Episode #244 - The 98th Academy Awards (2025 Films)

0:00Hey folks, I'm Tom. And I'm Vince. Welcome to Friday Night Beers, a show where two guys who know too much about pop culture and not enough about beer, try some beers and explain them in a way that you may understand. What that you probably won't, and it'll only make sense to us either way, we hope you'll be entertained. I'd like to thank my family, my agent for supporting me throughout all my years. This has been an incredible, sorry, I'm just practicing for my best actor speech. Are you nominated? I'm going to be. Well, I guess that should be your clue as to whether I voted for you or not. Yeah, oh, yeah. Didn't even know you were on the ballot. Well, someone's not paying attention. Not me. Wow. Well, I mean, maybe I'm not nominated, but I am feeling pretty golden today, Vince.

1:01Ooh. And why is that? Probably because you're drinking its mango cart. But it's from Golden Road, Brewing, and the reason I'm drinking that is because we're talking about the 98th Academy Awards today. And I thought it would be appropriate for us because one of the reasons we started the show is because we love movies. That's true. We love movies. We love having big opinions about movies. We love having small opinions about movies and we love being very, very petty about certain actors and actresses, which will come up later. I am going to non-alcoholic route and I'm drinking the West Coast IPA from Best Day Brewing because the Oscars is going to be the best day for someone on the West Coast. I love that thematic tie-in and it's also a California beer, so we're we're synergetic all around. We've already done mango cart, but I would like to give a quick background on Best Day Brewing if you don't mind. So it's a NorCal-based brewery, 2021 is when it was founded.

2:03It's like a very, I'll call it the Darren Rovellization of beverages and unlike many traditional NA beers, Best Day uses a specialized low-temp full fermentation brewing process. And the idea is that that will remove the booze, but it keeps all the flavors and aromas. I'm not going to dive into the founding of it. You can guess it's like a surfer guy who realized all of these craft beers are really making it hard for me to wake up to catch the waves. This came to my attention recently. I've been looking for an excuse to try it and I want to know if it matches up. Well, why don't we crack and then we can get into our action-packed agenda, Vince? Why not? Cheers. Tom. Oh, yeah. Yes. And if you want to check out our full mango cart, thoughts, episode 114 is when we cover that one. Wow. This is pretty, actually, I want you to give that a sip. Okay.

3:03Because I think that's pretty flavorful. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I like that. Wow. The car reminds me of that Sierra Nevada pale ill that was an NA one. What was Trail Pass? Yeah. Except Trail Pass was just an IPA. You can taste like the West Coast, not this, which is pretty neat. This was a packed movie year and I don't always say this about the Oscars, but this is probably one of the best collections of films that they've gathered in several years. In preparation for this, I went through all of the top 25, or all of the not top 25, all of the 2025 movies that were released and I was looking for gaps. I was looking for misses. They did a pretty good job of, you know, calling the wheat from the chat. Yeah. And we'll talk about, you know, the collection of that as a whole, but I want to just highlight some of the storylines of the Oscars, which will be on Sunday, March 15th about a week after this comes out. So sinners, 16 total nominations, breaking the previous record of 14, which was a tie

4:10between Titanic, Lala Land, and all about Eve. And folks, there's no one happier about that than Tom Doherty. I was extremely early on the sinners, and we're so bullish, guys, he texted me before he entered. He goes, I'm about to walk into sinners. And then he literally said, sitting down to sinners, I didn't say anything because I was outdoing something. It was Easter Sunday, by the way. Everyone's with their family. And I'm like alone in a movie thing. What's the runtime of sinners? It's two and a half hours, yeah. Two and a half hours later, exactly. I got a text that said, sinners is the best movie of the decade, far not. Couldn't have had a better time. We're going to talk about it, but they did break the record for nominations. This is validation for you. Yes, I felt great about it. Also very heavily nominated, one battle after another, which received 13 gums, collectively, four years in one battle, which are both Warner Brothers movies, have tied the record

5:11for most nominations from a single studio in one year, 30. Wow. Warner Brothers had an amazing year. There's some new stuff this year. There's a new award for best casting. This has previously not been recognized by the Academy, but it's an incredibly important part of the process. When I first read that they were adding best casting, I thought like, how on earth can I have an opinion about this? And then the second I looked at the nominees, I said, no, no, I have an opinion. Yeah, yeah. It was easy. It's kind of like, it seems obvious, but it is something that's very important. Another notable thing, Conan O'Brien is back for the second straight year. Did you have any thoughts about his first run at it? I think his predecessors had done such a horrific job that he was a layup for him. Conan O'Brien is probably the perfect award show host. If you couldn't manufacture a better one if you tried, he is milk toast, but all comedians

6:14love and respect him. It feels like he can bit with the best and get down and dirty, but he somehow finds a way to stay above it all and remain commercially vile. That's what I was about to say. I think the key with him is that he is beloved by the Hollywood community and he doesn't rip them. No jokes at himself and occasionally at the expense of a movie, but he doesn't rank all feathers. That's the most important part of that job. Agreed. I'm big on accountability on the show. You piece of shit. I don't know if I was part of this. I was part of this. Exactly where you're going with this. I wanted to just bring back. We kind of talked about the Oscars in the episode percentage of survival where Vince took a chance by saying Jeremy Allen White had a 68% chance of winning best actor for Springsteen to deliver me from nowhere. That movie flopped and he was not nominated, so Vince, sorry. The logic was there. I was just off on it. My logic was Timothy Shalamey almost got there with the Bob Seeger.

7:20Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan. Yeah, that would be a difference. Yeah. Well, sorry. With the Bob Dylan, a biopic, and I said, everybody's so hot for Jeremy Allen White. Everybody's so hot for biopics except for Tom, especially if they're about beloved musicians. This is the time for it. What I didn't realize is that this might be the time for Timothy Shalamey. Yes, which we will get around to, but we both also whipped on saying that Dwayne Johnson had a shot. I think that was more tongue in cheek than the Jeremy Allen White one. Okay, so those are some of the things to look out for when you're watching the show. We're going to talk about some of the big categories, but before we do that, I want to highlight some stuff that we loved that actually wasn't nominated, if you don't mind. Yeah. I'm going to start with Josh O'Connor from the Knives Out sequel. He plays a, he's essentially the main character of the movie. He plays a priest who shows up to a pretty quirky church that's got a lot going on, and

8:24I thought he gave a really stirring, captivating performance in a movie that is an alright movie. I wouldn't say it's amazing, but he's definitely the best part of it. I got introduced to him through challengers, which I thought was excellent. So this guy is definitely on my radar, and I thought he did a real nice job. I had a thought on that exact movie. I was really surprised that it didn't get any sort of nomination for Adapted Screenplay. Yeah, I think maybe the shine is a little bit off on the Knives Out movies. Yeah, it was nominated, but I mean, it was really sharply written. I think it was an impressive feat, the way that they wrote it and the way they went. But my big miss here is it's a toofer and it's newbies in both the lead and best supporting actress and actor roles, Miles Katen as Sammy from Sinners. Yes. I was really surprised that he didn't get a nod.

9:24And he's never acted in anything before. Ever. Yeah. And in another newcomer, Chase Infinity, as Will Affergison, in one battle after another. Yeah, that was one of the controversies of the Oscars that she didn't make it over some of her castmates. But I'm a little surprised by that because I don't know if you remember Kuvenzene Wallace. Yeah. Right. The longest Oscar nominee in a long time. I feel like the Oscars have loved to shower praise on newcomers at least with a nomination and they didn't do it in either of these cases and I don't know why. Yeah, and it's weird because they went nuts on the other categories for the nominations of course. Right. Yeah, I agree. I thought they were both excellent. Miles Katen in particular, like I was blown away when I found out he had never acted before. Oh, for now, he's 20 years old. Now, that shouldn't take away from the best supporting actress or actor nomination that did come from sinners. Yes. He was awesome. Yes.

10:24Well, we'll get to that. Mickey 17 got completely shut out. Yeah. So Mickey 17, I liked it. I remember you texting me about that as well. I liked it. I thought you thought I was going to like it a little more than I did. Yeah. I thought it was a solid movie. I'm just surprised. It's got a lot of darlings in it and it got no love. I guess the thing with that, if I had to speculate, was, you know, Bong Joon Ho coming off Parasite, but it was like seven years ago. Maybe people just were hoping for a little bit more. I think Parasite is a masterpiece of a movie. So I wouldn't say Mickey 17 was that, but it's also a completely different story. I thought it was well done. Yeah. I thought that there's shit. It deserved some sort of acknowledgement. I'm not saying you should have won. By no means. There's too much good stuff out there, and I wonder if it's suffered from being so early in the year. Yeah. I think it did. It was like a March release. But sinners was April. Yeah, but sinners is a fucking whack.

11:27Centres buck the odds in a lot of ways. I'm good point though. Mickey 17 worth a lot. Let's go to some of the low lights. My worst performance is going to go to Pedro Pascal for a fantastic four, first steps. It's a movie we kind of touched on last season, but it's worth mentioning again. I just think he was horrifically miscast in this role, and it's like, hey, Pedro Pascal, you know what's amazing about you have this, you have this spark, this charisma that people just love. Let's turn that all the way down to about one, and then we'll start rolling the camera. Very interesting because I went to the same movie, but I went to a different place. Before I do that, I'm nothing if not petty, and we've had an ongoing argument about Dave Batista and his merits as an actor. Yeah. I'd just like to let you know who the rassy worst actor nominees were, Dave Batista for in the lost lands ice cube for war of the worlds, which apparently like it's bad.

12:30It's bad. It's all on zoom and it got a zero and rotten to me. And I guess, I guess he like barely showed up to work, Jared Leto for Trana Aries, which is just kind of gratifying. And then the weekend for Hurry Up Tomorrow, which is an album movie. And all of this is purely to let you know that Dave Batista is not a good actor. I can't deny the rassy nomination, you know, that's a tough look. Even though Sandy Bullock also got one there, there's been some great actors who've gotten razzies. However, my worst performance goes to Joseph Quinn from that movie as the human torch. Let's hear about this. I think Chris Evans nailed the human torch. He is supposed to be audacious, loud, playful, not think through anything, just like combustible. And this version of the human torch was like castrated. He barely got excited.

13:31The most excited that he got in the movie was when Reed presented him with the new uniforms that they were going to wear. Like he had some insight into that. Well, and also they kind of force fit him having a crush on the silver surfer, which didn't really make a lot of sense. Oh my God. That might have been just written into Julia Fox. I know that we've we've taken a lot of shots at Stranger Things, but I would argue Joseph Quinn has only been good in that one role in Stranger Things that I've seen. But I've only seen him in two things and this is like a brutal casting. Yeah. And you know what? Let's just go directly to the worst films of the year. Fantastic four first steps is my number one. It was so bad. Yeah, it was a let down, especially considering how Marvel was like, no, no, guys, this is going to be the new thing and it was just very, very mid. It was as if a yes, here it is. It was as if we were watching the EKG of a coma patient.

14:36It never got even in the battle. There was no excitement. It was just like, oh, and if you look to your left, Mr. Fantastic is at risk of being torn into two. What will they do? Ben Stein could have been narrating it. Yeah, it was a $200 million coma film. I can't believe they spent $200 million on that. Yeah. My lowest rated film of the year was The Accountant Two. Really? Yeah. I've really liked The First Accountant, you know, Ben Affleck, The Autistic Assassin. Two was just a completely unnecessary waste of time. But I actually want to call out one other horrific performance. Adam Sandler and Jay Kelly were he plays in a feminine Hollywood manager to a movie star. Again, just a really poor fit, not something that I ever envisioned Adam Sandler doing. And that movie was just kind of a snooze overall.

15:38That was Adam Sandler being a party to what he's done for the last 15 years, which was basically, I want to go to a cool location. Let's write a movie script and jam my friends into it. Yeah. And we'll get George Clooney to sign off on it as well. Did he, he didn't actually write that one, right? No, no, no. It was just like a Clooney vehicle and he got brought along. Yeah, it was written by Noah Bombak, so there was a lot of hype around it, but I don't know. I thought the Clooney character was one of the most unrelatable people I've ever seen in a movie. Like it, which may have been the point, truthfully, but it just like it didn't get conveyed. I've got a few more that are pretty nasty. We've talked about the Phoenician scheme. Yeah, I did not like it at all. It's so bad. What did I say about that? I said, uh, Wes Anderson's crawled so far up his own ass. He's coming outside of his mouth. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. But I have a couple more here. Materialists was, by all accounts, horrific, another Pedro Pascal. This one, he's extremely charming, but apparently he has some extreme issues.

16:41Yeah, I heard it was a really bad movie. Do you know what the twist is? Don't worry, everybody. I'm not spoiling it for you. You're not going to see it if you haven't already. The twist is that he got like the height and large surgery. Insane. Yeah. I'm not going to see it. I mean, I'm good. And then I forgot that I did watch this one. You're cordially invited, just a waste of Reese Witherspoon and Will Farrell, unnecessary, unbelievable. It would never happen. Having just watched the house for the second time because it was so forgettable that I forgot that I had watched it. And both times, apparently, at the same, at the same point in the movie, I said, this is awful because more I said, oh, yeah, we did watch this. You said the same thing at this point last time. A movie so forgettably bad, you completely forget it existed. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Which that's like, that's Amy Poehler and Will Farrell. When you talk about, like, Will Farrell and his comedic talents and just Reese Witherspoon's unparalleled likability.

17:42They blew this horrifically. That's like the movie equivalent of the 2011 Eagles, when she was young, called the dream team. And then they went for 12 and angry got fired. Yes. But those are also some pretty terrible ones over here. Can I have 15 seconds to give a shout out to the movies in the middle this year, friendship, fun, out of control, unnecessary, but enjoyable. Donas, exactly what you're looking for, Netflix, garbage, filler, Vince Vaughn carries it. Wonderful. Eternity, delivered on the premise, Miles Teller's great, obviously women love calum, as a calum turner. I don't even know his name. Happy Gilmore too. Thought it was unnecessary. Thought it was going to be terrible. They didn't okay job. The naked gun, same category there. I loved the naked gun. I thought it was unnecessary and I thought it was going to be bad. It's pretty good. Backed me up a lot. It was really funny. They did a nice job.

18:44Lastly, the roses. Oh, Ben and a Cumberbatch. An Olivia Coleman. There's well done. Nice to see him outside of the Dr. Strange suit. Yeah, I don't think he'll be making that journey anytime soon because he wasn't particularly good. Okay. But the premise was fun. No, thanks for giving those a little bit of a spotlight. Okay, let's go through the big categories. We're going to start with a stacked one, best supporting actor. We have Benicio del Toro for one battle after another. His castmate Sean Penn in the same film. We have Jacob Ellority in Frankenstein. We have Delroy Lindo in sinners and then we have Stellan Scarsgard for sentimental value. Ellority being best supporting actor because he is Frankenstein's monster, not Victor Frankenstein himself. I don't know that he deserves it. He's tall. Congratulations. Which by the way, when I asked my wife, why do you like Jacob Ellority?

19:45That was the response. He's so hot. He's tall. He's like, okay. She married a tall guy. Yeah. It does check out. Benicio unbelievable. Always, always unbelievable. And what did I text you when I was watching the sinners? Delta Slim for the win. I think it was. I said Delta Slim is a hero. Yes, he was. Delta Slim was a phenomenal character and I think Delroy deserves that. This is so tough because I think that there's at least three guys who have a very strong claim for the award. I think Sean Penn, Benicio and Delroy Lindo all have strong cases. And I really loved in particular the sensei character from one battle after another. Super entertaining. It plays a very important role. And as you mentioned, Delta Slim, just incredible. Everything about him from beginning to end and the sacrifice he makes, it's just chefs kiss. Yes. There's one problem though. This is going to fall into the category of and it's time.

20:45Yep. Stellan Scarsgard is going to get it for sentimental value. Now I will say I thought he was very good in the movie. I watched it and it's a very like vulnerable kind of like emotion, spanning performance. But it's a career achievement award if he does get it. So I'm predicting him to win, but if it was my vote, I would go for Delroy Lindo. Interesting. Yeah. Because I did the same thing. Yeah. I think Scarsgard is going to win. But I think Benicio should win. I would be thrilled if that happens, you know, Benicio's got, he got an Oscar many years ago. I don't care, man. You can't give that guy enough Oscars. He's the only part of the Phoenician scheme that was even remotely tolerable. I mean, if you're going to use the Phoenician scheme as part of the analysis, then maybe they may be shot, yeah, fair. But yeah, this is a really stacked category. By the way, Frankenstein, unbelievably fucking boring movie, do not watch it. Again. Yeah. He's tall. Let's go to Best Supporting Actress.

21:46We have L-Fanning for sentimental value. We have Inga Ibstater-Lilius from the same film. We have Amy Madigan from Weapons. We have Wunmi Mosaku from Sinners. And we have Tiana Taylor from One Battle after another. So I don't have a gigantic grasp on this one, but I do have an opinion. I have not been able to check out Weapons just yet. But from everything I've heard, Amy Madigan should win. Love L-Fanning, but just not for her. I think Tiana Taylor is going to win. Well, I can comment on Weapons and it's excellent. It's one of the best horror movies I've ever seen full stop. It should have been nominated for Best Picture in my opinion. I feel like this is kind of like the backdoor nomination. Sure. And I can confirm Amy Madigan is fucking terrifying in this movie. It is just an instant classic character. I don't really want to say much more because it would kind of spoil the whole movie.

22:48But let's just say she fucking kills it. So yeah, this is another one where like, if it were up to me, I would be voting for her. Absolutely. However, you are correct in pointing out that this is probably for Tiana Taylor. And to be fair, she owns the 35 minutes of the movie that she's in. I just like 35 minutes. That was my thing. She was there and she was great in it. But like, she's not even the most memorable female character. Again, I feel like we're just kind of getting swept up in the narrative of this one. Also, Wunmi Musaku has a huge role in sinners as well. And she has a very memorable performance too. Yeah, she was one. I would be fine with her, but yeah, this is going to be Tiana Taylor's award. They can't like, they can't give it all the sinners. All right, let's go to best actor, which I think is by far the toughest one of the bunch. Yeah. Timmy Chacha for Marty Supreme. We have Lena DiCaprio for one battle after another.

23:50Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon. Michael B. Jordan for sinners and Wagner Mora for the Secret Agents. I think that Wagner Mora for the Secret Agent is, I don't think he necessarily belongs. I haven't seen it, but I think that's just a nod to a foreign film that performed incredibly well. Michael B. Jordan, he did successfully create two distinct versions of himself, which was impressive. But I don't know that it's his time for this. For me, the best actor is a runaway and it's Timmy. Have you seen Marty Supreme? I haven't seen it. I don't like, I've seen enough to know that that's the type of performance that wins. On top of it, it's a prestigious film. And for God's sake, dude, they made ping pong watchable. So I am having a really hard time with this Timmy Chacha narrative, because although he's a very talented actor and I've enjoyed him in most of his movies,

24:56it's a little weird to me that he's getting the it's time treatment as a 29-year-old guy. He's the youngest three-time nominee for best actor in Oscar's history. He's on fire. He's totally like the hottest actor in the world. And we're acting like it's Leo on his 15th nom, and it's like, we got to get this thing done now. I don't agree with that. Well, we don't have to get it done now. That's not what I'm saying, but by all accounts, this is it for him. This is the natural evolution. Yeah, I just don't... I think if you're just judging off the performance, I would put him third on this list. I think Michael B. Jordan had a much tougher assignment. And if that doesn't work, sinners is not the same movie. I agree, but you just can't like the source material is so uneven. The Michael B. Jordan characters were never ever gonna approach the insanity that is Marty Supreme. That guy, the real life Marty Supreme, literally got arrested for trying to place a bet on himself

26:04in a black market to win a tournament. Yeah, I guess I just kind of think that if we're doing this, it's more for Timothy's body of work than it is for the movie itself. I've seen the movie, it's very entertaining, and he is extremely committed, but I just don't think it's as good of a performance. I don't even think it's better than the Leo performance. I feel like this is Leo's Tom Brady Buck season, where it's kind of being slept on for how incredible it is. Yeah. If that's another one, where he's pretty much the main character of that movie. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, and I'm also not saying it's a runaway lead. The Tiana Taylor thing is runaway at this point. He is the odds on favor to win, so it is not. I was really shocked to see how far back Michael B. Jordan was on the top. I guess to summarize it, Timothy is going to win, but I do not think that he should win. Okay, I can't say that he shouldn't win. I just, everything that I've seen and read suggests that he'd be deserving if he did.

27:06Okay, best actress. We have Jesse Buckley for Hamnet. We have Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You. We have Kate Hudson for Song, Song, Blue. We have Renate Renseave for Sentimental Value, and we have Emma Stone for Bugonia. Dude, isn't this just very underwhelming? It's so underwhelming. It's probably the weakest main category, and also it's a runaway win for Jesse Buckley. Everyone's already proclaimed it. So I want to talk about some of the other ones that I've seen. Everything I've heard is that Hamnet's not very good. I'm just not interested in a Shakespeare prequel about a dead child. No fence. That's not super compelling for me. I think it's absurd that Kate Hudson got nominated for a fucking kneel-dive and tribute band biopic, as we know. Okay. Would be sure to not forgive me. Put your baggage away. Okay. I haven't seen it, obviously, but I'm like, what are we fucking doing?

28:07Emma Stone's not going to win. She won this two years ago for poor things, but I will say, and you just mentioned this to me, I thought Bugonia was a really good movie, and she was great. They did a wonderful job about two or three separate times. I was like, I know where this is going, and I was wrong. But that does bring up, and maybe we'll get there. No heat for Jesse Plemons? I'm a little surprised, but as we talk about with best supporting actor, that was a tough one. Technically, he's the lead. He should get best actor. It's kind of a co-lead. Who would you knock out, maybe Wagner Mora for that one, or Ethan Hawke? Yeah. One of them too. I would have been okay with that. Yeah, I guess he wasn't the focus. Two more, we've got best director. We have Chloe Zhao for Hamnet. We have Josh Safty for Marty Supreme. We have Paul Thomas Anderson for one battle after another. We have Jo Kim Trier for Sentimental Value, and we have Ryan Kugler for Centers. Let's scratch Safty right away. No one's going to vote for him because of all the negative press around him.

29:09Right. And Jo Kim Trier, no chance. No. Again, the only thing Sentimental Value is going to win is... Stell and Scar's Garry. Yeah, exactly. So that leaves us with, again, Hamnet, which I haven't seen, seems to be kind of underwhelming. Chloe Zhao, Arty One for Nomad Land in 2020. So I don't think she's going to double up on that. This is really a two-horse race. I would say for the next two categories, but we'll talk about Best Director. On one hand, you have PTA who has never won for Best Director despite having a peerless filmography. And then you have Ryan Kugler who has a peerless filmography himself, but is not as old. Kugler has not won an Oscar for Best Director. His movies have won and been nominated. Like Black Panther was totally nominated. I think Fruitvale Station was like a best screenplay, kind of deal. Did he write that? He did. Okay. Yeah, but this is actually Ryan Kugler's first, like, fully original work.

30:09I think what they're going to do here is they're going to give him Best Original Screenplay, which we're not reviewing. And I think they're going to give it to PTA for one battle after another. I think you're probably right, but I can't bring myself not to say Kugler. I think he deserves it. I think this was good. I think what's probably going to hold him back is the genre of it. Like it just doesn't matter. And vampires have unfortunately been so overplayed in the last 15 to 20 years. So that can go one of two ways. It's incredible that he made a compelling movie about vampires when the source material of the last 15 years has just yielded horrible results or you could look at it as, yeah, but it's about vampires. So can we really give a best director not to that? He probably made the most elevated, compelling, vampire film that's ever been made. But it's not Oscar stuff. Again, I just feel like the Hollywood industry,

31:10they want to honor PTA for his decades of work. And this is the spot to do it. Here's another controversial thing. Sinners is unapologetically and undoubtedly a black movie. One through and through, even the spiritual blues and the music portion of that. I don't know that Hollywood is going to reward that this year. Well, it's not like they've never done that, but. But I feel like the Hollywood foreign press, those are the guys who do it and the voters. No, no, that's the difference. Sorry, not Hollywood foreign, but the voters, the voters who do it. I feel like they're going to say we already did that and it's going to work against. Sinners. I think we're really in sorts of same prediction. I'm predicting Paul Thomas Anderson. I'm going to stick with Kugler. I think he deserves it and I want to see him get it. I'd trust me. Yeah, I'm pulling for him. I know. So now we're down to best picture. We have Bugonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet,

32:12Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners, and Train Dreams. So I've seen seven of the 10. It's an absolute joke that F1 got nominated, but I enjoyed it. It was fine. Yeah, I enjoyed it. Frankenstein is a boring slog. Again, I think this is a two movie conversation. Do you want to highlight any of the other ones on the list? No, I agree with you. I think it's a two movie conversation. And this one, I think it's very top heavy. Yeah. You look at those, maybe the top three. Bugonia is a nice third for that, but those three movies are very good, and then the rest of them are kind of forgettable. Yeah, Train Dreams, Sentimental Value, Secret Agent. This is filler. It's down to Sinners and One Battle After Another. So why don't we make the case for both? One battle after another is built on way more star power than Sinners is. All of those stars are working at their highest level.

33:16It has a nice mix of newcomers as well who are operating at a very high level. And it is a fun, kind of slapsticky action film. That being said, I want to dock it because of all of the stars. It's like when LeBron, DeWade, and Chris Bosch won all their titles and had that run where they went to that many finals in a row. It's like, yeah, dude, of course you did. You guys have like three of the seven best players in the world. Of course, One Battle After Another is going to get nominated and have a good chance to win. It's got like five of the top build actors and actresses in the world right now. I think a point in its favor is that it's a very contemporary story and people that are invested in that storyline are going to be motivated to vote for it. I also think the PTA part of it is going to be compelling,

34:17but pound for pound, sinners is just a better movie in my opinion. It's more entertaining. It is rich thematically and with the cinematography with the score. I think it's going to win best score pretty easily. I think all the performances are astonishing. It's a period piece. And as you pointed out, they made a vampire movie like actually have some weight to it and it wasn't silly. It's one of the best movie theater experiences I've ever had. I think I'm going to be thinking about this movie for the rest of my life. So obviously I'm voting for sinners and I really hope that they nominate and make it win because it's that fucking good. Yeah, I wouldn't be upset if One Battle After Another One. But I do, I do hope that it is sinners. It just like the source material is so hard to work with and it's so like, it's really, it doesn't have a large audience. It's a completely original idea.

35:18One battle after another is adapted from a book. So it's not wholly original. Oh, yeah. I'm not saying that that makes it a terrible movie, but. But it should play into it. Ryan Cugler, this is him basically putting it all in the table being like, not only am I great at directing and adapting and writing, but like, I can create this incredibly dense world and make it just an unbelievable ride. Even as I sit back and like pick at it, the plot holes that I'm looking at and the nitpicking that I have on it, I'm kind of like, I had to go back and find that. It didn't present itself. I thought it was a really, I thought it was a really, really well done film and you said, best movie of the decade. I went back and as I started to go back, I don't, I still don't think it's the best movie of a decade, but it has a better argument than I thought it is. Of the 2020s, that's my stance on it. I've not seen a better movie in the 2020s. I think that it is an astonishing achievement

36:21of sight, sound and motion. It's like, you know, I hate to be too sentimental about it, but it's why we go to the fucking movies, you know? We go there to be moved, to be inspired, to be entertained, to like, be filled with emotion. Like, I walked out of that theater. I was just grinning ear to ear and I was like, I can't wait to text my buddy Vince about it. Yeah, it was, it was a masterpiece. I'll give you that. It was, it was really, really good in a way that I couldn't have possibly predicted. All right, quick housekeeping item. Then we can do our ratings. We're doing an Oscars prediction pool through espn.com. So we'll have a link for that in this episode and we're going to promote it on social. We will be giving out a $25 movie theater gift card to the winner so you can support the cinematic experience. And if we have like a third repeat winner, he will be giving us a $25 gift card. And he's already all over us. Yeah, I bet. Yeah. But Vince, once you give me a score for your beer

37:22and a score for your prediction of this Oscars. My beer is gone. This is very, very good. I think this unseats trail pass as the best NA that I've had. Really, really good, really flavorful. I would honestly liken this right here to sinners. We talked about sinners having that fatal flaw of being a vampire movie. Yet it was delicious anyways. This is the fatal flaw of not having alcohol, but it was delicious anyway. So what's your score out of five? Four point two five out of five. Okay, and then how about your prediction for the Oscars ceremony out of five? Oh, like how much am I going to enjoy? Yeah. I don't know, three and a half out of five. Okay. Well, if sinners wins, it's going to be a five for me. But if sinners win, you better wear jeans if sinners win. I'm going to treat it like it's the Super Bowl. You're not going to be able to stand up. Yeah.

38:22So we've reviewed mango cart before. I gave it a 3.75 at the time. I'm going to stick with that. This is an enjoyable beer. And yeah, I think it's going to be good Oscars. So give the Oscars. I'm going to hedge and give it a four out of five times for now. Hey, good for you. We'll give it a 10 of sinners. What's that 10 out of five? Yeah. But yeah, I'm excited. You know, again, one of the reasons we do the shows because we love film. And this has been a fun conversation. Agreed. So if you'd like to check out some more of our episodes, we recommend you subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. Give us a follow on social media as well. I hope you participate in our Oscars pool. But until next time, I'm Tom. I'm Vince. This has been Friday night beers, where we have clear eyes. Full cans. Must booms.