Who Will Win at the Oscars

0:00I'm Aisha Roscoe and this is the Sunday Story from Up First where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. Tonight, Hollywood's biggest stars gather for the Academy Awards, the annual celebration of all things movies. If you've been listening to the Sunday Story for a while, you know I love horror movies, so I was happy to see the horror genre getting some love this year. The film The Substance was about the terrifying outcome of an age-reversing drug, and it's been nominated in five categories, including Best Picture and Best Actress. And I also saw Conclave. It's a visually stunning film.

0:46Acting is amazing. It's about the selection of a new pope. I really love that one. And of course, I had to watch Wicked with my kids. We had a lot of fun. If you haven't seen it, you don't have to look to the western sky that's in the movie. It's kind of a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, and it's got a whopping 10 nominations this year. Beyond that, I haven't been able to see many of the movies this year because I'm always working. But our friends over at Pop Culture Happy Hour have seen them all. It's their job. And we're going to hear their predictions coming up right after the break. This message comes from NPR sponsor FX.

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2:55Transforming a humble plank of weathered barnwood into a show-stopping charcuterie spread. Rinse. It's time to be great. We're back with the Sunday story from Up First, and today we're sharing an excerpt of an episode from our friends at Pop Culture Happy Hour. It features all of their predictions of who will be the big winners at tonight's ceremony. A misunderstood witch, an unknowable singer-songwriter, a dejected TV personality, and the Dean of Cardinals will all walk into the Dolby Theater on Sunday night. Because it's that time of year again. Yes, it's the Oscars. It's an interesting crop of Best Picture, Director, and Acting nominees, and we're talking about who we think will win and who we think should take home those shiny gold statues.

3:44I'm Stephen Thompson. And I'm Aisha Harris. And on this episode of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we're offering up a guide to this year's Oscars. Joining us today are our fellow Pop Culture Happy Hour hosts, Linda Holmes. Hey, Linda. Hello. And Glenn Weldon. Hey, Glenn. Hey, Aisha. It's great to be here with all of you to talk about the Oscars for our big Oscar show. We are going to obviously spend some time on Best Picture first, since that's the big ticket award of the night. And a couple of big blockbusters earned nominations. Stephen, do you want to set those up for us? Sure. We've got Wicked set before the events of The Wizard of Oz.

4:23This musical is the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West. It stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.

4:34What a good clip. Perfect clip. I knew that was going to be the moment that we chose. Never let it be said that that movie does not end on a strong note. The other big, big, big blockbuster, you've got Dune Part 2. Timothy Chalamet returns as Paul Atreides, who must now contend with a group called the Harkonnens, who have seized control of the planet. May thy knife chip and shatter. I was definitely thankful for those recaps for Dune Part 1 before I watched this one. Did you try to read the Wikipedia page about Dune Part 1 before going into Dune Part 2? Because I was more lost than I was going in.

5:11Try the books. If you think it's daunting, try the books. Yes, yes. Well, okay, there's also a handful of smaller but no less ambitious movies that were nominated. And to some degree, I think this crop, we all really liked and admired quite a few of these. So, Linda, can you give us the rundown on these films? Absolutely. Conclave is a fun and twisty look at the secretive process by which a pope is replaced. Ralph Fiennes plays the cardinal leading the process. If you want to defeat Tedesco. This is a conclave, Aldo. It's not a war. It is a war. And world's most smooth segue. In The Substance, Demi Moore plays an aerobics instructor who wants to stay in the spotlight.

5:54so she turns to a strange black market drug. Remember, there is no she and you. You are one. Respect the balance and you won't have any more inconveniences. Yeah, exactly like picking a pope. It's basically the same thing. It's pretty much something. Nickel Boys is the story of two black boys who form an unshakable bond at a segregated reform school in the Jim Crow South. There are four ways out of nickel. Serve your time or age out. Court might have been, if you believe in miracles, you could die, they could kill you, you could run. Those are all very different, but like I said, very ambitious in their own ways.

6:36So it's nice to see them in the mix here, for sure. And then, of course, we've got the more traditional Best Picture nominees here. Glenn, tell us about this group. Yeah, we've got one of those biopics, A Complete Unknown. Timothy Shalami playing a young Bob Dylan. The movie follows his rise in the music world. How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man Six. Six is the answer. We've got The Brutalist. Adrian Brody plays a fictional Jewish-Hungarian architect who relocates to the United States after World War II. I would like to draw something and present it to you. You'd like to win the commission.

7:22Yeah. And, you know, for the past several years, we've seen international features nominated in the Best Picture category. And so this year, I'm Still Here actually earned a nomination. It's set in 1970s Brazil when it was under a military dictatorship. And it tells the story of a mother dealing with the disappearance of her politician husband.

7:48And finally, we've got two movies that have been making. lots of waves. Waves. We're calling them waves now. Okay. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. But they've been on the scene since way back at Cannes, the Cannes Film Festival last spring. Stephen, what have we got here? Well, we've got a Nora, Sean Baker's movie about an enterprising sex worker who marries the immature son of Russian oligarchs. So you want to get married to me, Vanya? You want me to be your little wifey? Yeah? Yes. This accent, yes. And then there's Emilia Perez. It is about a trans-Mexican cartel boss who disappears from the criminal underworld and eventually reunites with her family after creating a new life as a woman.

8:35Changing the body changes society. Changing society changes the soul. Changing the soul changes society. Changing society changes it all. Oofta, okay. Okay, well, before we truly dig into who we think will and should win here, it's important for us to sort of briefly touch on the controversies that have arisen during award season. There's the big one. Very soon after the nominations were announced in January, some old racist and Islamophobic tweets made by Amelia Perez star Carla Sophia Gascon resurfaced by journalist Sarah Hagee. Now, in those tweets, the actress used slurs and other disparaging language to refer to a wide range of demographics and people, including Muslims, Chinese people, and George Floyd.

9:24Gascon apologized via an official Netflix statement, but continued to discuss it in interviews, and she suggested there was some kind of larger conspiracy at work against her. Now, to a lesser degree, the Amelia Perez team has also faced some flack for using AI cloning to widen Gascon's singing range. Amelia Perez led the Oscars race this year with 13 nominations. But I'm actually curious if you all think that these controversies have impacted this film's chance of taking home Best Picture. Linda, let's start with you and what you think will win. Well, I do think that these controversies are going to affect Amelia Perez.

10:00And that's partly because I think there are a lot of people who had a lot of misgivings about this movie anyway. and these controversies have sort of given them an opportunity to say, okay, cool, I'm going to rule that one out then. I think if people were more excited about the movie, it probably would have less of an effect. But I do think that is likely to have an effect. And that left me predicting that The Brutalist would win Best Picture. It is kind of the most traditional Oscars-y movie remaining. It is a heavy historical drama. It has a really strong lead performance from Adrian Brody, who's kind of a very beloved awardsy type of actor.

10:38You know, the director, Brady Corbet, has been widely praised for making it on a relatively small budget compared to its sweep. And despite the fact that there have been a couple of questions raised about use of AI, I think those things are gonna fall away. And I think The Brutalist will win. Just to back up a little bit, in case you haven't heard about the AI controversy around The Brutalist, leads, Adrian Brody and Felicity Jones, were reportedly their voices were fed into some AI software. And director Brady Corbe said in a statement that only their Hungarian dialogue was enhanced by the AI.

11:15But also the film's editor said that generative AI was used as inspiration for some of the architectural drawings that are done by Adrian Brody's character. So Stephen, what are your thoughts on what will win? I feel almost word for word the same way Linda does. I feel that The Brutalist is going to wind end up reaping a lot of the benefit of some of the blowback against Amelia Pettis. It's a great man, historical epic, running more than three and a half hours in length. What could be more Oscars than that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, one thing I will note is that it's also important to remember that the Oscars are ultimately decided through rank choice voting.

11:53And so it doesn't have to be everyone's favorite film. It just has to be enough people's maybe even second favorite film. And I think that is maybe what hurts Emilia Pettis the most. There may be a passionate contingent putting it first, but there are going to be a lot of people who rank it 10th. Not just me, and I'm not even an Oscar voter. Yeah. But see, I think the ranked choice voting is going to help Anora. I think a lot of people feel very favorably disposed toward that film. If they don't rank it first, they're going to rank it second or third. I think the buzz around Anora has been growing.

12:27I think this is a real chance for a scrappy little movie like Anora to take it home. Yeah. And that's where you and I align, Glenn. I also think Anora is going to win. It won the Producers Guild of America Awards. And since 2010, every winner of the PGA Award has also won Best Picture with three exceptions. And then there was also one year where there was a tie between Gravity and 12 Years a Slave. 12 Years a Slave wound up winning the Oscars. So like, I feel like the odds are kind of in Anora's favor, but we shall see. So we all said who we think will win, but like, who do we think should win?

13:03For me, I think Anora should win. I think it is, to me, the correct choice in part because it subverts expectations around genre. You think it's going to be some sort of like sort of crime movie, but it's also a family comedy and a screwball comedy and a drama. And it just feels like a movie that's of the moment in a way that most of the other films in this pack do not land for me. It normalizes this depiction of sex work. It also has this very matter-of-fact take on capitalism that I don't think is either subtle, but it's not preachy either. It's just very resonant. You've just got me piggybacking off people who share my opinions.

13:43Yay! I agree. Now, there are several other films in this field that I really dearly love. And I could make a case for Conclave. I could strangely make a case for the substance. In spite of some plot issues that I had with it, a movie that has really stuck with me and I suspect will continue to stick with me. But Anora, to me, is made with such verve. And for me, it just felt like such a victory lap for Sean Baker, who's been making great movies for a long time now without necessarily a ton of major awards consideration. For me, this is a film that I really, really dug. And it's not, again, I'm going to keep harping on this point, it's not a typical Oscar movie.

14:23I don't know. Well, Linda, I know you were not a huge fan of this, and we don't have to get into why. And also, I love that we have different opinions on this show. So I am curious as to what you think should win. I ultimately went with Nickel Boys. It's the one that I thought was the most emotionally rich and satisfying. It's also the one that I think was the most innovative in terms of filmmaking. People have talked a lot about the first person point of view, camera work here from the director, Ramel Ross. I think that's really interesting. I think there are some very interesting decisions about what to give away and what to withhold.

15:00I think he got some really wonderful work out of the actors in this film. If we're going to have a big party where we honor people making movies, I want it to be something like this. You know, for me, everything else, there was some reason not to pick it, whether it was, you know, controversy or, you know, for me, the Enora thing of sex workers who sort of turn out to just want to be hugged to me is not that interesting and actually is a pretty familiar trope from film. This is what I picked. I picked Nickel Boys. As did I. I thought I was going to be out here all alone, but I'd join you, Linda.

15:34I'd like to see the Academy rewarding any innovation, any tweaking of the format. And it's not just that it's told through the character's eyes. The use of that could have easily been just a distracting gimmick, right? But it's used so smartly to serve the story and to serve the emotions of the story. and not for nothing, this film has a closing montage that's like five, ten minutes long that also could have been confusing, disorienting but the director, Romel Ross, is going back to his experimental film roots. That montage took you by the hand. It guided you along in such a confident and assured way.

16:09You knew exactly what was happening which is yet another reason the fact that we didn't get a nomination for directing or cinematography or editing. Cinematography. Yeah. How did this not get nominated for cinematography? You know, what are we awarding here? outstanding achievement of these 10 films. This is the outstanding achievement. I would be so happy to see this one. It has stayed with me months later, and I think it's just such a beautiful film that I need to rewatch. I definitely need to rewatch, and I think it rewards rewatch. And we should also note that Nickel Boys is actually released by Amazon MGM Studios, and Amazon supports NPR and pays to distribute some of our content.

16:49You're listening to The Sunday Story. More Oscar predictions when we come back.

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18:44We're back with the Sunday story from Up First as we hear more Oscar predictions from the team over at Pop Culture Happy Hour. So another note I want to make is that we are going to be making these next predictions before the Screen Actor Guild Awards have come out at the time of this recording. So ordinarily, as I did with the best picture, I would have kind of like dug into my back and looked, oh, who won SAG Awards? And that would have helped inform my opinions here. We're just out here being brave. That's all. We're being brave. We're out here naked. Just sheets of the wind. How will we ever make an accurate prediction from this field?

19:22I have no idea. So let's move on to the acting categories and let's start with the lead actress category. Stephen, who is nominated here? Cynthia Erivo for Wicked. Erivo plays Elphaba in this origin story about the Wicked Witch of the West. Sorry, you just got it every time, every time. Fernanda Torres for I'm Still Here. Torres plays a mother, an activist whose life is upturned when her politician husband goes missing during the military dictatorship in Brazil. Mikey Madison for Anora. Madison plays a New York sex worker who marries the son of Russian oligarchs. arcs. Carla Sofia Gascon for Amelia Perez.

20:02Gascon plays the titular Amelia Perez, a trans cartel leader who leaves the criminal underworld to begin a new life. She's the first openly trans actress or actor of any gender nominated in an acting category. And then we've got the presumed front runner. Aisha, I don't think you need the SAG Awards to predict this one. Demi Moore for The Substance. Moore plays a TV aerobics instructor who turns to a mysterious black market drug to stay young. I need you because I hate myself. You got to get ready. It's our big night. Come on, they're going to love you so much. All right. And I'm pretty sure that we all think Demi Moore is going to walk away with this award.

20:49Linda, why do you think she'll win? Well, I mean, some of it is just forecasting based on, you know, awards already won and sort of critical reaction already received. But also, I think she has exactly the kind of story that often does well at the Oscars. Demi Moore has been around for a really long time. She talked about this at the Golden Globes. She was originally kind of pigeonholed as a like a pop movie actress, as she put it, a popcorn actress. and I think she's been really good in a number of different things for a long time but not the kinds of things that necessarily got her awards recognition you know first of all people tend to think it's very brave when you go through some sort of body transformation and do something that looks ugly and gross especially if you are a woman who came up as a kind of conventionally beautiful woman so that tends to weigh in her favor I also think she's just one of those people who's worked with a gazillion people over the course of her career who all seem to have a reasonable amount of affection for her.

21:48She doesn't seem to be somebody who has, for some reason, made enemies in her long time in Hollywood. And sometimes that really helps just to have been around forever, acting with a ton of people, working in a ton of projects. I think that's going to do it. I think she will win. If you're looking for any kind of dark horse in this race in terms of somebody who has the potential to win, I wouldn't 100 % rule out Fernanda Torres, who gives a pretty magnificent performance in I'm Still Here, who really carries that film, and who is a very, again, a veteran actress who has done a ton of great work.

22:23I don't think she will win against Demi Moore, but this is definitely one of the most heralded performances of the year and one that I could see slipping through. Well, and I do want to add, you know, it's easy now to look at this and be like, oh, yeah, it's going to be Demi Moore, obviously, ho-hum. But, like, go back to reading this script, right? Absolutely. Go back to the moment when this script shows up. And you look at it and it's like, I mean, now it feels like Demi Moore is going to cakewalk to the Best Actress Oscar for this horror movie in which she winds up as a blob of tissue by the end.

22:59I mean. That's how Katherine Hepburn did it. The unlikelihood of getting recognized for horror, the unlikelihood of getting recognized for something as strange as this movie is, this is not something you would take thinking like I'm going to cakewalk to an Oscar for playing this part. Now, Glenn, who do you think should win the award? I think I have a sense of who you're thinking here. Yeah, it's to me. It's will and should. I mean, for all the reasons we've talked about. Plus, it's the only shot this very weird movie has at a major award, one of the big five. So, yeah, let's give it. I absolutely think she's deserving and I will be thrilled if she wins.

23:33However, in this category, I decided to go with Cynthia Erivo and I'll tell you why. Yeah, I get that. Wicked has sort of fallen out of most of the major Oscar conversations at this point in its life. And I think that's a shame because I don't think it's a perfect movie. I think a lot of its charm comes from the source material and the performances. But to me, the last 15 to 20 minutes of that film, which include obviously Defying Gravity, which obviously became immediately a meme and a TikTok sound. And, you know, there were things of like a dog on a broomstick going up into the sky with it's me.

24:11It's me.

24:16I think that sequence is good enough that that is what a movie star who is a good actor is supposed to do. And when you put on top of it the fact that I think it is a hell of a performance of a really good song, like, what am I asking for, right? Like, what am I asking people for if not this? What am I rewarding if not this? I picked Cynthia Erivo. I have no regrets. None at all. I love it. I love that. Solid pick. Stephen, who do you think should win? I went with Mikey Madison for Anora. I think the movie falls apart if she doesn't give a great performance. I think she manages to bring just huge amounts of charisma and energy.

24:55This performance could so easily have dipped into caricature, and maybe Linda thinks it did dip into caricature. I don't know. But I really found this to be just like a very vibrant and committed performance from somebody I can't wait to see in more movies. No, I think she's wonderful. I think she is absolutely wonderful. I think the charisma that you talk about is 100 % real. My issue is with the ending. I think the ending sells out the character and sells out what the movie was doing at the beginning, but it's only the ending that irritated me. I get that. Yeah, I get that. I mean, Stephen, you and I are aligned.