2024 Oscar Nominations & Lions Update!

We have a hot one today, folks. Uh, before we get on it, though, let me, um, I don't have anything special today. I'm just using my, my regular lightsabers today. So let's just crack this open.

This is the last night mom and dad are in town visiting me. Surprise,

So, um, I was like frantic, like, talking to Jessie and like, so, what's a Barbie drink? Cause we're doing Oscars and we're definitely gonna talk about Barbie. Yes we are. So, she's like, well, sorry, that's the ice going in the glass. She goes, well, first of all, she, she directed me to the White Claws. Cause, well, yeah, most white girls like White Claws. Yeah. And Barbie, the original Barbie was a white girl.

So we can, uh, let's talk first about, um, By the way, I love today. I love today. Now, for those of you that don't know, The Academy Awards are, uh, The nominations. Huh? I had to pause for that. Yeah, you are definitely, like, you should be on poolside in your bikini. In your two piece. We're getting a picture of this. Yeah, you definitely need to be on the poolside in your two piece bikini right now. Trying to work on your tan. That's exactly what that drink looks like.

So, um 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. So there was 10. Okay. So, for those of you, again, that don't know, so the Oscar nominations always come out on a Tuesday in February, or rather, what is this, January? Uh, late January, early February, I think is the latest I've seen it. And it, um, So that gives the Academy a couple months to vote on these nominations, and they're always released, they're announced at 5. 30 in the morning LA time, which I always thought was crazy.

Now, if you think, and that's like 8. 30. Yeah, that way

What I've always wanted to do If I ever was like, like, you know, had made a film and it was a possibility, I wanted to pull an all night rager with friends and be up drinking until 5 30 in the morning. And then when we're all half in the bag or they're all probably passed out, except me, I'd be like, all right, guys, turn the TV on. Here it comes. And they're all Everybody's passed out, and I'm like, it's 5. 30, let's get those nominations!

Just to see that I didn't get nominated, and then I could just turn the TV off and go to bed. Um, but, so, also, we talked about this, I think we mentioned this on a previous podcast. That after 2008, uh, the Academy changed the rules to where you no longer, uh, have to have just 5 nominees for Best Picture. They expanded it to up to 10. I mean, and, and, most of the time you'll get like 8 or 9, but the last few years they've filled out the card.

There's been a full 10 and I just looked and again, there's a full boat of 10 films this year as well. Um. So, let's start with the elephant in the room. Let's just, uh, let's just address it and talk about it, because we have to talk about it. We need to talk about it. Not we have to, we need to.

Barbie. Now, Barbie, I have not seen yet, but from what everyone I've talked to

Now, before we take on the head on, obvious, misogynistic, uh, discrediting of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, um, you have to realize, too, before we get into it, The Academy loves Ryan Gosling. Let's just accept that right now. Everyone knows. Everyone Who doesn't love Ryan Gosling? No, but I mean, not in a way like, uh, like, Oh, Schwarzenegger movies always make money. Like, they like him personally. He's a personable guy.

He's, uh, there's never As far as I know, there's never been to work with. Everybody that works with him says he's a hell of a, he's a nice guy, he's a hell of a guy. Um, he's got the face that sells tickets. Uh, he was perfect pick for Ken. Let's, and let's address that for a second. Everyone that's blasting him getting nominated. He was, I don't know if I, if you were to say they were going to make a Barbie movie, who should be Ken?

I would have said Ryan Gosling before you finished the sentence. So, you know, so talk about perfect casting. Um, so, but, but aside from perfect casting, he's got the face and everybody, you know, he's really great to work with. Um, he, he's a star right now, you know? So, so It makes sense that the Academy gave him a nomination, and I don't think anybody would be shitting on it if it didn't dump the two nominations it should have gotten, and we'll get to that in a second. Right.

So Ryan Gosling's kind of like I'm glad we're going there. Yeah, I think, I think Ryan Gosling's getting kind of the shit end of the stick right now because the other two didn't get nominated, and because the other two didn't, he's sort of getting some maybe unnecessary backlash and criticism, uh, when in reality, uh, you know If a film is going to get a bunch of nominations and Ryan Gosling happens to be in it, guess what, he's going to get one of them.

Uh, but anyway, so I've got, I've got, um, Adapted screenplay. Now, you would have heard outrage, uh, more outrage than you're already getting if they had kept Greta Gerwig out of the writing category. That would have been, uh, a flat out, we do not like you, we don't want you here. Right. So she was named on that? She's nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, yes. Good, yes. And, and Barbie was also nominated for Production Design, Costume Design.

Sure. Did, did not get a Cinematography nomination. It did not get an Editing nomination. And these are important, because Uh, to be in serious contention for Best Picture, you almost always have either an editing or a cinematography nomination. And, a lot of times, whoever wins editing, oddly enough, wins Best Picture. Uh, it's just the way it always plays out. Barbie also got Knocked out of makeup and hairstyling which again. I haven't seen it.

I've only seen trailers, but I'm surprised That it would be left out. That would have been a natural

Um, of course it didn't get anything, well, I don't want to say of course, I haven't seen it, but I wouldn't peg it as a film that would get a sound nomination, or a visual effects nomination, didn't get any of those, uh, did not get original score, uh, and obviously, the short films documentary, it's not, it's not eligible for. It did get nominated, and I'm so glad.

Mom can tell you, she was sitting at the kitchen table today, and I'm going through the nominations, and, and I saw it, and I was like, YES! Barbie did snag a Best Original Song nomination for Billie Eilish's What Was I Made For. Yeah, that song was amazing. It's such a great, and again, I didn't even know when I stumbled across that song that it had any connection to Barbie. I didn't know it was from the movie. No, yeah.

I, I stumbled upon it, um, I wanna say, uh, Billy performed it on Saturday Night Live. And that was the first I, uh, I was like, wow, this is a really cool song. This is kind of deep, you know? And then I looked it up and I was like, oh, it's from Barbie, which makes it even grayer because if you read the lyrics, it's totally as if Barbie's singing the song, right? Like, she's writing it from Barbie's point of view. Um, so I was so glad to see that that got nominated.

And it did get, obviously, nominated for Best Picture. So, for a film to get Production Design, Costume Design, uh, I think those are the only two technical awards. And then the, and then the Uh, Best Song, and then two fairly big ones, Best Supporting Actor and Best Picture. Most films, that's a successful day at the office. Right.

Right. Okay? But, it has to be called out that the Academy's disrespect to Greta Gerwig is just I mean, again, and Margot Robbie as well, but, but when you Ugh, how can I say this? She not getting nominated in a category already filled with women. You know what I mean? Is, is less disgraceful because she just got beat out by other women. Sure. But to leave Greta Gerwig out of Best Director and fill it with a bunch of dudes Dude,

Um, and that maybe some of these other ones. Now I have not seen The Zone of Interest. Jonathan Glazer is nominated for Best Director. I have not seen Poor Things, but the trailer looks amazing. The trailer looks amazing for Poor Things. That is definitely on my list. Um I'm not even gonna attempt this one. Alright, fine, I'll attempt it. Yorgos Lanthimos. I might have nailed that. Uh, director for Poor Things got nominated. Of course, Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer.

Let's not forget, folks, I've been talking about Oppenheimer since last summer. So, I knew this film was gonna get a bunch of nominations, and you knew Christopher Nolan was gonna be included. Again, Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese, and then Anatomy of a Fall, which I have not seen, but I saw it has a hmm. So, is this another film? You know, the Academy could have just been like, man, wait a minute, is that another female? Maybe I was wrong, I said in the category filled with males.

Justine Triette? Do we have a female Best Director nominee? Now we have to look this up. Because I had never, I hadn't seen the film, so I didn't know much about it. Anatomy of the Fall? Um, alright, let's take a look. Not that it excuses it. Not that, because, you know, we don't, what we don't want is the perception that, Well, the female, uh, was included, so we're okay. Because we hit our quota of one female director in the bunch. Uh, we obviously don't want to say that.

But I, I do want to correct myself if I was wrong when I said that. Dead. She got left out of a category filled with males. Yeah. Let's, yeah. You were wrong. I was wrong. She's his female. Okay. Uh, yes. Uh, wow. She's younger than me. Born in 78. Yeah. Justine, is it Tette? Tette. So she directed this film called Anatomy of a Fall. Again, I've, I haven't seen it. Um, I will see it. I, I always try to see all the films that are for best picture, so I'm gonna see all of these.

Um, it, it's, I guess it's, it's good to know that the Academy is not just. You know, trying to do their old men run the world shit. And women don't get to be nominated. Uh, so they did nominate a female in the directing category. That makes it even tougher now. Uh, because where do you put Greta? Right? Is Barbie better directed?

Yep. And they picked the best film of the year. Whether it made $200 million or $2, they don't give a shit. It's what's the best film of the year. So yeah, Barbie was the most popular film of the year. Made a shitload of money. Um, I have, but again, I haven't seen it yet. I'm sitting here arguing for Greta Gerwig, just because I think she's awesome. Um, but it was, I gotta say, it was the first thing I noticed. Before you even showed me your text.

Yeah. Or your, your message about the hate that's going on the internet right now. Before I even saw any of that, I looked at the list and was like, Where the fuck is, where's Greta? Like, that was the first thing I thought, where's Greta in their best director category? Right. And then, and then to see Margot got left off best actress. I mean, that, that to me is almost worse.

In a way, well no, I said, I realize I'm contradicting myself, I said it wasn't as bad because at least she's in a category filled with other women, right? Yeah, yeah. She wasn't, she wasn't snubbed because she's a woman, right? Um, but, having said that, uh, when you do talk about the most popular film of the year, You have the lea What the fuck are you doing with your backgrounds? You guys can't see this because he's, he's, we're on I was trying to distract you.

The video, but he's like, playing with these backgrounds, like he's got like some, I don't know, what was that, South Park or something? Like, I don't know what that one was. My

Promising Young Woman, where we talked about Thelma and Louise in Promising Young Woman. Right, right, right. Yeah, Carrie Mulligan was the Best Actress nominee from Promising Young Woman. Oh, right, right. So, I love her. I love her, too. Um, but again, I gotta see Anatomy of the Fall. I haven't seen all these films. I gotta know, did Margot truly get snubbed? I don't know.

Well, we got some homework to do, so We got a lot of homework to do before we truly say, because I will say First gut reaction, it seems like snubs to me. Um, but when you look at this list and you say, Well shit man, I gotta see some of these films. We might be blown away. This might be five knockout performances. It could be. It

Again, crowd favorite. Sterling K. Brown for American fiction. I have not seen American fiction yet either, but I saw the trailer. I can't

And I usually, like, throughout the year, I'm always like, Yeah, I gotta see that. Yeah, I gotta see that. Yeah, I gotta see that. And then today comes. I know. And now I'm like, I got a month and a half. And I gotta see all of this shit. You know what I mean? So, what do you do? Do you end

That looks pretty good. And now I see it got a shitload of nominations. So, I should have bought the damn thing. He's another guy,

I like him.

You kind of say to yourself, maybe it's not about snubbing Maybe they really just went with the best and Leo didn't make the cut this year. Maybe his performance just wasn't the best I can't say Greta truly got snubbed until I see the other films. Um, my, my belief is that she got snubbed. I think the Academy disrespects her because I think she's got four nominations now? She's got no Oscars. Like, it's, I don't know man.

It's, it's, I think she's amazing and she should definitely have a gold by now. Um, I don't know, maybe she wins Best Adapted Screenplay. You know, because when people, that's the other thing that happens. When people see this. And now it's time to actually vote on it. You might get enough people in Hollywood going this is bullshit.

She should have been included We are giving her best adapted screenplay, you know like it or not Spike Lee won best adapted screenplay finally got his oscar Remember that a few years ago when he finally got his you know that the academy voters were like dude. It's time. It's time He's due. Spike Lee's been around forever. He's been nominated a bunch of times.

Sure, he's, he could be polarizing with his opinions or politics, but he's, that was the, that was one of the best films of the year that year. He was definitely deserving of, of best adapted screenplay. Maybe they give it to Greta this year as sort of a, you deserve this because we fucked you over by not giving you best director. So I don't know, maybe she does walk away with the gold. She's definitely deserving of it. She should definitely have an Oscar by now.

Um, I don't know, I'm just scrolling through this list here. And, and, the good news is it doesn't look like I have a lot of work to do. It's like, it's like most of these nominations are spread out around five movies. Like if I just see, like, five movies, I'm gonna have almost all of these categories, uh, pretty much cleaned up. So yeah, I got a lot of work to do before, uh, the end of March. Uh, I don't know which category you want to go to next. Let's go to the writing categories.

I love when I ask you a question and then I answer it myself. Let's see here. Makes my job easier. It's just me monopolizing the, the, the microphone

here. Um Where is it? Okay, so, uh, obviously I have a special place in my heart for the writing categories, right? Um, I'm always big on the, the screenplay awards. Um, so Adaptive Screenplay, you got American Fiction, Barbie, Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Zone of Interest. Again, we see just a few of these films and we'll have knocked out that entire category. Original Screenplay, Anatomy of Fall, Holdovers, Maestro, uh, May, December, Past Lives.

Being that everybody I know is talking about both the Holdovers and Maestro, maybe Bradley Cooper gets his Oscar in the writing category. Hmm. That is a possibility. Yeah, cause,

It might have been Cooper's. He could have gone to him and said, look, I got this great idea, uh, to do a biopic.

Um I need your help, though. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, Nothin wrong with that. Nothin wrong with that. If you want to be the best, hire the best. So, um, yeah. So, man, that's, that's Bradley Cooper could get his, uh, hang

on a second. Let me go back again and see if Josh won for any of those films. I know he was up for Spotlight. He did, won one Oscar. Let me guess, Spotlight. Uh, yep. So he won the Oscar. Rest of the original screenplay for Spotlight. Um, well, God, what an amazing film. Now that's the one that moms refuse to watch. Um, but I showed her a clip last night. I showed her Mark Ruffalo's Oscar clip. Yeah. You know, from that movie. It's time, Robbie!

You know, the big, you know, the, the, the, you know, the kind of, the kind of scene where when the movie's going, you just see at the bottom, it's flashing, like, Oscar clip. Oscar clip. You know? So I showed mom that last night and she's like, maybe I will watch it, you know? So, who knows? But uh, so he won for that. So, okay, so Josh Singer has an Oscar, um, does that keep that from winning that category? I don't know.

Or they say, Bradley Cooper, we loved you, but we think somebody else, like we, Giamatti's turn for best actor, right? He's been He's been overlooked so many times. It's time for Paul Giamatti to get his Oscar. So we're not going to give you best actor, but maybe we'll give you best screenplay. You know, I know I'm contradicting myself a little bit when I say the Oscars are not like the Grammys. They don't do popularity awards. They give the best. Whoever the best performance is.

Hang on, my brother is gonna pour straight vodka into this glass. This barbie drink is pretty good. Sounds like that gray goose is pissing. That is a big Sam's Club bottle of gray goose. We sell that at CVS, by the way. Oh really? The big one? The big one.

So, um, I know like I was saying, it's not about popularity, it's whoever, it's who the best film is, who deserves it the most. But there is a level of politics, I'm not gonna deny that. You know, Al Pacino wins Best Actor for Son of a Woman not because he was the Best Performance of the Year. It's because he got out of SOMEHOW! Somehow, on God's green earth, he got out of the decade of the 70s without a single fuckin Oscar. That is an atrocious That, that doesn't make sense.

So, so that's, you know, so that's why he wins for Son of a Woman. We see this shit all the time. Politics plays a part, right? Denzel wins for Training Day. That's not his best performance. It's certainly not the best performance of the year. But he didn't get it for Malcolm X, and he didn't get it for the hurricane. So, you know what I mean? So there are, there are some politics at play here.

Um So I gotta say, if they're gonna give Bradley Cooper an Oscar this year, it might be in the writing category. They did the same thing with Tarantino, with Pulp Fiction. They were like, uh, we don't, uh, you're not Best Director or Best Picture, yet. Uh, but we'll give you a screenplay. You know? Maybe. I could see that happening. Could be one of those. Could be one of those.

Uh, but yeah, thumbing through this list, I still can't believe, um You know, you know there's going to be a counter argument. There's always the first day of huge backlash, and then in like four days from now Somebody's gonna write an article saying, Folks, Barbie might not just have been that good. And then everyone's gonna go, Berserker, right? They're gonna lose their minds. But then you're gonna get more people agreeing with that. Saying, yeah, let's call it what it is.

It's good, but it's not up here with these movies. You know, so who knows? I don't know. You're going to get a backlash, you're going to get, uh, you're going to get backlash and then the backlash for the backlash. And then

Um, but, uh, so I sent my brother a couple of, Combos. A couple of pairing possibilities. Oscar Films paired with other Oscar Films and he responded with silence. So I'm going to ask you folks, why don't you send us an email or post on our page if you want to see any of these. By the way, I'm going to cancel the last one because the Iron Claw got zero nominations. Wow. I don't know if it didn't make, uh, if it wasn't eligible.

Like, did it not make the criteria cut as far as when it was released? I don't know. Or it just got snubbed. It got completely snubbed. I thought that, um, the dude that played the Texas Tornado, Kerry Von Eric, uh, the guy from, uh, Uh, Shameless. Uh, what's his name? Uh, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, uh, Jeremy, Jeremy White? Jeremy Allen White? Is that it? Did I screw that up? I thought for sure, people were talking about him getting nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Iron Claw.

Uh, cause he was really good. But, uh, it didn't happen. So I don't know. Let me see. I have to look it up cause I don't want to be I don't want to screw this guy's name. Jeremy Allen White. Isn't that what I said? Wasn't my final version? I went through several versions, Jeremy, but I got you on the last one. Alright, so. Here were some, uh, I'll start with that last one since we're probably not going to do it now that Iron Claw didn't get nominated. I thought Iron Claw vs. Raging Bull. Right?

Now if the Iron Claw had gotten a bunch of nominations, that would be two films about like, life inside and outside of the ring. And how your profession affects your personal life. Mm hmm. And how tragic both of those stories are. Now, The Raging Bull is more centered on one person, and, and, uh, The Iron Claw was more based on a family of brothers. Um, but they really seem to be parallel to me, and I thought that would be a great matchup. But now The Iron Claw didn't get nominated.

We can still do it, but, you know, for Oscar time, we like to do Oscar movies. Then I thought, Killers of the Flower Moon vs. Dances with Wolves. What do you think about that? This is about, like, the white man forcing the natives right off their land. Eh, that'd be a good pairing. I haven't seen Dances with Wolves. That's like 24 hours of movie watching right there though. I know, man. God.

And they're not biopics where we hear about their upbringing and how they died. It's just about their invention. It's important to know these are not biographies. Oppenheimer and Social Network are films about their invention. And they're invention only. So, um, so I thought that was a really good pairing. So, you know, anyone that's listening, write us. Let us know also what you think. A good pairing for Barbie would be. I, now again, I hadn't seen it.

But just knowing that it's sort of a satire, and it seems to be not really for kids, it seems to actually have adult humor involved, and it has deep meaning. This is all I'm getting from the trailer, by the way, from what people have said. I thought Josie and the Pussycats. Because that was a fun movie from, I want to say, the late 90s, early 2000s. I have no idea what you're talking about. So it was, I, I want to say it was either a cartoon or a comic strip that they adapted into a movie.

And people thought the same thing that they do about Barbie. Oh, this is going to be for kids. But it wasn't. It was like, it was totally about, uh, the media and how the media manipulates people. And it was a satire. Yeah, yeah. Uh, which was filled with a lot of adult themes. Which was, I never would have saw it in a million years. But the girl I was dating at the time loved it and made me watch it. And I actually enjoyed it. I was like, this is actually kind of funny.

This is like ripping on, uh, pop culture of our time, how we treat celebrities and superstars. Right. And it kind of was, again, a satire on, on, uh, uh, popular, you know, uh, just the, the generation that we live in today's youth and how easily manipulated people can be. I've never seen it. Um,

Uh, oh, it looks like an animated TV show. It was an animated TV show. Oh, yeah. Oh, from 1970. Yeah,

But then when I watched it, I was blown away. I was like, this is actually kind of funny. This is a satire. This makes fun of today's youth. Right? And how easily manipulated people are. So when I heard that Barbie was kind of a satire of, you know, our culture, I immediately thought that would be a good pairing. So, I don't know, watch the trailer on YouTube and tell me what you think. Yeah, well, and you watch Barbie.

Yes, and you guys, and you guys, anyone that's listening, if you think there's a better film that would be a good pairing for Barbie, let us know. Because we definitely are doing Barbie. I don't care. We're gonna do Barbie. We're gonna do a show on Barbie. And I would like to pair it with something, but if we have to do a solo show, we'll do a solo show. The only other thing I can say is that, um, we did fill out the full boat.

Again, a full ten for Best Picture, which means there's some work to do for me. But oddly enough, it's all the films we talked about that are got these now. Zone of Interest, Poor Things, Oppenheimer, Maestro, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers. Barbie, Anatomy of a Fall, American Fiction. The only other one that's in there that doesn't seem to be nominated for hardly anything else is this Past Lives, which I don't know what that is either. But it doesn't seem to have that I can see.

Any other nominations. So I don't even know what it's about. It's another one I haven't seen, but it got the 10th spot. Yeah. Um, uh, just looking it up real quick. Past lives, uh, so what is this? This looks like, um, is this a foreign film? No. Nora and Haesung, uh, two deeply connected childhood friends, are r r rested apart? Rested apart? After Nora's family emigrates from South Korea. 20 years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.

Interesting. I might check this out. Hour and 45 minutes, PG 13, 2023. Looks like a quick view. It was nominated for For two Oscars. So aside from Best Picture, the only other nomination it got is Best Original Screenplay. So Celine Song, uh, wrote the film and she also directed it. She is not one of the producers, so she didn't get a producing nomination. But, those are the only two Oscars it got. So, again, let me preface this by saying this is by no means an insult to past lives.

But did you have to fill out the full ten? Like, couldn't you have the other nine I mentioned are loaded in the other categories, right? All of them. Loaded. Past Lives gets two nominations. One of them's for screenplay, one of them's best picture. I don't know. Again, I just preface this, but I'm not trying to be insulting, but if you were gonna leave a film out, uh, like, did they just do ten because they felt, well, we could do up to ten. Let's just do ten. Right. You know what I mean?

Like, I don't know. Maybe I'm being a dick, but if that was me if that was me, I, I guess on one hand I'd be happy I got nominated, but the other hand I'd be like I'm gonna sit home and watch this from my couch. I got no shot. I got no shot to win Best Picture here. You know what I mean? Like, what the fuck? There's, there's literally I have no path to glory on this. I'm gonna sit home, watch it on my couch, and get drunk.

Um, the Lions. Yeah. We have to talk about the Detroit Lions real quick. At the time, my brother's gonna put this up, hopefully before Sunday, right? This is going up, like, today or tomorrow. Yeah, it should go up

So, uh, it's great that we finally have a fan base. We finally have, well, we always had a fan base. We've always had a great fan base, but those were diehard fans like us, right? We finally have people from like Utah. They're like, yeah, go lions. You know what I mean? Like people that never gave a shit before. I told this to dad. I ran in to get beer at the Save Mart. Yeah. And I was wearing my Lions hat. And, uh, because I work in the store close to that store, I know all the cashiers.

So I get in there and I start talking to the cashier and I'm like, Hey, I was like, hey, did you watch the game yesterday? The Lions won, we're going to the NFC title game. Four people in line. Complete strangers. We're all, I'm so happy for you guys! I watched that game! Go Lions! I hope they win the whole thing! And I'm like, I don't even fucking know these people. And that's great. So we're finally, uh, we're finally getting some recognition. It's nice to see. It's a really good feeling.

And I hope we just don't, I know the players aren't, but I don't want to just be happy with where we got. Like, I think that we can win this week. It's difficult. We would need a lot of breaks to go our way and we have to play practically flawless football. Dude, if we can win

The fact that we beat the Russians in the semifinal. So, normally I would agree with you. Yes, we get by San Fran. We could win the whole thing. But, the two teams waiting for us on the other side are also pretty big badasses. Yeah. So, I mean, we are We are seriously the fourth ranked out of the four left. Yeah, 100%. So, it's an uphill battle no matter what.

Alright, let's land the plane.