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. [MUSIC] Please welcome to the stage, your hosts, Richard Lawson, and Alison Wilmore. [APPLAUSE] Marie Bardi, 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 Freshalo Ben. Good morning, and our special guest, Griffin Newman, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you, 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, you know, just 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 Freshalo recording during our viewing party of the Oscars. And you're going to hear some special, I don't know, correspondence bits from Langcheck Universe's own Ben Hossleaf. So, keep in your 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? No, I want to just 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, 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 Lee 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. It's six, and it doesn't feel like the six are all like hugely historic, yeah, yes.

“Yeah, and I think that, you know, if you want to compare like Michael Lee 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. 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, and you know, for me, in general, the Oscars, I'm not like an Oscars trivia junkie. I have like really not great stores of historical awareness about them. Like, I wish I could pull up like last time someone won or this. 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, it's own kind of extremely imperfect mirror to every year. And it's, I think, in that way, an incredible check-in. And this year, yeah, 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, you know, cinema movies, the history and all of that were 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, you know, you think this is important, too. I think it's understood.”

This was a ceremony fairly devoid of montages, which I usually am a person fighting for the montages, because the montages almost always make me tear up. Yeah. It feels like this is the one time of year I go to church. They do to handle the fifth music or like, one of those other classics scores. Right. Oh, from Dragon Heart Weirdly is one of the few select one. Yeah. And you get eight minutes of like the best high fives or eye contact in a history in the

view. Yeah, or like speeches, battle, battle front speeches. Yeah. Yeah. Any of those things I love, and I've always been like, no, we need them. They're important to the Oscars, but they're literally might not have been one last night, and I also felt outside of the memorial. Yeah. Which had to be 20 minutes because last year was a blood bath straight up into the first three months of this year. Yeah. The amount of people in the memorial 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

were basically overly confident presenters. Yes. I'm overly confident underprepared. Yes. Exactly.

Every cone in 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 fun. It's a simple metric. But I think the difference”

between a cone and 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. He's like he 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 at wherever he could fit them. And he's oh, he's invested. Yes. Like he wants it 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 in the Oscars for a decade plus became lampshading about how a relevant the Oscars were. Right. Or how self-congratulations were. And I'm like, don't know, delete this. I'm watching this. Right. Exactly. Like this isn't talking me as one who is invested in this. I think especially like I hate the jokes about like, oh, here's a bunch

of movies. No, we never watched like I didn't watch his best picture nominee. And I'm just like,

I don't really want to hear that. And I the 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. Yes, that was the idea. Yeah. But I mean, something that I appreciated about this year is, you know, of the Conan embeds like the opening, the weapons referencing opening, which I thought was terrific. We've been waiting 20 years for them to bring back. Yeah. Host runs through the movies. And they literally

did it. They literally so good. Yes. Run through the movie. I wrote about it on premierparty.com. Uh, uh, someone, uh, people can read now online. Um, but I was like about that bed. I said, it's those, one of those things where you're like, the minute it starts, you're like, of course,

“this is the only way to open the show. Right. And I was reminded me a little bit of the opening”

to an MTV movie award. Yeah. Something complimentary. Yes. Like, in the golden bed, still or days. Yeah. Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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 demon 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 Girais Golden Loves years. But also kind of the Tina and Amy Golden Loves years where Ricky and his sort of, you know, a kind of classic. I mean, that guy, did you know that he doesn't believe in God? Richard, you can't say that all right. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Oh, like I'm going to be helpful for this lander's comment. I know. But you know, obviously he just mocked it, you know,

to sort of in this really, you know, kind of acidic way. And then Amy and Tina made it, you know, they would come out and be like, hello you entitled Brats, you know, whatever. That works for the Gloves, which genuinely don't matter. That's the right way. But the Oscars, I mean, look, none of this matter is quote unquote. But the Gloves are much faker. They are much less real than the Oscars

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, like, is as close as you can come to something that has some weight or meaning. Totally. And I mean, to your point of like, you know, how real is this and what you astutely say all the time that, like, 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. Yeah. There is still an ego involved in the industry as much as people become sociopathic crass, you know, like mega conglomerate. Yeah. How do we just make everything for cheaper and faster and worse? Everyone kind of wants to win

an Oscar. Yeah. You know, the worst people in the industry still want to win an Oscar. Many of the

worst people in the industry have one 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 on the also the idea, it is the thing that makes these extremely bottom line-focused businesses do things that are not in the interest 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're going to zoom in on this stuff that makes reliably, like, you know, the most money it is not going to be. It probably accrues some value in the catalog of the library, you know, sure. But yeah, no, it is more about a certain sort of pride. And you go, I mean, one of the nice things about this here 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. Seniors was obviously the enormous hit those being a two front runners. It meant that there was a sort of populist momentum behind, you know, kind of joining the art, you know, the sort of ego driven thing.

“I would say there was a site downside to that, though, in that I think in the age of social media,”

that heightened scrutiny made it like one of the, 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. Sure. That and such a huge lead-up because the Oscars, you know, we're recording as it's put in June 2013, yeah, of course. Yeah. It was just so, it felt so delayed that like, I almost found myself bitterly wishing for,

you know, a few 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. Really 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? Like, you'll around this? It's genuinely your dirt.

And yeah, it'll be Jordy gets up and we're like, this just feels right. This feels good. Yeah. It's just going to age well. This feels good in the moment. He's nailing the speed. Right. This just features like very classy, but earnest, heartfelt. I showed you a picture of Timothy Shalime arriving. It was like the getty photo from the red carpet and he had the sunglasses on. He had the kind of dirt baggy facial hair. He was in white suit, stealing Wagner Morris 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 gender on his arm and just feeling a little too swaggy, you know, a little too like big for his broaches. I was like, even though they're not obviously voting at the moment that 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. Yeah. And I think, you know,”

even though when to Caprio would go to the Oscars, he would play grown up very well. Yeah.

But I do think if I can invoke it again for the second consecutive week, I do think the

pussy posse stuff hunted to Caprio 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 was this feeling of like, is the association bad here. Right. 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 and for all credit to Timmy,

Michelle May, who I think is great and ready to pre him and who also through like sheer force of swaggy will. Yeah. Powered that movie in the box office, still like, hi, it's the, I don't think anyone would have expected for a, you know, a period piece ping pong saga.

I think there's a question of is he fundamentally own serious in a way that we can't reward him until he gains that piece, right? Yeah. 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 what 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 Xiaomi was great. That's the best

performance the year. And then you get your link and you open up for voting and you look at the

five and suddenly there's the sort of like, wait a second. Yeah. You run the mental simulation,

“you imagine the speeches they're going to give. And sometimes I think you make an impulse of”

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 Xiaomi would have been in the class with are Richard Dreyfus and Adrian Brody, who are both cases loved figures, where they gave it to this guy's young. Yeah. He goes when out of control. Yeah. Arguably we're already bad. Like, yes, before it. 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 the atrics and he's somewhere. Yeah. He's 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 or

financial bits about how much he sucked last year. I mean, I laughed. He's not great at like that delivery, but it's still pretty. Yeah. And like not to, I don't know. I got 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 households. He's like 20 something guys. You can watch it. I got so angry. I don't know. I mean, I watched maybe three

minutes of each one being deposed. And I was like, you know, that's, that's not exactly Marty Mauser energy, but it's not too dissimilar. And like, and then you compare what Xiaomi'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 in the character. And then you could, you know, to what Michael Jordan's two characters, you know, one tragic figure who becomes kind of a villain,

but not really. And then, you know, just 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 hip-squee hissing out of, you know. And even, not even just on a Xiaomi 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 haul in ones. I mean, not this coming year. I do not think like June 3 does not seem like it is necessarily going to be a best picture. Well, there was a joke online that he's going to now, he's guaranteed to do it in

Yuri to film. Yeah. I mean, that's, yeah. Which, like, really. Yeah. I mean, okay. So if I can brag for a second,

please, my predictions from your party dot 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, bathtub 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 want a challenge when 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

that was in a much younger social media age than we are now. So, but yes, she's right. Now, they didn't happen. I think the ultimate, the end result was the, the better one. But yeah, I sort of do dread already. What the next, but I'll maybe he learned. Yeah. I mean, we were talking last night. Like, is the next move? He did the biopic. He has done like this, like, really kind of brush, it challenged, like, abrasive, totally challenged. Like, kind of,

I feel like what's next is physical transformation, right, like, prosthetics. 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, for 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.

“You know, 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. Yeah. But calling by your name can

into what his core movie star energy is, which is a weird balance of brashness and incredibly

sensitive emotionality, right, like an almost transparent sort of, totally low it in there. Yeah. Right. And, 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 clock in the morning when you're on take one hundred right. David Fincher should also not make people do it to take one hundred. That's a whole other conversation, but yes. So like David Fincher,

just go home. But he's not even the bad. You know, he casts people for that and then 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. Yeah. 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 describe to overly confident. Yeah. But I think it's like he, like boyishness has been his chief quality for such a long time. And I feel like, you know, I have that in common. Yeah, both are. You know, you're young as brightly as that. But 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, End Toronto? No, I would just Toronto. Just Toronto. And we were sort of like, I was getting your opinions on what you would seen and where you thought the Oscar race was going. And you said to me, then, beginning of September, maybe End of September, I feel like the Oscars might circle all the way back around to centers. You would seen 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, Chun-Fanistan big picture keeps pointing out that like, Ryan Kougler'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 Gorenson. You know, like, right, these will not, I mean, too for

boosting. And I feel like in the last month there was the vibe shift of is everything going to swing centers. But at very least it felt like something major has to swing centers. They can't just give it the best original screenplay that felt kind of like a lock. And does that mean that pictures going to swing, that directors going to swing, that Michael B. Jordan's going to swing, that maybe it

“wins both supporting categories. And I think part of what worked for Michael B. Jordan was”

there was all this pressure on the idea of Timothy Shalame as the last movie star in 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. Jordan 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 going to get in there. And I mean, we didn't know, you know. I my thinking was in a way, it felt like the kind of Yoman's 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 pumped it to Mark Wahlberg in the fighter, snubbed all of the supporting people nominated supporting wins. D'Niro 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. And 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 Delvery Lindon when Missako going out interviews and explaining what the process was like suddenly made people go, oh, that performance

is better than I realized. I is preventing people from taking it for granted. The other thing I think

Ryan Kougler snubs. Yeah, you could argue that he should have been nominated for fruit veil, Creed, and black Panther. Yeah. And that he was snubbed all three times and that here we have something that generously feels similar to like Squarespace and D'Niro. If none of the performances

“were nominated before Rage and Bull. Yeah, I mean, I think the tricky thing with Michael B. Jordan”

is that he has someone who has been so good working with Ryan Kougler and then has made some

other things in between that like have gone basically unnoticed. You know, and I think all the way from

Tom Clancy's without remorse, does Mersey a perfectly well intention. Yeah, exactly like these movies where you're like they might as well not like just Mersey is a great example directed by Dustin Daniel Cratton. Yeah. You know, it's about Ryan Stevenson, Ryan Stevenson, the Civil Rights attorney, but it is like just an incredibly boring movie. Like it is like very doodiful. It's like very well-intentioned and just like has very little spark of life. It is a true Oscar movie.

It feels self-consciously Oscar B. Yes. Yeah. Or even like, I mean, he did that HBO, Fahrenheit 451. Remeen Barani directed it. Yeah, just an incredibly kind of like lifeless movie. Uh, so I feel like the tricky thing with Michael B. Jordan has been like that the the

movies in which he really just has that you're like, oh, you're such a movie star. I've been either

with Ryan Kougler or when he's directed himself in Creed III. Yeah, which is a really interesting movie,

“you know, uh, 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 of Air. Totally, which he's directed directly. 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 the like, you know, to see you on a Saturday night, you know, like, either like, I really

hope that movie works out because like, you know, the more recent remake in the from the 90s, like, that's a really great movie. And I, and I, I just, you know, there are big shoes to feel like guys, 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? Yeah. Yeah, there was a movie starring grownups that came out in August and built up to just freaking it every bar of that score. It was like, yeah,

yeah, you know, and it does feel like that's a very strategic move on his part to try to

“identify what his movie start him 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? We're no matter what

everything he makes, we'll 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 Shalema 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

Jordan. Correct. Correct. And if you just look at the Couglar 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 credit voice fully on the third one. Yeah. 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 certainly also say that like black actors are punished more or not allowed the kind of leeway to act out the way Tupati Shalema 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 Be Jordan was like, and like kind of explicitly putting himself in this kind of history of these, like, you know, like milestone performers. And yeah, the full list is Podeye, tensile Washington forced Whitaker Jamie Foxx, Will Smith. Yeah. And Michael Be Jordan's the sixth. And Will Smith, that win has been pretty memory hold. Yeah, as of, you know,

what has proceeded. But if you remove Forest Whitaker who's a phenomenal actor and was like fully

included are like generational, yeah, definitional movie stars. Yeah. They are people who like choose the culture. Hi, this has been, uh, 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.

“'Cause here's the thing, often men are just boring and they wear a tucks. Throw a little brooch on it.”

Spice it up. Adrian Brody, wearing a very shiny stupid brooch. Michael Be Jordan, wearing the back brooch. 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 brooch. It's like, oh, you know, who had the, um, like a pro palestine. Have y'all. Have y'all. I like that. It was cool. It was like a handmade one. And it was political. And I had a good message. Because it was often people are showing

a little bling, um, 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've got first place in my home heart. So that's what I would go for. David, it's time to take a break from your school or work routine, but stay consistent. That's the tough balance while staying consistent with your health. Because AG1 provides easy support with travel packs to celebrate the adventure. We love you, AG1. AG1, you know, you're a big fan.

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“whilst it was last, that's drinkag1.com/check. If you want to shift gears a little, I”

curious what what did you guys think about Sean Penn's speech? I thought it went a little long. Yeah, yeah. It is funny that after all we've talked about about what the Academy wants in like it's it's best actor like to be like the opposite apparently is true for best supporting actor. Sean Penn showed up for the Golden Globes smoked in the room. Yeah. Didn't when did not show up for the other things. No. But she then he won. But once he won. Bath do. Yes.

The sag after awards and the Academy awards. Yes. Zero speeches. And there were some concern in the room last. I like oh I heard a rumor he's not well or whatever. Then people like no he's in Ukraine. Yeah. Put on the ground. Put 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, that's next person down the list. It lest there's a real reason for not being there. The ceremony suffered from not having someone give a speech

“and that's a lot, especially because you need to consider the other floor guys would have probably”

given a very memorable moment. They plan out the order of awards. They're like okay and then we need

the actors' speeches, the supportings are their tent poles, you know, in the sort of first

roughly half of the show. You need two females in the first hour. We need two females in the first hour. We haven't had any of those two hours where we go in the first hour. Yeah. And then right in the whole package. Exactly. A friend of mine was texting last night and he was like I don't know. I just feel like something is off and I was like it's because we're all we've only had one actors speech for our last night. And not that Sean Penn would have given some

rouse in the stump speech. But like whole different speeches were memorable. The two previous times he's

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

“was just rise again. And I just kept thinking and saying it, 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 Rawr cryos 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 and that was also milk was what? Over 15 years ago. It was 2008. 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 laying

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, I did appreciate that it was Karyn Culkin giving that award and he did not pretend to be gracious about, yeah, I mean, he does want to be here. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, like that felt right to be like, you know, this asshole, like not being here. Yeah, and I also made the rhythm of the show feel off because Karyn Culkin was like, I don't know. Let's get this thing over for Sean Penn. Yeah. No, it kind of like, yeah, the whole moment went by so quickly that

it almost felt like it was to me. Right. 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. It's like, oh, no, they did. It's just about two seconds. There was like no moment, yeah, sure, from that. I mean, I think as a performance, he's kind of undeniable on that film. Yeah, I see. It's not like an embarrassing way 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 a lority, who's another one of the, is it the future guys? Mm-hmm. And Dol 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 pen not showing

up at the other events after getting called out by Nikki Glazer at the Globes Chain Smoking and looking like a bag of garbage was strategically like the less people see of me maybe the better chance I have it winning. Yeah. Yeah. And then it was so funny that's like, no, we're just assuming all the 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 like the chiefs. And what was interesting? Well, as a 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 things as that. No, no, no. Anyway. Um, but like it was funny, like in the beginning, like I think in the in his opening, uh, Conan liked was like this might get political tonight might get political. But like 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 with things? Yes. Yeah. Or like, uh, you know, have you ever done being like, no, Warren, from 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 they want to say and then read off the tell”

a problem. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We're looking for a little from. Yes. Yeah. But, you know, you should be rolled with it better than I would have guessed. It did not seem like someone who, uh, from afar, who would have necessarily. Excuse me, I'm sorry, Priyanka Chopra Jonas. I apologize. Yeah. Yeah. Just stuck in the past. Yeah. I wanted to be single. But I feel like it actually worked better that way in that 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. So having presenters feel more freed up to make jokes about wealth without ever mentioning Trump by name. You know, like it did feel like it offered a some relief to in terms of like the expectations

that are on the people giving speeches. Yeah. Like the assumption that people would see in the movies there was assumption like obviously like we're not everything's a fucking mess. And you know, we can we can acknowledge it rightly 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 what”

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

become fodder for Fox News? Right. And you know, sitting members of the administered in

“car to like truly you know, pulling. Right. 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 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 on patriotic. 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 Iraq had been invaded like that week. What do you say? We're engaged in a fictional war with the fictional president. Yeah. He was a year later, two years later, that he was nominated for Fahrenheit and he was 9/11 and was greeted as if like, you know, Jesus returning to the Jerusalem for Easter or for Palm Sunday. And it was just like the Oscars are not traditionally that polite to that kind of sentiment. No, that's okay. And then, you know,

sometimes I were recently talking about in 2001 when Robert Almond was seen as the best director front runner of like it's time. Yeah. Here's the lifetime achievement award for Robert Almond. 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 because we can truth the 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 20 tens of,

do we all need to be tweeting all the time? Yeah. 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. Right. Exactly. That's supporting actually going. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I also feel like, um, like, obviously I support anyone who wants to like go up there and make a political statement

and 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 if, you know, has relevance. I also feel verbally political films. The films about Russia 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, uh, at least certainly like within like, uh, the presidential regime, um, and that kind of provides, you don't need to keep saying it out loud. You know, uh, I mean, like when Jimmy Kim will come up and like told his, yeah, his, his jokes, like his late night jokes, uh, he's going to hate this. Right. And I was just, it felt kind of like, it feels a

“little clip and pat. I think there's another thing too, which is like, everyone's sitting there 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 warrior repercussions. Yeah. It's, it's a thing that's talked about a lot of like, these aren't are 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 it audiences like, what are they saying?

What is that accomplished? Yeah. Yeah. I, I feel like it was telling that the bits that about 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 bit by the way, they should bring Conan back forever. And as often as he wants to continue, who is seeing these people. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Until Mr. B steps in, of course. That, um, you know, the bits

about like his job at like Ted Sarando as being like, here is a movie theater. You're like, like, yeah, Zaston at where I was like, oh, you genuinely dislike like what this man has done. He kind of have the right targets. Yeah. Yeah. And the, I mean, I loved the, Casablanca is maybe like a little easy as like the film to like riff on, but like that bit was

pre-taped thing. Yeah. And the Jane Lynch YouTube ads also very good. The flashlight that killed Bin Laden stuck in my head forever. Um, 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 right before we started recording how

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

Hamnid episode will be about Hamnid being the Oscar villain. That is clearly positioned as the Oscar villain this year. And one of the episodes in this mini series needs to focus on that phenomenon. Things absolutely came around to one battle being seen as the Oscar villain. Yeah. Fascinating. I was arguing that uh, to sims that like the last time that felt like this was 2007 where no country and there will be blood where the prison frontrunners. 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 in a high-brow movie in which one's gonna win. It's two high-brow 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 in comedy. Well, they were fighting but then one of

them said marfa and they said, I said, how do you know that? I filmed it. Nice. Uh, 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? Yeah. Is it done or is the next generation the one that's gonna fix this? You know, have we put the burden on them or did the first generation that's

ready to sort of solve things? And he mentioned his children which like everyone including myself had read into that movie and put it in reviews or wrote it into the movie. And I, and I, I don't

always want, you know, 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, 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-egrantizing about it. I'm going to humanize it because

“I genuinely believe that's why he made the movie. You know, yes, no, it's coming from a really”

real place of like, in their own ways, have the decapital 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, and, you know, at the end of the ceremony, he calls out, I had best picture, Jason Finity, the heart of the movie gave kind of the ultimate American girl. It has now replaced Linda Cartelini as the heart of Green Book. She is the new heart of, well, I want to say,

I want to see Jason Finity's, has been full to pizza and half, all that's all I'm saying. I know, I mean, like that, a few images more iconic really in this celebration of cinema that is the Oscars. Green Book too, just can book in. Yeah. Oh. Can't wait. Yeah. Griffin, Alison. Yeah. Really your balance. How do you do? I can't remember how many missed. Definitely a lot more than Richard did. I did not do as well as Richard. I, I, I went for Tiana for Best Supporting Actress,

found a mannequin speech delightful. Love that, you know, weapons got. It's one win.

But, yeah, I don't know. I love Tiana. I think Tiana's amazing. I love her in, like, during the ceremony,

like, a PTA one, just like, you know, giving him like the, she was also standing one or directly, one person away from her directly next to the camera, who would 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, Tiana,

“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. No, I, I did call out speaking of political speeches. I did call out when Amy Madigan won. If she had real backbone her and Ed Harris would stay in their signature few things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For her own wins. Yeah. A lot of arms crossed. I do wonder, um, how did you did okay in your battle? I think I missed five or six. I swung sinners for Best Picture at the last second on a vibe. I, I, I went Stella and I thought they were going to give him

both screenplays. I think I missed animated short. I missed passing, which was swell. I wanted to bring that up. One of the three that I missed. Well, I missed for in the room because I switched to F1 winning editing for some reason, but in my official predictions. The ones that come in.

“Anyway, but I, you know, I think a lot of predictors, prognosticators, gold derby heights,”

got casting wrong. Yeah. And I think part of that is that like, sinner tests this amazing ensemble that probably had to be found more than like, you know, PTA making a few phone calls or, or safety making a few phone calls. Um, I didn't win and, 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, whatever I'm voting for a best picture wins best. Okay.

I said this in the room. I wondered if because when that one, it felt like, oh, one battle has best lecture locked. Yeah. In a way, it kind of used to for like editing or something. Yeah. Right.

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 far and 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 10 difficult contracts.

In which cases it, you had to find one unknown person discover a key star. In which cases is the amount of tasks. 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, you know, Jennifer Vendetti, you're like, okay, but like, like, Jennifer Vendetti, we talk to Gwyneth

Paltrow. I was doing, but sadly not, you know, like, that movie has like three kind of real actors. Yeah. Yeah. And 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 book moderating to themselves. I mean,

“I think it just 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 this secret agent, which is like a movie that is like filled with these incredible faces. But yeah, like, especially would be like a bit of voted for the only man. Exactly. What is the question? It's the question of like, right, is this a word

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 directors job difficult? Right. 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 former interrogator, you know, both to 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 Goldwin. You know, right, right. Yeah. But I think those were the ones I missed”

plus documentary. I predicted perfect neighbor instead of Putin. Yeah. Going back to the Amy Madigan when I think that, you know, I mean, Sam Sanders would disagree, but you could say that centers as a horror movie. If that's the case, two out of the four best at 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, you know, films, from from in the genre space. I turned to you. I think last night when we were watching it, and I asked if like does Madigan winning sort of blow the door open that unfortunately Tony Colette couldn't, you know, etc. It was a fascinating moment because I feel like you're you're

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. Like that's cool that someone one best supporting actress for playing a witch. Yeah. And when a summer, you know, blood pressure is a vampire.

Yeah. It's cool. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, a vampire like coming in and an incredible

period sweater is that like it's there's like a kind of silliness to that that is like great that it would have part of it. A vampire in a witch winning. Yeah. You have the four acting

“categories does feel representative of something. I think you're right. I think it's a”

vampire one. 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 due is weapons elevated horror. No. I think now we've come back around 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. Now, but they can also exist as genre entertainment. Right. Be well-made, but you're 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, gory, silly, over-the-top, static. They're not kind of these very honest steers. Yeah. Yeah. They're not 824. Yeah. But I will say, like the Amy Madigan win does very much rhyme with Ruth Gordon Winning. 100% of her is baby. You know. So like there is precedent there as well. What's with that so many decades? I know. 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 loan nominee

winner. Like she's the only nominee from her film since Fiky Christina 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 towards attention. Yeah. In years past, you know, for decades, it would be like,

but that never happened. But now it's not, I don't know, us was another part where you're just like

this felt really close and how could they ignore this? Obviously, you didn't collue your guardian for get out, but that's 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 a rayfines for 28

“years later, bone temple. He is incredible. Incredible. That's what I think it needed to make more money.”

Yeah. Yeah. I'm still going to hold out for it. I mean, New York film critics circle. Yeah. We could make the case. But I mean, should have been nominated this year for supporting actor. Yeah. And next year for the movie. 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 camite conversation weeks ago at this point as an Oscar villain narrative. And now it's like, oh, why were we everywhere worried about that? Like it was just going to win that. And yes, it's an old fashion

kind of movie and an old fashion kind of win. But like, that's fine. Because it it fit into the mix that the sort of collage 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 a with no friction, which is, you know, I think it was not what people thought, you know, few months ago. It felt like a fatal complete 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. I also, I think it was 2005 or 2006 is the year where Helen Mirren 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 and then they just won uncontested. They won every precursor. It was like a done deal. And in those cases, it was like, yeah, plan Mirren 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. Yeah. 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.

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 a bride. So when best picture of the show. Yeah. So yeah, no, you're right. That is a tricky thing. Right. Because she'll win the lead actress supporting

“actress for the other voice she does. I am just playing Mary Shelley, of course. I think they're”

just going to have a special bride Oscars. 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 an every kind of shirt. And yeah, you just 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 globes certainly. 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 Jovenchi wearing his big boy, Bart Mitzvilluk. Look at like, you know, a grown boy. You know, Tiana and Chanel and then Kidman also and 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 in 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 broach, chain wallet. Pedro Sands Mustache kind of crazy. Just to see his face like that. That's fucked up, wearing a broach. And I'm taking this joke from Richard, but it's worth repeating, wearing an E-Wa looking broach giant, like dandelion, like pedal broach. So yeah, had to shout that out. Conan all night, he was wearing color. Which again, men are always just so

“boring. And I it 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 looked so good. 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 a 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, that's my, that fashion corner. Thanks Ben. Yeah, of course.

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Monarch.com with Coachette. Sukho. He was the little Kong baby. Sukho. Sukho. Sukho. I do think something that this year did well is that it folded a lot of the kind of anniversary tributes into the being presenters. That made it to that. I do love Monarch as well. But I feel like it does stop the thing dead. It's dead. And so instead to be like, we're going to get the Bridesmaids, except for Wendy McLevin. Wendy McLeond and Kovey, who

iconically posted on Instagram during the ceremony. The reason I'm not there is because I got a necklift because, quote, "I'm tired of looking like a melting candle, so I had to skip a cut of your words, 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 what he had missed. He's fine looking like a melting candle. Melty is his thing.

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

I agree that the Bridesmaids thing was really fun. I thought that doubling up presenters doing

“two categories, I think helped to keep the show moving along. It's definitely Tony Junior and”

Evans, who were really just kind of trying to make funny. The chemistry between those guys really just made me long. I mean, so what's it called? It's what it's called actually. It is like, I mean, maybe it doesn't matter, because just RDJ was under rehearsal, whatever, but man, 10 years ago, when everyone's eating out of the palm of their hands, that would have gone over so well. At this time, it was like, who, what? Oh, right. You guys, the superhero stuff,

like, who get, you're like, it was just very interesting. It feels like the yearning of the response to the first of Andrew's dreams day trailer revealing that Chris Evans was back, and they clearly thought that was the ultimate. And instead, the public kind of responded by, like, has he not been in these? He was gone from the, you know, the same thing where they're coming in, like, victory lap, like, aren't you thrilled? We're back together again. Or like, the

“culture is mad on. Yeah. And so the fact that like Robert Dungeons Jr. in the second bit made a”

magic mic joke. And yeah, what year do you think it is, my friend? And then they like, throw to Chin, take him in the audience, and he nails his part. Yeah. He's, yeah, he's, yeah. Four successful laugh. Yeah, he saved the whole 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 was 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. It cut to Conan on the side. Like, laughing just like, yeah, just be like, yeah, go back to them. And then like the, the one for the golden win was just the most egregious where they just spoke. 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 it. And they didn't budge. Yeah, because I thought, for 20 seconds, as they turn the lights off for him. And I'm like, right now, you're showing a silence from the back of the room. Right. And he had to be finishing his speech. He wrote one of the things that's saving movies. Yeah. This is golden win. That's all. Yeah. Like, this is why like 10 year olds are tuning into

the center of the drum career. Yeah. Yeah. That's all ugly. And I, and I, I guess one sort of hope for the 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 downsides to that as well. But, uh, you don't want to be watching for five minutes. Can we talk about in Memorial 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 Riner thing with Billy Craig for the show emotional love that they skipped north. And then stopped at a bird. And stop. Yeah. Then they're like, that was it. Yep. That is exactly why

we have always said we can't cover him on blade check. Because it gets really bad. Yeah. Yeah.

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. No, it's tough when you're like, that we have to do LBJ starring Woody Harrelson. You know, like, uh, but yeah. And then you're like, no, he did like that's don't call the round of masterpieces. Yeah. But no, I didn't call out. Yeah. I thought crystals,

speech was like beautiful. And then having the cast members. Yeah. That's lovely. And then go in. And I am sick of having Daptis and Niga's presence at the Oscars every year,

year after year, Daptis. He is always there. I mean, it's Courtney's thornsmith sometimes.

It was totally. But basically, the Melrose Place cast just needs to get away from the Oscars. It's crazy. I mean, it feels like sometimes Daptis and Niga gets thanked more than God.

“All right, y'all. Well, that's what he's heavens. That's a kind of nation we live in. Yeah.”

That was nice. I think Rachel McAdams was lovely. And she spoke to, you know, about, you know, Katherine O'Hara, her fellow Canadian. Yeah, Dan Ladd. And, but Keaton, because she was in Morning Glory with her. And and family stuff. And family stuff. 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 was a subtle. She gave me permission. I mean, time. She gave only permission. Yeah. 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 it for her soul or, you know, whatever. It also felt like there have been rumors. They're going to have her sing memory as part of the immemorial. 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

tell you how I feel. Yeah. It real. I'll see how I feel energy. It ended up in a way I liked feeling like a wedding toast of like, yes, yeah, I'm not on an emotional and then she grabs the mic and you're like, is she about to sing? Yeah. She starts singing. You're like, is she going to sing the whole thing? Is she going to walk over to 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 to see. But it put meaningful sort of Oscar moment. I think it was just the right amount of”

that in the show. Yeah. Well, I mean, especially you're like watching her. I feel like you're just a completely 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 kids as well, right? 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 Shalame, 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 or so when, and I'm not putting this out in the universe, many of you will have been, yeah, 400 years from now, when last street goes, they're just going to have to do with fucking 40 minutes segment at the opportunity, right? Like, like, because the most nominated actor in his street, 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?”

You know, but the thing, but then you think about all the other people, what happens when time hangs time? What happens when, you know, and it's just, yeah, we started talking about this last night, and you said, actually, no, we have to keep it 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, they are still active, they feel, they are deceptively older than they feel. You know, some of that's advancements

in cosmetic works, some of that is just people used to retire, you know, and it's like, caring grant didn't make a movie for the last like two decades of his life, credit garb, but it was like four decades, you know, a lot of these people would retreat or they would just do one movie. They all like moved to Paris or a lot of like to hang out or say felt like older statesman who would mostly come out at the Oscars and remind you, they were still alive. And when they

They feel like former presidents, right? Right. And there was a class of people who were all like in their 80s, and a lot of them have started going, but like De Niro and Pachino, and Dustin Hoffman and Nicholson, you know, and we've lost Hackman and Devol and Diane Keaton and all these people recently who still feel very present to us, 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. And we're just living through a time now where we have people who tragically are gone far too soon, 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. 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, extinction level event, but like it's going to be, it's going to be rough, you know, and like you said Allison, like there's not a ton of iconography coming up behind them. Yeah, 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. Can we before we bring on our special guests? I wanted to speed around a few

“topics. Yeah. The two live musical performances had to be feel about them. I thought they were both”

excellent. And I always think it's a little rude when they don't let the other not many

performers, especially, you know, didn't want to hear the, the area. Would have been good TV. You know, if no one has heard of this movie, but I was joking that Angelina Jolie should have just come out of the stage to it. Like you said, you sang live for Maria, so right now's your right. I mean, train dreams would have, it would have been a bit like when poor Elliot Smith got sort of like pushed out on stage to perform the good will hunting song and he was like,

well, if I do I get the Oscars, but you know, Dan 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 a musician that is unique. Yeah. Yeah. But I appreciated

the showmanship of these two where they basically staged both the numbers. I lied to you from

centers and golden like a bit like like they were in the movie, but also it'd 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. And I wanted to see how are they going to pull this off? Yeah. And I loved the audience with the lights for gold. But it seemed like quite a palcho like, yeah, that was fun. Yeah. How about the orchestra playing the score is live for the nominees? Because I loved

love. I mean, I love that. I sometimes do wish they would give a little more time to that. Like like the the 20 years ago that I recapped. It's like Pearlman plays selections from each nominated more like and it 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 involving the orchestra like counted with like the Marty Supreme joke. Yeah. Yeah. The bum draw. Yeah. The tie or best live action short. Very rare occurrence. Seven total. Yeah. Right. 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, wait, did I win? Something like I have a one and 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 cover myself with that. Um, it's a 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 tropes about it. Yeah. No, I think it was, and it was exciting. Um, and, you know, the,

a funny sort of bit of cosmic irony that the shorts took really long. You know, I don't know. Um, I, we were talking, like, so the the most famous probably tie was Barbara Strasin and Katherine

Hepburn, Barbara Strasin one 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 Pen over the House of Connecticut. And they'd spoke cigarettes and talk about whatever. No, but so, so Strasin got to give a speech as if she was the soul winner. But when you have both winning parties there, it gets a little hearing. Yeah. Uh, I appreciate it. Cumales, just a like, don't panic. Like, uh, this is what we're going to do. He really, you know, I wonder if they had told him beforehand. Yeah, he has to kind of hope

so. Um, Bill Pullman and Louis Pullman. What was up with that? I mean, he's, uh, Louis Pullman

just felt so off throughout that and you're like, you guys just not, it's like, try dry guys. Yeah, and their sensibility and their humor, who may be need a more poistreist person to play off. Yeah. I also think it's just like the third rail of the nepo conversation. 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 copiashi maroon, no, in discussion. Yeah. And also Louis Pullman is not famous

“enough. I think if Anne Lee had been like a player at the Oscar, he's like, oh, he's one of our”

characters this year. Right. Right. Right. 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 to joke doesn't work if if people are learning that information for the first time. Pullman's a very familiar face at this point, but maybe not a household name by name. And Bill Pullman is infamously the guy who was always confused with Bill Pax. 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. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I do, Bill Pullman. I mean, he has a new

movie that was a, was it Berlin? Yeah. Yeah. That's a one-gross movie. Yeah. It's like one of his best programs. Yeah. But it's been a little while since he's just, his name has been floating around and it's all like wearing us. He's trying to get Jinna support for the Casper sequel. I like to say 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. Was Timothy Shalame ragged on enough about the ballet

“comments? I think just the right amount. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. He had just, yeah. I mean, I”

looked, we talked about it last week. He, his sentiment, I don't disagree with. He just phrase 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, 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 hands? 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 that Damon and bed-of-life for a screenplay for a good well-hunting? I did think about his Oscar's past, you know, like the famous Fiona Apple sort of making fun of the winner, whatever. Well, you know, they're sulking 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 brassian thing and then, you know, time and experience changes too. It comes full circle back to the shallowest 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."

Yeah, and it felt like we're already dealing with enough fucking quarantine. You know, do you just sit, just wait, okay? Right. It felt like he had settled into the exact right place, yeah, in terms of his own relationship with himself and his work. I also I appreciated the candor of it without it being like, finally it's about time. Yeah, yeah, I mean,

“I think clearly everyone in that room wants to win. That's a thing. You know, people come up”

so far, I must know. So far, I must know who is clearly like, please, I like, I just 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, yeah, yeah. No, but I think a lot of people get up on stage and go, oh my god, I never

believe this could possibly happen. And it's like, you don't really go into any film 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 I don't think it has thought about it. It's true. I don't think that Kate Hudson would bring her husband, Grogo, to not the event. If he didn't think there was a chance she would have made it. Right. What a couple. Yeah, a beautiful couple. I just don't want to think about them.

There was some puppeteer hiding under a fake auditorium. See, they like, can't it? What have I doing like this? Yeah. David? Yes. Hmm. Hmm. We're trying to thoughtfully build a wardrobe. Oh, that's right. Uh, you know, you want premium fabrics. And you want considered design. You want every-- That makes you want that stuff. That's true. And they should be every day essentials that feel effortless to wear. Yeah. And dependable. Yeah. Even the season changes they are doing currently

in New York. They've got lightweight cashmere sweaters. I've got a couple of those. They got shorts, sleep, mungoling, cashmere polo. I think I might need to get some of those. Uh, linen bottoms,

versatile pieces that make a wardrobe work season this season. This we're talking about quince.

Hmm. They work directly with factories. They cut out the middle man. So you're not paying for brand marker for fancy retail stores. You're just playing credit cards. That's all is just quality clothing. Cashmere is 100% annoying. So that's a luxury stuff, okay? They only partner with factories that meet rigorous standards. Yes, for craftsmanship and ethical production. So I've got all kinds of quince stuff as I point out while the time I also, my bed sheets.

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“Is it time? I think so. We're going to do a very special segment, a kind of a board segment of”

it's own and a board ceremony of it's own. Yeah. The great Rebecca Altair from Vulture and popcorn critic extraordinaire has cultivated for us. A look at the best. The Academy Award

nominees of 2026 represented in popcorn markets. Amazing. We are honored to have Rebecca Altair here.

popcorn bucket correspondent extraordinaire to run us through the rarefied popcorn bucket award season offerings. Thank you so much. This is the only aspect of the Oscars. I feel qualified to comment on at all and something exciting about this year is this is probably the first year or something like half the nominees for Best Picture had a corresponding promotional popcorn. Because last year was just brutalists, right? Right, of course. I know it's the model. Yeah,

correct. Yeah. It really made that. It would have been the best collectors item of all time. It is really fun in a sort of Oscars party menu way to imagine what the bucket would be.

“Yeah. Yeah. Or key to one. Yeah. sentimental value is like the father's head morphing into the”

daughters. Hamlet. Oh, yeah. Hamlet is, yeah. Still child's body. But if it's like the, um,

the dead Hawk and like that kind of what you see. No, it's the skull that it's the skull that hamlet holds. Sure. Oh, duh. Well speaking of skull, we could start with that, which is one that was really difficult to acquire like on the black market secondhand market eBay, which was Netflix's Frankenstein back. Oh, because barely a theatrical, I mean, it did. It did have some yet. And it was like, apparently did fairly well. Give us 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. Here at the Paris 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, and, and, and, and,

“and sub-power quality was coming up. Uh, wait, will you talk us through a 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, it has a question. Here's about that. But yeah. And of course, the most delightful thing about this is the popcorn coming out of the head looks like brands. That is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that. 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 love to eat out of a lordies skull. Absolutely. Some of us have. Or even do you know what? Like that one guy that he has open with the spine exposed on the table? Like that would have, I would have left to have eaten out of that exposed surgery. Oh, that would be a great out of it. Yeah, yeah. This is actually the one out of the ten 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 as 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 Christoph balls. Like he would just come up. He was there. Yeah, essentially feed you popcorn. Yeah, you sort of fit him in your lab. Next best picture, I'll bring up is of course the Marty Supreme bucket. How do 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. Doesn't hold the ton of popcorn. I gotta say also. It has to be the ball. The hole is a little

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 on obstruct your hand to did go in clean. It's clean. I appreciate that you can close it and then travel with the popcorn. Yes. Like that is a nice feature. I love that it's just a sphere. This is very elegant and it speaks to the sort of the round themes of the movie. 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. This is like the hype beast bucket for sure. Yeah. All right. Another bucket that we have in studio of your way from best picture ones for a bit. That's fine. And I'll just call out. I tried to out of the the blank check production funds purchase the

“two other best picture nominated buckets. Would 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

arrived and probably the second this record finishes. Mm-hmm. They're 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 campaign. 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 that's defeating the purpose in the theater, kind of. 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 now tree beige needs small. Exactly. 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 to sort of European RD1 and we had Helio, which I don't think was not very much indisable. Well, they were putting all their effort behind stitch at the time, their stitch stuff and came up in Netflix. 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 if you're playing a sustain. Right. Right. I have my own balls. Exactly. Yeah. He's the R in theater experience.

“Exactly. Part of him. Yeah. Um, of course, we have Gary disnake. It's very cute. I think this is my first,”

uh, you know, I learned about the character through the bucket before I saw the film and was instantly endeared to him, uh, he's coiled around the pot. Yeah. It's an elegant, yeah. It's an elastic bucket and it's, 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 kitchen. That's actually a huge deal. Mm-hmm. You can do that here. A voiced by former Oscar winner, T. He quant. Yeah. Yeah. Very well.

A very intuitive bucket. Great performance. Yeah. So, at that there, there was another Zootopia bucket I saw at a cinema. That was, um, it was the little, uh, Italian coated rats walking into a little movie theater. That's good. Oh, and I thought that was very fun. Um, next up. We have the two and one Jurassic World rebirth, which is a sippy cup. And it's very evolved. Yeah. Wait. So, just you, like, it is like a, it looks like a, it looks like a, like a, a waterly like

describe it. It's like, like, yeah. It's, it's got, uh, a career. Yeah. Like plastic case to in case the, uh, dinosaur fetus, a test tube dinosaur. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then on the side is like, uh, what is that supposed to be? Like, uh, well, so it detaches and sort of almost looks like an 80s cell phone. Yeah. I was like, it has like a walkie talkie like vibe. Um, but that's like the drink. Okay. Has the classic logo on the side of the world? Sure. But so when you put the popcorn,

like, you have to go around the fetus. Yes. Uh, and when the light was still working, you know,

even popping the top open. You get a sort of plastic smell. Do you remember the price point on this?

Uh, it was probably in the 50s. Okay. That's, that's, that's, that's, to that's high. Yeah. Yeah. But it, it is a pretty elaborate. Yeah. I mean, I appreciate the idea of it. It just feels

“functionally like it would be an article. Is this, is this a, is this well-liked in the collector community?”

This one, the Jurassic one? I think so. And certainly compared to, um, some of the other Jurassic bucket offerings, which one other was like a generic dyno head. So this is really great. That one that one was, yeah, it's certainly black. Yeah. Just doesn't, it doesn't compare. Uh, but speaking of expensive, I will get to another, um, effects nominee, effects winner, which is the avatar fire and ash. Oh, and she bucket, which, uh, does anyone want to guess how much

this cost? I feel like Griffin knows off the top $80. Yeah. Really? Yeah. That was my guess. Oh, wow. So this was an $80 bucket. It is, of course, um, a band-cheat, which are also known as, are they e-cron? The mighty e-cron. The mighty e-cron? Yeah. Um, which are the dragon type things that they ride in the movie. And it has, uh, basket strapped to it with a sort of harness, uh, something,

the wind traders that we were introduced to in the third movie would craft, uh, and it is

carrying popcorn in it. It also looks like a very inadequate amount of popcorn, especially for a movie of that link. Seriously. Seriously. You'd have to go back at least twice to get reveals. Especially that size. Uh, we, 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, it's just kind of a translucent, blue, water bowl, but it lights up. It has a nice, bioluminescence. I love that. Then, uh, no, I'm sorry. That was AMC. Regal had this tin bucket covered with, uh, that or regal. Come on.

“Do you have a water life? It has, oh my gosh. Well, you must understand that was this 2022. Is it an era?”

We had not, you know, we had not entered this type of territory. It's actually a lab. Yeah,

things like that. Yeah. But even the Dune bucket, people don't remember they have cultural amnesia about this. Yeah. It is just a tin bucket. It is a normal tin bucket with a fun top on right. But this was the one that I really liked. I think this was cinema because I had to get it online, no cinemarks in the Tri-Stake area. But it's the band she'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 disnake.

Um, Becca, can you show off the images of the, uh, the sinners and the F1 that didn't 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 enormous. In, as if it were stickers, every poster for sinners. Okay. But it is weirdly not super big for me. It's like a little alien, uh, a smaller than you believe. 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 and I maxed the others and I think”

in January, which speaks to how much may be everyone was taken by surprise. The massive success of sinners. This is when it came out, it was just a little occurc. Okay. Right. Yes. Yes. Yes. It was just her skill. 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 a lot of paths. I actually have upstairs a project. Hail Mary helmet that looks weird. All right. Yeah. I like that. The thighs are allows you to see the popcorn inside. It's nice. Yeah.

That's nice. Like the, the lid is on top. Yeah. The, the, the Marty Supreme kind of like that kind of lid. But I hope that I'm seeing the popcorn quickly. I also, I appreciate it. That's the best of both worlds of you want visibility of the popcorn. Yeah. But if there were a micro Brad Pitt skull inside that you had to route around. Yeah. And that's just awkward. Yeah. I mean, it would be a fascinating choice. But, uh, the implications about what happened to Brad Pitt's character in one would be significant.

But I do think next year, every movie should just have us skull of one of the actors. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. It's a classic. It's a classic. It has no one battle bucket this year. Centers took a long time to get there. We had four out of ten best picture nominees, which feels like major progress. But there's so much further we can go. Yeah. Do you, you could get the train dream spot of beans if you went to see it? Do you have outside of the Oscar Omni's a pick for

what the best bucket of 2025 was? Oh. Oh. Um. I mean, a really exciting moment in buckets last year was. It's up there on the shelf. Galactics. Galactics. Yeah. Peter of world. It's an element. He dollars, but he is half as tall as me or more. Yeah. He can bring it down. Yes. Is that possible? Yeah.

But it's so huge because it's really bigger than your head. The helmet wings that come out on either side. You also lights up. Yeah. The button is tastefully hidden. Oh. 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 removing it. Right. And not

“carry like you can pull down the third row of seats. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is someone”

trying to eat it in the theater and you would be bumping both of your neighbors all of the time. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. This would be, yeah. It would be a very unusual social. No. Yeah. That cost 80 as well.

That cost 80 as well. In there, I really do see the value because that could become an amazing

plan to do. Is that the current ceiling pricing for now? Nothing so interesting to see these 20, 22 ones in their all priced at 20, 24 right now. It does feel yeah. The things have changed. I my favorite bucket last year, which I, I might run here. I don't think is one that you got, but from the same film, the Herbie bucket from Fantastic Four. Oh, yeah. I believe it was only $50. It has sounds. You press a button. It plays a sample of the Michael Giucquino 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 sponge bob one last year that has a viewfinder in it. Good. But in the thought of sitting at a movie and doing viewfinder. Well, that's a great type of old school second screen. Yeah. I appreciate

all of these are of course like the most important part of supporting mythy ethical experience.

Yeah. So you can get your expensive collectible. Yeah. Another one that was really good on the same lines. Mission impossible. The final reckoning had a lot of buckets. But I know the ones that AMC it was the cup had binoculars on top like spy binoculars. Sure, which I tried to use during an IMAX screening as if they were opera glasses. Oh, perfect. No, tell to me. It harkens back to like Inspector Gadget happy meal toys when 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. It was the 50th anniversary of JAWS and we got an incredible JAWS bucket. Perfect. Yeah. And that, you know, major motif in the secret agent. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. No, it's relevant.

So I'm saying this is the secret agent. Poppilot. We got to five out of ten dollars. Yeah. Like with Gary

to Snake, you can make him get 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 or I like that. I like that. The threat of injury makes

“the popcorn more delicious. Yeah. You have to work for it. Dune had the rubbery and you're full in now.”

Well, that's because it was, yeah. Well, yeah. It's being used in different ways. But 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 definitely. It was also a naked gun beaver. That was it would look really handsome on a mantle. 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

stuff. Oh, I love that scene. We're Joel interesting. It's that lot. I like that. The future, maybe, of popcorn, of buckets is repurposing them for smaller movies. Yeah. Like we can, we can go row. We don't need to stick with a, 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 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 not we can't. We can't. We can't happen. Yeah. Not from Ingen. They're, yeah, corrupt. Yeah. Yeah. And it's there is 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 already come up. 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. They will use

a way to look forward to of don't charge 80 dollars 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 album 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, it's welcoming. Um, versus like this even has the look of those, um, 3D printed dragons that they have on Etsy. Like, I like, I like quirk and lies. Yeah. Yeah. Give us some

“texture. Well, this is a great recap of the year. I think it'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. Yeah, we can hear your work. Keep doing the work. What the movies are really about. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Merch. We all know about it. All right. So like, I mean, guys, a word season is over. This means, um, we'll never be able to see each other again. No, that's it. It's redundant. Uh, we're no longer darlings. Uh, or or. We can keep going. We could keep going.

I think there. You know, there are other movies coming out. No. Like, for the whole rest of the year. Not even or it's movies. Well, maybe some summer 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 no, there are movies like, I don't know, Project Hell 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't film festival might reveal some things to us. So we kind of figured like, why not keep going and talking about stuff that's coming out new movies? Uh, I'm game if you are. Yeah. I compared it last night to Howard Dean giving his speeches. Oh, oh, the states. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And that worked out very well for him. Yeah. Um, as we 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 what, how are they landing and like, what, like, how are we looking at that? I'm like, what does it represent in sort of the state of the industry right now? I think you guys have done a great job of doing sort of what is the larger conversation behind each of these movies.

Yeah. Like, I think one topic for Projectile 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 and quote four quadrant movie, you know, like the, the movie that can please a whole family, men over 40 men under fund 40 rock monster fans and Sandra Huller fans. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the classic, the classic demographics out there.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so we're going to do it, you know, same, you know, once a week kind of thing. And what we're going to do is 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. That way, we're also helping keep the theater saliva fully. 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 all of this. 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 that that you can see the movies. Yeah. Uh, I joined us, you know, to talk about them. Yeah. We want to be talking about

these things together. Yeah. And we should also acknowledge that up until this point critical

darlings is of course lived in the safe band she's nest of the blank check feeding. But moving on to this next stage, critical darlings is going to exist as it's on stand alone feed. So it's very important to save the thing. Sarah Jessica Parker showed up because Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw hired. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. He hired her. And now what we, we are pushing it out of the longer. Failure to launch. We're going to have our own apartment. Exactly. Yeah. Um, but to, to save

the wrote thing, but really mean it this time. Yeah. Please subscribe. And we're going to put

“links to the new podcast feed in the description of this episode. So if you want to go”

click down there right now and subscribe, that would really mean a lot to us. 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. Well, how people from the, the blank check extended cinematic universe and

quickly call out 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. Yeah.

But this incredible kind of set dressing that I contributed. Yes. 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 that 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 at without any kind of plaque. Right. Scripture. Right. And then after you give your speech, you go to some back alley. And some guys like, how do you spell? Right. Paul Thomas Anderson. But I would just like to quickly award the three of you Ben Frish and award for the best bendouser in podcasting

critical darlings division. I love to say Richard Lawson, best co-host in a leading role. Oh,

thank you. This is my Volpeco. Yes. Yep. And then Allison best leading co-host. Oh, thank you.

“It means a lot. I think that's a fairing. I actually, I've, I've practiced this speech a lot. And I”

deserve it is what I wanted to say. Yeah. And screw the rest of you losers. Absolutely. Can we give an honorary award also to Anne? Absolutely. That's great. And Victoria Clark, here in Alcher. 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 I know that's something we'll be doing. Yeah. It's a smaller trophy. 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. Talk about how to come in.

Critical darlings is a blank check production and association with culture. Hosted by Alice and

Wilmore and Richard Lawson, produced by Benjamin Frish, executive produced by Griffin Newman and Neil Janellites. Video production and distribution by Anne Victoria Clark, Wolfgang Ruth and Jennifer John. It's a critical darling. It's a critical darling.

“It's mega speech. Hey, mega speech, speech, speech, speech, speech, speech. This is the best thing”

that's ever happened from a drunk tech message today. I sent a Griffin in David. After I left but seriously, actually, I didn't think they would take it seriously, but it's a super fun so far. Yeah. Yeah. We're not done. Yeah. We're going to keep going hopefully in some fashion, right? Yeah. How are you guys doing that? How are you doing? Yeah. And we can announce our third host, Timothy Sheldon. Yeah.