Oscars Preview! Timmy Trouble, a ‘Sinners’ Surge, and a Big Lead for 'One Battle'

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0:44Matt Belloni:This episode of The Town is brought to you by The Madison. The new original series on Paramount+. Academy Award nominee Taylor Sheridan's most intimate story yet, unlike anything he's ever done before. The Madison follows a family raised in a world of digital distraction, forced by tragedy to truly see one another and come together. Authentic, multi-layered, and did I mention starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell? Don't miss The Madison. New series streaming March 14th, only on Paramount+. It is Wednesday, March 11th. It's Oscar week. Craig and I will be there on Sunday. Look for us. We'll be quickly escorted away from the real red carpet to the side carpet for the non-famous people.

1:26Matt Belloni:It's been a fun, if kind of paint-by-numbers award season. One battle after another has pretty much dominated all the precursor awards all season, except for the Actor Awards, formerly the SAG Awards. That top honor went to Sinners, which some people think could signal it's going to pull off a major upset. It did get the most nominations ever with 16, though 44 % of movies that lead the nominations do not end up winning Best Picture. One Battle and Sinners are facing off in a record 11 categories. That makes this one of the most epic contests between two contenders ever. And either way, great for Warner Brothers, it's very rare for studio heads like Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdi to sit there in the crowd knowing they're gonna win regardless of which way the Academy leans.

2:08Matt Belloni:I'm a little skeptical of the Sinners narrative, but for the real expert opinion, we've got Michael Asker back on the show. Michael is not a professional awards prognosticator. He's actually a talent manager at Mosaic, has some great clients in the comedy world. But he's also a longtime Oscar watcher and knows this stuff from the inside, meaning he actually talks to the voters and goes to the events that aren't necessarily for media. So today we're going to get into the Oscar narratives that Hollywood will be watching. One battle versus sinners, Timmy versus everybody, and the races that could surprise us all.

2:38Matt Belloni:From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is The Town.

2:46Matt Belloni:Okay, we are here with Michael Lasker, talent manager, producer, and Oscarologist. What is this? How many times have you been on the show now? I think this is my fifth, actually. Five-timer. You are a five-timer guest. Craig, we need a jacket like SNL that you get in the five-timer club. Yeah, it's bright orange and hideous. Yeah, and it's got a picture of Ana de Armas on the back. I'll wear it on the next time we come on. It's you and Lucas and Rich Greenfield. Exactly. A very exclusive club. Amazing company. Are you kidding me? All right. So it's Oscar week. We are talking about the big narratives.

3:25Matt Belloni:You as the consummate insider, you not only pay attention to the Oscars, you also talk to the voters a lot, unlike some of these prognosticators out there that claim to be experts. So I want to go to the big narratives this season. And we got to start with Timmy, right? timothy chalamet can we just first of all dispel this stupid narrative that he blew his oscar by criticizing ballet and opera yes that has been dispelled first of all all that happened after the voting was done and and also if you watch the interview with him and mcconaughey it's a little taken out of context and yes to be clear timmy chalamet is a genius brilliant actor whoever he wants to work with he's amazing in the movie he was amazing last year i thought he was going to win last year, actually.

4:14He's doing fine. I think what's at play here is a couple of key things, right? One of the big things that a lot of people have covered, and it is true, is that when there is a phenom-style young male actor who just explodes into the business, and I'll give you three examples, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, it has taken them a very long time to get their eventual Oscar, right? So Dustin Hoffman, 1967 graduate. He doesn't win till 79, his fourth nomination, Cramer versus Cramer. Pacino, 1972, The Godfather, doesn't win till his eighth nomination, 92, Son of a Woman. Then, of course, Leo, people forget this, who know Leo, his work today, nominated in 93 as a kid for What's Eating Gilbert Grape, wins on his fifth nomination in 2015 for The Revenant.

4:57I would put Timmy into that category of these phenom-style actors, where I think people look at them and they say, you're so great. You can do anything. You're going to keep doing this for a while. And maybe we're going to make you wait a little bit. So I think that's narrative one.

5:10Matt Belloni:In a way they don't for the actresses. And Kyle wrote about this. Kyle was on the show talking about this, but he was the favorite. And I was so confident that his campaigning and the narrative was so good. I actually switched my vote for him. I was team Leo and I went to Timmy right around when it all went to shit and people started saying, oh, it's actually going to be neither of them, it's going to be Michael B. Jordan. I think that brings in the second narrative. And the second narrative is twofold, which is, first of all, Marty Supreme, which I thought was great, has just lost all of its momentum to one battle in Sinners.

5:43Those are the only two movies that have any kind of wave behind them. But I think the second thing is that we've seen this trend in the last five, six, seven years where really celebrated movies have gotten many, many nominations and then won zero wins. So in 2023, Banshees had nine nominations, zero wins. Tar had six nominations, zero wins. By the way, a lot of people thought Cate Blanchett was going to win that Oscar, and she didn't. Killers of Flower Moon, I think 0 for 10 or 11, and Irishman, 0 for 10 in 2019. So I think what's happened is that Marty Supreme, which I thought was a great movie, and by the way, you could argue, I think we're not going to cover all the categories.

6:20Clearly, people think that Francine Maisler, who's a legend, and part of the reason why the casting Oscar got invented is going to win for Sinners. And I think that would be a great win. But I mean, you could also argue Marty Supreme should win for casting. That's got the most inventive casting of the category.

6:33Matt Belloni:It does. Although Mr. Wonderful bugged the crap out of you. I thought he was great. Keep going. I thought he was great. But so I think you have that momentum loss of the movie that it's only shot is to win for Timmy. And another thing I looked at, and this is like, I'll admit, it's a little flimsy. I was testing this out on some friends this weekend. I went back to 1990. And from 1990 to 2025, there are only best actor wins where the actor is the only Oscar win for the movie. Those wins are, they're basically like Denzel for Training Day, Pacino for Scent of a Woman, Nicolas Cage for Leaving Las Vegas, Phil C.

7:09Robb for Capote. And what those wins are is they're either kind of like a nostalgia, it's time win. Hey, we didn't give Denzel Malcolm X 92. Let's give it him for Training Day in 2001. or what it is, is it's like, oh my God, Phil Seymour Hoffman gave the best performance I've ever seen, which is Capote. And I think that Timmy is somewhere in the middle of that because it's not really his time because he's this phenom.

7:31Matt Belloni:It's not going to be his best that he's ever going to do. Right. And ultimately, even though he's so amazing in the movie, it's just an incredibly loaded category. I mean, I've talked to people that are voting for Ethan Hawke. Another thing I was thinking about - Or Bogdor Mora. Bogdor Mora has a lot of the international votes. I mean, Sean Fennessey has been on that. I don't know where he's going to land on Thursday when they announced their picks, but he's been on that hill for a while. Wagner Moore was unbelievable. I loved that movie so much. What's interesting about this category, I was thinking about it this morning, you have four child phenoms that have become men in the category.

8:00We met Michael B on The Wire, right? And now he's this incredible, you know, adult actor. Met Ethan Hawke in Explorers, you know, back in the mid 80s before like Dead Poets Society. And of course, Leo and Timmy. And so you could argue that it's a lot of their time. Now, Leo is the elder states for now. He's barely campaigned. I'm assuming he's coming back from Prague from the Scorsese film to go to the show, but I don't know. He will be there.

8:24Matt Belloni:He's got to. And I think, I mean, I loved everything this year. I loved Sinners. One Battle was my favorite movie, and I think Leo is just unbelievable in that movie. I think what happens here, and this is going to hurt Timmy, is that increasingly the voters like a movie and just voted down the line. Yes. And we saw that last year with the Nora, where there was a lot of chatter about other categories going to other people. And it turned out Mikey Madison won. Sean Baker ended up winning three Oscars. Like, it's, and I think the question is, are voters going to fall on the side of sinners or one battle and vote it down the line?

9:00Well, I would say two things, which is, I think, I still believe the voters will lean towards one battle for Best Picture, which is why I think they're veering towards Michael B. Jordan for Best Actor, because it's a way to kind of, you know, divide it a little bit.

9:11Matt Belloni:So if you had to vote, you would say Michael B is going to win? I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. Because the Calci odds, I was going to put some money on Timmy because he's like only 30 % at this point. Yeah, you can make some money. I think Craig is betting on Timmy. Craig is like in a hotel room in Vegas right now. Just like he hasn't slept in five days. He's going to be sweating the entire night. No, you can make some money. I'm opening accounts left and right to bet on Timmy. Well, the odds have just changed so much. And a lot of them changed after the voting window closed.

9:39Matt Belloni:Well, they changed after the SAG Awards when Michael B. won. And there were a few days left in voting. And then after the whole controversy came up, I think people in the real world don't recognize that voting was over and they're going against Timmy. Well, and there's also a big difference between Timmy's odds on a book like FanDuel, which has like its own equation to kind of come up with the odds versus Kalshi, which is public influenced. and the public thinks Michael B. Jordan is going to win much more than Vegas thinks Michael B. Jordan. I want to point out this is a good moment to do it. I mean, it's fun now that Cal Sheen, all these things are betting on everything, although they're betting on certain things that should not be bet on, like, you know, wars, obviously.

10:21But people have to remember that the only people who vote and who matter are in the academy. And so this is just kind of like you said, with the public thinks and also reminder, there's not a single of the precursor awards that in any real way mathematically match the Academy body. I was saying to Craig earlier, there's 150 ,000 people in SAG that can vote. I don't know how many people voted, obviously. There's 1 ,300 actors in the actors branch of the Academy.

10:44Matt Belloni:And a lot of them are international and SAG is heavily US. That's right. SAG did not vote for any of these foreign films that got into the Oscars. So yes, I agree. People put too much credence in the SAG winner, which is why I think the Michael B. Jordan momentum is a little bit mistaken. You could be right, but I'll give you one more theory and I will toot my horn because this is what I said to you last year. Everybody had Demi last year and I came on your show and picked Mikey. And it was simply because I felt like if you saw the movies, Mikey was in every inch of the film, obviously. And Demi is really only in half the movie.

11:18I think something that's been neglected in this whole narrative is that Michael B plays two characters and he plays them unbelievably well. I mean, there's all these like quotes where like the other actors are like, I could see the back of Michael B. Jordan, you know, when he'd walk into a room, I could tell if he was smoke or he was stack. And so I think when you look at the cumulative effect of people love that movie, it's the most nominated film of the night. I'll come back to that stat in a second. And he played two people and he did it so convincingly. And he's somebody that we've loved for so long.

11:45I think it's just, I mean, it would be so fascinating. They'll never do it. This would be one of the most fascinating races ever to actually see the vote tally, because I think all five guys have a real, have a real shot.

11:56Matt Belloni:Please Academy someday, maybe a hundred years. We talked about it on this show. They need to release the boat tallies and they need to do a countdown on the show of the top 10 movies and have them stand up and somebody gets eliminated American idol style. And then the final three are on stage and the winner is crowned. Why, why can we not do that? go pitch it to youtube maybe it's coming you know maybe it would be in a couple years all right so let's talk about that momentum the one battle versus sinners conundrum here um i don't think it's a conundrum i think that it's going to be one battle down the line i completely agree i mean i basically have right now one battle winning six and sinners winning four off the top of my head i feel like one battle is going to win picture director adapted screenplay supporting actor editing and cinematography those will be at six oh supporting actor is good for craig he bet on He bet on Sean Penn.

12:52Yeah, I think it will be Sean Penn. And then Sinners, I think, would be actor, original screenplay, original score, and casting. So six to four, now that could vary. Obviously, you know, if all of a sudden Sinners wins editing, that's going to be a huge bellwether that maybe it's going to Sinners. If Delroy surprises, you know, if they surprise the supporting actress, potentially, which they could. Although I feel like Tiana and Amy Madigan are really the two people that are battling in that one. And so I think people have to remember, I went back actually to 2000 from 2000 to 2025, 25 years of Oscars, only 10 of those 25 years did the most nominated film win best picture.

13:29So oftentimes the most nominated film, it's simply because it's a period piece now to Sinner's credit, uh, cause it broke the record. Even if they hadn't added the casting category, it would have broken the record. The record was 14. A couple of movies have it. It would have gotten 15 without casting. So you have to give it all this credit.

13:45Matt Belloni:I mean, it's been, there is widespread support among all the branches. Yes. And I have to point out that Ludwig and his wife, Serena, are parents at our preschool. So, you know, you got to root for that. They're great people. Oh, well, he's winning. He's winning. He's going to win for original score. That would be what, his second Oscar? He won for Oppenheimer? He won for Black Panther and Oppenheimer. Oh, wow. Yeah. No, he's a very nice guy. Very nice guy. So nice. And people love him. And, you know, he came up in the comedy world, like, on Community. And he's unbelievably talented. So I think, yeah.

14:13And at the end, look, people pointed this out. Fantasy's talked about it a lot. The amount of precursor, when you throw in like the critics awards, plus all the award shows outside of SAG Ensemble, which I'll get to in a second, what one battle has already won, it would be completely unprecedented if it lost Best Picture. And the thing on SAG Ensemble, what SAG does often is they just vote for literally what they think is the best ensemble. So literally last year, they voted for Conclave. They voted for Black Panther. They voted for the Trial of Chicago 7. The SAG Ensemble, and they did vote for Sinners last week, but the SAG Ensemble winner is not that predictive.

14:47Matt Belloni:uh for best picture so also sag best actor they voted for timmy last year and he lost that's correct that's absolutely right so i think one battle can't be stopped i look both movies are brilliant i love sinner so much i love one battle they're both about much more you know they both have a lot to say about today's america the past of america uh you know what's coming and so forth one thing i'm thinking about a lot is that there's a lot of maverick incredible you know legendary directors that never won a Best Director Oscar, right? To name a few, Stanley Kubrick. Well, Rob Reiner sadly was never nominated.

15:20He was nominated for the DGA many times for his brilliant movies. He's clearly going to be celebrated on Sunday. They've already announced they're going to do some stuff to honor him. But I'm talking about like Robert Altman, Kubrick, Hitchcock, Norman Juice, and Sidney Lumet, a lot of huge names that never, ever won a Best Director Oscar. I cannot believe that that could be PTA. This is his time. And I think that's just going to power of the whole thing. Like there's been a lot of splits in the 21st century. I don't see there being a split. And when you talk to people who loved one battle, they like worshipped one battle.

15:52Matt Belloni:And it's going to have a lot of support. Sinners has a lot of those people too. The whole backstory of Coogler insisting on the copyright and everybody saying it was going to fail and then it becoming a huge hit. Like that's, that's good for that movie. I agree. And obviously it's going to be a great Sunday for Warner brothers and for Pam and Mike. And you know, if somebody will have to do some kind of pool on how many times if David Zasloff is thanked. You know, because they haven't been thanking him. You know, I'm just reporting. Somebody mentioned his name at the Globes. I wrote in my newsletter that he was not thanked at the Globes.

16:26Matt Belloni:And I was helpfully reminded by a David Zasloff fan that may or may not have been connected to David Zasloff, that he was thanked once by the One Battle producer. Yes, that's right. That's right. I don't believe that that will likely happen. Look, and by the way, we're being, we're not trying to be mean. Part of it is that these people, they don't have a relationship with David Zasloff. They have a relationship with Pam and Mike. You know, all the other stuff that's going along, going aside, you know, they don't, you know, they never had a relationship the way people have relationships with like Bob Iger when you work at like Disney.

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17:28Matt Belloni:and it's never tasted so good. You can add protein cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks.

17:42All right, so is there a one battle weakness? The one battle weakness would be if there's going to be a split and all of a sudden you have it just picking up. Like it's going to win director and it's going to win adapted. And I believe it's going to win editing. Now, if all of a sudden it doesn't win editing, you're going to know that it's going to be a sinner's night and it's going to flip. And sinners is going to go from four wins, the four I named, and add editing. Maybe it picks up one of the supportings.

18:06Matt Belloni:Well, that's the thing is they often do supporting actress first or second. Yes. So if they don't win supporting for one battle, then are all bets off? A previous Oscar telecast that I think is very similar to this, and I'm going to get real nerdy and probably bore you, is the 2000 year Oscar. 2001 was the show, but it's the 2000 Oscars. It was the Gladiator traffic year. OK, in that year, traffic is nominated for five Oscars and it wins four. And so early in the night, it's like, boom, it wins Best Supporting Actor for Benicio. Boom, it wins Editing for Steven Marioni. Now it wins Adapted Screenplay for Steven Gagin.

18:42And now it wins Director for Soderbergh. By the way, nominated twice in the category for Brockovich, Aaron Brockovich, and Traffic. Gladiator ends up winning. And not even under his own name.

18:52Matt Belloni:What do you mean? Doesn't Soderbergh edit under Peter Andrews? He didn't edit Traffic, Steven Marioni. No, he DP's under, he DP's as Peter Andrews. No, you're right. Right, he DPs under Peter Andrews. Yes, and so it was not nominated, even though the photography in that movie is brilliant. So meanwhile, Gladiator, early in the night, wins sound, visual effects, costume design. And then, now this would connect to Sinners winning. And then Russell Crowe wins Best Actor. He'd been nominated the year before for The Insider, genius performance, loses to Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. And now he wins for Gladiator.

19:23And then Gladiator wins Best Picture of the night. So they win five, Traffic wins four. You could have a night like that, where you could have one battle come out fast, and then maybe the Michael B of it all powers sinners. Now, I don't think that will happen. But again, these are the only, I mean, one thing I was thinking about right now, there's only four movies that really likely will win more than one Oscar. One battle, sinners, K-pop, and Frankenstein. Everything else is just gonna be one. People think like F1 would take sound, Avatar take visual effects, stuff like that. So it's just, it's all about one battle and sinners, which by the way, not to sound like a nerd, I think is amazing.