Critical Darlings: The 2026 Oscars Ceremony with Griffin Newman

Welcome to Critical Darlings, a conversation about the award season conversation.

One contender at a time.

Please welcome to the stage, your hosts, Richard Lawson and Allison Wilmore.

Marie Bardy, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction coming to us via satellite

from London at this time.

We are joined again by our wonderful producer, Ben Frish, Hello Ben.

Good morning.

And our special guest, Griffin Newman.

Welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me here.

All four of us watched the Oscars together, which is the first for all of us, right?

I normally watch it on my couch at home at this point.

Stay tuned to the end of the episode.

We're going to have an announcement about the future of Critical Darlings.

And also throughout this episode, we had Ben Frish recording during our viewing party

of the Oscars, and you're going to hear some special, I don't know, correspondent bits

from Blankcheck University's own Ben Haasley, so keep an ear out for those.

And near the end of the episode, we're going to be doing a popcorn bucket review, both

for the Oscars, popcorn buckets, and for just some of the best brightest popcorn buckets

with Rebecca Alter.

But Allison, what's your big question about this year's Oscars?

You know, I wanted to bring us back to my recurring question, how real is this award ceremony?

How real are the Oscars?

And why do we care, I guess, is the essential question we've spent hours now talking about

films in the context of the Oscars?

Pretty, I mean, it's pretty high.

There were some significant things happening last night, like, the first woman to ever

win the cinematography Oscar, Michael B. Jordan joining a very small class of Black, you

know, best lead actor winners, like-

Six, in total.

It's, I mean, that's nothing, that's pathetic.

No.

It's six, and it does feel like the six are all, like, hugely historic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that, you know, if you want to compare, like, Michael B. Jordan winning

that to, like, Denzel winning it for training day, like, training day is a movie that

people probably still watch and think about, but, like, sinners was, like, one of the huge

movies of the year.

It had all this other awards momentum behind it.

Yeah.

And so it felt like it wasn't just this lone standout to give a beloved actor a prize.

It was, he was one of several representatives for a movie that was widely beloved, which

I think is even rare.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, for me, in general, the Oscars, I'm not like an Oscars trivia junkie.

I have, like, really not great, uh, stores of, uh, historical awareness about them, like,

I wish I could pull up, like, last time someone won or this, uh, they are interesting to me

always because they are a reflection of how the industry is thinking about itself and

how it is changing with the times or not changing with the times and what it considers valuable

and prestigious is, you know, its own kind of extremely imperfect mirror to every, every

year.

In that way, an incredible check-in, uh, and this year, yeah, I, I mean, I thought it was

a really good ceremony, like I thought like it was, it was one that the vibes were good.

It felt very invested in the idea of the movies being important without being self-important

about that, without being all, like, cloying.

Like there are lots of times when they're doing, like, uh, you know, cinema, movies, the

history and all of that where you're like, oh, for God's sake, like, like, let's move it

along, please.

And in this case, I felt like it was all coming from a place of sincerity, but also from

a place where it didn't feel like it needed to reach out and be like, come on, guys,

remind us of why, uh, you know, you think this is important to, uh, I think it was understood.

This was a ceremony fairly devoid of montages, yes, which I usually am a person fighting

for the montage, because the montages always, almost always make me tear up.

Yeah, um, it feels like this is the one time a year I go to church.

I do the Henry V music or, like, one of those other classic scores that are from Dragon

Heart Weirdly is one that they've used a lot of one, yeah, uh, and you get eight minutes

of, like, the best high fives or eye contact in a history of movies or, yeah, or like

speeches, battle, battlefront speeches, yeah, any of those things I love, and I've always

been like, no, we need them.

They're important to the Oscars, but there literally might not have been one last night.

And I also felt outside of Immorion, yeah, which had to be 20 minutes because last year

was a blood bath.

Yeah.

Straight up into the first three months of this year, yeah, the amount of people in Immemorium

who passed away just in the last six weeks was absurd.

Yeah.

But I also felt like it was the most comedy they have gotten into an Oscar ceremony in

a long time.

Yeah.

And certainly the most successful comedy.

I don't think the ratio has been this strong of good versus terrible.

And I think all the things that were, uh, failures on the comedy front were basically overly

confident presenters, yes, overly confident, underprepared, yes, exactly.

But every Conan bit was great, and I feel like there's been a reticence to the comedy

the last 15 or 20 years.

Can you even pull this off anymore?

Do people want this?

This is a no-win job.

And then you'd get like two or three big segments and the rest of the time the host feels

like they're kind of gone.

And I felt like there was comedy throughout the show last night that was all kind of like

appropriately judged and actually funny.

It's a simple metric, but I think the difference between a Conan versus a Jimmy Kimmel is like

Conan, I think genuinely cares.

Yes.

And genuinely is like, you know, he's a sort of Harvard guy.

Like he's like, he, uh, has a high mind for art, you know, and that counts for a lot,

but also just throughout the show because he put in little jokes wherever he could fit

them.

And it's, oh, he's invested.

Yes.

Like he wants this to be an entertaining worthwhile show, whereas, you know, yeah, Kimmel being

like yet another monologue joke about why are we all here?

Year after year, that got pretty tiresome.

Yes.

Yes.

That's a great way of putting it.

It felt like the comedy and the Oscars for a decade plus became lamp shading about how

irrelevant the Oscars were, or how self-congratulatory they were, and I'm like, don't deflate

this.

I'm watching this.

Right.

Exactly.

Like this isn't something me as the one who is invested in this.

I think especially like, I hate the jokes about like, oh, here's a bunch of movies.

We never watched.

Right.

I didn't watch his best picture nominee.

And I'm just like, I don't really want to hear that.

And I think-

Only person who pulled that off was Hugh Jackman when in his opening musical number where

he was like the reader.

Yes.

I couldn't really say that.

Yeah.

That is like the one, definitely.

Yeah.

But I mean, something that I appreciated about this year is, you know, of the Conembit,

like the opening, the weapons referencing opening, which I thought was terrific.

Yeah.

We've been waiting 20 years for them to bring back host runs through the movies.

And they literally did it.

And they literally had run through the movies.

And I wrote about it on PremiereParty.com, of some people can read now online.

But I was like, about that bit, I said, it's those, one of those things where you're like,

the minute it starts, you're like, of course, this was the only way to open the show.

Right.

It's perfect.

And also-

And reminded me a little bit of the opening to an MTV movie awards or something complimentary.

Yes.

Yes.

Like the Golden Ben Stiller days.

Yes.

Well, and it's also notably that is a bit from the ending of weapons.

And the award show closed off with a bit from the ending of one battle after another.

This is an award show that assumed you had seen the movie.

It's like you would not get the jokes unless you-

He ran through the end of him, that too.

Yeah, exactly.

This was a great point you made in the moment, though, Allison, which is like, there's both

a, I've been very frustrated for the last 15 years or so with the Oscars being self-hating.

Right.

It goes beyond even these jokes we're talking about of like calling out.

Like no one cares.

We're just here patting each other's backs.

But also this assumption of we are out of touch.

There is no longer this overlap between what we deem important and the popular culture.

They've gotten further and further apart.

And the Oscars tying themselves into knots of like, how do we get people back in?

If we nominate this, do they watch?

You know, if we don't nominate this, if we bring on these stars or all of these things

that felt like, just let the Oscars be for the people who want to watch it.

And I think this year you both organically had a crop of nominees that felt like they

stuck more to the culture that people actually saw and were invested in.

And also the Oscars just felt like they chilled out about all of that.

Yeah.

I don't know if part of it is that like, the YouTube deal is done, ABC is in its final

years.

This idea of trying to chase, how do you get it back to 1997 ratings is never going

to happen.

And it's no longer a long term thing they have to solve.

But it just felt good to be like, these are very specific reference points, not from

the trailers, but from the endings of these movies that we're assuming both because they

actually were widely seen.

And because who watches the Oscars if they don't actually care, this is a spoiler safe

space.

Yes.

Yeah.

And that was nice.

I mean, it felt like we were all in this together.

Like we do all care about this.

We know.

The assumption that we were all there.

I think that maybe the mistake that the Oscars made for a long time was a reaction to

both the Ricky's your race, Golden Globes years, but also kind of the Tina and Amy Golden

Globes years where Ricky and his sort of iconoclastic, I mean, that guy, did you know that he

doesn't believe in God?

Richard, you can't say that all the time.

I'm sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

But those which genuinely don't matter.

That's the correct way.

But the Oscars, I mean, look, none of this matters.

Quote unquote like, yeah, but the Globes are much faker.

They are much less real than Oscars in terms of how they work.

Yeah.

And also, if we, if we treat the Oscars as unreal, then this entire thing falls apart.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, the thing is like also, as if you're going to attach any meaning to an award show,

the Oscars, where it is made up by people in the industry voting on their own work essentially,

It is as close as you can come to something

that has some weight or meaning.

Totally, and to your point of how real is this

and what you would stuitly say all the time

that the Oscars are interesting as a reflection

of how the industry views itself in that moment.

I think beyond that, the Oscars existing

are one of the only things that still gets studios

to take risks.

There is still an ego involved in the industry

as much as people become sociopathic,

like a cross, you know, like a mega conglomerate.

How do we just make everything for cheaper

and faster and worse?

Everyone kind of wants to win an Oscar.

The worst people in the industry still want to win an Oscar.

Many of the worst people in the industry

have won multiple Oscars.

And it's still this one thing that gets major studios

to be like, can we allocate 5%, 10% of our budget a year

to making things that might turn out well

and that promoting them with a kind of care and delicacy

that we don't otherwise apply.

Right, but also the idea, it is the thing

that makes these extremely bottom line focused businesses

do things that are not in the interests of their bottom line.

I mean, like the Oscars obviously do provide a certain boost,

but like they're not really, like probably if you were going

to zoom in on this stuff that like makes reliably,

like, you know, the most money it is not going to be.

It probably accrues some value as a catalog.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, you know, sure.

But yeah, no, it is more about a certain sort of pride and ego.

I mean, one of the nice things about this year

was that, you know, well, depending

on how you break down budgets,

but like one battle after another did make some money.

It was seen.

Sinners was obviously an enormous hit.

Those being a two front runners.

It meant that there was a sort of populist moment

and behind, you know, kind of joining the art,

you know, the sort of ego-driven thing.

I would say there was a slight downside to that, though,

in that I think in the age of social media,

that heightened scrutiny made it, like when the show

was over last night, I was like, thank God.

Like, I enjoyed watching the show.

I was happy with most of the winners,

but I think there was such an exhausting kind of world

surrounding that, and such a huge lead up

because the Oscars, you know, we're recording this.

It's put in June 23, yeah, of course, yeah.

It was just so, it felt so delayed that like,

I almost found myself bitterly wishing for, you know,

just a few years previous when no one had seen anything.

And then we could just be in our little bubble, yeah.

I mean, that's, it's the champagne problem, literally.

But you and I turned to each other

when Best Actor was about to get announced,

and I was like, I'm genuinely nervous.

And we were like, our hands are shaking.

There was just this feeling of like,

what's about to happen and what is going to be

the discourse cycle around this?

It's genuinely your nerve.

And the hour of Michael B. Jordan, he gets up

and we're like, this just feels right, good.

This feels good, this is going to age well.

This feels good in the moment.

He's nailing the speech.

Right, the speech was like very classy,

but earnest, heartfelt.

I showed you a picture of Timothy Shalame arriving.

It was like the Getty photo from the red carpet.

And he had the sunglasses on.

He had the kind of like dirt baggy facial hair.

He was in a white suit, stealing Vognomora's like signature move.

But it was like a kind of hype beast fit like baggy.

And he was just standing there like this.

And you immediately were like, he's not going to win.

I said he's not winning tonight.

I had the exact same thing last year

with a complete unknown.

I don't remember what he wore,

but just him showing up with a with a generator on his arm

and just feeling a little too swaggy,

a little too big for his bridges.

I was like, even though they're not obviously voting

at the moment he shows up on the red carpet,

this is the exact thing they don't want.

That's the energy made manifest.

It is.

It is.

And it's the reason they're going to keep making him wait.

And I think, even though when DeCaprio would go to the Oscars,

he would play grown up very well.

But I do think if I can invoke it again

for the second consecutive week,

I do think the pussy posse stuff

haunted DeCaprio for a long time where they were like,

it's in what you're saying of like the academy

is picking what they want to represent

how the world sees the film industry.

There is this feeling of like,

is the association bad here.

Great.

I mean, this is, it is like their testament

to what they want in a movie star, right?

Now they think a movie star should behave right now.

And clearly, they looked at what Timmy did.

And for all credit to Timothy Shalma,

who I think is great and ready supreme

and who also through like sheer force of swaggy will,

powered that movie in the box office to like,

hi, I don't think anyone would have expected

for a period piece ping pong saga.

But it was not the right energy for the Oscars.

I think they're for a while probably.

I think there's a question of,

is he fundamentally unserious in a way

that we can't reward him until he gains that piece, right?

And obviously we talk about these things

as if the academy is like, you know,

800 people in robes who all sit around a long table

and go, how do we feel about

Timmy is dressing?

Yeah, yeah.

It's, you know, there's a sort of collective unconscious,

but also there is something about

as much as people think like Shalma was great.

That's the best performance of the year.

And then you get your link and you open up

for voting and you look at the five

and suddenly there's this sort of like, wait a second.

Yeah.

You run the mental simulation,

you imagine the speeches they're gonna give

and sometimes I think you make an impulsive decision

based on like vibes, right?

Yeah.

And I think you look at the two other,

the two youngest best actor winners of all time.

The people that Shalma would have been in the class with

are Richard Dreyfus and Adrian Brody

who are both cases loved figures.

Where they gave it to these guys young

and he goes out of control.

Arguably we're already bad like this before, yeah.

Right.

And I think Timmy, a current state is better

than either of those two guys

in his sort of like, he has more humility

and what he's doing is more theatrics

and self-aware, but I think there is that concern,

especially when last year they brought Brody back

and then this year he wanted to do five minutes

of self-aware for rental bits

about how much he sucked last year.

Yeah, I mean, I laughed.

He's not great at like that delivery,

but it's still pretty good.

Yeah, and like not to, I don't know,

who knows what the voter thinking was.

But you know, I had this thought a couple days before the Oscars

against better judgment, watching deposition video

of these two doge assholes,

and he's like 20 something guys, smirking.

I got so angry with him.

No, I mean, I watched maybe three minutes of each one

being deposed.

And I was like, you know, that's not exactly

Marty Mauser energy, but it's not too dissimilar.

And like, and then you compare

what Shalameh's character is doing in that movie

and he plays it very well,

but you know, maybe people are sort of passing

some sort of moral judgment on the character.

And then you can, you know, to what Michael B. Jordan's two

characters, you know, one tragic figure

who becomes kind of a villain, but not really.

And then, you know, this kind of avenging hero

who, you know, sacrifices himself, you know, whatever.

I just, I have to think that there was something subconscious

even in voter's minds that were like,

I don't want to give it to this little

Pipsquee pissant ass, you know?

And even, not even just on a Shalameh level,

but on a character level.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

People really struggled with Marty.

I mean, like, even understanding that he was clearly not,

like the movie was not being like,

here's a broad endorsement of everything he's doing.

People really struggled with that character.

Yeah, I will say.

Yeah.

This is going to guarantee us many more

some of the awards campaigns, like just like Holland ones.

I mean, not this coming year.

I do not think like June three does not seem like

it is necessarily going to be a best picture.

Well, there was a joke online that he's gonna,

now he's guaranteed to do an Injury Two film.

Yeah, I mean, that's, yeah.

Which like really, yeah, I mean,

okay, so if I can brag for a second,

my predictions premierparty.com,

I got only three wrong for the whole night,

which I'm proud of.

One of them was best actor.

Yeah.

And I had to do a little analysis of that

when I wrote about the show after the broadcast.

And I think that one of them was I was reading

sort of tea leaves about like baffa and sag

a little bit wrong or a lot wrong.

The other was I think there was a subconscious thing

where I was like, I just want,

I'm not, and predicting and wanting is not the same thing,

but I kind of confused them.

I wanted Chalamet to win solely,

so we wouldn't have to have this discourse anymore

that we could finally be done with it,

because like we all chilled out on Leo,

and that was a, that was in a much younger social media age

than we are now.

So, but yes, you're right.

They didn't happen.

I think the ultimate, the end result was the better one,

but yeah, I sort of do dread already what the next,

but maybe he learned.

Yeah.

I mean, I, we were talking last night,

like, is the next move you did the, the biopic?

He has done like this like really kind of brush,

it challenged, like abrasive, tonally challenging,

like kind of, I feel like what's next is physical transformation.

Right, like, yeah, aesthetics.

Yeah, well, I feel like it's either going to be gaining

a lot of weight for the role,

which is a tried and true narrative, right?

Or your actually transformation skills,

or he's going to bulk up.

He's going to get like really some sort of suffering

for the art.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, can I throw out?

I think his three nominated performances,

and it is wild that he is 31 now,

and has three best actor nominations,

but calling by your name, complete unknown,

and Marty Supreme, or I would argue three very different

performances, but they're all digging into

what his core movie star energy is,

which is a weird balance of brashness

and incredibly sensitive emotionality, right?

Like an almost transparent.

With a charm sort of total low it in there, yeah.

Right, and it's different versions of that

and very different films, but they're all digging on.

That's what David Fincher likes to say,

the quality that's still going to be there in an actor

at three o'clock in the morning when you're on take 100, right?

David Fincher should also not make people do it,

take 100.

That's a whole other conversation, but yes.

So like David Fincher, just go home.

But he's never in the bed.

You know, he casts people for that,

and that movie stars are often about

what's the thing that's still going to be there

at three o'clock in the morning, no matter what,

because it's non-act, it's their core kind of being

that makes them a little interesting.

I think to win now, he almost needs to find a performance

that's outside of that, rather than transforming

in some demonstrative, you know, external way.

He needs to find a performance

that has an entirely different energy,

and that's when I think they'll also be like,

oh, you grew up, because the defining thing

about those three performances is,

that's the kind of energy we ascribe

to overly confident, unaware of young men.

I think it's like he, like boyishness has been

his chief quality for such a long time,

and I feel like-

Key and I have that in common.

Both are, you're young, you're young,

that's crazy, lad.

That I feel like it's not necessarily something

he's going to be able to shed.

I feel like he needs to maybe grow out of it.

Yeah, you know?

And so like we might be waiting around for a while

for that type of role.

Possibly.

Yeah, another question is,

what does this do for Jordan?

I mean, I want to throw out a couple Jordan thoughts here.

I remember sitting with you at a bar,

it was when we had the first conversation

about doing this podcast in person,

and you had just come back from Venice Enteronto?

No, I would just Toronto.

Just Toronto.

And we were sort of like,

I was getting your opinions on what you had seen

and where you thought the Oscar race was going,

and you said to me then, beginning of September,

or maybe end of September,

I feel like the Oscars might circle

all the way back around to centers.

You would see in one battle,

it hadn't come out yet.

We didn't know how it was going to do with the box office,

but it was like, this is beloved,

but I feel like there could be a kind of,

everything everywhere all at once, horseshoe,

especially because it's a blockbuster.

And like these are, you know,

Sean Fantasy and Big Picture keeps pointing out

that like Ryan Kugler's key crew

has started to become like Spielberg's key crew.

You know where you're like Ruth Carter's

winning multiple costume awards under him,

by Ludwig Gorencent.

You know, like, right, these things,

I mean two for boosting, yeah.

And I feel like in the last month

there was the vibe shift of,

is everything gonna swing centers?

But at very least it felt like something major

has to swing centers.

I can't just give it the best original screenplay

that felt kind of like a lock.

Yeah.

Does that mean that picture's gonna swing,

that director's gonna swing,

that Michael B. Goren's gonna swing,

that maybe it wins both supporting categories.

And I think part of what worked for Michael B. Goren

was there was all this pressure on the idea of Timothy

Chalamet as the last movie star

and the movie star that Gen Z connects to

and the guy who drives box office and brings legitimacy

and he pulled off making Marty Supreme a hit.

And there was this kind of like,

is Michael B. Goren kind of getting in on the back of the movie?

He's the fifth nominee, he's overdue.

It was a kind of performance that I embarrassingly said

in some episode of Blank Check to Sims,

like I question if he's gonna get in there.

And I mean, we didn't know, you know?

My thinking was in a way,

it felt like the kind of Yomans work performance

of a movie star who's also a producer

who's carrying all the weight of the film

but is generously allowing the supporting performers

to really get the flashy stuff.

And I kind of comped it to Mark Wahlberg in the fighter,

snubbed all of the supporting people nominated,

supporting wins.

Deniro and the Irishman, Leo and Killers of the Flower Moon,

all kind of like nomination morning surprises

were an A-list movie star who will that movie

into existence in close kind of tandem with the director

was snubbed for just sort of holding the center of the movie

and being taken for granted.

Totally.

I think the two things I weren't considering were,

one, there's the stunt factor of Michael B. Jordan

playing two characters really subtly

that was kind of hiding in plain sight

and it felt like in the last six weeks,

they like hit the gas on that narrative.

Hey, have you noticed like how skillfully

he's differentiating these two characters

and even like Del Rey Lindo and Wooner Misako

going out in interviews and explaining

what the process was like?

Suddenly made people go, oh, that performance

is better than I realized.

Preventing people from taking it for granted.

The other thing I think supercharged him is,

you could argue this is the overdue Oscar

after three previous Michael B. Jordan

Ryan Kugler snubs.

Yeah.

You could argue that he should have been nominated

for Fruitvale Creed and Black Panther.

Yeah.

And that he was snubbed all three times

and that here we have something that generationally

feels similar to like Scorsese and Deniro.

If none of the performances were nominated

before Raging Bull.

Yeah.

I mean, I think the tricky thing with Michael B. Jordan

is that he is someone who has been so good

working with Ryan Kugler and then has made

some other things in between that like have gone

basically unnoticed, you know?

And I think all the way from like Tom Clancy's

without remorse to just Mercy,

a perfectly well-intentioned,

like Jordan, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Like these movies where you're like,

they might as well not, like just Mercy,

it is a great example directed by Destin Daniel Kretten.

Yeah.

You know, it was about Ryan Stevenson,

right, Brian Stevenson, the civil rights attorney,

but it is like just an incredibly boring movie.

Like it is like very beautiful,

it's like very well-intentioned

and just like has very little spark of life.

It is a true Oscar-beat movie.

If you'll self-consciously Oscar-beat.

Yes.

Or even like, I mean, he did that HBO Fahrenheit 451,

Remain Barani directed it.

Great director.

Yeah, just an incredibly kind of like lifeless movie.

So I feel like the tricky thing with Michael B. Jordan

has been like that.

The movies in which he really just has that,

you're like, oh, you're such a movie star,

have been either with Ryan Googler

or when he's directed himself in Creed III.

Yeah.

Which is a really interesting movie, you know?

And I feel like the biggest test

for the kind of movie star he will be,

which I think we are still kind of learning

is his Thomas Crown affair.

Totally.

Which he's directed again.

I mean, the potential for that to just be like a weirdly,

you know, like almost in reverse order.

Like, I mean, he's already a movie star.

Don't get me wrong.

Yeah.

But now he has the Oscar and then we can kind of go back

to be like, oh, right, but you're also fun and sexy

and I want to pay for it to like, you know,

to see you on a Saturday night, you know?

Yeah.

Or like, I really hope that movie works out

because like, you know, the more recent remake

and from the 90s, like, that's a really great movie.

And I, and I, I just, you know,

they're big shoes to fill, I guess, but we covered that

on blank check, I guess a year or two ago.

And it's a real like, why don't we have this

in the ecosystem anymore?

There was a movie starring grownups that came out in August

and built onto just freaking it every bar of that score.

It was like, yeah, it was a, you know,

and it does feel like that's a very strategic move

on his part to try to identify what his movie stardom is.

I think you're right that there was this kind of recognition

of the industry's been putting all this pressure on,

can we identify the next generation?

And what it wants more than anything is to be like,

can we have a Tom Cruise where no matter what

everything he makes will cross a hundred million dollars

domestic, the caprio being able to do that,

mostly working with prestige directors

and sort of more high brow fair, you know,

Julia Roberts, what have you?

And I think there's been this pressure for Shalame

to be that because the track record was building

towards that and maybe people looked back

and they were like, you know,

we've been like hard on Michael B. Jordan

when they're like minor missteps,

but the missteps are small.

Every major movie he's made has been a major hit.

There is no bomb that people associate with your work.

Correct, you know?

Correct. And if you just look at the Cougular work

and especially the last three,

you're like, that's billions of dollars.

And then you add in that he made like two successful

Creed sequels where he basically took over

as the main credo voice fully on the third one.

I think there was this feeling of like this guy

has quietly, you know, through quiet little ups and downs,

proven himself as if not the definitive star,

certainly a definitive star.

And also we don't really know about his personal life.

He's not out there grandstanding

when he does press to promote his movies.

It just feels like he's a serious focused, you know,

discipline.

Like this is a actor we want to present to the world

as, look, here's our new serious leading.

Yeah. And I mean, you would certainly also say

that like black actors are punished more,

are not allowed the kind of leeway

to act out the way Timothy Shalame has

while I'm then be kind of taken seriously.

But I do think that, yeah, like up there on stage

giving that award, like Michael B. Jordan was like,

and like kind of explicitly putting himself

in this kind of history of these like, you know,

like milestone, like performers.

And yeah, the full list is Poetier,

Denzel Washington, forced Whitaker, Jamie Foxx, Will Smith.

Yeah.

And Michael B. Jordan's the sixth.

And Will Smith, that win has been pretty memory-holded

because of, you know, what proceeded.

But if you remove forced Whitaker

who's a phenomenal actor and was like fully deserving

of that award, but is more of like a serious actor,

the other five, Michael B. Jordan included

are like generational, yeah, definitional movie stars.

Yeah.

They are people who like, change the culture.

Hi, this is Ben.

We're doing brooch corner.

Everyone's been calling out tonight.

And I fully agree that this is a night for broaches.

The boys and their broaches.

Big ones, small ones, shiny ones, back ones,

front ones, side broaches.

And I love it because here's the thing.

Often men are just boring and they wear a tux.

Throw a little broach on it, spice it up.

Adrian Brody wearing a very shiny, stupid broach.

Michael B. Jordan wearing the back broach.

I like that.

I'm the back of his collar.

God, I don't know, yeah.

It truly feels like every actor was rocking a broach.

It's like, oh, you know, who had the, like a pro palestine

have a yard have a yard.

I like that.

It was cool.

It was like a handmade one.

And it was political and it had a good message.

Because it was often people are showing a little bling,

right, to like have a little pop with like a neutral color,

a black or, you know, white colored suit.

I think I would try to go for a first place rosette.

So that no matter what, even if I don't win,

I'm number one.

I got first place in my own heart.

So that's what I would go for.

Let's go for it.

David.

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If we want to shift gears a little, what did you guys think about Sean Penn's speech?

I thought it went a little long.

It is funny that after all we've talked about what the Academy wants in its best actor.

To be like the opposite apparently is true for best supporting actor, Sean Penn showed

up for the Golden Globes, smoked in the room, didn't win, did not show up for the other

things.

He won.

But once he won, BAFTA, the SAG after awards and the Academy awards, zero speeches.

And there were some concern in the room last night, like, oh, I heard a rumor he's not

well or whatever.

And then people are like, no, he's in Ukraine, boots on the ground, boots on the ground.

I will say that there is a part of me and maybe this, I think if you don't fucking show

up the next person down the list, unless there's a, you have a real reason for not being

there.

He suffered from not having someone give a speech and that's a lot, especially because

you consider the other four guys would have probably given a very memorable day.

They plan out the order of awards and they're like, okay, and then we need, the actor speeches

are there, they're sort of like the, the supporting are their tent poles, you know, in the sort

of first, roughly half of the show.

We need two famous in the first hour, we need two famous rooms, the next two hours where

we go into our lane, and then we pull back to Pamela.

A friend of mine was texting last night and he was like, I don't know, I just feel like

something's off and I was like, it's because we're, we've only had one actor speech

so far.

That's why.

And not that Sean Penn would have given some rousing, you know, some speech, but like,

both of his speeches were memorable, the two previous times he's won.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was a, years ago, this is a sort of silly anecdote, but years ago, I was traveling abroad

with a friend and I just had this little sound sort of echoing in my head and it was

just rise again.

And I just kept thinking and saying it and I was like, what the hell is that from?

And as we were on a train going from somewhere in Italy to somewhere in Italy, I was like,

Sean Penn's milk speech when he was talking about Mickey Rorkel rises again.

And she was like, what is wrong with you?

Why is that in your head?

But no, I think it's, yeah, he does kind of give like somewhat like, you know, memorable

speeches and I think it, and that was also milk was what, over 15 years ago, it was

2008.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it would have been interesting to hear from him, especially at a political time.

I will say that there is, I've seen some criticism and I maybe have it myself where the

show did skirt around political stuff to some extent.

I mean, do we want them weighing in on all this?

But Sean Penn, he would have done it, you know, I want to get to that in a second.

But I will also say, it did appreciate that it was Karen Culkin giving that award and

he did not pretend to be gracious about, yeah, and then he doesn't want to be here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, but I mean, like, that felt right to be like, you know, this asshole, like not being

care.

Yeah.

And I also made the rhythm of the show feel off because Karen Culkin was like, I don't

know, let's get this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Full moment went by so quickly that it almost felt like a hallucinate.

Right.

I was, I was doing the tally at my head sort of for the end of the night and I was like, wait,

but they haven't done supporting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh no, they, they did.

It's just about two seconds.

Right.

Yeah.

There was like no moment from that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not like an embarrassing win in any way.

Yeah.

It becomes the sort of like how many Oscars does a person need, especially when that category

contains two like historic actors in their 70s who have never been nominated before, getting

their first nomination and giving like a great performance in a best picture nominee.

Yeah.

And then like, Alority, who's another one of those, is it the future guys?

And Del Toro, who'd be winning for the second time, but fully 26 years later, there's more

of a distance and, you know, he's, he's certainly a towering figure.

It felt like any one of those guys would have given an emotional speech and I saw people

speculating that Penn not showing up at the other events after getting called out by

Nikki Glazer at the globe's chain smoking and looking like a bag of garbage was strategically

like the less people see of me, maybe the better chance I have at winning.

Yeah.

It's so funny that's like, no, we're just assuming all this shit on him.

He just actually kind of doesn't care, yeah, yeah.

But so with the politics, I mean, I feel like whatever I'm asked to write about the Oscars

like the next day, the day gets always just like the Oscars were surprisingly apolitical

or the Oscars were very politically or like the two things.

And I, what was interesting, well, as an editor who fired me once said, I want any Hollywood

story to be one that everyone in DC cares about.

Which is like, there's no such thing as this.

No, no, no.

Anyway.

But like, it was funny, like in the beginning, like I think in the, in his opening, Conan

like was like, this might get political tonight, might get political.

But like the, these Oscars were, the politics came through much more from the presenters

than they did in the speeches.

Like there were a few kind of doing his like, yeah, isn't it funny that Trump's angry

at me thing?

Yes.

Yeah.

Or like, you know, Javier Redem being like no war and free Palestine like explicitly.

That was the moment that I think people thought was going to be happening across the

show.

Yes.

And I do think he did exactly what you should do, which is just get out there, say to say

it.

And then read off the teleprompter.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you know, you she rolled with it better than I would have guessed.

She did.

She did.

She did not seem like someone who would, uh, from afar who would have necessarily.

Excuse me.

I'm sorry.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

I apologize.

Yeah.

Oh my god.

Yeah.

We're stuck in the past.

Yeah.

I wanted to be single.

I feel like, uh, it actually worked better that way, uh, in that, uh, I feel like one

of the things that having a political speech, like what is challenging about that is

that someone wants to also get out the thank yous and I'm so grateful.

And then also here's a political statement and those don't go together very well.

Like they often feel like you're just trying to serve these two enormously different

purposes.

Uh, so having presenters feel more freed up to make jokes about, well, without ever

mentioning Trump by name, you know, like, uh, it did feel like, you know, like, uh,

it did feel like it offered, uh, some relief to in terms of like the expectations that

are on the people giving speeches.

Yeah.

Like the assumption that people had seen the movies, there was assumption like, like, obviously,

like, we're not, everything's a fucking mess.

And, you know, we can, we can acknowledge it Riley or directly, but like, we're not

going to make that the theme of the evening because that's giving him yet another thing

or whatever.

I think that's a big part of it.

I think it's, there's this feeling of, it's a vicious cycle, but it's like, if you get

up there and say anything at like the woke liberal academy awards, is that just going

to become fodder for Fox News and, you know, sitting members of the administration and

card, like, truly, you know, Polly, what are you accomplishing here in a weird way?

Does it become not like an echo chamber, but does it just become fuel for them to stoke

outrage in their own base?

Yeah.

I also think it's fascinating to look at like early 2000s, uh, during the Bush administration

there would be these very fiery political speeches and the audience would turn on them.

Yeah.

Like, it was Hollywood was no less liberal, but there was this feeling of you're being

unpatriotic, don't politicize this.

And, you know, Michael Moore is a famous one of those when he won for bowling for Columbine,

right?

He, basically explicitly political speech and was booed in the room because a rack had

been invaded like that, that week, what do you say?

We're engaged in a fictional war with the fictional president.

And he would, yeah.

Was it a year later, two years later, that he was nominated for fair night and he was

9-11 and was greeted as if like, you know, Jesus returning to Jerusalem for Easter, you

know, or for, uh, Poms and I, uh, and it was just, yeah, like the, the, the, the, the,

the Oscars are not traditionally that polite to that kind of sentiment.

No, no, no.

And then, you know, Simzai, we're recently talking about in, uh, 2001 when Robert

Altman was seen as the best director, front runner of like, it's time.

Yeah.

Here's the Lifetime Achievement Award for Robert Altman.

And then in the run up, he won the Golden Globes, it was like, here we go.

He did a big interview where he criticized the war and Bush and everyone turned on him

and there was this energy of we can't give him an Oscar who knows what he's going to

say on stage, right?

Yeah.

And then I think in the last 10 years, the Oscars got more overtly political.

Yeah.

You had these moments of like, you need to take a stance.

And there's a little bit of possibly a step back, like, what did that accomplish?

Right.

You know, which isn't saying it's not worth saying something, speaking truth to power,

but it does, we just live in a time that is insane and everything becomes like weaponized

and picked apart.

Yeah.

And I don't think people were like strategically going like, I don't want to get political

because it will hurt my career or we need the Oscars to be inclusive or anything like

that.

I think there's genuinely a moment after like a kind of 2010s of, do we all need to be

tweeting all the time, turning everything into a press release?

Like what is actually going to move the needle on any of these issues?

Yeah.

And it's going to be whoever wins the best supporting actress.

You're going, yeah, yeah.

I mean, like, I also feel like, like, obviously I support anyone who wants to like go up

there and make a political statement, use that, use their time to do that.

But I feel like it was telling that the first really political speeches came from the

documentary winners because there's just a very obvious and easy way for them to speak

to how their work, you know, has relevance.

I also feel vertically political films, the films about Russia and Putin and about school

shootings in America.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I, you know, I feel like, and maybe this is just me being too generous, but like, there

was just a different, definite feeling in the room more so this time of being like everyone

understands like everyone is like on an approximately same page about their feelings about what's

happening in the world right now, at least certainly like within like the presidential

regime.

And that kind of provides, you don't need to keep saying it out loud, you know, I mean,

like when Jimmy came up and like told his, yeah, his, his jokes like his late night jokes,

he's going to hate this.

Right.

And I was just, it felt kind of like, it feels a little glib and pat.

I think there's another thing too, which is like everyone's saying they're going, I don't

want to be Adrian Brody, right?

It's not even like I don't want to speak out for fear of career repercussions.

Yeah.

It's, it's a thing that's talked about a lot of like these aren't our elected officials.

These are like actors and creatives.

And even if they're smart, they're not necessarily like political science majors.

And if they get up there and give some like self-indulgent speech where they completely

muddled their own point, and the audience is like, what are they saying?

What is that accomplished?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like it was telling that the bits that felt the sharpest were not aimed at the

larger political world, but like the more immediate ways in which corporations have been

affecting the industry.

Right.

Like Conan's bits, by the way, they should bring Conan back forever as often as he wants

to continue hosting these forever host people, yes, exactly until Mr. B steps in, of

course.

And that, you know, the bits about like his job at like Ted Sarando's being like, here

is a movie theater.

And it can't go.

Yeah, zest on it where I was like, oh, you genuinely dislike like what this man has

done.

He kind of had the right targets.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the, I mean, I loved the, Casablanca's maybe like a little easy as like the film to

like Riffon, but like that bit was really funny about just repeating, yes, and they did

it live.

Yes.

You know, like it wasn't like a pre-taped thing.

Yeah.

And the Jane Lynch YouTube ads also very good.

The flashlight that killed Bin Laden stuck in my head forever.

Like those, those are bits were funny, but also like they felt like there was both like

legitimate grievance and way to make those have zing while also working as jokes.

We were also, we were talking about it right before we started recording how fasting

it was that it did feel like ultimately despite, you know, us very confidently deciding

the cabinet episode will be about him being the Oscar villain that is the early position

of the Oscar villainess year and one of the episodes in this miniseries needs to focus

on that phenomenon.

Things absolutely came around to one battle being seen as the Oscar villain, which was

fascinating.

I was arguing that to Sims that like the last time that felt like this was 2007 where

no country and there will be blood where the presumed front runners and you were like,

you have two movies here that are just sort of like adored and held in really high esteem

by serious film people that also had some level of like popular crossover box office success

where it's not like there's a low brown movie and a high brown movie and which one's

going to win.

It's two high brown movies that feel like in conversation with each other and those

two like weird modern American Marfa Westerns were that and sinners and one battle very

much feel uncomfortable.

It's exciting but then one of them said Marfa and they said, how do you know that

man?

I filmed there.

Nice.

Nice.

A thousand comedy points.

But yeah, it felt like a similar kind of thing and I think in the last month there was

a lot of like what are the politics of one battle and what is the statement if we give

this the award and in his first of three speeches, I feel like PTA is summed up succinctly

whether or not you like it, what that movie is about which is the feeling of like did

we fuck this up?

Yeah.

Have we fuck this up for the next generation?

Is it done or is the next generation the one that's going to fix this?

You know, have we put the burden on them or are they the first generation that's ready

to sort of solve things?

Any mentioned in this film or in which like everyone including myself had read into

that movie and put it in reviews or reviews of the movie and I don't always want, you

know, a PTA can be kind of an elusive storyteller and you don't always know what he's getting

at.

In a intriguing way, it's, you know, what he's people coming back to his movies, but like

I appreciated that given, you know, the political tenor of the evening and what was happening

outside the evening and all that, I appreciated that he was like, yeah, I'm going to give you

a little bit of an answer to the question.

I'm going to give you the thesis without being self-important about it or grant, you know,

self-aggrandizing about it, I'm going to humanize it because I genuinely believe that's

why he made the movie.

A hundred percent.

Yes, no, it's coming from a really real place of like in their own ways, have the

decapriote character and the pen character fucked up things equally.

One of them was doing it maliciously and one of them was doing it kind of fearfully.

And you know, at the end of the ceremony, he calls out at Best Picture, Chase Infinity,

The Heart of the Movie, he gave kind of the ultimate my American girl.

Has now replaced Linda Cartelini as the Heart of Green Book.

He is the new heart of what I want to see Chase Infinity's husband fold a pizza in half

while that's all I'm saying.

I know.

I mean, like that.

A few images more iconic really in the celebration of cinema that is the Oscars.

Green Book 2 just can't book and yeah, oh, can't wait.

Yeah.

Griffin and Allison.

Yeah.

I can't remember how many myths, definitely a lot more than Richard did.

I did not do as well as Richard.

I went for a taiana for Best Supporting Actress, found Amy Madigan's speech delightful.

Love that, you know, weapons got its one win.

But yeah, I don't know.

I love taiana.

I think taiana is amazing.

I love her in like during the ceremony, like when PTA1, just like, you know, giving him

like this.

She was also standing one or directly one person away from her directly next to decapriote

who had just lost Best Actor, like vocally cheering on Jordan on stage.

And I was like, great.

Good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She was, you know, I used to, when I did the 20 years ago recaps, I would, I became obsessed

with how good Sharon Stone was at being at the Oscars.

Just the most enthusiastic clapper, a great presenter who really took it seriously.

She would do fun fashion things.

And I'm like, taiana Taylor, if you want to come back to these Oscars every year because

you're a great, she's a great audience member.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I missed five or six.

I swung sinners for Best Picture at the last second on a five.

I went Stella and I thought they were going to give him the like, I'm an award.

Yeah.

I got the other three acting categories.

I got director, both screenplays.

I think I missed anima.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think I missed animated short.

I missedcasting, which was swell.

So I wanted to bring that up.

One of the three that I missed.

Well, I missed four in the room because I switched to F1 winning editing for some reason,

but in my official predictions.

The ones accounted.

Yeah.

Anyway, but you know, I think a lot of predictors, prognosticators, gold Durbiites got casting

wrong.

Yeah.

And I think part of that is that like, sinners has this amazing ensemble that probably

had to be found more than like you know PTA making a few phone calls or or safty making

a few phone calls. I didn't win and one battle did and then it won best picture and the

question is like okay with this new category for the time being. Yeah. Is it just like I

don't know what whatever I'm voting for for best picture wins best case. I said this in

the room. I wondered if because when that won it felt like oh one battle has best picture

locked. Yeah. In the way it kind of used to for like editing or something. Yeah.

There's always been this Oscar metric that editing and best picture line up more than any

two other categories. Yeah. Even director sometimes they'll swing a different way to spread

the love. But editing rarely swings to like an editing focus movie that doesn't happen to be

the best picture front runner. And in the way that very often not always the sag ensemble award

feels like a good predictor of best picture because it represents the acting branch which is

foreign away the biggest branch in the academy. Is that going to be a one to one?

It might be a thing where it takes five to ten years before we understand how the casting

category works because and they called this out in the presentation which I thought was really

good. They had an actor from each of the five nominated films talk about the casting directors

specifically. But they said it's like invisible architecture for these movies. And what is casting?

Right. In which cases are your life? Yeah. Their job was negotiating ten difficult contracts.

In which cases you had to find one unknown person discover a key star. In which cases is it the

amount of cast? Is it the strength and the cohesion of the ensemble? Is it like, you know,

Marty Supreme is like five people you know. And then like 50 speaking roles that are mostly

street casting. Well, that's the thing is like when you watch Gwyneth Paltrow on stage talking

at Jennifer Vendetti, you're like, okay, but like Jennifer Vendetti reached out to Gwyneth Paltrow.

I was assuming like, sadly not, you know, like that movie has like three kind of real actors.

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone else is someone you know for something else. They're not really acting

first and foremost or people they literally like found in a post muttering to them.

I mean, I think it raises that question of like, what are we talking about when we're talking

about casting? And I do feel like one battle had this thing that like the search for, yes,

this the heart of the movie that was just such an irresistible story. So like even if I think

like my vote, if I had like, you know, would probably go to the secret agent, which is like a movie

that is like filled with these incredible faces. But yeah, like it would have voted for the only

man. Yeah, exactly. What is the question of like, right, is this award going to represent best

discovery? Is it going to represent best cast or is it going to represent some understanding of what

made the casting director's job difficult? Yeah. And I think one battle might have just the best

mix of all three. It's got a really, really strong core ensemble of known actors.

It has this one big fresh face discovery who's probably going to be a movie star for decades to

come. And it also has a lot of people you've never seen before giving like five line performances

who are like, who is this interrogator? Turns out he's a real form of interrogator, you know?

Yeah, both of the nurses, you know, these people who like really pop in these small moments,

it might just be the one that's checking all three boxes at once. Or it might just be that

this category always lines up for best picture. Yeah, we'll have to see. We don't that we only have one

thing. I mean, you know, maybe Paul Thomas Anderson called Jim Downey, but maybe the casting director

called Tony Goldwood, you know, or whatever. Yeah. But I think those were the ones I missed plus

documentary. I predicted perfect neighbor instead of Putin. Yeah. Yeah.

Going back to the Amy Madigan win, I think that, you know, I mean, Sam Sanders

would disagree, but you could say that centers as horror movie, if that's the case,

two out of the four best acting winners were from horror films. And that is, you know,

there have been horror winners in the past, but it's rare. And I do think that there's

something being said, perhaps, about the industry that like these two great performances, but in

very successful financial films from in the genre space, I turned to you. I think last night,

while we were watching it, and I asked if like does Madigan winning sort of blow the door open

that unfortunately Tony Collette couldn't, you know, et cetera? It was a fascinating moment

because I feel like you're less hot on weapons and at performance, but she wins. And you turned

to me and you're kind of smiling and you're like, that is kind of cool. Like you had this moment of

this does feel big beyond just her being an actress who's overdue, right? Yeah. That's cool

that someone won Best Supporting Actress for playing a witch. Yeah. Yeah. And when a summer, you

know, a vampire. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, a vampire like coming in in an incredible

period sweater. Like, like, like, it's, there's like a kind of soleness to that that is like great,

that it would be part of a vampire. A vampire in a witch winning two of the four acting categories

does feel representative of something. I think you're right. I think it's. What a movie. I think it's

part of a larger kind of like it has the idea of elevated horror now settled into something more

sustainable, right? But then, dude, is weapons elevated horror? No, I think now we've come back

around to you. These movies don't have to dress them up in a certain sense of self-seriousness.

Yeah. They can be personal and they can be about something. No. But they can also exist as genre

entertainment. Right. Be well made, but not have to be like, we're not like these other horror

films because both of those movies engage in things that are very traditional,

glory, silly, over-the-top, aesthetic. They're not kind of these very earnest.

A steers, right? Yeah. They're not a 24-hole. Yeah. But I will say, like, the Amy Madigan

win does very much rhyme with Ruth Gordon winning. 100 percent Mary's baby, you know. So, like,

there is precedent there as well. But also, that's so many decades ago. I know. No, it is. Yeah.

You can't even point to another performance in between that's close. I saw some stat that

in supporting actress Madigan is the first lone nominee winner. Like, she's the only nominee

from her film since Vicky Kristina Barcelona, which was practically 20 years ago. Yeah.

That's the trend. I mean, horror, yes, would be great. But like, in general, I would love it if like,

you know, in April or June or even November, if any of us saw some great supporting or lead,

even performance. And we're like, wow, that would be so cool if that got awards attention. Yeah.

In years past, you know, for decades, it would be like, well, that never happened. But now,

it's not over us was another part where you're just like, this felt really close. And how could

they ignore this? Obviously, Daniel Callullia got in for Get Out, but that's been playing

the straight man in a horror movie. Right. It's unbelievable performance. But like, the person

playing the creature, yeah, the big bad, you know. I mean, I will say, the real test of this will

be if we can get any serious traction for Ray Fines for 28 years later, Bone Temple. He is

incredible, incredible. That would have I think it needed to make more money. Yeah. I'm still

going to hold out for it. I mean, New York Film Critics Circle could always, yeah, we could make

the case. But I mean, it should have been nominated this year for supporting actors. And next year

for, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I do like that. Yeah. Like, something like

sinners or something like one battle, they do work as genre films. Yeah. You know, like,

there is no question that they work as entertainment. And I think the big thing is they're not embarrassed

to be genre films. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the only really traditional,

you know, in some sense, Oscar win of the major categories was Jesse Buckley for Hamnet,

which, you know, it's funny that, you know, we did sort of couch our camera conversation weeks

ago at this point as an Oscar villain narrative. And like, and now it's like, oh, why were we

ever worried about that? Like, it was just going to win that. And yes, it's an old-fashioned kind of

movie and an old-fashioned kind of win. But like, that's fine because it, it fit into the mix that

the sort of collage of, yeah, of this year way better than it initially seemed like it was going to.

And that's not to say that it didn't deserve to win other things. But like, you know, I think that

all told, Hamnet winning best actress kind of passed by with no friction, which is, you know,

I think it was not what people thought a few months ago.

It felt like a fake accompli that it's like Buckley's winning and otherwise the movie is like happy

to be there. And so any sort of animosity towards Hamnet felt like it mostly dissipated.

Right, right. I also, I think it was 2005 or 2006 is the year where Helen Murin and

Forest Whitaker win the two lead categories. And that was the last time, in my opinion, that like

movie screen at the earliest festivals in the fall and immediately upon sight people are like

they're winning done. And then they just won uncontested. They won every precursor. It was like a

done deal. And in those cases, it was like, yeah, Helen Murin and Forest Whitaker should have

Oscars. No one's angry about this. It's fine. But there was a real lack of drama throughout that

whole season. This year, at least the other three categories felt so up in the air that the Buckley

thing didn't feel as boring. And she's, you know, in a certain way, obviously, it's why give it to her

now when they know they're going to have to give it to her for the bride as well. Next year,

they're sort of in a Tom Hanks situation of like, do you really want the same person winning two

years in a row? That's the only criticism I would throw out? Well, no, but they'll give her,

she is a producer on the bride. So in the best picture, they'll give it that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so yeah, no, you're right. That is a tricky thing. Right. Because she'll

win lead actress supporting actress for the other voice she does. I think they're just going to have

a special bride Oscars. Like I think it's all the acting. Like I think that here comes the

mother fuck. I mean, actually, actually, the bride probably, they could, they could run in every

cut. Sure. And yeah, it's very good. I do like that mental exercise sometimes. What if the qualifying

period for next year's Oscars and tomorrow, does the bride get into like 10 categories by default?

And then you have a lot of golden globe, certainly, but you have a second year of people on the

Oscars stage holding trophies, thanking Frankenstein. Hey, this has been Hossley fashion

correspondent for critical darlings. I've decided to give myself that title. So we have Shalame

and Javentshi wearing his big boy, bar mitzvah look.

Looking like, you know, a grown boy, you know, Tiana and Chanel and then Kidman also in Chanel

and Demi and Gucci all rocking feathers. I thought they all looked really great. I was hoping

though when Demi presented that she would have done a bit where she spit out a feather.

Chase infinity looks incredible and Louis, Louis, truly just like a lavender dream.

She's so young and just like really, I'm so excited for her. I think she really looked great

on the red carpet. I haven't done this before. This is funny. I'm like, I'm like really channeling

Joan right now. Michael B. Jordan. I mean, he always wears like stylized, very like modern kind of

cut sort of suits. But to me, the accessory other than the brooch, chain wallet. Pedro

Sands mustache. Kind of crazy. Just to see his face like that. That's fucked up.

Wearing a brooch. And I'm taking this joke from Richard, but it's worth repeating.

Wearing an Ewah looking brooch. A giant like dandelion like pedal brooch. So yeah,

had to shout that out. Conan all night. He was wearing color, which again, Manor always

just so boring. And I am really inspired where I want to get my own velvet sports jacket.

He was wearing like a kind of midnight blue, you know, full velvet suit. And it looks so good.

Yeah. And then I want to end on Sigourney. Unfortunately, the dress, not so great.

To me, it kind of looked like the optical illusion dress. The one famously where people couldn't

tell if it was gold or blue. I saw it as gold, but I'll leave it to the listeners out there to

make their own decision. But yeah, that's my fashion corner. Thanks Ben. Yeah, of course.

David. Yes. I've been known to order products off the internet. Oh, dear, dear, dear.

I sometimes like purchasing things and then receiving them and then placing them in our workspace.

Right. That's cool. And you know, what is one of the greatest feelings I can have as a collector?

You have to tell me that purple shop button. Okay. Hop in up. I do know my screen. What you're

talking about because the different logins. Oh, did I register? Did I make everything easy? But

if we're talking about that purple shop button popping up, you know, there's the one login across

the multiple retailers. And here's what I love, David. Truly the shop app on my phone helps me keep

track of all the orders I have. I use it all the time. Here are some things. It always knows

like where to send it. Everything's pre-filled. And I'm truly great. What's arriving? What's shipped?

What's pre-order? Can I tell you some things I purchased recently? Replicas of the sunglasses from

they live. The newly announced 4K limited edition of no other choice. Oh, love that.

Matt Johnson's the dirties all the way from Australia. The fine folks at umbrella entertainment.

These are some of the products I'm able to track right now on my shop app thanks to Shopify and

that purple shop button. Okay. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses

around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US from household names like some of the

retours I just talked about. I've got me on cinema. Yeah, I've got that vinegar syndrome

disc badge 373 where like Robert DuVal's like a crazy New York cop. And like I looked it up

and the views were like bad. And I was like 40 bucks. Just send it to me right now. The packaging's

good. I just ordered a terror firmer the trauma film and Reviver 2. I mean, we're talking about

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It is true if I show Ching. If I see someone use the Shopify, I am embarrassingly more

quick. Yeah, right. Yeah.

I do think something that this year did well is that it folded a lot of the kind of

anniversary tributes into the like being presenters. Like that made it so that I mean I do love

a montage as well. Yeah. But I feel like it does stop the thing dead. Like at a moment I'm dead.

And so instead to be like we're going to get the bridesmaids except for Wendy McLevin,

Wendy McClendon Covey who iconically posted on Instagram during the ceremony. Like the reason

I'm not there is because I got a neck lift because quote, I'm tired of looking like a melting

candle. So I had to skip the Academy Awards. No drama. Everything is fine. So you read that out but

I didn't hear the beginning where you said the name. So I thought you were saying that was Sean

Penn's explanation for why he is fine looking like a Melty. Yeah. Melty is his thing. Yeah.

I always argue he looks more like a bootleg left out in the rain. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I

I agree that I think they they those like the bridesmaids was the thing was really fun. Yeah.

Um, I thought the doubling up presenters doing two categories I think helped keep the show moving

along. Especially down in junior and Evans who were really just kind of the chemistry between

those guys really just made me long. I made sure it's what's it called on Twitter. But like it's

what it's called actually. It is like I mean maybe it doesn't matter because just to RDJ was

under rehearsal. But like man 10 years ago when everyone's eating out of the palm of their hands

like that would have gone over so well. And this time it was like who what oh right you guys like

the the superhero stuff like who get you like it was just very interesting. It feels like a

hearing of the response to the first Avengers doomsday trailer revealing the Chris Evans was back

and they clearly thought that was the ultimate. Yeah. I would probably be like yeah. And instead

the public kind of responded by like has he not been in these? Yeah. What's he was gone from that?

You know, yeah. It's the same thing where they're coming in like victory lap. Like aren't you

thrilled? We're back together again. We're like the culture is moved on. And to the fact that like

Robert Tony's junior in the second bit made a magic mic joke and it was that what year do you

think it is my friend? And then they like throw the chain tape in the audience and he nails his

partner. Yeah. Yeah. He gets like four successful laugh links. Yeah. He saved the whole thing.

He saved the thing. That said it is something to watch you know either a bit that doesn't work

like that or a bit that does like the bridesmaids. And they go on for some length and then have

literally the mic dropping and the lights going off when someone's in the middle of their acceptance

speech. Yeah. Like I did think there were some pretty rude cut-offs. Like five or six times

that also led to awkward television where people didn't know where to cut. Yeah. Yeah.

They cut to Conan on the side. Like laughing just like yeah. Just be like yeah.

Yeah. Go back to them. And then like the the one for the Golden Wind was just the most

egregious where they just Facebook. And then he was like uh. And they just like turn the lights

off on him and pull the camera back and we're just like absolutely no way. Like there's just not

and they didn't budge. Yeah. They cut to a wide shot for 20 seconds as they turn the lights off

for him. And I'm like right now you're showing us silence from the back of the room. Right.

Instead of it would be finishing his speech. He wrote one of the things that's saving movies. Yeah.

This is Golden Winding best saw. Yeah. Like this is why like 10 year olds are tuning into the

series from Korea. Yeah. Yeah. That felt ugly and I and I I guess one sort of hope for the

YouTube Oscars in 2029, right? Is that there wouldn't be run. There won't be run times. You know,

like just let it go. You know, and if they're down to that as well. But uh. You don't want to be

watching for five hours. Can we talk about in memoriam briefly? Because I think this also was a

big reason there were less montages in other areas. Is everyone just kind of new going into this? How

are they even going to tackle it? Yeah. Because it's been such a like red wedding 12 months of

historic people that kept piling up. Yeah. I thought they handled this really well. Yeah. I thought

it was smart to kind of like do a few spin-outs into like spotlight sections to start with the

Rob Reiner thing with Billy Crystal. Yeah. So emotional. Love that they skipped North.

And then stopped at a birthday party. And stopped. Yeah. Then they're like, that was it. Yep.

That is exactly why we have always said we can't cover him on live chat. Because it gets really bad.

Yeah. And after he like tragically died. Yeah. A lot of our listeners were like, but you have

to do him now. Right. And I'm like, it would be so rude to be like, and after 1997, we ignore.

Just do it all the way up to his first presidential administration. Right. With Michael Douglas.

Yeah. Stop. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's tough when you're like, now we have to do LBJ starring Woody

Harrelson, you know, like, uh, but yeah. And then you're like, no, he did like that stony,

cold round of masterpieces. Yeah. Which is important to call out. Yeah. I thought Crystal's

speech was like beautiful. And then having the cast members. Yeah. That's lovely. And then

you go in. And I am sick of having Dabdi's and Nika's presence at the Oscars every year,

year after year. Dabdi's is always there. I mean, it's Courtney's Thorne Smith sometimes.

I know it's totally, but basically the Melrose Place cast just needs to get away from the Oscars.

It's crazy. I mean, it feels like sometimes Dabdi's and Nika gets thanked more than God at the

Oscars. Well, he's heathens. That's the kind of nation we live in. Yeah.

But that was nice. I think Rachel McAdams was lovely. And she spoke to, you know, about,

you know, Catherine O'Hara, her fellow Canadian, Dan Ladd, and but Keaton, because she was in

Morning Glory with her and and Family Stone. And Family Stone, of course. Right. Yeah.

I thought that was nice. And then I guess we were, we were talking while we were watching,

we were like, okay, so who do they get for Redford? But then it seemed like, oh,

Redford's just in the montage. She's just the last person in the final segment of the montage.

And then Babs came out. Well, actually, Richard, she hates it when you call her that. I don't know

if you caught it. It was a subtle, she gave me permission. In the meantime, she gave only

permission. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, what a legend. I, you know, I love that she comes on.

She tells this, yes, lengthy story about the, and she's like, fine, I will allow you,

Robert Redford to call me Babs. And then she starts singing.

She started singing in a way that was like, she was at a lectern with a mic,

but then she had a hand mic and it was like, stage minutes is better. I'm sure she didn't

really either show up for rehearsal or, you know, whatever. It also felt like there have been rumors.

They're going to have her sing memories as part of the memoriam. And it felt like

the way it manifested on the final ceremony felt like there was a lot of back and forth

of like, I don't know if I want to do it. Maybe I want to sing a little bit. Maybe I just want to

how I feel. Yeah. Yeah. Real, I'll see how I feel energy. It ended up in a way I liked feeling

like a wedding toast of like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm on an emotional and then she grabs the mic and

you're like, is she about to sing? She starts singing. You're like, is she going to sing the whole

thing? You shouldn't walk over the band. And then it just kind of wrapped up. But I thought it was

it was great. And it was in a show that had a lot of modernity to it and a very contemporary

sense of comedy and all that and pacing even just to have this old fashion kind of small sea. But

meaningful sort of Oscar moment, I think it was just the right amount of that in in the show.

Yeah. Well, I mean, especially you're like watching her. I feel like you're just acutely aware

of this thing that has been causing panic in the industry for a long time, which is like, you have

this this class of like larger than life celebrities and movie stars and filmmakers in her case as

well, right? A historic who are all dying, you know, they're or older. And there is this real

question of like, we will never have that back, you know, like you may have a Timothy Chalamet,

but like he is not going to be Robert Redford. It's not going to engender that same. Yeah. Well,

I was asking you guys like last night. So when and I'm not putting this out in the universe,

many decades will happen. Yeah. 400 years from now, when lustreep goes, they're just going to have

to do a fucking 40-minute segment at the Oscars, right? Like like the most nominated actor in history

no one will ever beat that record. I don't think I think that record is permanent. Yeah.

Like that's like what are they going to do? And but the thing, but then you think about all the

other people, what happens when time hangs tight? What happens when, you know, and it's just

yeah, we started to talk excited and excited. Yeah, in space. We started talking about this last

night. And you said, actually, no, we have to keep this for tomorrow. And the point I started to

make was I think we're in a somewhat unique time where our octogenarians are still present.

Yeah. They are still active. They feel they are deceptively older than they feel.

You know, some of that's advancements and cosmetic works. Some of that is just people used to

retire, you know, and it's like carry grant didn't make a movie for the last like two decades of

his life. Gratigarbo, it was like four decades, you know, a lot of these people would retreat or

they would just do one movie. They all like move to Paris or or like to hang or they felt like

elder statesmen who would mostly come out at the Oscars and remind you they were still alive. And

when they died, it was sort of sad, but it was of course, they've exist as they feel prepared for it.

They feel like former presidents, right? And there was a class of people who are all like in their

80s. And a lot of them have started going, but like De Niro and Pacino and, um, uh, Dustin Hoffman

and Nicholson, you know, and we've lost, uh, Hackman and Devall and Diane Keaton and all these people

recently, who still feel very present to us. Yeah. Who still feel modern and active, even though

they are historic, they're not stuck in the past, which I think is going to make it feel all the

more shocking when they go. Uh, and we're just living through a time now where we have people who

tragically are gone far too soon. Yeah. And people where we almost aren't conscious of the fact

that they are now entering or close to entering their ninth decade. I mean, yeah, it's

something that I sort of briefly touched on when I wrote up the show is that like, we just have

to steal ourselves that these immemorial bits are going to be hard ones for the next, you know,

15 years. Like it's going to be every year is not going to maybe not as big as this one fell

because it just happened to be, you know, uh, an extinction level then. Um, but like it's going to

be, it's going to be rough, you know, and, and, and like you said, Allison, like, there's not a ton of

iconography coming up behind them. Yeah. Not not on the same way. We're just not going to have

that kind of relationship with just doesn't exist. Yeah. It's just different. Um, can we before we bring

on our special guest? Uh, I wanted to speedrun a few topics. Uh, the two live musical performances.

How do we feel about them? I thought they were both excellent. I mean, I, I always think it's a

little rude when they don't let the other nominees perform, especially, uh, you know, you didn't

want to hear the, uh, the Arya. What a good TV. Even if no one has heard of this movie,

well, I was joking that Angelina Julie should have just come out of the stage to it. Like you said,

you sang live from Maria. So that's, that was your time. Um, I mean, train dreams. What if it would

have been a bit like, um, when poor Elliott Smith got sort of like pushed out on stage to perform

the Goodwill Hunting song and he was like, what am I doing at the Oscars? But like, you know,

man always talks about like how getting to perform at the Oscars that you're basically made her career.

Yeah. You know, he's still touring off of that. Obviously he had an illustrious career before that

point, but there was a level of mainstream exposure that an Oscar nomination gives, uh, a musician

that is, is unique. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I appreciated the showmanship of these two where they

basically stage both the numbers. I lied to you from centers and golden, like a bit like,

like they were in the movie, but also to be like, this is going to be these are here because

it makes for a good show. Yeah. It was, it had NBC live musical event energy in a good way. Yeah.

Yeah. And I wanted to see how are they going to pull this off. Yeah. And I love the audience

with the lights for gold. But it seemed like quite a poll trolling. Yeah. Yeah. It was, yeah,

that was fun. Yeah. Um, how about the orchestra playing the scores live for the nominees? Because I

love love. I mean, I love that. I sometimes do wish they would give a little more time to that.

Like, like, um, the, the 20 years ago that I recapped, uh, it's like Pearlman plays selections

from each nominated, more like, and I was like, well, they're really giving the scores there do.

It maybe does eat up a lot of time. But yes, some sort of nod like that is I think kind of key.

Yeah. I mean, just like having the orchestra. I like, I mean, that kind of like showmanship.

And involving the orchestra like Conan did with like the Marty Supreme joke. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, the bum drone. Yeah. Um, the tie for, uh, best live action short. Very rare occurrence. Uh,

seventh total. Yeah. I was like, total. Yeah. How do we feel about the way it was announced?

Um, I did. We, I think we all felt sort of pity for the other four because he's like,

we're going to call one winner and they're going to go up to the stage. And then the other four

were like, oh, wait, did I win suddenly? I have a one in four chance. But also if they don't call

my name, I know I didn't even come in second place. Right. I can't even comfort myself with that.

So it was good showmanship. It made for an exciting TV moment. Yeah.

It was a good person to be stuck in that situation because he was able to throw out like

five good off the cuff jokes about it. Yeah. No, it, I think it was, and it was exciting. Um,

and, you know, a, a funny sort of bit of cosmic irony that the shorts took really long,

you know, I don't know. Um, I, I, we were talking like, so the, the most famous probably tie

was Barbara Streisand and Katherine Hepburn. Barbara Streisand won for funny girl, right? Yeah.

Um, and luckily, Katherine Hepburn never went to the Oscars. She was hanging. Never did. Yeah.

She used to have Sean Penn over to the House of Connecticut. They'd smoke cigarettes and talk

about whatever. No, but so, so Streisand got to give a speech as if she was the sole winner.

But when you have both winning parties there, it gets a little airy. Yeah.

Uh, I appreciate it. Kumail is just a like, don't panic. Like, uh, this is what we're going to do.

He really, you know, yeah, I wonder if they had told him beforehand. Yeah. Kind of hope so. Um,

Bill Pullman and Lewis Pullman. What was up with that? I mean, he's,

Lewis Pullman's really hot. I don't know. I just felt like there, you would be like,

they're, they're timing just felt so off throughout that. And you're like, do you guys just not

it's like dry, dry guys? Yeah. And their sensibility and their humor, who may be need a more

boisterous person to play off of. Yeah. I also think it's just like the third rail of the NEPO

conversation. Um, we're almost any time a NEPO tries to address it head on. It just makes

everyone more uncomfortable. Yeah. It's, it's a little bit of like a Kobayashi Maruno in discussion.

Yeah. And also Lewis Pullman is not famous enough. I think if Anley had been like a player at

the Oscar, he's like, Oh, he's one of our characters this year. Right. Pullman, it would have

worked better. And maybe they had even like booked him before. Like, I don't know. Is there

some percentage of audience members who are only realizing for the first time when they come out

on stage? Oh, right. Those guys do have the same face. I saw several posts on social media

up to that effect. Right. Like, Oh, I never put that together. And it's like, okay. So I did,

the joke doesn't work if, if people are learning the information for the first time. Pullman's a

very familiar face at this point. Yeah. Maybe not a household name, by name. And Bill Pullman is

infamously the guy who was always confused with Bill Paxx. Yeah. We're even though he is a historic

that guy. Yeah. There is a little bit of a, Oh, wait, they're both named Pullman thing. Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't know. Bill Pullman, I mean, he has a new movie that was a, was it Berlin?

I thought it Berlin. He's one of his best performance. Yeah. But it's been a little while since he's

just, his name is, but he's been floating around in the public awareness. He's trying to get

gin up support for the Casper sequel. Like a sequel. Yeah.

Who had better speech laughter? Jesse Buckley with the giggles or Amy Madigan with the

Cackles. Oh, Cackles. Yeah. Cackles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, was Timothy Chalamet ragged on

enough about the ballet comments? I think just the right amount. Just the right amount. Yeah. Yeah.

I agree. He had just, yeah. I mean, I look, we talked about it last week. He, his sentiment,

I don't disagree with. He just phrased it badly. But he did have to sit there and like he,

like it was a requirement of the evening that he get a little bit of direct. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, a fire for that. And yeah, I think it was just the right amount. Yeah. And finally,

did anyone else think about when Paul Thomas Anderson admitted that there was a pleasure to

having the Oscar in his hand? Um, did anyone else think about Fiona Apple's story about how he

threw a chair across the room when they were watching the 1998 awards together because he lost

to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck for a screenplay for Goodwill Hunting?

I did think about his Oscars at past, you know, like the famous, you know, Fiona Apple

sort of making fun of the the winner, whatever, while he, you know, they're self in the audience.

But I also think that in a way, it's nice to think about that past because like I think that he's

shown a lot of that he's matured as a filmmaker and a person. And, and it's like, yeah, you can

be the brash young thing. And then, you know, time and experience changes. It comes full circle

back to the Shallomay Conversation too, which is just like this guy was a prodigious talent.

And the Oscars were like, you're so convinced you're a genius. We don't want to give you that

validation yet. And it felt like we're already dealing with enough fucking Quentin Tarantino to

just sit, just wait. Okay. Right. Right. Yeah. It felt like he had settled into the exact

right place. Yeah. In terms of his own, I don't know, relationship with himself and his work.

I also, I appreciate the candor of it without it being a like, finally, it's about time. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think clearly everyone in that room wants to win. That's a thing. Yeah.

You know, people come up for Emma Stone. So for Emma Stone, who is clearly like, please,

I was kind of surprised she went in a way. Yeah. Like I'm sure she was just there to like,

support the film, but it was kind of like, just don't let just don't get. Yeah. Yeah. No,

but I think a lot of people get up on stage and go, oh my god, I never believed this could

possibly happen. Yeah. And it's like, you don't really go into any foam related line of work

without at one point going like, what do I want to ask? Yeah. Thank you about what your speech would

be. I don't think that I don't have thought about it eight trillion. I don't think that Kate Hudson

would bring her husband Grogo to the event if she didn't think there was a chance she would write.

What a couple, though. Yeah. A beautiful couple. I just wanted to think about that there was

some puppeteer hiding under a fake auditorium seat. They like, what am I doing?

David. Yeah. You don't have a lot of shared interests. Sure. Common interest film. The movies,

comedy, podcasts, life, New York City, bagels, sandwiches. These are all true.

Sleep. Oh, I love sleep. Sleep rules so much. It is kind of wild. How sleep is constantly underrated.

I don't think people give it enough credit. And it gets, and it gets credit. And nonetheless,

even when it's bad, it's good. I mean, it's just so true. It's true. I am living proof

right now because Lisa sponsored the show. And when they sponsored the show, they said,

would you like a mattress? And over a big honking mattress. And I was like, it's time. It's not

switching to a king mattress. You're a king. I'm getting a bigger bed. My kids sometimes will pile

into it. I need this much. I need as much square footage as possible on this. Yeah. You need hop

on pop space. I do. Now listen, I mean, Lisa, they've got this lineup of beautifully

carrafted mattresses. They're all tailored for different sleep positions, different fuel

preferences, but they've all got premium materials. They've all got full body support no matter

how you sleep. They're all designed and assembled in the USA. They've all got a free shipping,

easy return to 120 night sleep trial that you can go by. Awarded the best hybrid mattress by

wire cutter at the New York Times exclusively featured by West Down there. The go-to mattress

provider over there. It's good stuff. Yeah. And they donate thousands of mattresses each

year to those in need. That's huge. Partner with organizations like Clean Hub to remove

a harmful plastic waste from the ocean. It's nice to hear that they care. And it's nice to hear

all those endorsements. But really, I think there is no stronger endorsement than David Sims,

the sleepy king, the most tired man in America saying that Lisa hits just right.

I love it. And I use it. And this is a true endorsement. They're all endorsements, but this

is about as endorsement is an endorsement gets. I don't know what to tell you go to Lisa.com

for 20% off mattresses plus get a extra $50 off of promo code blank check exclusive for our listeners

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Is it time? I think so. We're going to do a very special segment, a kind of award segment of

its own, an award ceremony of its own. The great Rebecca Alter from Vulture and popcorn critic

extraordinaire has cultivated for us a look at the best, the Academy Award nominees of 2026

represented in popcorn buckets. Amazing. We are honored to have Rebecca Alter here,

popcorn bucket correspondent extraordinaire to run us, senior, senior, senior popcorn bucket.

Sorry, I can't believe I forgot about it. To run us through the rarefied popcorn bucket

award season offerings. Thank you so much. This is the only aspects of the Oscars I feel qualified

to comment on at all and something exciting about this year is this is probably the first year

where something like half the nominees for best picture had a corresponding promotional popcorn.

Last year was just brutalist, right? Yeah, it really made that. It would have been the best

collector's item of all time. It is really fun in a sort of Oscars party menu way to imagine

what the bucket would be for each one. Yeah, sentimental value is like the father's head morphing

into the daughters. Hamlet? Oh, yeah. Hamlet is a child's body.

But if it's like the dead hawk and like that kind of thing. No, it's the skull that it's the

skull that Hamlet holds. Oh, well, speaking of skull, we could start with that, which is one that

was really difficult to acquire like on the black market, second hand market, eBay, which was

Netflix's Frankenstein bucket. Oh, because barely a theatrical, I mean, it did have some

theatrical play, but apparently did fairly well. Yes, like given the Netflix of it all. Now,

apparently when it was screening at the Egyptian, they gave the buckets out to people for free

for the opening. Sure. Here at the Paris in New York, they did no such thing. They put it up on

their website. It sold out really quickly. And eBay, it was going for hundreds of dollars.

And also for a while, the internet was riddled with 3D printed fakes. People were ordering buckets

and subpar quality. Well, you talk us through what this looks like. So it is sort of a pretty

generic looking skull. I like the detail on the eyeballs, which are sort of rolled into the back

of the head. You don't normally see a skull with eyeballs. Yeah, I have some questions about that,

but yeah. And of course, the most delightful thing about this is the popcorn coming out of the

head looks like brains. That is good. Yeah. Yeah. Now, it is not a representation of Frankenstein's

monster. It is seemingly just like a prop recreation of another experiment. Victor Frankenstein has

in his lab, which feels like a slightly weird choice. I think we'd all love to eat out of

a Lordy's skull. Absolutely. It was quite some of us have. Or even do you know what, like that one

guy that he has opened with the spine exposed on the table? Like that would have, I would have left

to have eaten out of that exposed. Oh, that would be great out of it. Yeah. Yeah. This is actually

the one out of the 10 best picture nominees I haven't seen. So I'm just taking everyone's word at it.

There's a there's a ship. Could have been there is a ship. And if you went to the Egyptian and you

asked if you knew to ask for it, you could eat popcorn out of Christophe Balls. Like he would just

be there. He was there. Yeah, essentially feed you popcorn. Yeah. Yeah. You sort of fit him in

your lab. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Next best picture I'll bring up is of course the Marty Supreme Bucket,

which had a real viral moment, a 24 on the back, dream big on the front. It is the orange

ping pong ball, which played a big role in the marketing and doesn't hold the ton of popcorn.

I got to say also the whole is a little small. I feel like it would, you know, getting your hand

in there would be a little bit difficult in the dark. I don't know. Would anyone like some popcorn

from a screening of the secret agent 24 hours ago? Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. You're like, oh, wow, it's

fresh. I'm okay. Thank you. I feel like you talk a lot about in your bucket reviews the sort of

accessibility, right? Literally, like how easy is it to get popcorn in here and get popcorn out

of here with your hand? This does feel just by the opening being narrow. It's a clean,

unobstructed. Your hand did go in clean. I just know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I mean, like I

appreciate that you can close it and then travel with the popcorn. Yes. Like that is a nice feature.

And they love that it's just a sphere. Yeah. This is very elegant. And it speaks to the sort of

the round themes of the movie, round themes, though, the spherical themes. This is the

ovum from the opening credits. Nice. So this is the really elegant bespoke. You know,

this is the taste one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is like the hype beast bucket for sure. Yeah.

All right. Another bucket that we have in studio. I'll view it away from best picture ones for

that's fine. And I'll just call out I tried to out of the the blank check production fun.

Purchase the two other best picture nominated buckets with the F1 helmet and the sinners guitar

case. And both of them were purchased over 10 days ago and have yet to arrive. I've been

getting constant delivery updates that they're running behind. So thankfully, I'll just have these

buckets arriving probably the second this record finishes. There's still printing the 3D models.

Yes. But here's a common complaint. I've read from bucket fans and I've spent a lot of time

on our slash buckets as I assume you do as well. The Marty Supreme, the Frankenstein, the sinners,

and the F1 have a commonality which is too small is the complaint. And very often the collectible

bucket is supposed to be equivalent to a large popcorn. Yeah. And you're getting that amount of

popcorn inside. In my bucket reviews, I also do measure how many cups can fit into each bucket

and correspond that to, you know, is that a large, is that a medium? A lot of them come with a

large that's just in a separate bag. They let you do the wrong one. They let you do the wrong one.

Yeah. I feel like people aren't even opening half of these in the theater. No, they're yeah.

But I do think Marty specifically came with a small like they're sort of channeling. Oh yeah.

Skinny Tint. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. He just does not look like a guy who is eating a large popcorn

in that movie. So dreamy. He eats small. Exactly. He eats small. Next up we have a best animated

nominee. And maybe, you know, counterintuitively to the bucket game, there were not many buckets of

animated films this year because a lot of them, you know, that we had two sort of European Rd ones

we had Helio, which I don't think it was not very merchandiseable. Well, they were putting all

their effort behind stitch at the time, their stitch stuff. And then yeah, yeah. I do find it

a little offensive just circling back to Frankenstein for a second when Netflix throws their hat

into the bucket game where I'm like, you don't get to do this. You're telling us to stay at home.

Right. Right. Right. Right. I have my own balls. Exactly. Yeah. These are the in theater experience

this is part of it. Yeah. Okay. So we have Gary Disnake. It's very cute. I think this is my first,

you know, I learned about the character through the bucket before I saw the film and was

instantly endeared to him. He's coiled around the part. Yeah. It's elegant. Yeah. I like it.

Yeah. It's a classic bucket and it's a kind of earned organic design. Yeah. Yeah. I like anything

where you can pretend to feed the bucket creature by putting the popcorn in your mouth. That's

actually a huge deal. You can do that here. A voiced by former Oscar winner, Ki-Hee Kwan. Yeah.

Yeah. Very well. A very in-loop bucket. Great performance. Yeah. So we'll add that there. There

was another Zootopia bucket I saw at a cinema arc that was it was the little Italian-coded rats

walking into a little movie theater. That's good. That was good. And I thought that was very fun.

Next up, we have the two-in-one Jurassic World rebirth, which is a sippy cup. And

this is very evolved. Yeah. Wait. So just you like it looks like it looks like it's just like a

wandering thing. Like describe it. It's like it's got a clear yeah like plastic case to encase the

dinosaur fetus. A test tube dinosaur. Yeah. It's basically. And then on the side is like,

oh, what is that supposed to be? Like a... Well, so it detaches and sort of almost looks like an

80s cell phone. Yeah. I was going to say it has like a walkie-talkie like five. But that's like the

drink. Okay. Has the classic logo on the side? Sure. Sure. But so when you put the popcorn,

like you have to go around the fetus. Yes. And when the light was still working, you know,

it's sort of lit from underneath. Sure. I found there to be a horrible plastic taste to this one.

Even popping the top open, you get a sort of plastic smell. Do you remember the price point on this?

It was probably in the 50s. Okay. That's high. Yeah. But it is a pretty elaborate. Yeah, I mean,

I appreciate the idea of it. It just feels functionally like it would be inadequate. Is this is this

is this well-liked in the collector community? This one? The Jurassic one? I think so. And certainly

compared to some of the other Jurassic bucket offerings, which one other was like a generic

dinot head. So this is clearly like that one. Yeah. That one was yeah, it's certainly lacking. Yeah,

it just doesn't it doesn't compare. But speaking of expensive, I will get to another effects nominee,

effects winner, which is the avatar fire. Oh, yeah. Banshee bucket, which does anyone want to

guess how much this cost? I feel like Griffin knows off the top $80. Yeah. Really? That was my guess.

Oh, wow. So this was an $80 bucket. It is of course a banshee, which are also known as are they

e-cron? The mighty e-cron. The mighty e-cron. Yeah. Which are the dragon type things that they

ride in the movie. And it has a basket strapped to it with a sort of harness. I'll uh, something

the wind traitors that we were introduced to in the third movie would craft. And it is carrying

popcorn in it also looks like a very inadequate amount of popcorn, especially for a movie of that length.

Seriously, you'd have to go back at least twice to get reveals. Especially that size. We had a

miscommunication where I thought you had the bucket and you thought I had this bucket. I in fact

purchased every bucket that came out for the way of water, all of which now live permanently

in the display of the blank check offices. But this was the regal one, which is pretty

minimalistic, but I liked is just kind of a translucent blue water bowl, but it lights up. It

has a nice bioluminescence. I love that. Then uh, or no, I'm sorry, that was AMC regal had this

tin bucket covered with a regal. Come on. It has a water life. It has. What you must understand

is that was this 2022 era. We had not, you know, we had not entered this type of territory. It's

making these elaborate moldy things. Even the dune bucket, people don't remember they have

cultural amnesia about this. It is just a tin bucket. It is a normal tin bucket with a fun

topper on it. But this was the one that I really liked. I think this was Cinemark, because I had

to get it online. No Cinemarks in the Tri-State area. But it's the banshee's nest. Which I

thought was a really good form factor. Yeah. I mean, it recalls a bit, uh, you know, this, uh,

yeah, Gary, this snake. Um, Becca, can you show off the images of the, uh, the sinners and the

F1 that did not arrive in time? Yes, I absolutely can. I've got sinners, sinners, and this is tin.

This is tin. It's a good heart. It looks huge. It's covered in, as if it were stickers, every poster

four sinners. Okay. But it is weirdly not super big. It's like Eugulele. It's smaller than

Eugulele. Exactly. Okay. Um, the other thing is this was not, uh, a product available when the

movie came out. It was when they re-released it. They put it back in iMac's theaters. I think in

January, which speaks to how much maybe everyone was taken by surprise, the massive success of sinners.

It's a when it came out. It was just the Lola Kirk bucket, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It was just her

skull. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Beautiful. And we have F1, which I will pull up. Again, another sort of head,

sort of yeah. Yeah. So this is how it has, I actually have upstairs a project Hail Mary helmet

that looks very cool. All right. Yeah. I feel like that the visor allows you to see the popcorn

inside. It's nice. Yeah. That's a nice touch. Like the, the lid is on top. Yeah.

The, the Marty Supreme kind of like that kind of lid. But you can see the popcorn quickly.

I also, I appreciate it. That's the best of both worlds of you want visibility of the popcorn.

Yes. But if there were a micro Brad Pitt skull inside that you had to root around, that's just

awkward. Yeah. It's awkward. I mean, it would be a fascinating choice. But, uh, and the

implications about what happens to Brad Pitt's character and if one would be significant. But,

I do think next year, every movie should just have a skull of one of the actors. That's a good

point. Yeah. It's a classic. No one battle bucket this year, sinners took a long time to get

there. We had four out of 10 best picture nominees, which feels like major progress.

For sure. But there's so much further we can go. Yeah. Do you, you could get the

Train Dreams pot of beans if you went to, you'll see it. Do you have outside of the Oscar

nominees a pick for what the best bucket of 2025 was? Ooh, ooh. Um, I mean, a really exciting

moment in buckets last year was. It's out there in the shelf galactis. The last year.

Yeah. It was also like $80, but he is half as tall as me or more. Yeah.

Can we bring it down? Is that possible? Yeah. For those listening at home, it's the

galactis head. It's Ralph in his skull. Fantastic. Yeah. It is another skull, but it's

so huge. It's really, it's really big. It's a kind of like the helmet wings that come out on

either side. So you also lights up. Um, yeah. The button is tastefully hidden. Oh, that's

nice. Yeah, the eyes light up. And I respect, you know, you're someone who lives in a city

and I don't know that you have a car, but like this is designed for someone to put in their

car after a movie. Right. And not carry on the subway. You have to fold down the third

row seats. Yeah, too. Yeah. I do think there's someone trying to eat it in the theater.

And you would be bumping both of your neighbors all of the time. Oh, yeah. This would be, yeah.

It would be very emotional to see over. No. Yeah. Um, that cost 80 as well. That cost 80 as well.

And there I really do see the value because that could become an amazing planter. Is that the

current ceiling pricing for now? Nothing's for now. But it's so interesting to see these 2022

ones and they're all priced at 2024. Right. Now, yeah, it does feel. Yeah. The things have changed.

I, I, my favorite bucket last year, which I might be wrong here. I don't think it's one that you

got, but from the same film, the Herbie bucket from Fantastic Four. Oh, yeah. I believe was only

$50. It has sounds. You press a button. It plays a sample of the Michael Giocchino score. Wow.

You push a different button. It projects the Fantastic Four logo onto a wall and exactly what

you want during a movie. 100%. Yeah. It had three compartments. Three compartments. So included in

the $50 was your choice of candy, popcorn and soda. His head is the soda with a straw on top.

And then his body, the front is for candy. The back is for popcorn. So I sat in a theater with

a robot on my lap pouring all these things into it because I insisted this is, this is how this

film supposed to be watched. You need to be eating and drinking out of him and then just had to

carry it around with me for an entire day. I love that it's fun. I love that it's interactive.

I got a SpongeBob one last year that has a viewfinder in it. Good. But in the thought of sitting

at a movie and like doing viewfinder, well, that's a great type of sort of old school second screen.

Yeah. I appreciate that all of these are, of course, like the most important part of supporting

the theatrical experience, like you got to come so you can get your expensive collectible.

Yeah. Another one that was really good on the same lines, a mission possible, the final

reckoning had a lot of buckets. But I know the ones at AMC, it was the cup had binoculars on top,

like spy binoculars. Sure. Which I tried to use during an iMac screening as if they were

opera glasses. Oh, perfect. Don't tell me. It harkens back to like inspector gadget happy meal toys,

where they were all little spy toys. Yes. I was thinking of another but I forgot it. But one more

sort of a bucket that came out last year that I am claiming for one of the best picture nominees,

is it was the 50th anniversary of JAWS and we got an incredible JAWS bucket. Perfect.

Yeah. And that, um, you know, major motif in the secret agent. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's real.

It's very real. So I'm saying this is the secret agent. Absolutely. That's what we got to

buy about a 10 dollar. And like with Gary to snake, you can make him much popcorn. Yeah.

And that's, you know, classic design. You want to put your hand in JAWS's mouth. So

if not your leg, just not your leg. If I'm not mistaken, the teeth are kind of rubbery, right?

No, the teeth are sharp. Oh, I like that. I like that. The threat of injury makes the popcorn more

delicious. You have to work for it. Uh, Dune had the rubbery full end nose. Well, that's because it was

yeah. Well, yeah. It's being used in different ways. But, um, yeah, I think that's my favorite.

I also think that if you wanted, you could mount it on the wall. Oh, head out. Oh, sure. Yeah.

Oh, that's great. It's lovely. It was also a naked gun beaver. That was, it would look really

handsome on a manful. We could also, we could reclaim that as a train dream spot as well.

It's a him jumping on a log, right? Yeah. Yeah. He's got a little stomach. Oh, I love that

scene where Joel interested eats that log. I like that. The future, maybe a popcorn

up buckets is repurposing them for smaller movies. Yeah. Like we can, we can go rogue. We don't

need to stick with, uh, establish branding. Is there anything you'd like to say to the bucket

companies in terms of what you think they can do better going into the future? What you'd like

to see in 2026? Um, I would, I mean, I don't know if it's possible, but whatever happened with

the rubber plastic smell and taste here, uh, was a real misfire. So I would like them to be using

I don't know, food grade plastic, fair, a fair ask. Yeah. Imagine, imagine recycled plastics,

a possibility, probably, probably not. We can't, we can't have it all. Not from Ingen. They're,

they're corrupt. It's their slogan, actually, which is weird. Yeah. Ingen, we're evil.

And I would love them to not, um, you know, let's try to keep it at 80. People are strapped. People

all, already, yeah. People already complain about, oh, you're taking a family of four to the

movies and with the this and the that and the that. It's like $200. Um, they will use these as

further fuel to make that complaint, um, which is not helping. Yeah. I think the Herbie model is,

is a way to look forward to of don't charge $80 for an amount of popcorn. You couldn't possibly

finish within the runtime of a movie. If you're getting over 50, at least have it tackle multiple

areas of concessions. Sure. Give me the all in one. Yeah. Yeah. And I will always prefer, you know,

a sort of custom molded thing with nice little details, like the sort of scarring and the gills

on the shark. Yeah, it's well made versus like this even has the look of those, um, 3D printed

dragons that people sell on Etsy. Like, I like, I like quirk. Personalize it. Yeah. Yeah. Give us

some texture. Well, this is a great recap of the year. I think there's the only important recap

of the year in movies. So thank you. This is, I hadn't seen most of these before. So I'm, I'm into

them. You're doing the work. And yeah, we keep doing the work. What the movies are really about. Yeah.

Yeah. Of course. Merch. We all know that.

All right. So, I mean, guys, award season is over. This means, um, we'll never be able to see

each other again. No, that's it. It's for done. The dream is, um, we're no longer darlings, uh, or, or

we could keep going. We could keep going. I, there, you know, there are other movies coming out. No.

Like for the whole rest of the year, not even awards movies. Well, maybe some, some are saying,

already, I mean, nothing could top the bride. Well, sure. And of course, we are going to do the

spin-off podcast about the bride. Yeah. Um, but you know, there are movies like, I don't know,

Project Hill Mary that some people are already kind of being like, well, reserve a spot in the

best picture 10 for that one. You know, who knows what else is coming this spring. Can't, the

can film festival might reveal some things to us. So we've kind of figured like, why not keep

going and talking about stuff that's coming out in new movies. Uh, I'm game if you are. Yeah.

I, uh, compared it last night to Howard Dean giving his speeches of the, of the states. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah. We're going on the Project Hill Mary. We're doing Super Mario Galaxy movie. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And that worked out very well for him. Yeah. Um, as we don't know,

yeah. He's our patron saint. Uh, yeah. I mean, look, there's a lot to talk about. Um, that will,

you know, not necessarily always bend back to the awards, you know, campaign and all that,

but like, but often these days, you can make the case for a lot of different things. Yeah.

But I think we would love to continue talking about new releases and taking the same tactic we

have here, which is to put them in this kind of larger context in which they're arriving, not always

a word, sometimes a words, but also just just how are they landing and like, what, like, how are we

looking at that? And what does it represent in sort of the state of the industry right now, which

I think you guys have done a great job of, of doing sort of what is the larger conversation behind

each of these movies? Yeah. Like, I think one topic for Project Hill Mary might be like,

the strategy behind like showing a movie to this group of people three weeks out. And then

another group of people one week at, you know, like, or the idea of the, the quote, unquote,

four quadrant movie, you know, like the, the movie that can please a whole family.

Men over 40 men under 40 rock monster fans and Sandra Cooler fans. Yeah, those are the classic,

the classic demographics out there. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so we're going to do it, uh, you know,

same, you know, once a week kind of thing. And what we're going to do is, uh, we'll be covering

new releases the week after they come out. So you'll have an opportunity. We'll tell you what we're

going to talk about the following week. You'll have an opportunity to see it. In that way, we're

also helping keep the theaters alive, hopefully. Also, and if there are sometimes movies that are

getting a platform release, we'll try and give a bit more time there so that it's not just open.

No, I don't only, I only want New York and not LA listeners. I don't care about anyone.

Yeah, screw the rest of you guys. Sorry, coastal elites. Yeah. Um, so we will try and give enough

windows so that you can see the movies, uh, and talk, uh, join us, you know, to talk about the

map. Yeah, we want to be talking about these things together, you know, and we should also acknowledge

that up until this point, critical darlings has of course lived in the safe banshee's nest of the

blank check feed. But moving on to this next stage, critical darlings is going to exist as it's

on standalone feed. So it is very important to say the thing. Sarah Jessica Parker showed up because

Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw hired, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hired her. And now what we, we are

push it out of this. No longer a failure to launch. We're going to have our own apartment. Exactly.

Yeah. Um, but, but to, to save the wrote thing, but really mean at this time, yeah, please

subscribe. And we're going to put links to the new podcast feed in the description, uh, of this

episode. So if you want to go click down there right now, uh, and subscribe, uh, that would really

mean a lot to us. Uh, we're really excited about moving forward. Yeah, please do. Yeah, please

find our new feed and subscribe if you would like to continue joining us on this journey. Yeah,

we're going to have great conversations, great guests. Uh, yeah, we'll help people from the,

the blank check extended cinematic universe and joining us. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's going to be a

great time. Um, and I just want to quickly call out, um, because the sinners and the, uh, uh,

f1 popcorn buckets did not arrive in time, but there was another big production cost,

production value cost. I put down at the beginning of this run, yeah, which, you know, has, has gone,

we, we try not to put too much of an emphasis on it, but this incredible kind of set dressing

that I contributed the day before our first, these are these beautiful set of trophies from

trophy world in Brooklyn. Yeah. And Peter at trophy world who hooked me up, they had just moved

locations. They were truly like active construction site setting up their new home. And he was like,

everything's in boxes. I have these three lying around. And I was like, perfect. I'll take them.

But if we can grab those off the backline quickly, I want to award the three of you. Oh my goodness.

And much like the Oscars and people, I don't know if they know this, when you win an academy award,

they hand you the statue with without any kind of plaque description, right? And then after you

give your speech, you go to some back alley and some guys like, how do you spell? Paul Thomas Anderson.

But I would just like to quickly award the three of you, Ben Frisch, an award for the best

benduser in podcasting critical darlings division. Richard Lawson, best co-host in a leading role.

Oh, thank you. This is my Vulpiko. Yes. And then Allison, a best leading co-host.

Oh, thank you. It means a lot to me. I think that's a fair. I actually, I've practiced this

speech a lot and I deserve it is what I wanted to say. Yeah. And screw the rest of you, loser.

This is absolutely. Can we give an honorary award also to Anne? Absolutely.

Yes. That's a great and Victoria Clark here. Yes. Who has been so patient with us in doing

these recordings here in the box office? We are actively at work at a gift of appreciation for

you and that is not just an oversized trophy. So no, that's something we'll be doing. It's a smaller

trophy. It's a smaller trophy. All right. So all that said and done, no more talk of 2025 movies.

We're moving to the future. We're going to space next week. We'll be back here in a new feed

talking about how to come in.

Critical darlings is a blank check production and association with culture,

hosted by Allison Wilmore and Richard Lawson, produced by Benjamin Frisch, executive produced

by Griffon Newman and Neil Janelitz. Video production and distribution by Anne Victoria Clark,

Wolfgang Ruth and Jennifer Jean.

It's a critical darlings. A critical darlings.

Speaker speech. Hey, make a speech. Speech speech speech speech speech speech speech speech.

This is the best thing that's ever happened from a drunk tech message. I sent to Griffon and David

after I lost my job. But seriously, actually, I didn't think they would take it seriously,

but it's been super fun so far. We're not done. We're going to keep going, hopefully,

in some fashion, right? I get to do the Howard Dean. Yeah.

And we can announce our third host, Timothy Schellamy.