyway, this doesn't happen that often. It's extremely unusual, but it has, it does have some precedent if she does win. Wouldn't Mew Misaku still feel like that's in play? Also, Inga Ibsdott or Lilius and your girl Rachel Kemp, aka Elle Fanning, were not nominated at SAG. So they are also in the mix here. This is a very, and Tiana Taylor was the prohibitive favorite for a couple of months.

1:20:59Amanda Dobbins:Wait, I'm sorry. Hold the phone. We had this, we just wasted all this time doing this speculating and we've not just said Tiana Taylor's probably going to win? I don't know. She lost BAFTA and she lost this, right? Yeah, but they don't understand what this is. They don't know. But the academy is more international. Look, energy is energy. You know, these BAFTA voters, they've faked it. They left the racism in the show. They had a chance to take it out.

1:21:25Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

1:21:25Amanda Dobbins:Like, nah. I think Tiana's good. Who do you think?

1:21:28Sean Fennessey:Well, you know what?

1:21:29Amanda Dobbins:Don't spoil your business. Well, I don't have to decide yet.

1:21:31Wesley Morris:I have 10 days. I feel like... Or nine days.

1:21:33Amanda Dobbins:I feel like Tiana Taylor is going to win. And I mean, if she loses to Amy Madigan, I'll be very fine with that.

1:21:42Sean Fennessey:Okay. The last award that was not shown on the teleguest for some godforsaken reason was a stunt ensemble in a motion picture, which went to Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning. A good win. The stunt work in that movie is amazing.

1:21:54Amanda Dobbins:Who are the other nominees?

1:21:56Sean Fennessey:I don't remember. Before we move on from the actor awards, I wanted to talk about Harrison Ford.

1:22:02Amanda Dobbins:Oh, yeah. Yeah.

1:22:03Sean Fennessey:Because Harrison Ford won the Lifetime Achievement Award last night. Harrison Ford, a man who is extremely important to the three of us.

1:22:10Wesley Morris:And American movies.

1:22:12Sean Fennessey:Yes. And movies. And America, to Wesley's point about what shapes America and how we see ourselves.

1:22:17Amanda Dobbins:I mean, think of it. Does this man have a career? The same career that gives him a Lifetime Achievement Award? No. No! He does not.

1:22:27Sean Fennessey:You know, I think of him in a similar way to the way that I think of Michael B. Jordan. and that he was always a very smart manager of the kinds of parts that he took.

1:22:39Amanda Dobbins:Harrison Ford is the much better analogy for Michael B. Jordan. They're very similar to me.

1:22:43Sean Fennessey:Yes. You know, we're like Harrison Ford has limited range. It's Harrison Ford. He's a great star. He's a very good actor. And in the right hands can be a -

1:22:51Amanda Dobbins:Not a great line reader, but like with the right director can get, Mike Nichols understood. Like Nichols was his Kugler to me.

1:23:00Sean Fennessey:Wow. That's an interesting, I mean, you could make the case that George Lucas really understood Harrison Ford better than anybody and put him in a position to succeed more than anybody. But those are his best performances. I just said, I just saw the last trilogy of Star Wars movies with my daughter over the weekend. And the performances he's giving in The Force Awakens and in the God Forsaken, The Rise of Skywalker are beautiful. And it's like, it's an actor who's really figured out his instrument. That's a word that you hear all the time from actors. And he really has figured something out. Last night, I had tears in my eyes watching him give his speech.

1:23:28Sean Fennessey:You and I, the three of us, are like nattering through the whole show, chit-chatting. We're pausing all the time. It took four hours to get through a two and a half hour show. When Harrison Ford took the stage after Woody Harrelson introduced him, I was just locked in by his gravitas.

1:23:46Amanda Dobbins:What did you say? Shouts to Woody Harrelson's, I don't know what that was, wedding toast of an introduction. Yeah, well, you know, they were paired in a way.

1:23:56Wesley Morris:You had the silliness. And then Harrison Ford's surprisingly emotional speech. Yes, he was in tears. And talking not just about his career, but also like what acting can mean to the world. And, you know, he talked about like, it didn't happen for me right away. And I've appreciated the support of everyone in this room. It was really very lovely. A couple of great jokes, including the kicker, which was, this is encouraging.

1:24:26Sean Fennessey:He also said he was the halfway point of his career.

1:24:29Wesley Morris:You know, so it's still like self-aware and that kind of and gruff somehow, like in a traditional Harrison Ford way, while still being like way more sincere than I, you know, associate with his work generally. It was. No, I loved it.

1:24:45Amanda Dobbins:And you know, the funny thing about it, he's got one of those, you know, there's a kind of pitcher. I mean, even with the pitch clock now, there's a kind of pitcher who's still kind of like.

1:24:58Wesley Morris:Yeah.

1:24:58Sean Fennessey:Yeah. The Steve Traxel burning down the clock. He was on his own pace. Did I get a text? It felt like sitting with your grandfather telling a long story, but in a nice way. I love that.

1:25:10Amanda Dobbins:I love the silence. you know there's you know there's these pauses where he's just kind of like that was that was a good harrison ford comes a thought that's how he is as an actor though

1:25:23Sean Fennessey:you know he really is he's not a fast-paced dialogue machine he's somebody who cuts who

1:25:30Amanda Dobbins:leans into silences but this is the thing about him in the star wars movies which is it's the opposite it is right like he understands that he's also in a howard hawks movie yeah right That's true. And the thing that's exciting about the transition, I would love to see if anybody wanted to make a movie about things like this. Give Michael B. Jordan one of those rat-a-tat-tat scripts and see if he could do it. Well, he's making the Thomas Crown Affair right now. But that's not rat-a-tat-tat. That's like unbutton another button, please.

1:26:01Wesley Morris:It could be.

1:26:02Sean Fennessey:It could be.

1:26:03Wesley Morris:But I enjoy that style of film. Who's the lady in that movie, by the way?

1:26:09Sean Fennessey:it was going to be

1:26:13Wesley Morris:Taylor Russell

1:26:14Sean Fennessey:Taylor Russell and now is it Adria Arjona and Adria Arjona is the lead

1:26:19Amanda Dobbins:who's that

1:26:20Wesley Morris:very you need to get involved with that

1:26:25Amanda Dobbins:you know who she is oh her she was a hitman yeah yeah yeah alright I can see that I can see that she has a lot of

1:26:33Sean Fennessey:strong qualities she does

1:26:35Amanda Dobbins:she does I can definitely I buy that. I buy that. Okay. Yeah, Harrison Ford. We don't get a Harrison Ford under this. And he doesn't have an Oscar.

1:26:46Sean Fennessey:He has one Oscar nomination for Witness and that's it. And what the fuck?

1:26:51Amanda Dobbins:Well, I mean, okay, stop. To me. What is missing from this? Because this is the thing about him and Michael B. Jordan. There's only one other Harrison Ford performance I can think of that probably should have been nominated. and I'm surprised that it wasn't. Because it was low-hanging fruit. It was the... It was that... Mosquito Coast? No.

1:27:16Sean Fennessey:That's one that should have been nominated because it's very different for him. Very different energy for him.

1:27:20Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, but it was too different. That is a more fast-talking part. I've got to say about the line readings in Mosquito Coast. Too fast. A little too fast. I like that.

1:27:28Sean Fennessey:I think that's true to that character. That movie tells us a lot about where we are in the world right now.

1:27:31Amanda Dobbins:Also, that was a hard year for a person like that to get into the lineup.

1:27:34Sean Fennessey:It was. Okay, so my case for this,

1:27:38Amanda Dobbins:for Mosquito Coast?

1:27:40Sean Fennessey:No, no, no. It's very simple. That there was an opportunity to give him this win for Star Wars The Force Awakens. This is what I'm saying. This was the only other

1:27:48Amanda Dobbins:this was the only other performance I can think of. Excuse me.

1:27:51Wesley Morris:Excuse me. They nominated every single actress in Working Girl. They can't find one supporting actor for your boy.

1:27:57Amanda Dobbins:That's fair.

1:27:58Sean Fennessey:That's also fair.

1:27:59Amanda Dobbins:I think there was some category confusion about where he went.

1:28:03Sean Fennessey:This to me doesn't totally make sense. And maybe it's because he doesn't want to campaign or whatever, but Stallone was nominated for Creed that year. And it's the same performance. And Ford is better in my opinion. Ford is better. Give it up. That is the thing. He's better. Of course, Mark Rylance went on to win for Bridge of Spies, so it's moot. But if Harrison Ford was there and we looked at it and we were like, Harrison Ford is 74 years old, are we really not going to give him an Academy Award before he dies? And now he's going to get some honorary award and it's going to be like whatever it is in the next five years.

1:28:31Sean Fennessey:But it doesn't count. And I think you can go through the list. I think Working Girl is a good case. you know.

1:28:36Amanda Dobbins:Working Girl, it's just tricky. He falls between the cracks of the two categories,

1:28:40Sean Fennessey:I think. If it were, if this, if it were 2026 and Blade Runner came out, he would have been nominated for Rick Deckard. That's, things are different now where movies like that get more respect than they got back then.

1:28:50Amanda Dobbins:I can see that.

1:28:51Sean Fennessey:And The Fugitive.

1:28:52Amanda Dobbins:Oh, The Fugitive. Oh, I forgot about The Fugitive. That's crazy. That's fine. But like, Tommy Lee Jones wins. No, no, no, no, no. 1993. Remember, like, Daniel Day-Lewis, Anthony Hopkins.

1:29:05Sean Fennessey:this is a good poll this is like

1:29:09Amanda Dobbins:who else 93 Daniel Day-Lewis Anthony Hopkins very famous win here

1:29:14Sean Fennessey:the first of Tom Hanks Tom Hanks for Philadelphia

1:29:18Wesley Morris:that's Schindler's list yes

1:29:20Sean Fennessey:Liam Neeson

1:29:22Amanda Dobbins:and

1:29:26L L

1:29:28Amanda Dobbins:it begins with an L yeah this is a good

1:29:31Sean Fennessey:nomination I have Lawrence Fishburne let's love that oh let's love that to do with it yes yes yes yes

1:29:38Amanda Dobbins:okay

1:29:38Sean Fennessey:obviously Tom Hanks wins so yeah he didn't get in I mean that I kind of get that it's a tough battle I kind of get that it's a really tough battle

1:29:44Amanda Dobbins:I understand

1:29:45Sean Fennessey:you know who I would take out out of that

1:29:46Amanda Dobbins:almost certainly six

1:29:47Sean Fennessey:Daniel Day-Lewis yeah in the name of the father I like it

1:29:52Amanda Dobbins:Irishman myself my friend Charlie used to say in the name of the father

1:29:58Sean Fennessey:okay shout out to Harrison Ford you're the best well let's take a quick break and then we're going to do the alternative academy awards This episode is brought to you by Warby Parker. Buying glasses can be so tricky. I myself, even though I'm not wearing them right now, am a glasses wearer. I have had to buy glasses many times in the past. What style do you choose? Gosh, it sure seems expensive. This is why Warby Parker is great. Their virtual try-on is a total game changer. And when it comes to price, Warby Parker gives you quality and better looking prescription eyewear at a fraction of the going price.

1:30:28Sean Fennessey:Our listeners get 15 % off plus free shipping when they buy two or more pairs of prescription glasses at warbyparker.com slash big picture. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Okay, we're back. The Alternative Oscars. This is the sixth time that we've done this. You were not here last year. And that was just a painful... I was here. Thank you. Thank you for listening. The rules very quickly. There are not very many rules for this award show.

1:30:57Amanda Dobbins:Although you did get new when I, something I hadn't considered before when I put some stuff in there. Okay, so. But you should say this because I think it's worth saying.

1:31:06Sean Fennessey:No Oscar nominees are represented here. So if an actor or a writer or a director has been nominated for an Academy Award, they cannot be represented here. You're out. There are six nominees per category as per, I guess, the Critics' Choice Awards. I don't know. It just makes it easier to say more names and celebrate more stuff. these are eight categories that we believe the Academy Awards should add and then some of your classical categories that we will talk through we used to do nine and one of those was Best Casting and the Academy Awards added Best Casting and we're so thank you very much Academy Awards we also have Best Stunt in this award show and in two years I think it's two years the Academy will also add that you do have a nomination for a new addition to our award slate.

1:31:57Sean Fennessey:So we'll talk about that when we get there. Okay. A little surprise, a little Amanda surprise. Okay. How are you guys feeling? You feel ready for this?

1:32:06Amanda Dobbins:I feel great.

1:32:06Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

1:32:06Amanda Dobbins:I feel great.

1:32:07Sean Fennessey:One thing that we talked about last night is I try to not have too many Oscar-represented films throughout this list. Now, in some cases, it's hard because you feel like something got really snubbed.

1:32:18Amanda Dobbins:I usually try to use this as a rectifier, but that's probably the wrong way to be thinking.

1:32:22Sean Fennessey:No, I think a good balance between these movies never had a chance at an Oscar and these movies were close, but they didn't quite make it. And so we're going to try to find a blend between the two. Did you enjoy this exercise this year, both of you guys?

1:32:37Amanda Dobbins:Well, things are definitely changing. And you can see it just in terms of like once I got into the document, I was like, I don't have very little to add that isn't like fun or surprising. I got a couple in there, but like very little because you guys covered it very well. But also just the the diminishment of the pool. Right. It's clearly it's not quite everybody who should have been nominated was nominated for an Academy Award, but it's not so far away from that the way it once we if we did this, you know what a great exercise would have been or like can be done in the future. Let's just pretend it's like 1998.

1:33:23Amanda Dobbins:and then we play this game. What do you get with these categories? Now, would we have said,

1:33:27Sean Fennessey:here's what we think should have been nominated, including nominated films?

1:33:31Amanda Dobbins:No, just like, let's just, let's just, what's not, what has not been nominated, and what, how would these categories fill out, and what would be in them, right?

1:33:41Sean Fennessey:I feel like there was just a lot more worthy contenders. You would need to double it to feel good about yourself.

1:33:45Amanda Dobbins:Like, what are we even doing here? But this is like, I don't know. I don't think anything's been left out. If we didn't, unless it was absolutely loathed by. Do you attribute that to the fact that the Oscars are getting closer to our taste or just that there are less good things? That's a great question. I think it's the Polish, we're talking about a quantity problem. There's less. they're also I think that you know I have deduced and I don't know we've never talked about this and I've never heard you guys I've never caught you guys saying this or thinking it through you might also accept it as almost axiomatic at this point but Cannes is the most important film festival in the world right now

1:34:37Sean Fennessey:and

1:34:39Amanda Dobbins:so the alignment of that festival and the people who tend to well everybody goes but in terms of like where that where can is a lot of that energy has sort of been drawn into the academy right so it isn't it is the sort of the parameters of taste have changed for the voting body or its expression of its taste has changed but I also think that If we're talking about great movies, and I think now more than ever with the change in the Academy membership, great movie making is maybe the most important. I know what you mean, and I think I agree with you. Than it used to be.

1:35:33Sean Fennessey:I think because the Hollywood slates have been hollowed out in terms of the kind of movies we historically define as Oscar movies.

1:35:40Amanda Dobbins:So there's not even an argument you can make to the contrary.

1:35:42Sean Fennessey:But we talked about this when Best Picture was announced that it's a nice little potpourri of all the relevant premier places. You had Begonia and Frankenstein in Venice. You had F1 and One Battle in Sinners Nowhere. You had Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent at Cannes. You had Train Dreams at Sundance. You had Marty Supreme at the New York Film Festival. And you had Hamnet at Telluride. So you had this like international film festivals, American film festivals, blockbusters, awards movies that don't have a festival premiere. So there's still, this just feels like a very robust and coherent award slate to me this year.

1:36:23Sean Fennessey:And obviously these two movies have emerged as behemoths, but it did make this exercise for me a little more challenging. In the past, I have found it to be much easier, even during COVID, to be like, nobody was ever thinking about this movie for the Oscars, but I think it's great.

1:36:37Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:36:39Sean Fennessey:You know, my top five for the year is like a lot of Oscar movies. Right. So that doesn't always happen.

1:36:44Amanda Dobbins:It is a little disorienting when you're kind of like your taste is for years and years and years and years has been not opposed to the Academy because, you know, the thing that I love that I have loved my whole life about the Academy Awards is it's just another taste zone that speaks to and appeals to me. but now that I could make a 10 best list and you know six of those movies could wind up as best picture nominees is really telling me that I have not changed this voting body has changed I wonder

1:37:19Wesley Morris:or is it just that we're old

1:37:21Sean Fennessey:this is like a Amanda and I are on an elder millennial journey together as we go into the middle of our life where we getting older we are establishmentarian now like we're like one battle should win and it's like so you're rooting for like the leading contender from a major studio

1:37:38Amanda Dobbins:feels yucky it's just weird that's not that's not your change that's an industrial concern and the like the how do I put this but how would that be different

1:37:49Sean Fennessey:from like Schindler's List being the favorite in 1993 I mean listen

1:37:56Amanda Dobbins:with all due respect to our lord and savior Steven Spielberg if it's 1993

1:38:02Wesley Morris:It's Jurassic Park. Yes.

1:38:05Amanda Dobbins:Yes. Although, interestingly, Amanda, this is an intro. But think about the dichotomy that we're about to talk about. Right. Yeah. Like this man made, I mean, had, I mean, maybe the greatest year any director, any American director has ever had in 1993. But if I'm making my list, those five Best Picture nominees, maybe one of them is on my 10 Best List. that's a good exercise that we don't have time for you know what I mean like I do think that I it's just different now there's no world in which I'm not putting one battle after another or Sinners or Sentimental Value or Marty Supreme I'm with you

1:38:49Sean Fennessey:I feel the same way or Secret Agent

1:38:50Amanda Dobbins:yeah do you know what I mean

1:38:51Sean Fennessey:like there's six of my top seven favorite movies of the year are nominated for Best Picture that's fucking weird it's just not

1:38:55Amanda Dobbins:it just means that they're the like no

1:38:59Sean Fennessey:five of my top seven

1:39:00Amanda Dobbins:I'm not that much of a normie. I just think that the pool has changed. The studios are much more interested in having just one thing to take to the Academy Awards as opposed to figuring out which of our little girls is going to go to the prom. I think that's what happened to weapons in a weird way.

1:39:27Sean Fennessey:How was it?

1:39:28Wesley Morris:Great. Three years? Three years. I went as a sophomore as well. What's up, Jim Hobart? I know you're watching.

1:39:33Amanda Dobbins:Wow, that's huge.

1:39:34Wesley Morris:Yeah.

1:39:34Amanda Dobbins:Jim Hobart is really watching?

1:39:36Wesley Morris:Yeah, he was like my best friend. We're still in touch. Yeah. And so he took me when I was a sophomore.

1:39:41Sean Fennessey:I think they meet him at your wedding. Yeah.

1:39:45Wesley Morris:Isn't that nice?

1:39:46Sean Fennessey:Hi, Jim.

1:39:46Amanda Dobbins:Yeah. That's nice.

1:39:51Amanda Dobbins:I just don't, I think that things are different. And I'll have to really think about how to articulate what I feel is a real difference. But I definitely think you saw it last year where every single one of those movies would have been a different kind of movie, including a Nora, which would never have gotten anywhere near the best picture Oscar, but would have been like in a five picture year, the fifth movie.

1:40:18Sean Fennessey:Yes. And we did talk about that a lot last year. We were like, this is Bananastown, that this is what the Academy Awards is now. I like a Nora a lot. But I'm like, since when is this the best picture?

1:40:27Amanda Dobbins:But that would have been, like, let's just sort of setting aside how anybody actually feels about these movies. That would have been the critics' favorite movie. Absolutely. And it would have gotten no Best Picture nomination. Totally. Yes. And everybody would have been like, see, the Academy sucks.

1:40:41Wesley Morris:Became an all-star Baker guy with a Best Original Screenplay nomination. That's it. Even winning the Palm and being accepted at Cannes. All the more reason. And people would be like, no, that's French. All the more reason. Yeah, good luck. Big in France. Yeah.

1:40:53Amanda Dobbins:I mean, David Cronenberg, like there's a number of directors who've really missed their chance with this like constriction.

1:41:00Sean Fennessey:But they built up kind of cinephilia over years that is leading us to this.

1:41:04Amanda Dobbins:Oh, that's interesting. David Cronenberg crawled so I could watch Sean Baker. I mean, so Sean Baker could for sure.

1:41:10Sean Fennessey:For people like that who were like, I'm cutting edge and I'm putting things that make you uncomfortable in front of you. But I also find containers to make it contemporarily enjoyable. One Battle and Sinners are the same thing, you know? A lot of sex and sinners. A lot of obscure, fascistic violence in one battle. And sex. And sex. Those things are all... Anyway, let's get into the categories. We all chipped in on each category. The first category that we always talk about is best first feature. I strongly feel this should be at the Academy Awards. Really? Yes. This, to me, could do so much more work than what the shorts do.

1:41:50Sean Fennessey:I know that there are a lot of defenders of the shorts. I know that people love the shorts. I'm not here to get those emails. I don't have strong enough feelings about it. We've never cared about the shorts.

1:41:58Wesley Morris:It should be a separate program. And I think first feature is a better way to bring in what the shorts are trying to do. And less easier to buy. I mean, the shorts are just like, I don't know. Did you find a fancy rich person or Netflix to program your short? It's silly.

1:42:17Amanda Dobbins:I understand that. I have no argument against it. and it's very sound.

1:42:21Wesley Morris:Or the New Yorker. What the hell? Once again, what guys? Come on.

1:42:23Amanda Dobbins:They win an Oscars. You won,

1:42:24Wesley Morris:but enough. Okay?

1:42:26Sean Fennessey:Wait, what? Wow. That is really?

1:42:29Wesley Morris:I just, every year. We have to support

1:42:31Sean Fennessey:our journalistic institutions, you know? Wesley works at the New York Times. I am a subscriber to both. I'm also paying. You're a nominee at the Academy Awards?

1:42:38Wesley Morris:Paying subscriber. That's true. You guys do it. But it's like, it is a little bit of a joke now. I log on and there are like three New Yorker shorts nominated for every year. But I mean,

1:42:48Amanda Dobbins:how about this? I'm not, I'm really truly neutral here, but like, what about the, the idea to your point about having this, you guys kind of just like seduced me into thinking about like a best first film. Yeah. Is this, by the way, are people talking about doing this? Is this on the table?

1:43:06Sean Fennessey:No, but I'm going to keep stamping my feet just like I did for casting. Okay.

1:43:10Amanda Dobbins:Yeah. I think that there is a place you now know you can go. if you're a New Yorker subscriber to see short filmmaking somewhat reliably. And I think that that is... There's some value in that. I'm not opposed to that.

1:43:27Wesley Morris:I will say the fact that these nominees are now available to watch on The New Yorker is... Huge. The fact that there are some shorts that are not available in any way... I mean, you can go to the movie theater. I agree. This is an issue. We have the internet. This is a... Make things available. This is a commercial award show.

1:43:43Amanda Dobbins:They do package them. You know, for years, I was reviewing the shorts. You can go to the theater. Yes, but I kind of like that experience. It's not in every city. It's a tricky thing.

1:43:53Sean Fennessey:I'm not trying to denigrate shorts. I just think that this is a better representation of emerging filmmakers in the marketplace because they've made a feature. I like this.

1:44:01Amanda Dobbins:Also, thinking about the number of people who could have an Academy Award right now. It would change. And that's one of the reasons

1:44:08Sean Fennessey:why I think maybe they won't do it is because maybe Chris Nolan wins for Memento so you don't feel as strongly that he needs to win for blah, blah, blah. So anyway, let's just do this category. Here's an omniscient.

1:44:20Wesley Morris:No, that presupposes. And at some point, we should do like a postmortem on the Oscar snubs episode. Following?

1:44:27Sean Fennessey:Would he have won for following? Following, not memento. Thank you. You're right. Following is his.

1:44:31Wesley Morris:And how you and Katie Rich especially feel that people can only have one Oscar.

1:44:38Sean Fennessey:No. What? That's not what I said. They were doing a lot of Oscar history. That's not what I said. What we were saying in those exercises that we were doing, which were that that clip taking off was the least surprising thing of all time. When I was sitting at home, it never reached me. Well, you can look at it afterwards. But the thing is, is that the Academy frequently on Instagram, there's a rare class of people that get more than one. And a lot of times when someone gets one, they're like, you're good. You got one. Now, sometimes you get a Denzel or John Ford and they're like Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn.

1:45:11Sean Fennessey:we got to keep giving you these things because you are in the elite class, but it's very rare. And so you use that as a way to say like, okay, we, if we could just get Pacino his Oscar in the seventies, we don't have to pretend like he's doing his best work in the nineties. Cause he's not, but in the seventies, he was the greatest actor on earth.

1:45:29Amanda Dobbins:And it also hurts him in this phase of his career too, because yes.

1:45:33Sean Fennessey:Yeah. A second one would have been better for the Irishman. That would have been for a son of a woman.

1:45:37Amanda Dobbins:A hundred percent. Anyway, I believe that. I believe that, but I, but I mean, let them have as many Oscars.

1:45:43Sean Fennessey:I agree.

1:45:43Amanda Dobbins:Of course I agree with that too. There are a lot of sound guys out there who are like, I'm coming for Sean. Yeah,

1:45:49Sean Fennessey:like Dennis Murin, the visual effects artist who has eight Academy Awards. Like some people win a lot and some people don't. Best first feature, Ava Victor for Sorry Baby, Carson Lund for Ephus, Harry Lighton for Pillian, Lawrence Lamont for One of Them Days, Alex Russell for Lurker, and Akinola Davies Jr. for My Father's Shadow. gut gut reaction who deserves this prize one of them days i love that movie so much i really did

1:46:18Amanda Dobbins:you add this or did you add what an achievement i i go no i was just saying there's there one of

1:46:25Wesley Morris:them days we'll be getting another award or i will walk out of this room so uh in the next category i'm gonna keep you right okay thank you yeah in the next category well then if you think that's the case now I don't want to give it to yeah so that's like again once again our bias over here just one Oscar for everybody spread the love I agree that is sort of the exercise of the alternative Oscars aka the big picks well let's talk about Pileon then I would like to talk about

1:46:49Amanda Dobbins:that is where I lean as well um I don't can I say something really controversial I don't like it another lord and savior situation here I don't like sorry Julia Roberts uh sorry baby really it's not

1:47:04Wesley Morris:what is it that doesn't it's okay

1:47:12Amanda Dobbins:anytime that what is the actress name Naomi Aoki yes when she's not there Naomi Aki Naomi Aki like when she's gone I don't nothing about this interests me interesting Lucas Hedges when he's like I just did not like that character I don't as written, directed, or acted.

1:47:37Sean Fennessey:It's been interesting because I just didn't... I had Ava on the show. I just didn't feel... Seen Ava around a lot in the awards season and they're different from that character. Obviously, that character is very personal to Ava Victor and they've talked about that, but Ava Victor is very fun and very funny. Yeah. And the movie is very intense and very internal. And they're... We talked about the jury scene.

1:48:06Wesley Morris:I was going to say the jury scene is very emotional, but it is funny too in a dark way. It is. And that to me is that I agree that Miyake character and that friendship is a very beautiful thing that I have referenced a lot on screen. I love the friendship. And when Lucas Hedges shows up, you're just like, oh, Lucas Hedges. It's really nice to see you.

1:48:30Amanda Dobbins:It's been five years since we've seen you. Where have you been? Favorite actor. It's wonderful. so it has a lot of delights and I think about that

1:48:35Wesley Morris:the jury scene both both the questionnaire that filling out which is really funny and like but you know funny and observant and then and then the like you know that I can't really answer this question or blah blah blah or you know that whole speech is amazing

1:48:53Sean Fennessey:it's very well performed but I think it's really really well written to me this is like a feat of the screenplay ultimately so that and I think that's why Ava Victor's been getting a lot of screenplay love

1:49:01Wesley Morris:but let's talk about Pillion

1:49:02Amanda Dobbins:okay i think this is a movie that should never have worked and it is just a marvelous contraption i just i loved falling in love with this movie because i was really resistant to it but just i mean just it was one of those movies the minute it ended because it's got a nice sandwich structure.

1:49:29Wesley Morris:Yeah.

1:49:30Amanda Dobbins:And the minute it ended, I instantly understood why everything that happened in the first five, it's rare to feel this. It's like when you read a book in the first book you either loved or like wanted to understand how it was built. You get to the last page and I, a lot of the times, I'll go immediately back to the beginning and read the first 50 pages like right like that. This was one of those movies where like, If I could have the time to go back and just watch it over again from the beginning, I would have. But I remember the first 10 minutes so clearly. And I understand that that's his family now, right?

1:50:09Amanda Dobbins:And there's a clear dynamic going on here in the Glee Club barbershop quartet. Anyway, this is such a well-written, well-directed, well-acted, truly emotionally surprising movie. and none of it should work.

1:50:29Wesley Morris:This would be my pick.

1:50:30Amanda Dobbins:Mine as well. Even the choreography of their bodies in those sex scenes are just, how did they do that? How did they do it? Magical. It's just so good. It's so, so good. Harry Melling, I just, I don't know. I don't know this guy. I mean, I know his face from the movies, obviously, from the Harry Potter movies, But like, what a brave, tender, fully understood thing to do. Like he understands what he's doing. I mean, so does Skarsgård. But also the mother in this. I don't know. Just every single thing about this movie, the way the father operates. When they're driving around at the end.

1:51:12Wesley Morris:I know. And that's the scene, the day off. The whole day off. And the acting in the day off.

1:51:18Sean Fennessey:Skarsgård just turning on the other switch. and him just completely shifting his performance at the end of the movie.

1:51:24Wesley Morris:The women sitting on the bench. Oh, I love that. They were so great. If you haven't seen Pillion,

1:51:30Sean Fennessey:go see Pillion. It's a terrific movie.

1:51:31Amanda Dobbins:What a surprise. Okay, Pillion wins. Was that a Sundance movie?

1:51:35Sean Fennessey:It was Can.

1:51:37Amanda Dobbins:Okay.

1:51:39Sean Fennessey:Okay, breakthrough performance. This would be a little harder to add at the Academy Awards because who can break through and how?

1:51:45Wesley Morris:You know, we have Best New Artist. Oh, wait. Which is a joke of a category at the Grammys, but yes.

1:51:50Sean Fennessey:Okay, the nominees for Breakthrough Performance are SZA, One of Them Days, Guillaume Marbeck, Nouvelle Vague, Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher for Companion, Frank Delane for Urchin, Miriam Afshari from It Was Just an Accident, and Erin Kellyman for Eleanor the Great. Am I the only person who has seen Eleanor the Great? No, I saw it.

1:52:09Wesley Morris:I didn't circle back to that one.

1:52:12Amanda Dobbins:I didn't love it.

1:52:13Sean Fennessey:I didn't love it either, but I like this actress. That's a good choice. She is the woman in The Bone Temple, Amanda.

1:52:20Wesley Morris:Oh, she's great.

1:52:21Sean Fennessey:She's really, really, I really have my eye on her. I think she's a really, really gifted. And I think Eleanor the Great is like real baggy and kind of a mess. But I like what she did in that movie. That's inspiring. Okay. So you already, you showed your hand on who you want to win. Is there anything you want to say about any of these? One of them days. To me, Jack Queen is not a breakthrough, but I like them together.

1:52:42Wesley Morris:I put it together because this is our awards show. and we can nominate two people at once or we can nominate one person for two performances, we are in charge.

1:52:50Sean Fennessey:That's true.

1:52:51Wesley Morris:This is our day.

1:52:52Sean Fennessey:Thatcher got a lot of money on Thatcher. Need that to work. She's going to be in her private hell. Need that to work. Nicholas Lundgren for this next movie. There's something about Nouvelle...

1:52:59Wesley Morris:Oh, he's back.

1:53:00Sean Fennessey:He's back. I can apparently.

1:53:02Wesley Morris:He's back. There's something about Nouvelle Vague cleaning up at the Césars, the French Oscars, that makes me feel better about the Oscars, the America like everything I was kind of like well it goes both ways no you're so

1:53:18Sean Fennessey:that's so smart because we were talking about this last night we like an imported

1:53:20Wesley Morris:simplified like idealized version Linklater was the first

1:53:24Sean Fennessey:non-French person to win best director at the Césars that's interesting like alright

1:53:29Wesley Morris:whatever guys Guillaume Marbeck

1:53:30Amanda Dobbins:had never acted before

1:53:31Sean Fennessey:how is that possible

1:53:32Amanda Dobbins:this is what y 'all get for the artist how about that this is what y 'all get

1:53:36Sean Fennessey:we return the favor

1:53:37Amanda Dobbins:the artist for Venge

1:53:39Sean Fennessey:this is a great category that should that I would love to see someone figure out how to do well. SZA, I agree. Now, SZA, a little bit of cheating because she got 10 years to figure out how to be like a famous, interesting person on camera. I mean, I don't know.

1:53:52Wesley Morris:I don't know. You go to that movie, which has a delight.

1:53:55Sean Fennessey:She's so good. And you're just like, oh my God, it's SZA.

1:53:57Amanda Dobbins:She didn't even need to be this good. Yeah. She didn't need to be this good. It's incredible. I mean.

1:54:01Sean Fennessey:One of the only successful original movies that came out in 2025. I mean, it's kind of shocking.

1:54:07Amanda Dobbins:You mean financially successful?

1:54:08Sean Fennessey:Financially successful, yeah.

1:54:10Amanda Dobbins:I love this movie so much. It's great. I might burst into tears remembering how much I laughed at it. It is the funniest movie. It is also one of the great, I mean, just instantly one of the great friendship movies. Yeah. One of the great friendship movies. I mean, these two people, Kiki Palmer plays the other friend. They, you just believe that they've never not known each other. Even if they just met the day before filming started, these two characters have been friends because these you believe these people have been friends for as long as the movie says they've been friends because these two actors are selling the friendship and SZA is so funny playing a character right?

1:54:53Amanda Dobbins:she's not playing SZA

1:54:55Sean Fennessey:she's a goofball in the movie

1:54:56Amanda Dobbins:she's just playing a dingbat who sometimes her clock is right

1:54:59Sean Fennessey:you know?

1:55:01Amanda Dobbins:I don't know I love that movie so much

1:55:03Sean Fennessey:this is why this award show exists is to give SZA a prize I mean the

1:55:08Amanda Dobbins:getting the sneakers off the off the old electricity pole like being stuck with that hair like that I just I like the

1:55:16Sean Fennessey:the visits of the loan service the loan service is the best that scene is so funny I always put her in

1:55:22Wesley Morris:for cameo that actor

1:55:23Sean Fennessey:is so I just and also Kat when he's outside telling them not to go in that part that movie is really funny it's like Kat Williams that's right I forgot about Kat Williams it's really weird because I'm like this movie was a hit and yet not enough people have seen it I think it's on Netflix right now actually but it's really good somewhere next category best cameo I think this would be a fun award actually because there is an arc to this yeah to showing up in a movie for five minutes or less and doing a good job the nominees we have here are Bad Bunny for Happy Gilmore 2 Connor O'Malley for Friendship Sarah Michelle Gellar for I Know What You Did Last Summer Bradley Cooper for Superman Tony Todd for Final Destination Bloodlines and Trammell Tillman for Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning.

1:56:11Oh, I mean, this is loaded category.

1:56:15Amanda Dobbins:Bradley Cooper plays Kal-El. Jor-El. Jor-El. Sorry, Jor-El. Sorry. I kind of loved that.

1:56:23Sean Fennessey:I laughed really hard when I saw it.

1:56:25Amanda Dobbins:That made me funny because I think he also knows that he's the one major actor that we've got who has not been entirely sucked in.

1:56:37Sean Fennessey:Will have a rocket raccoon. He did it in the smartest way. I know. This is what I'm saying.

1:56:40Amanda Dobbins:Like, nobody thinks of him as being.

1:56:42Sean Fennessey:He got to enjoy all the fruits of that, but didn't have to be.

1:56:46Amanda Dobbins:In the tractor beam. I don't know. He's just so shrewd about what he chooses to do. And I feel like.

1:56:51Sean Fennessey:He's very funny when it comes to cameos. He's done a bunch of these.

1:56:54Wesley Morris:But he's like, he's you're urging in a Matt Damon territory where he's like, sure. Part of the joke is that Bradley Cooper is.

1:57:00Amanda Dobbins:Yeah. Yeah, but he doesn't have the baggage that Matt Damon gets to unpack every time he makes a cameo. So it's just a different thing.

1:57:06Sean Fennessey:But it puts him in the lineage of Brando in a very funny way. If it was good enough for Brando, I can do this.

1:57:11Amanda Dobbins:Exactly, exactly, exactly. That's what made me laugh when I saw it. It's clever. I like it. The only thing I liked about that movie pretty much was that cameo. Interesting. I didn't dislike. I didn't hate the movie. I just didn't, whatever buoyancy I wanted to experience when I left the theater, I didn't really feel.

1:57:31Sean Fennessey:It won't come up again here in the award show.

1:57:33Amanda Dobbins:But I think it's, I don't know, I'm going to go with Tony Todd.

1:57:37Sean Fennessey:Well, he passed away. And so that would be an honorable thing to do. He was the glue of the Final Destination franchise. I might want to spread some love for Final Destination Bloodlines elsewhere in this category. Sure. Or in another category. Sure. do you want to make a case for Trammell Tillman? I mean,

1:57:56Wesley Morris:just, you don't like it? Oh, come on.

1:57:59Amanda Dobbins:They basically shoplifted his severance performance and you don't watch that. Well, that's right. Yeah. I don't know what it is. So I don't care. That guy in a mission impossible.

1:58:10Sean Fennessey:He's got a little bit more like stank on it though. In mission. Yes.

1:58:14Amanda Dobbins:Fair, but still it's the same.

1:58:16Wesley Morris:I will say just being on a plane.

1:58:18Amanda Dobbins:I like Trammell Tillman, by the way, don't get me wrong.

1:58:20Wesley Morris:He shows up on someone else's screen in this movie. You're drawn to him. And I'm just like, oh, that part. That's the best part. That rocks.

1:58:27Amanda Dobbins:He is magnetizing. I have seen people. I've seen him on people's airplane screens myself. And I'm like, oh.

1:58:34Wesley Morris:Yeah, exactly. There he is.

1:58:36Sean Fennessey:You must be out of your mind. That's just a great line reading. Very memorable. Nobody made me laugh harder than Conor O'Malley in Friendship, where he was like, I think we should go back to Afghanistan. I honestly died. That's good stuff. This is a tough one. Also, I got to be honest. SMG. I really liked seeing her in the absolutely dreadful I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot. I didn't see it.

1:58:56Wesley Morris:Sarah Pidgeon is now Carolyn Bissett Kennedy. Sarah Pidgeon plays an important role in I Know What You Did Last Summer. Oh my god, that's who that is? Yeah, I texted you this. I know.

1:59:07Sean Fennessey:I gotta watch Love Story. Kaya was telling me she's been watching Love Story too. Is everybody watching Love Story?

1:59:12Wesley Morris:I'm not up to date. I think Eileen and I need a show

1:59:14Sean Fennessey:so maybe that'll be our show. Just something to watch together at this juncture in time.

1:59:18Amanda Dobbins:Good luck. all right I'm gonna start watching it you've okay you is Juliet watching it no but I'm telling her about it and maybe she'll catch up if we ask her so you guys are talking about it I yeah I'm doing

1:59:28Wesley Morris:my report she does Grey's Anatomy reports and I do we're three in we might be five because they released the first three of ones but it's Naomi Watts doing Jackie Kennedy this is why you watch it yeah okay who's winning you want Tony Todd who do you want I'm actually I'm on the we haven't

1:59:48Amanda Dobbins:even talked about Bad Bunny who really did the funniest part of the movie. He stole that movie. The whole movie. It's his. Yeah.

1:59:56Wesley Morris:I would be fine for that. I'm going to go to Bad Bunny. I nominated Bad Bunny as well. I'm going to say Bad Bunny.

1:59:59Sean Fennessey:Bad Bunny is the winner. What a year for Bad Bunny in 2026. Absolutely amazing. Best kid performance 17 years and under. Now I think it's been acclaimed Jacoby Jupe in Hamlet is if this actually was at the Academy Awards, he would win in a walk. He's not represented in our awards here today. I think maybe just because Hamnett is dominating. Yes, yes, yes. Here are the nominees. Everett Blunk for The Plague, Carrie Christopher for Weapons, Jonah Wren Phillips for Bring Her Back. He was the little demon boy. Oh, oh. Alfie Williams for 28 Years Later, Lexi Venter for Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.

2:00:42Sean Fennessey:I just saw this movie yesterday. Really good performance. Did not see it. And Nina Ye for Left-Handed Girl. Thank you. I think there's a front runner in this category. Alfie Williams? No, I think it's Kerry Christopher. Oh, Kerry Christopher.

2:00:56Amanda Dobbins:That's, yeah. He's the little boy in weapons.

2:00:58Wesley Morris:Okay.

2:00:59Amanda Dobbins:I love him.

2:01:00Wesley Morris:Yeah, he's good.

2:01:00Amanda Dobbins:What a hard job. It's very Haley Joel Osment without the training. So there's kind of like an immediacy to what it is. Yes, an unaffected performance. Right. And also there's something about kids who have to perform fear. And I always wonder about the place they go to, to find being scared. And is it harder? Is it easy? And I really, really. And do they understand? And what do they know, right? But I think the thing that I love about this performance, though, is that for the actor giving it, it's complete. Because, you know, it's all in the script, right? I've been being bullied for years by these kids.

2:01:44Amanda Dobbins:And now, all of a sudden, they're gone. Like, did I do something? Did something happen? He's got to be mad at the Julia Garner character. like there's just so many opportunities for

2:01:59Sean Fennessey:him having to work with Madigan I think is really also you know a lot of those table sequences are tricky because she's going very big and very scary I like it a lot I mean I think that this is a really good slate in this category this year it's not always as robust as it is I do think Alfie Williams is terrific in 28 Years Later I didn't you don't like him?

2:02:19Amanda Dobbins:he's fine I just didn't like the movie

2:02:22Sean Fennessey:did you see The Plague? Not yet. And neither of you have seen The Plague. Can you roll with Kerry Christopher? You want to make any other case? No, that's good. Best performance by an animal. There's only one nominee this year. Sorry, baby. He's going to get that victory. Oh, the cat. Sorry, baby.

2:02:38Wesley Morris:Because we've not nominated the dog from Superman. I say no.

2:02:42Sean Fennessey:Astro.

2:02:43Amanda Dobbins:The CGI dog.

2:02:45Sean Fennessey:Yeah, no CGI dogs are eligible. Yeah, I agree. It's not ideal.

2:02:48Amanda Dobbins:Although I did. He was my second favorite part of the movie after Bradley Cooper showing up for 10 seconds. I will say I did like the spirit of that movie in a lot of ways. It just didn't do anything remotely as interesting as it thought it was doing just by being in a good mood.

2:03:06Sean Fennessey:That's a very incisive Wesleyism. I think what Corn Sweat and Brosnan have is good and I want to see more of it. I think their chemistry is really good.

2:03:15Amanda Dobbins:Then give me a whole movie of that. I agree. It kind of teases that movie and then it takes it away from you. Even that scene where they're like having that ethics conversation in his living room or whoever's living room it is. Like I wanted three more scenes of that. It's very Sorkin. And a polish on the writing, right? Because you just needed to keep experiencing that.

2:03:37Sean Fennessey:I think they're going to do more of it. And I think Holt is good too. I don't know. I like Superman. I really liked it when it came out. It kind of faded a little bit. And I guess Supergirl's coming out in like three months, which is crazy. Good luck to them. Okay. Next category. Best Stunts Action Sequence. The nominees are the biplane finale of Mission Impossible Final Reckoning. All the kids running around in weapons.

2:03:58Amanda Dobbins:Oh, actually.

2:04:00Sean Fennessey:The Raid in Warfare. I don't know if you've seen Warfare. No, I didn't see Warfare. Okay, it's fucking amazing. The Causeway Chase in 28 Years Later.

2:04:07Wesley Morris:Which we know Wesley's not voting for.

2:04:09Sean Fennessey:The Whole Lotta Love NASCAR race at the opening of F1. Sure. And very inspired choice, I assume by you. Yeah. The how it's done intro in K-pop Demon Hunters.

2:04:21Wesley Morris:When they're fighting on the plane and then they get to the concert. Listen, it's like undeniable. That's a good one. Randomly in the car the other day, Zach was like, you know what's really good is this scene? We were listening to it. He was like, this scene in K-pop Demon Hunters. It's just like a stone cold opener to a movie that sets the scene.

2:04:38Amanda Dobbins:I think we are really, I mean, I at least missed a great piece of writing about K-pop Demon Hunters just as a movie. I came to it really, really late because I kind of misunderstood what was happening. But I was like, I'm a weekly chart watcher and I'm like, Golden has been number one for like, oh, it's from that movie? So I watched it. I just couldn't believe how much fun it was. It's just so fun. Anyway, the biplane. What are we doing?

2:05:08Wesley Morris:I mean, it is the biplane. It is the biplane. It was a good list.

2:05:13Sean Fennessey:It's not even close. That movie is a mess, but that sequence is among the best things I've ever seen in a movie theater.

2:05:17Amanda Dobbins:I just can't even believe it. A thousand percent. They went for it. Nobody died. And Isai Morales versus Tom Cruise is a matchup I never thought. That is like the 34th ranked player versus number one. Yes. Do you know what I mean?

2:05:32Sean Fennessey:But he's doing great Bond villain. He's great. He's great. He's very entertaining. I wish they had more to do. I wish they figured that character out. I wish AI weren't involved

2:05:42Wesley Morris:but that's just me. What do you mean?

2:05:44Sean Fennessey:They retconned the motivation for that character too.

2:05:46Wesley Morris:the like AI is going to take over the world plot of the last two movies all the AI stuff was really stupid

2:05:53Amanda Dobbins:yeah yeah I didn't alright fine I give you well no but the first the first half you know the first movie in this in this duplex every single thing in it to me is five stars see I think it's good and not great

2:06:11Sean Fennessey:the first half of the last one or part seven

2:06:14Amanda Dobbins:the whole movie of the part one. How do we talk about the one with the Rome chase?

2:06:18Wesley Morris:Yes. The Rome set piece A plus. The train bit at the end? I agree. Rebecca Ferguson dying in Venice. I visit that bridge every time I go.

2:06:28Sean Fennessey:It's hard for me to talk about this because the last one broke my heart so deeply.

2:06:32Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, I know. But anyway, the biplane sequence, there's no way. Vanessa Kirby's very good.

2:06:37Wesley Morris:The AI in it is still silly, but that's all.

2:06:40Amanda Dobbins:No, I mean, Issa Morales versus Tom Cruise in the air. Just come on. What are we doing?

2:06:46Sean Fennessey:This episode is brought to you by the Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo. The Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book, your favorite hotel site, your go-to airline, and more. You get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants, and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Whether it's a big vacation or a quick getaway, from booking your stay to that first meal when you arrive, you're turning your trips into rewards with the Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo.

2:07:13Sean Fennessey:Learn more at wellsfargo.com slash autographjourney. Terms apply.

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2:08:19Sean Fennessey:Okay, next category. Yes. Best Ending. Eddington. Final Destination Bloodlines. I wanted to show a little love to It Ends, which was the film that you could rent on the Letterboxd video store. Alexander Ulam's debut. Begonia. Marty Supreme.

2:08:39Amanda Dobbins:Ooh, interesting.

2:08:41Wesley Morris:It wrecked a couple people at this table.

2:08:43Amanda Dobbins:Which one?

2:08:45Wesley Morris:The one that we saw, not the rumor.

2:08:49Amanda Dobbins:The bassinet? Yeah. Oh, okay.

2:08:53Sean Fennessey:Let's keep going. And all the other babies are crying. What's next? And Hammond with nine question marks after it. Who?

2:09:00Amanda Dobbins:You put that in there?

2:09:01Wesley Morris:Well, here's the thing. I have not been supportive of the Hammond experience. Because if you're putting Hammond in there,

2:09:06Amanda Dobbins:I would throw the secret agent's ending in there, too. I mean sure yeah put it in

2:09:10Sean Fennessey:I'm a little torn on this because these are very Oscar-y movies but they all have interesting endings that are all like pretty audacious I would say

2:09:20Amanda Dobbins:can you talk to me and I'm just going to sit back about the Marty Supreme ending

2:09:29Sean Fennessey:it's one of the realest things I've ever seen

2:09:31Wesley Morris:I'm just honestly extremely emotional matches one to one with my

2:09:37Sean Fennessey:experience as a new father. One to one.

2:09:40Wesley Morris:I mean, it doesn't for me at all because an interesting thing, listening to Sean talk about all the girl dad movies this year because there's been a lot of dads and a lot of moms. We were talking about this last night. And you said something on one episode I'll never forget, which was just like, this is what happens. You just get handed a baby out of nowhere, which is not what happened to me at all.

2:10:04Sean Fennessey:Right. Men don't experience it in the same way. Yeah.

2:10:07Wesley Morris:But there is something about the end of the Marty Supreme for really for me is him winning the fake match and like and the reaction on on Chalamet's face where I like started crying the first time. And then it's everything else that happens in the scene beside him. It's the music cue. It's the way it's the sound.

2:10:31Amanda Dobbins:In the very final scene? Yes, in the very final scene.

2:10:33Wesley Morris:He's at the hospital and he sees the baby. And the tears for fear hits. And you know the first line, or I know the first line that's coming. It's the sound. Every other baby in that nursery is wailing throughout that entire scene. And the nurse is just there being like, whatever, this is, which I thought was so funny and well observed and also telling about what's coming. that baby, incredible baby acting. We should have given the award to the baby because that baby gives the Marty character like a what is wrong with you face. Yes. That is so relatable to me

2:11:13Sean Fennessey:in my experience of early first moment fatherhood where the baby is just like, fuck man. Like this is not comfortable. Like I just got out here. It's cold as shit. I need somebody to clean me off. I need to be fed immediately. Like it wasn't like the heavens opened and a light shone down and everything was going to be perfect from now on. But it was very clearly Marty realizing in 30 seconds that what's past is prologue and that everything going forward is completely different. And this three hour mania that we experienced is insignificant relative to what has happened in this exact moment. I thought like a great act of movie storytelling.

2:11:52Sean Fennessey:I absolutely loved it.

2:11:54Wesley Morris:And I felt the same thing, even if I wasn't like, yeah, this is exactly.

2:11:57Sean Fennessey:I felt that way every time I watched it

2:12:01Wesley Morris:and just kind of to me he grows up like that's what it is to me like that is a coming of age movie and that's a person who's just like and like well now I've grown up and like whether I chose to and whether he will actually meet the moment no idea probably not based on what we know but it's like here you are like you know this is your life

2:12:22Sean Fennessey:this is okay you teed us up for something we were very prepared to say about

2:12:25Amanda Dobbins:I don't even let's keep going.

2:12:27Sean Fennessey:Okay. I'm going to absorb that. I just have never. Who should win this? Who should win this? The reason I wanted to hold off on Tony Todd is because the funniest thing ever is Final Destination Bloodlines ending with the logs and the train track explosion and all the characters dying, which was just like enormously satisfying. Like a great callback to the best moment in the history of the franchise. Everyone dying at the end, which is how all these movies should work. To me, when we talk about like, oh, it ain't like it used to be or we're talking about like Oscar movies, it's also this. also just like funny mean spirited just starting with the trailer

2:12:59Amanda Dobbins:I'm like okay I'm watching this trailer through my I'm watching it yes

2:13:06Sean Fennessey:with like the glass and the ice I'm not

2:13:10Amanda Dobbins:to the extent that I'm nostalgic for that it definitely tapped something for me and I'm like these movies stress me all the way out but I miss that stress and I would like to experience it a little bit again. Okay. So once you get like

2:13:29Sean Fennessey:a death that I've... If you're taking it, that's fine.

2:13:31Wesley Morris:That's good.

2:13:32Sean Fennessey:I do think that the Eddington ending is extremely powerful as well. I've thought about it every single time. The image of the data center. Yeah. The very last shot of the movie. I mean, I think also the final moments of...

2:13:43Amanda Dobbins:Oh, yeah. You know,

2:13:45Sean Fennessey:is you... You have an Eddington problem. We know this about you. Or maybe it's our Eddington problem.

2:13:50Amanda Dobbins:Yeah. Well, it is interesting like the traction for or against it, I guess. I mean, I don't know. It's gone way forward

2:14:00Sean Fennessey:in the last three months because of what the world looks like right now. There's a lot of like, actually this movie was too soft.

2:14:05Amanda Dobbins:We missed something. It was just like, this movie is right. Okay. Wait, we were too soft in our enthusiasm for it?

2:14:15Sean Fennessey:I think the early chatter on it was too soon. And then the late chatter on it was not soon enough.

2:14:24Amanda Dobbins:so he he falls through a crack that Paul Thomas Anderson kind of just like and you know

2:14:29Sean Fennessey:one movie with like the most depressing nihilistic ending imaginable and one bad after another of like hey my daughter's gonna go out and take care of the world you know like two different energies

2:14:40Amanda Dobbins:keep the fight going yeah um okay I I think that like if we're sticking to the five things that are six things that we have to work with

2:14:51Sean Fennessey:mm-hmm

2:14:54Amanda Dobbins:even having listened to the case you just made for Marty Supreme which I had never really heard expressed in such a spiritual and personal way

2:15:05Sean Fennessey:many people are saying Amanda is spiritual

2:15:09Amanda Dobbins:Begonia's the only winner here

2:15:11Wesley Morris:I mean I absolutely love the code the code is so Begonia's the only winner

2:15:16Amanda Dobbins:even if you hate this movie and you aren't sure because I don't know this is an interesting thing to talk about like I didn't think she was the alien yeah

2:15:31Wesley Morris:I went back and forth the whole time which was the point I just didn't think

2:15:34Amanda Dobbins:I just didn't believe it and part of me feels like a dummy now because Emma Stone she wasn't going to take this part if she couldn't be the alien

2:15:46Wesley Morris:do you know what I mean

2:15:47Sean Fennessey:it's a good point I also just feel like it's a really good way of framing it The movie is so good at knowing that you think she is,

2:15:55Wesley Morris:or you're going back and forth, and is really playing with you, and gets you. It got me, too. I didn't think she was, even when she went into the closet. I was like, what's going on?

2:16:05Amanda Dobbins:Amanda, Amanda, I still, even then, I was like, no, man, he's just crazy. And she's just playing along. And then that scene. they're just up there being aliens together it is the funniest I mean my job I was bored for a lot of the movie but I mean but but bored in awe of her right like cause I mean she really is

2:16:33Sean Fennessey:she's a go right now it is it is

2:16:35Amanda Dobbins:I mean I mean I guess I've all we've all I mean you watch Easy A and you know that Emma Stone you knew she was gonna be something and the movies changed and she still got to be some version of it anyway. She is, from the standpoint of everything that matters to a great screen actor, the best actor I think we have right now.

2:17:01Sean Fennessey:Been on this corner for a minute. Totally agree with you. I really like the material that she picks. I do think she needs a Yorgos break.

2:17:07Amanda Dobbins:She needs a break.

2:17:09Sean Fennessey:She needs a Yorgos break.

2:17:10Amanda Dobbins:Because I think a lot of what has brought me to this feeling is this collaboration. And it's been great. I've enjoyed it. But can I just say, would we be asking Michael B to stop working with Kugler?

2:17:24Sean Fennessey:No, but I think that's because we know that Kugler is, MBJ is always at his best with Kugler, and Emma Stone can be at her best with other people, and we want to see that.

2:17:34Amanda Dobbins:Right, I do. But I also want to know if he can bring some of the Kugler with him if he did another Just Mercy, right? We'll see. We're going to find out.

2:17:45Wesley Morris:No more lawyers.

2:17:47Amanda Dobbins:That's fair. No, no. He's got it. No, no.

2:17:49Sean Fennessey:You know what?

2:17:49Wesley Morris:You know what? Not even. And this is an important note.

2:17:52Sean Fennessey:Lawyer daughter talking.

2:17:52Wesley Morris:This is an important note for Thomas Crown Affair as a student. Well, he's a thief. Yeah. No briefcases. He can be a lawyer. It's the briefcase. There was just. He does. He is going up the stairs in just mercy. And it's the way he doesn't know what to do with the briefcase. Guys, we got to keep going.

2:18:09Sean Fennessey:We got to keep moving. OK. That's all it is. This is an important show. We got to keep it on time. I feel like I've never felt closer to the people who met. ABC as I do right now. I'll give it to Begonia. I don't give a fuck. Okay, cool. Begonia wins the only prize Begonia is winning today. Amanda, why don't you please read for us the next prize?

2:18:27Wesley Morris:Sure. So I've added a new category called The Most Fun Had by an Actor this year. My nominees are Javier Bardem, F1, Rosamund Pike, Now You See Me, Now You Don't. Are you up on what's happening in that movie? She is playing a South African diamond princess with the full accent. Okay.

2:18:46Sean Fennessey:One of the best things that happened at the movies last year.

2:18:49Wesley Morris:Yeah. Oh, fuck. Robert Pattinson, Mickey 17. Oh, okay. And then you could also put Trammell Tillman in this category.

2:18:59Sean Fennessey:To me, it's Rosamund Pike in a walk.

2:19:00Wesley Morris:Yeah.

2:19:01Amanda Dobbins:I'm going to watch this tomorrow.

2:19:02Sean Fennessey:Yeah, it's an incredible plane movie. Pretty much stinks, but honestly, she's really having a blast.

2:19:08Amanda Dobbins:Okay. All right. That's good.

2:19:10Sean Fennessey:I didn't know she could be so camp.

2:19:12Amanda Dobbins:I mean she kind of had that in Saltburn right

2:19:15Sean Fennessey:the movie kind of let her

2:19:19Amanda Dobbins:try to go there

2:19:20Sean Fennessey:yeah that's like the best part of that movie to me and she's really funny you would never guess that I would watch an Ab Fab

2:19:29Amanda Dobbins:like parody movie with the two of them doing that

2:19:35Sean Fennessey:why don't you read the next category it's also important to you so this

2:19:40Wesley Morris:This is so mean. The Glenn Close Memorial It's Time Oscar, which, you know, we give to someone who's been trying so hard and just can't get there. And let's put everyone out of their misery. I have suggested that we give this award to Noah Baubach.

2:19:56Sean Fennessey:Oh. I would like him to really win an Oscar.

2:20:00Wesley Morris:I would too. I want him to win a real one. But I have to, like, what are we doing?

2:20:04Amanda Dobbins:But we, listen. Oh, wait, although, all right, the Glenn Close, okay, okay, okay, okay. Glenn Close. I feel like we can't do this to Glenn, but it's just named after her. So it's like whatever happens after that is what happens. I mean, what went on here? I don't know. Because I have never been so. I mean, he's made some embarrassing movies. Like, I think that White Noise.

2:20:36Sean Fennessey:I'm a defender. I like that. I'm a huge defender of Noah's. I think he's... Of everything? There are some I like a lot more than others. There are some movies that I'm not crazy about.

2:20:46Wesley Morris:I am, like... He's incredibly important to me. Like, I am a disciple. And I did not understand what was going on. And I, like...

2:20:55Sean Fennessey:She was more down on it than I was.

2:20:57Wesley Morris:I went to Venice to be there for the premiere. Like, I was in the room. There was a... I was almost stuck on that island. Because I love Noah Baumbach.

2:21:07Amanda Dobbins:I think what's hard for me about Jay Kelly is... it's such an exposure of the underlying values or something. I feel like this is a man who has really gone out of his way to be a real cinematic weero. And the idea that the person who made, oh my God, I'm never going to remember what that movie is called. What's the one where Greta Gerwig goes to her sister or cousin or niece's house?

2:21:45Sean Fennessey:Mistress America. When they get to the house of Mistress America, it is such a Boonwellian train wreck.

2:21:55Amanda Dobbins:The Connecticut house.

2:21:56Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

2:21:57Amanda Dobbins:I think about the nerve of that sequence, of that passage of that movie all the time. It doesn't work, but there's a real attempt to not play by anybody's rules.

2:22:11Sean Fennessey:I love that movie.

2:22:13Amanda Dobbins:And this, to me, is such a betrayal of those values, or it is the truth. Or it is the truth, right? I think it is.

2:22:25Wesley Morris:I think it's also... There is a whimsy and a... In this? in J. Kelly that I don't recognize that he co-wrote it with Emily Mortimer. Like, I understand.

2:22:37Sean Fennessey:Let me posit an idea to you both. If you swapped out George Clooney for Tom Hanks, would it work? I don't.

2:22:45Amanda Dobbins:I mean, they'd still have to say the same words.

2:22:47Wesley Morris:Yeah.

2:22:47Amanda Dobbins:And be on that same train and have that same dialogue with the daughter. It is definitely a Clooney problem.

2:22:54Sean Fennessey:And I know why he wanted him. I know why he was a fit. I know you love Sandler in this movie

2:23:00Wesley Morris:and I love Sandler as well and I'm happy to see him but like what is going on there?

2:23:05Amanda Dobbins:Wait, you like Sandler in this movie?

2:23:06Wesley Morris:No, I don't dislike him but I'm just and it's not even his fault but like what is that character? You know when I wanted to hang up the phone? Like I know what it is.

2:23:13Amanda Dobbins:That first scene on the set. That scene, the opening the opening the opening sequence. Can I get one more of that one? I just hated it so I just hate listening to like Hollywood people like writing about Hollywood people pretending to have like deep or emotional or spiritual phone calls while at work. It just makes me so mad. But all the stuff with Billy Crudup, it's just every single, the daughter sequences. I was so mad at this movie for so long and was waiting for something to redeem it.

2:23:52Wesley Morris:And I'm completely mystified by it. I've spent months and months trying to understand it. understand why I can't connect with it.

2:24:01Sean Fennessey:It's like one of my favorite

2:24:03Wesley Morris:filmmakers in Italy. I don't know what my problem is and I had some problems. You don't have a problem. I know, but listen.

2:24:09Sean Fennessey:But do you think if you give him this prize now, we'll dispel. Can we go back to Greenberg? Yes. I hope so.

2:24:16Amanda Dobbins:Oh my God, I would give anything for Greenberg, a movie that I didn't even love but I love it in retrospect.

2:24:22Sean Fennessey:Greenberg 2 colon I love LA. You know what I think about when there? It's going to be like Arthur 2 on the rocks.

2:24:28Wesley Morris:The scene when they're driving the Greta Gerwig character to get the abortion. And she's like, can we go to In-N-Out afterwards?

2:24:34Amanda Dobbins:And he's like, it's your day. I think about it every day. I mean, she's also bad in this movie. Greta?

2:24:44Wesley Morris:Also, why would she do that to her wife?

2:24:47Sean Fennessey:I think he was going for a tone that he just did not quite have his arms around. That it was a little bit more of a silly Italian romp.

2:24:56Amanda Dobbins:But he frequently misfires tone. I mean, while we were young. Disagree. Like, I don't know. That had Ad-Rock, so that's fine with me. We have to keep moving. What's next?

2:25:06Sean Fennessey:What's next? We're going to the real awards now.

2:25:08Wesley Morris:Congratulations, Noah Baumbach. You're welcome. Oh, my God.

2:25:12Sean Fennessey:Best screenplay. The nominees are Mary Bronstein for If I Had Likes, I'd Kick You, Michael Angelo Covino, and Kyle Morvin for Splitsville, Kleber Mendoza Filio for The Secret Agent, Zach Krager for Weapons, Ava Victor for Sorry Baby, and Ari Aster for Eddington.

2:25:27Wesley Morris:You're doing your sorry's like Canadian.

2:25:29Sean Fennessey:Sorry, baby? Yeah. Sorry? Sorry?

2:25:32Wesley Morris:I mean, I just... The word is not sorry. It's just... Sorry. I don't know whether it's like the Matt Johnson, like Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie effect. I like that Canadian.

2:25:40Amanda Dobbins:I've been trying to say sorry, but it just doesn't... As an American, you just don't want to be... Let them have it the proper way.

2:25:47Sean Fennessey:Which prize is Claibor Mendoza-Filio going to win? Because he's going to win one of these. Yeah. And he wasn't nominated for any of these. I feel like, what are our options?

2:26:01Amanda Dobbins:Is he screenplay or director? I think weapons. I'm going to say weapons. If we can give our...

2:26:08Sean Fennessey:I think it's weird that this is not nominated in original.

2:26:11Amanda Dobbins:I do too. How do you explain that? I don't know.

2:26:14Sean Fennessey:I really thought it was going to happen.

2:26:15Amanda Dobbins:It's such a slam dunk for an original screenplay nomination.

2:26:18Sean Fennessey:I predicted it to be in Best Picture, and my thinking was it's going to get screenplay, supporting actress, and picture. And that's a good package for your Sixth Sense style original thriller that the Oscars sometimes likes. And it just didn't get there.

2:26:31Amanda Dobbins:And also my friend Nick Kulish revealed to me is also kind of personal too. You can feel that. You can feel that. But I didn't know about the sort of undergirding. Right, his friend who passed away. Yeah, I didn't know about any of that stuff.

2:26:44Sean Fennessey:Yeah, and there's all kinds of stuff about addiction and recovery that's in the movie. I think it's a really good script.

2:26:48Amanda Dobbins:I love this script. I would happily give it to weapons.

2:26:51Sean Fennessey:You want to make a case for anything?

2:26:54Wesley Morris:I think this is the only place Mary Bronstein is nominated. I didn't put her in director.

2:26:59Amanda Dobbins:I mean, I think it's a better directed movie.

2:27:01Sean Fennessey:I agree with that. I think the script is good, but I think it's like a real vision. This is a real feat of directing.

2:27:07Wesley Morris:I think, no, and there are a few directorial choices that are amazing, but I don't know.

2:27:12Amanda Dobbins:The whole thing is a directorial. I don't like this bit with the ceiling. It's too much. I do like that. But just the way that Rose Byrne and the daughter are handled,

2:27:24Wesley Morris:visually is it transcended and also just so so imaginative and really pays off i don't know though you very kindly last night asked me like how is it being a mom you know or something it

2:27:37Sean Fennessey:wasn't kindness i was truly interested it was a mom in the face of the art that is reflecting on

2:27:43Wesley Morris:yeah and and if i had legs i'd kick you is definitely about how it is really shitty to be a mom like that is sort of the thesis statement but that's not what the i don't feel like this movie is about this is not like the other ones how hard the world makes it to be a parent and given certain circumstances too and i have thought about so many specific scenes and not just like the observations whether it's the parking attendant or like the support group or the wine being shut off at 2 a.m.

2:28:21Sean Fennessey:I'll never get the image of her just shoving the cheese from the pizza in her mouth in the first scene, which is the most like, I know that moment.

2:28:29Wesley Morris:Right, and every interaction with the doctor in the hallways, all of it is so observed, but there's something also written about the character that I think is so fair and revelatory, like amazing. it's incredible

2:28:47Amanda Dobbins:the best plot twist in any movie oh that's not true there's been a few good plot twists but like this is definitely a top three plot twist finding out what her job is like finding out what her job is and the way we find out is one of the funniest most shocking things I think I've ever seen that also reveals a character at the same time

2:29:11Sean Fennessey:yes

2:29:11Amanda Dobbins:fantastic

2:29:12Sean Fennessey:I'll give it to Mary Bronstein Mary Bronstein if you want to give it to we can't know

2:29:15Amanda Dobbins:I think Zach Kregor's going to do it.

2:29:18Wesley Morris:I wanted to make the case.

2:29:20Amanda Dobbins:Again, because the thing about that reveal in If I Legs I Kick You is it's just the POV of the movie. It's just you are completely inside our narcissism and stress that, of course, she knows a thing that she forgot to tell us because she already knows it about herself. so when we find out you're just like the whole time you've had this job it's like okay anyway sorry

2:29:52Sean Fennessey:okay Zach Craig is our winner best supporting actor the nominees are Tom Burke for Black Bag Tim Key for The Ballad of Wallace Island Adam Sandler for J. Kelly I will not be moved off of that corner Dylan O 'Brien for Anniversary and I will speak with you guys about Anniversary Austin Abrams for Weapons and William H. Macy for Train Dreams. Ooh. Now, Dylan O 'Brien, you could say, also for Twinless, potentially.

2:30:21Wesley Morris:We are doing that.

2:30:22Sean Fennessey:We are doing that. So I'll add Anniversary and Twinless. Now, Anniversary, you haven't seen it, right? No. Okay, have you seen it? I haven't seen it. Okay, deranged film. Possibly the most deranged film of the year. I really like what he is doing in the movie and it is a very slow evolution towards something that is evil. It's a movie about a very successful college professor, sort of public intellectual type, played by Diane Lane, and her family coming together, I think for a large anniversary party.

2:30:50Amanda Dobbins:I missed a Diane Lane movie last year.

2:30:52Sean Fennessey:The cast of this movie is Diane Lane, Kyle Chandler, Zoe Deutsch, Phoebe Dynaver, Dylan O 'Brien, and Daryl McCormick, and McKenna Grace. Wow. And it's about the country slowly descending into fascism through the prism of a family that is at the center of this descent.

2:31:13Amanda Dobbins:Oh, wow.

2:31:14Sean Fennessey:The movie is like so interesting on paper.

2:31:17Amanda Dobbins:Who did it?

2:31:18Sean Fennessey:It's a screenplay by someone named Lori Roseanne Gambino and the director is Jan Komasa. The execution is like kind of a train wreck and at times laughable. The performances though are pretty good and Dylan O 'Brien plays kind of what is happening to young men in America. And I don't mean that in like the Joker sense. I mean that in like the Ben Shapiro sense. And it's, he's very good. Now, I'm not sure if I'm recommending this movie. And I think, I feel very similar about Twin List. Well, now you've intrigued me. I'm kind of one of, It would be like a really great podcast episode, but not a good movie.

2:31:56Sean Fennessey:Sure, yeah. Which is a unique strain of culture.

2:32:00Wesley Morris:Right. But one we find ourselves in more and more. We do indeed.

2:32:03Sean Fennessey:I just wanted to explain that because I couldn't get him out of my head when I was thinking about this category. Where do you guys lean here?

2:32:11Amanda Dobbins:Austin Abrams.

2:32:12Wesley Morris:I knew you were going to say that.

2:32:13Sean Fennessey:We just gave weapons a lot of love.

2:32:15Wesley Morris:That's okay. I know.

2:32:16Amanda Dobbins:But he, like, it's hard to watch that movie and not, I mean, I just remember watching it being like, whoever this guy is. Because you also, the thing that I love about this movie and the way it's structured is you don't know who's important. Yeah. Right? So there's this guy running around the periphery of this movie. And then all of a sudden he's got a, he's like his tunnel reaches the light of his own section. Yes. You know? And I'm like, oh wow. First of all, we get a break. And second of all, we get to spend time with this performance. Like it's so dialed into the thing that it is, which is like.

2:32:51Amanda Dobbins:So funny.

2:32:51Sean Fennessey:He's like the, he's the sixth consecutive Euphoria cast member who's going to be a movie star. Oh,

2:32:59Amanda Dobbins:interesting. Yeah.

2:33:00Sean Fennessey:He was the ninth lead on Euphoria. And now he's going to lead the Resident Evil movie. And he was in Wolves. He was the best thing in Wolves. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:33:10Amanda Dobbins:That's true. I forgot about that.

2:33:11Sean Fennessey:He's a very good actor.

2:33:12Amanda Dobbins:I don't know. I mean, I'm open to have it not be Austin Abrams.

2:33:17Wesley Morris:I put William H. Macy on here just because. William H. Macy. I think he's wonderful.

2:33:23Sean Fennessey:He's so great.

2:33:23Wesley Morris:And I also, I feel like I've seen every iteration of William H. Macy throughout like 40 years. and I was like, wow, I've never seen this before. And he's really seven minutes. So beautiful.

2:33:35Sean Fennessey:This is his makeup Oscar for not winning for Fargo.

2:33:38Wesley Morris:Okay, there you go.

2:33:39Amanda Dobbins:I mean, also, whatever. We can talk about this. Are we going to talk? Is old Joel out there somewhere?

2:33:47Wesley Morris:He's not nominated for Best Actor.

2:33:49Amanda Dobbins:Okay, well, maybe now is the time to just be like, train dreams, y 'all, the acting and train dreams. It's like, Joel Edgerton, what are we? I mean you and I like I never got it with him

2:33:59Sean Fennessey:I know I never got it with him

2:34:01Amanda Dobbins:I mean even

2:34:01Wesley Morris:Felicity Jones who I am usually real black licorice about that's true she's great in it

2:34:06Sean Fennessey:it was a real union for us in terms of people that we didn't get getting them yeah I mean Joel Edgerton

2:34:11Amanda Dobbins:I just I it's weird to fall in love with an actor you've been watching for 15 years you do like him though

2:34:18Sean Fennessey:but you liked him in the past

2:34:19Amanda Dobbins:I like him but I feel like there's usually somebody who's more interesting or he's too much I really like him and Underground Railroad because that part is impossible. Yeah. And he manages to do really surprising and absorbing things with it. And I feel like I understand this sort of abstract figure in a way that he makes that character concrete. But this is just like a completely perfect use of Joel Edgerton.

2:34:49Sean Fennessey:I agree with that. I think he's very good at... He's a listener. He picks very good material and he's not worried about dominating anything. But I always find him to be just a little bit of a blank sheet of paper. And this was a rare case. And partially it's just because Dennis Johnson just wrote his life and imbued him with something that maybe he doesn't always have to me as an actor.

2:35:09Amanda Dobbins:I think that also his best mode might be tenderness, right? Yeah, he's like that and loving though. Yeah, but that movie is bad. I agree. It doesn't know what to do with him. And this movie seems built around him, right? Like that's an issue movie that has Joel Edgerton on the side of it. This, uh, this to me doesn't work. If he doesn't work, I don't think. And he really works in it. Well,

2:35:37Sean Fennessey:Macy's getting hardware and he's not.

2:35:39Amanda Dobbins:William H. Macy. Great. We've got five more categories.

2:35:44Sean Fennessey:Best supporting actress. The nominees are Jodie Comer for 28 years later. Una Chaplin for Avatar, Fire and Ash. Vicky Crapes for father, mother, sister, brother, Nina Haas for, Hedda. I'm taking out Pamela Anderson. No shots to Pamela. Tanya Maria for The Secret Agent. Kirsten Dunst for Roofman. And Regina Hall for One Battle After Another.

2:36:06Wesley Morris:It's hard for me to not pick Kiki. My, you know, my number one forever. You don't even like Roofman. I didn't love Roofman. She is also, she's a very, very elevated girlfriend, but she is playing the girlfriend. I want more for Kirsten Dunst.

2:36:23Amanda Dobbins:I think this part is great, though. the movie does not work and it's kind of a, it's almost a crime the movie thinks it's going to get away with what it tried to get away with. But. Just like the roof man. Well, exactly. This is the, but this is the problem. They're completely aligned. Yeah. Right?

2:36:39Sean Fennessey:You said the same thing. Yeah. I don't agree, but you know, that's me.

2:36:42Amanda Dobbins:I think she is so good in this movie.

2:36:44Wesley Morris:She's good in everything.

2:36:46Amanda Dobbins:I know, but this is like a particularly smart use of a person who you would think would be too good for a part like this. But the understanding of her very transparency as an actor and her ability to play both acquiescence and skepticism simultaneously with that face, right? That face that looks like it's been around the world. And every scene with every actor she's with, it's kind of a different kind of wariness. With the church people, it's one thing. With Channing Tatum, it's another. with the daughter it's something else with them all together it's a different thing her and Dinklage who plays her boss at the big box store where she works is a different energy she's like kind but withholding sweet but if you cross her she will she will put a put a knife in your chest like I don't know I just I can't believe talk about a movie that had one great supporting performance in it that didn't get any nominations that should have gotten one for this alright well then

2:37:53Wesley Morris:anyway wow but feel free Tanya Maria Tanya Maria listen I could give a similar speech about Tanya Maria

2:38:00Sean Fennessey:Tanya Maria from The Secret Agent we will talk about The Secret Agent in depth on Friday on this show um I mean nobody fucking saw the Jim Jarmusch movie but Vicky Krapes is phenomenal in the Jim Jarmusch movie I just

2:38:11Amanda Dobbins:I'm just out of gas on him I'm sorry I'll I should break down and see it but

2:38:16Sean Fennessey:Nina Haas for Hedda no she was great she was good I mean I that's part of that movie

2:38:21Amanda Dobbins:I I felt like I watched it I'm like oh she's really going for this like all the tears well it's funny because it's such a busty part and I'm like well what is the bustiness about here and this is like to me all that chestiness is like full emotional exposure and just like the amount of crying is sort of proportional to the amount of bust it just also she's never acted like that in anything before. I've never seen her. It's the opposite of what she's like in a pet sold movie. I've never seen her give a performance like that. Totally.

2:38:57Sean Fennessey:She's usually much more restrained.

2:38:58Amanda Dobbins:Yeah. I just, I loved it. Like the damn, the damn burst. Yeah. Oh boy. It's a tough one.

2:39:05Sean Fennessey:This is a loaded category. I would just want to make a note for Varang, Una Chaplin from Avatar. That's a Navi that I'm interested in.

2:39:13Amanda Dobbins:Yeah.

2:39:14Sean Fennessey:A lot of hips going on there. A lot of hips.

2:39:17Amanda Dobbins:Wait, is she, is she the, she's the like the the bad lady um okay that she's she's good that's good yeah that's good a lot of good choices yeah

2:39:28Wesley Morris:that she makes I mean Tanya Maria is really this is

2:39:32Amanda Dobbins:this should be this is the real supporting actress category right here I'm sorry with all due respect we picked a good one this is this is okay Tanya Maria

2:39:39Sean Fennessey:is gonna win great

2:39:42Amanda Dobbins:Tanya

2:39:43Sean Fennessey:best actor

2:39:45Amanda Dobbins:mm-hmm

2:39:46Sean Fennessey:Benicio Del Toro for the Phoenician scheme Lee Byung-hun for No Other Choice. Josh O 'Connor for Wake Up Dead Man and The Mastermind. It's one too many. Ben Wishoff for Peter Hoosier's Day. Harry Melling for Pillian and Jesse Plemons for Begonia.

2:40:02Amanda Dobbins:This is a good one. I would love to hear you guys talk about Josh O 'Connor but only in one movie and that's the Kelly Reichardt movie. The Mastermind? It's my favorite

2:40:16Sean Fennessey:of his performances.

2:40:17Amanda Dobbins:Yeah. I would agree with that. I still not enough there for me, but the character is really good. And, you know, well, we'll talk about the movie itself later if we want,

2:40:28Sean Fennessey:but the scintillating indictment of all men from Kelly Riker.

2:40:33Amanda Dobbins:Yeah. No, I mean, I think, but I think the character is stronger than the performance in a way. Um, what are my Harry Melling? What's my other option?

2:40:44Sean Fennessey:Ben Whishaw.

2:40:45Amanda Dobbins:Oh, Ben. Listen, what a hard job. that movie what is he just speaking a transcript on a sofa and on a roof it's I like that movie I love I love that movie it's it's short and sweet she's also really good Rebecca Hall that she she decides to do the accent I I don't know I just love the quiet intellectual subtlety of this film um

2:41:17Sean Fennessey:it's the assumption that you would understand what they're talking about which is a really

2:41:21Amanda Dobbins:good choice like we're plunging you into the new york art world in the 80s i'm there um but he's just such a i've never seen him like this before like not neurotic yeah i was gonna say he's more like confident like brazen almost yeah yes this is a version of him that i really like and i'm i mean

2:41:42Wesley Morris:I'm a fan. He's Paddington. He's Q. Wait, he's Paddington? He's the voice of Paddington. He's the voice of Paddington. That's wonderful. I did. Yeah. Have you not seen those? I've seen them. I didn't know Ben.

2:41:58Sean Fennessey:Doesn't that make it better? Who's winning this category?

2:42:03Amanda Dobbins:I don't know. Okay, well. Yeah. I guess you learn something new every day. That's why I listen to this show.

2:42:10Wesley Morris:Okay, so you're out on Josh O 'Connor.

2:42:13Sean Fennessey:I'm not out. I just feel like... Is that where your heart was leaning?

2:42:17Wesley Morris:Well, no, he just, he brought it up and he's like, I want to hear you talk about it. How are we not talking about Lee Byung-hun? Yeah, that's...

2:42:22Sean Fennessey:Like, what are we doing? He would be my pick.

2:42:24Amanda Dobbins:Yes. So come on. This guy leaves it all out there. Impossible performance. You should hate him, but you kind of can't because, like, what would you do? Yes. Right.

2:42:33Sean Fennessey:Like... Well, I probably wouldn't create a fake paper company to then get job applications from all my enemies and kill them. That isn't something that I personally would do.

2:42:42Amanda Dobbins:Oh, he's so, like, it's funny and stressful.

2:42:46Sean Fennessey:That's the thing. It's funny and it's stressful. He's dramatic performance that is very funny. Slapstick, a lot of perspective stuff that is great. I won't leave you on, hon. I thought he had a weird outside chance to get in here. What happened?

2:42:58Wesley Morris:The Academy just is not interested in this film or in Park Chan-wook. Don't really know. Not Cannes, though.

2:43:05Sean Fennessey:He'll get his chance. the president at the Cannes Film Festival this year of the jury oh this year Park Chan-wook

2:43:12Amanda Dobbins:oh Park Chan-wook that took long enough I'm surprised it hasn't happened before I agree he's never been on the jury

2:43:18Sean Fennessey:no and he I think Oldboy was the first movie he had there I think he's had like five movies there

2:43:23Amanda Dobbins:yeah I'm surprised he's never been on the jury at all

2:43:25Sean Fennessey:okay best actress Julia Roberts for After the Hunt Amanda Seifert for The Housemaid and The Testament of Anne Lee Susan Shardy for On Becoming a Guinea Fowl Jennifer Lawrence for Die My Love Kathleen Chalfant for familiar touch and I put Ana de Armas for Eden.

2:43:47Wesley Morris:Okay, let's talk about Julia. I put it on just to talk to you about it. I mean, I think she's good in this absolute mystery of a film.

2:43:55Amanda Dobbins:She's very good in a movie that has no idea why it exists.

2:43:59Wesley Morris:Why does it exist? Fully agreed. Can you explain the last scene of After the Hunt to us? Like, what is your interpretation

2:44:06Amanda Dobbins:Of her in the hospital bed? Oh, the reunion scene. Yeah, the reunion scene. My old Indian jammy. Is that your spot? That was my spot. Wow. I mean, it's pretty good, too. I'm surprised they didn't change it into something else, too. It's just what it is.

2:44:21Sean Fennessey:It's weird because did you see the VFX real?

2:44:24Amanda Dobbins:It's a movie set in New Haven, Connecticut at Yale University.

2:44:27Sean Fennessey:Did you see the way that they rebuilt the campus with VFX?

2:44:30Amanda Dobbins:I read a very good piece of art criticism by a guy named, I think, Chris Hawthorne, Christopher Hawthorne. Oh, yeah, sure.

2:44:39Sean Fennessey:Longtime architecture critic. He wrote about this movie. He wrote about the Woody Allen opening credits.

2:44:46Amanda Dobbins:Right. Real flex. And the way the movie recreates Yale somewhere else. It's interesting that they did that, but they used the restaurant.

2:44:57Sean Fennessey:It's been noted that the restaurant is a known place. It's a real place. Um, anyway, uh, I don't, well, that's funny.

2:45:05Amanda Dobbins:I have a hard time loving, I love this performance, but everything about it, everything else about it is so false and unsure of itself that her confidence in a weird way is for as good as I can isolate it from the badness of the movie, but then it kind of makes the movie worse because it means that she was probably left to direct herself.

2:45:29Sean Fennessey:You know, in a weird way. I think she just had a real handle on this character and made all the choices that she wanted to make and she's powerful enough to be like, this is how I'm going to do this. But then there were a lot of other actors who are not. I think Garfield's pretty good in it. He's not bad. I think it's not his best. But it's not a good part. The part is bad. Yeah, I agree.

2:45:47Amanda Dobbins:He's making the most of a really shitty part. He's kind of like a series of talking points. He's not really like a person.

2:45:52Wesley Morris:I think Chloe Sevigny is great. She is too. She's wonderful. And the scene with Ben at the bar talking about the Smiths. a thing that has never happened

2:46:00Amanda Dobbins:ever either like two your two two very popular professors just chilling in the one of the New Haven dive bar didn't never happen

2:46:10Sean Fennessey:I agree the whole

2:46:11Amanda Dobbins:the script is a farce

2:46:13Wesley Morris:I mean are all New Haven professors are Yale professors living like that because that apartment was

2:46:18Amanda Dobbins:yeah there's some people who can do that it's quite stylish

2:46:21Wesley Morris:I've thought a lot about well listen

2:46:23Amanda Dobbins:it's achievable

2:46:24Wesley Morris:the kitchen get back into the classics oh you mean her house

2:46:27Amanda Dobbins:yeah yeah yeah

2:46:27Wesley Morris:and her apartment

2:46:28Amanda Dobbins:Oh, yeah, that's easy. That's just like, there's like three streets where that can happen.

2:46:33Wesley Morris:Okay. That's easy.

2:46:34Amanda Dobbins:I mean. That's easy.

2:46:36Wesley Morris:It's not a stretch.

2:46:38Amanda Dobbins:Is Julia winning this category? Well, wait, hold on. I mean.

2:46:42Wesley Morris:You groaned at Jennifer Lawrence. Kathleen Chalfant.

2:46:46Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I liked Familiar Touch.

2:46:48Amanda Dobbins:Exquisite. Yeah. Exquisite. Like, the idea that there weren't enough actors who saw her give this performance is such a bummer to me.

2:46:55Sean Fennessey:Did she win New York Film Critics Circle? what, what, she won something. She did. She did win a prize. What prize did she win for this? Ah, that's very sweet. She definitely won a critics prize. That was an early, like we're giving this, we're shining a light on this. all right. Well, that's good. Yeah. But it got, I mean, it was a very small release in May. Not a lot of people saw it. I think it's a very good film.

2:47:14Amanda Dobbins:Very good movie. Very well directed, really well written. And she is so good.

2:47:19Wesley Morris:National Society of Film Critics. Ah,

2:47:21Amanda Dobbins:good for them. Good for them. Um, I, can we talk about Seifried real quick?

2:47:26Wesley Morris:and also I think she won the Horizonte Award at Venice for Best Actress there you go

2:47:34Sean Fennessey:now the housemaid I think she's very amusing and I don't know that I would put it up in any real awards race Ann Lee I think she's fucking firing

2:47:43Wesley Morris:I loved it

2:47:45Amanda Dobbins:go on

2:47:46Wesley Morris:okay it's a no

2:47:47Amanda Dobbins:wait did I miss the Ann Lee episode yeah alright I'll go back it was a relatively brief conversation you don't have to do it here I will find it because

2:47:56Wesley Morris:we both liked it we thought it was like again I saw it like at Venice with no context or whatever besides knowing that it was Mona Fastbold and Brady Corbet and was surprised and found it to be like the other half of the or the other perspective of the brutalist but in a way that made more sense to me or where they connected the dots a bit more while also being really weird like that I really liked the music and the choreography. I thought that it communicated

2:48:27Sean Fennessey:I think it's a crazy performance too. It's very physical with all the birthing stuff that is very traumatic and the physical abuse plus the singing and the choreography and dancing that she has to do. You know, the whole movie is on her face the whole time. I think it's like a major, major performance. I loved it. I love her. I've always loved her as an actor. I like when she challenges herself. The housemate is her not really challenging herself. It's a paycheck job. She should have also been nominated

2:48:51Wesley Morris:for Most Fun Had. in a movie. I love this woman so much. Amanda Seyfried? Me too. I really,

2:49:02Amanda Dobbins:and I love the idea of Brady Corbea and Mona Fastfold. I mean, I, I love the brutalist, so it's not even like so much the idea. I love the work. This one...

2:49:14Sean Fennessey:You couldn't get into it?

2:49:15Amanda Dobbins:I just felt like it's trying so hard to not be that shaker movie that it's the other Shaker movie and it's so the other Shaker movie that I couldn't get my heart, mind, even my eyes sometimes all the way around it. And I just, with each passing scene, I felt more alienated by it. I also wish they had not cast anybody I recognized because none of the other actors have anything to do. So I'm like, well, where'd Christopher Abbott go? like I'm kind of interested in him as an actor and now I'm like is he coming back? Where'd he go? So if it had just been her

2:50:00Sean Fennessey:He was in the role of all men

2:50:02Wesley Morris:Yeah, I just Except for Louis Pullman Who was in the role of Nice brother

2:50:07Amanda Dobbins:This movie really kept pushing me out of the theater so hard Could not disagree with you

2:50:15Sean Fennessey:Do you think any of that's like a Pennsylvania thing?

2:50:18Wesley Morris:Don't the Shakers have a presence in Pennsylvania? I mean, I'm sure the Shakers must, you know, in that core.

2:50:26Amanda Dobbins:It just wasn't, I don't, the Shakers are not a part of my childhood. I was not at all familiar.

2:50:30Wesley Morris:I didn't know that it was Shaking Quakers until this movie.

2:50:33Amanda Dobbins:Oh, interesting. So you guys like learned.

2:50:36Wesley Morris:Yes. Yeah.

2:50:37Sean Fennessey:It wasn't about that. To me, it was, I find most modern musicals quite tedious. And I thought this was a fascinating reinvention of what to expect from that.

2:50:47Amanda Dobbins:This is such a like easy pitch for me.

2:50:49Sean Fennessey:and was like people who are ecstatically performing their faith as opposed to what I observed as a person going to Catholic church in the suburbs in the 1980s. This was moving, honestly. Fascinating. And also like I really like that Ann Lee on paper very much seems like a kook, very much seems like a cultist and that the movie does not engage with that. But it's in there. But it is a very nonjudgmental portrayal of the events of her life in a way that I find interesting. We have to keep going. Yeah. Who are we picking in this category?

2:51:28Amanda Dobbins:I'm going with Kathleen Schelf.

2:51:31Wesley Morris:Even though the critics already gave out the... And you just, you rolled your eyes at Jennifer Lawrence. It's a no for you. Oh.

2:51:37Amanda Dobbins:Okay. Well. What an embarrassment. That whole movie is...

2:51:41Wesley Morris:I loved it. I loved it. And you know what? I saw it on a date with Zach and we were both cracking up and we were just like... laughing at the movie? No, because I was postpartum when I saw it. I was like, yeah.

2:51:53Amanda Dobbins:I really want to be respectful to that experience.

2:51:56Wesley Morris:You do you.

2:51:58Amanda Dobbins:This is one of the most embarrassing uses of two good actors I have ever seen. They are in acting class 101 and the instructor is out and we are watching this sub. Because, I mean, some of the things that happen here, I'm like, this is really a thing that happens in acting class on your first day. Right, where you crawl around. Bark like a dog. I just, I was so embarrassed for these people.

2:52:26Sean Fennessey:A primal expression of motherhood.

2:52:28Amanda Dobbins:And I watched, and I, what was, I watched, what was the one before this, the Jennifer Lawrence movie?

2:52:34Sean Fennessey:No Hard Feelings.

2:52:35Amanda Dobbins:I love that movie. And it's the same, it's kind of the same like feat of not giving a fuck, right? I loved that movie so much more because she was giving so much more to a movie that really didn't need it and this movie is taking so much from her and giving us nothing giving us nothing

2:52:59Sean Fennessey:siphoning your life force siphoning your mental wellness

2:53:04Wesley Morris:and then she's just married to this cute tall guy who brings home a dog for no reason

2:53:08Amanda Dobbins:and he's such a dick I really

2:53:10Wesley Morris:actively dislike this movie

2:53:13Sean Fennessey:I think you're actually weirdly agreeing about the film's success I fall right in the middle of the two of you. I wouldn't give it to Jen. Julia Roberts. Julia Roberts. Another piece of hardware for Julia Roberts. Okay, last two categories. She only has one.

2:53:26Wesley Morris:It's not enough.

2:53:27Sean Fennessey:I think she has like 14 Golden Globes.

2:53:28Wesley Morris:That doesn't really count.

2:53:30Sean Fennessey:Okay, best director.

2:53:32Wesley Morris:What if she sent them back like Tom Cruise? We don't know. Did he send his back really? He did, yeah.

2:53:38Sean Fennessey:After the HFPA scandal. Okay, best director. Good for him. Mona Fastvold for The Testament of Anne Lee. Steven Soderbergh for Black Bag. Kelly Reichardt for The Mastermind, Kleber Mendoza-Filio for The Secret Agent, Park Chan-Wook for No Other Choice, Jafar Panahi for It Was Just an Accident. I'm just going to put it on the table. I'm going with Kleber Mendoza-Filio.

2:53:59Wesley Morris:Okay. I agree. I would like to make an honorary case for Jafar Panahi for It Was Just an Accident. Honorary? Not honorary, but I guess I'm outvoted. I mean, not an honorary. Let's have the conversation. What happened to this wonderful film that has just been absolutely overlooked? I think that at some point it's got a newspaper, guys.

2:54:26Amanda Dobbins:But that's not the reason. I know.

2:54:27Wesley Morris:It's not.

2:54:28Amanda Dobbins:Because I think the thing that works about this movie is that it's applicable to all moments in time of human history. Yes. I also think that it is specifically obviously about Iran. But I just really I love this movie. I just can pick one person. I'm picking Mendeza because he made the movie that to me of these people was the most difficult to pull off. This is operating in a kind of narrative and moral and political swamp. He has found a real light on the boat that takes you across the Hell River. I think Jafar Panahi I think that script is really the achievement there also like he's very good at directing those actors I think that Kelly Reichardt's achievement with the mastermind is the script that is the single best movie ending of the year I was gonna say we should

2:55:30Wesley Morris:have put it in ending do we want to go back and take it from begonia and give it to the mastermind

2:55:34Amanda Dobbins:the mastermind oh I love the ending of the mastermind

2:55:39Sean Fennessey:is like well what was that all for

2:55:40Amanda Dobbins:I mean just wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful ending

2:55:44Sean Fennessey:if you haven't seen the masterminds on MUBI right now I would highly encourage people to check it out

2:55:47Amanda Dobbins:but I think that I'm gonna say that I'm fine with that I agree directing people who've never acted before

2:55:59Sean Fennessey:hearing you guys talking about Panahi it occurs to me that even though all we do is talk about the International National Academy, right? And it's become very European in the last 10 years and increasingly South American. And Brazilian films are really getting their due right now. We've seen some of the Pablo Lorraine films from Chile get some love. There have never been a film from the Middle East or a film from Africa nominated for Best Picture in the History of the Academy Awards. Very notable.

2:56:28Amanda Dobbins:I mean, I think they probably think they got it done without Africa. They can cross it off the list. I wonder if that is the next phase.

2:56:38Sean Fennessey:That it's almost like the Academy is not really as familiar with Panahi's work. And they don't have the same level of legacy. And like, you know, maybe they haven't seen all the Kirstami films. They don't know about the Iranian new wave. They're not into that history.

2:56:51Amanda Dobbins:I mean, but there's like still several. I mean, there are like the West Africans, the Black French, the... the Iranians. Although, I mean, what are we talking about now? Right? I mean,

2:57:10Sean Fennessey:you know, there's like Tunisian cinema, you know, there's all kinds of places.

2:57:14Amanda Dobbins:There are still the Romanians. Like, I mean, one of those guys is going to have a moment. I don't know. This is an interesting way to think about what, like how much bigger the tent has to get.

2:57:27Sean Fennessey:Well, like my father's shadow, which is a Nigerian British film, is set in Lagos. Like it is, it is, it's an African movie. Right. And it's like very well reviewed and was represented at BAFTA, but like it never even had a moment in any Oscar conversation. And I'm just pointing it out. No, no. I mean, it's worth noting.

2:57:48Amanda Dobbins:I think that is to come, I believe. It'll take, you know, yeah. Might be a decade or two

2:57:53Sean Fennessey:before they really get around to all of that. Because it's a lot of history that most Western film lovers are just not as informed about. And so they don't feel the same sense of well we have to recognize Panahi's achievements because you know they didn't see Taxi or whatever or forget about the films that he made in the 90s and 2000s like

2:58:15Amanda Dobbins:Taxi

2:58:15Sean Fennessey:there's

2:58:16Amanda Dobbins:I mean there's a masterpiece one of his several masterpieces okay

2:58:21Sean Fennessey:last category best picture so we gotta get out of here the nominees are Black Bag Eddington Die My Love It Was Just An Accident No Other Choice The Mastermind The Phoenician Scheme Sorry Baby The Testament of Anli and weapons. I have no idea what's winning here.

2:58:37Amanda Dobbins:This is easy for me.

2:58:39Wesley Morris:Go ahead.

2:58:40Sean Fennessey:Weapons.

2:58:42Wesley Morris:It seems like there probably is the most agreement. This is probably the film

2:58:45Sean Fennessey:that has the highest number of votes to get into Best Picture in the Academy that didn't make it. That would be my guess. Yeah. Weapons. Maybe it was just an accident. Is it there too?

2:58:55Wesley Morris:Or No Other Choice. No.

2:58:57Sean Fennessey:No Other Choice has just gotten dinged everywhere. I know. I would pick No Other Choice. No Other Choice was my third favorite movie of the year.

2:59:03Amanda Dobbins:I love No Other Choice. I love No Other Choice. I just, I also just, I mean, I've seen Park Chan-wook do that before. Sure.

2:59:14Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I think that's been the biggest criticism of it.

2:59:16Amanda Dobbins:If you've seen his movies, you know that this is just him returning to form. It's not him transcending the form he returned to.

2:59:23Sean Fennessey:That is a very fair take.

2:59:25Amanda Dobbins:I think that weapons was...

2:59:27Sean Fennessey:The form, by the way, that you're referring to is of one of the 15 greatest filmmakers on earth. like it's not as though he's returning to form which is a piece of shit oh no like the movie

2:59:35Amanda Dobbins:is still very good but i mean it's this movie is not better than you know the first four i like but i really really love it i mean it's as good as i think it's as good as i think it's

2:59:49Sean Fennessey:in like i think it's like a minus territory and he has a couple of movies right he has old boy he has a couple of like A movies

2:59:58Amanda Dobbins:I also don't love the ending I think that everything about this movie is note perfect until you get to the dismount also once again AI yeah that last shot

3:00:12Wesley Morris:I mean it's like paired with Eddington I I mean weapons

3:00:18Amanda Dobbins:where do you lean?

3:00:21Wesley Morris:I think no other choice it was just an accident weapons are probably like the consensus things here like if if you were on the editing eddington

3:00:32Sean Fennessey:train i might put but you're not i'm really not you know and it's all about consensus that's my number two movie of the year

3:00:40Amanda Dobbins:I knew that. I knew that. I knew that.

3:00:43Wesley Morris:I really liked it. I love listening.

3:00:45Amanda Dobbins:I love listening to people. I love I've not read. I've not read enough about this movie, but I've heard, you know, I've heard enough.

3:00:53Sean Fennessey:It is just like it is the the dark vampiric truth of how the world is. And the Paramount Warner Brothers thing that we cleared our throat about for three hours ago is like it's all there, man.

3:01:05Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, it might warrant me re-watching it under the circumstances. But, I mean, for our purposes today, I'm going to say...

3:01:16Wesley Morris:I'm good with weapons.

3:01:17Amanda Dobbins:I'm going to say weapons. Sorry, Mr. Panahi.

3:01:21Sean Fennessey:I think weapons is an absolutely wonderful winner because it's a movie that would never win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. And that's why it deserves its love here. How do you feel about this exercise? Good? Yeah.

3:01:32Wesley Morris:I love it. I love talking to you guys. We solved everything.

3:01:35Amanda Dobbins:Figuring it all out.

3:01:36Sean Fennessey:We definitely solved pants. I'm going to work at Paramount, guys. Just a heads up.

3:01:40Wesley Morris:This is my last episode.

3:01:41Sean Fennessey:Thanks, everybody. Hey, Jack, thank you so much for everything. I'll see you never again. Okay, buddy. Got to go join the Ellison Army. Whoa. Yeah.

3:01:50Amanda Dobbins:I mean, I guess we can do this. Exactly.

3:01:53Sean Fennessey:You guys can do this. Congratulations. You've been elevated from third chair to second chair.

3:01:58Amanda Dobbins:I'm definitely going to get canned under the... I mean, although we get to stay here until y 'all buy us. In my first act as Paramount Chief, I will be buying Spotify. You buy the New York Times and you buy Spotify. Oh boy.

3:02:14Sean Fennessey:Hey guys, it's Sean. The big picture's canceled. Wesley Morris, thank you. We can find you in the New York Times. We can find you on your show Cannonball, which I highly encourage people to listen to. Where else can we find you?

3:02:25Amanda Dobbins:That's it.

3:02:26Sean Fennessey:Okay.

3:02:26Amanda Dobbins:Home?

3:02:28Sean Fennessey:Well, hopefully they don't find your home.

3:02:29Amanda Dobbins:Traveling with my man. I don't know. Where are you going next? Lima, Peru.

3:02:34Wesley Morris:Wow.

3:02:35Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, my best friend and his wife, who's also my very good friend, they live there. They've lived there for years. This is their last year before they move somewhere else. And so my annual trips to Lima are going to come to an end.

3:02:47Sean Fennessey:Oh, that sounds awesome.

3:02:48Amanda Dobbins:I'm very sad about it, but I'm going to go for one last. Great eating city. I have the best time. Yeah, I'm jealous. It's one of the great cities to dine in in the world. I've never been to South America. I really want to go. Help yourself. Lima is a great place to start. Interesting.

3:03:04Sean Fennessey:Amanda, thank you. Do you feel like you've done yeoman's work today? Yeowoman's work?

3:03:08Wesley Morris:Sure. I think I got my major points across, you know, which is all you can hope for.

3:03:14Sean Fennessey:Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for production support.

3:03:20Amanda Dobbins:Thanks, Jack and Lucas.

3:03:22Sean Fennessey:Later this week, here comes the bride. We'll see you then.

3:03:28Bye.