Sunday
Mar062016
Podcast Season Finale: 88th Oscars
Sunday, March 6, 2016 at 8:35PM 
Nathaniel, Nick, Joe and Katey close this season of the podcast with their final "it's all sunk in now" feelings
42 minutes
00:01 "So Spotlight won..."
02:15 Katey's Party / Nick's House Rules
05:25 Stallone's Loss / Compton Moviegoing
09:30 How much changes if Idris Elba had been nominated?
15:00 Sam Smith, The Gays, and Original Song
20:00 What wins will age well and much randomness
37:54 That moment when we thought George Miller was possible...
40:00 Girl Scout Cookies and Goodbyes
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Related Reading: Index of Oscar Ceremony Coverage
Reader Comments (14)
I can't see the podcast on the bottom of the post...
Richter Scale -- ACK. I'm so sorry. fixed.
Got it! Will listen to it now, thanks!
I've been thinking a lot about Brie Larson and onscreen mothering lately. She's so good in Room but Trainwreck is the performance that totally won me over to her potential as a movie star. Again—no surprise—because of her chemistry with (but more accurately about/around) a child actor. There are three or four levels of motherhood (stepmothering, expectant mothering, sister-mothering) happening in that supporting role and she nails all of them so beautifully and effortlessly.
Just imagine that in 20 years Brie will tackle a White Oleander part. Or her own Birth, Savage Grace, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Boogie Nights, The Others, Rabbit Hole, etc.
That is some serious Brie boosterism! More power to her. I totally get your point about the Trainwreck performance, even if I hadn't thought about it nearly as much or intuitively given it as much credit.
Love the fact that Spotlight won. I cannot remember the last time three best pictures in a row were so good .I was hoping Miller would win but it wasn't to be.
I kind of think the acting winners Oscars will be footnotes in their careers. This is due to Rylance's theatre work, Dicaprio's overall filmography and the great futures Vikander and Larson have ahead of them.
Vikander's win reminds me of Jennifer Connelly's. Starred in a movie that critics and fanboys loved (Ex Machina/ Requiem for a Dream), and then featured in the anticipated follow up project of the previous year's Best Actor winner (Russell Crowe and Eddie Redmayne) and outclassed them. Kate Winslet was even nominated in both of those lineups .I think that in the future this time period of Vikander's career will mostly be remembered for Ex Machina, A Royal Affair and Testament of Youth.
Another great podcast, guys! Few other things can make a commute to work on a cold Monday morning bearable like this does!
Personally, I'm partial to the idea of performing Writing's on the Wall over the In Memoriam video. Nice. and. blunt.
Hayden: I'm with you. Trainwreck was my favorite Brie performance of 2015.
Lovely podcast, but please come back soon. Thanks.
I wonder how much of the OscarSoWhite controversy lead to Idris Elba's victory at the SAG awards, so if he had been nominated for an Oscar, who knows if he would have gotten as much press as he did for the controversy. As for Stallone's loss, I saw it coming frankly, since there were so many strikes against him beyond the fact that maybe he wasn't well-liked (no SAG or BAFTA noms, only nom for Creed, playing the only fictional character in a lineup filled with biographical characters), so I'm not surprised or even outraged he lost, since Mark Rylance gave my favorite performance in the lineep.
As for Spotlight winning Best Picture, I'm ecstatic, since it was my favorite of that lineup as well. It also holds an interesting stat with Best Picture, and that is that every winner since Crash has had a Rotten Tomatoes score above a 90% (which neither The Big Short nor The Revenant had) and Rotten Tomatoes became prominent around 2006-2007, which makes it around the perfect time for it to be something Academy members pay attention to (if they do at all, I'm just speculating here). Or maybe it just shows how important consensus is for a Best Picture winner wiith the preferential ballot.
I agree with Katey that the Original Song winners before this year have been quite good (except for We Belong Together from Toy Story 3, love the movie, hate the song) and I've always loved that category because it gives me a playlist of songs to listen to on a loop for a month or so, but even I just couldn't do that with this year's crop (note to Diane Warren and Lady Gaga, if you spend your entire song repeating words within the same strophe, people can tell you have no ideas for your song).
Anyway, great season and great to have you guys along for the ride. I also think the Animated Feature and Foreign Language Film lineups were incredibly strong (they excited me more than Best Picture even).
FYI: As far as "supporting" visual effects winning, isn't "Forrest Gump" an example of "supporting" visual effects?
Regarding the Best Original Song race, we have had one recent year that was really strong - 2013. Yes, it was the year of the Alone Yet Not Alone debacle, but the other four nominees were good - Happy, Let It Go, The Moon Song from Her, and Ordinary Love from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. That said, I still do not understand how the Lana del Rey or Florence and the Machine songs from The Great Gatsby did not make the cut that year (was there too much vote-splitting between them?).
I think Rylance's win will wear well - because he's primarily a theater actor, he can afford to be selective about his film choices, and if his next two projects (The BFG and Nolan's Dunkirk movie) are any indication, he will probably have a fairly prestigious filmography in the future.
I think Rylance's win will "launch" this phase of his career. He's already got BFG ahead of him, under Spielberg's direction, and he's so likely to now be cast everywhere for everything. We're still seeing the after effects of Jim Broadbent's win in 2002. [@Abel A: To me it's one more parallel to the Jennifer Connelly win... Broadbent/Rylance.]
I'm excited about Brie's win. I can't think of the last time I loved three best actresses in a row! And she's got a lot ahead of her.
Actually I CAN think of the last time I loved three best actresses in a row: Jodie Foster, Emma Thompson, Holly Hunter.