Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 And now here are the nominees it's award season and safe to say no ceremony is more highly anticipated than the Oscars, big budget films, red carpet razzle-dazzle problematic hosts, long, long ceremonies. It's a good time nominations for this year dropped bright and early Tuesday morning full of surprises and snubs.
Speaker 1 00:00:22 I did not wake up for it because I was at 7:00 AM and I value sleep.
Speaker 2 00:00:27 I did not watch the burn cast because it was too early in the morning. I actually
Speaker 3 00:00:32 Kind of forgot that they were being announced.
Speaker 1 00:00:34 I always wake up and watch it. It's Christmas morning.
Speaker 0 00:00:37 I personally read a vulture article many hours later, but as a cinephile myself, I rounded up a panel of some of the most movie obsessed people. I know to hear what they thought of the Academy's picks.
Speaker 1 00:00:47 You know, I really badly wanted journ letter to get a nomination just because, I mean, we already know that the Oscars are a broken Institute.
Speaker 0 00:00:55 That's a, mandata a sophomore studying psychology and communication studies with a minor in RTBF. And don't worry. He's kind of joking in terms of his actual picks. Datto was enthused by some and disappointed by others
Speaker 1 00:01:09 Actress. We didn't see for a Belfast. We didn't see Ruth nego for passing. We didn't see a nomination for Denise, no for best director, which w which didn't make a lot of sense to me, but
Speaker 0 00:01:20 He was excited to see one movie in particular on the best
Speaker 1 00:01:23 Picture list. I adored Belfast so incredibly much. I think it was my favorite movie of the year.
Speaker 4 00:01:29 So we went across the water. Wouldn't understand where we talk
Speaker 5 00:01:33 At the time to understand. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:01:36 Donna likes to discuss movies with his roommate, Nate J or I'm a sophomore studying RTVs. And pre-med
Speaker 2 00:01:41 I guess my initial reaction was elation. Then Jared Leto, it's not nominated for house of Gucci.
Speaker 0 00:01:48 And like his roommate JRM shared some of the same disappointments for Oscar Snopes.
Speaker 2 00:01:53 He was hoping that a Ruth nigga for passing or kid Shona Belfi or BASF, I don't know how to pronounce your last name was going to get in Belfast. It is really disappointing to see Danny Villeneuve for not get nominated for dune. Like that movie was like very much his creative vision. And like, it's just like a very immaculate Lee created movies. My favorite movie of the year was probably dune. I just loved the book. Very unrealistic that it would win, but it would be nice to see
Speaker 5 00:02:20 I had a girl. All right. Guess know what it means? Trips make good stories.
Speaker 0 00:02:27 However, he was excited to see drive my car and other less Oscar E performances nominated.
Speaker 2 00:02:32 I love that Andrew Goldfields nominated. Um, my boy predicted boom, uh, Cody Smith McPhee. Good for him doing like a God's work fob. The quote up we're looking white is
Speaker 0 00:02:45 Speaking of corked up white boys. There was one whose name wouldn't stop coming up.
Speaker 3 00:02:50 She is a fine movie. He put his whole look, Jared
Speaker 0 00:02:59 That's Cedar Turner, a sophomore studying oboe performance and anthropology with a minor in German. And they're actually not joking about how some Gucci, but like dotta and JRM they shared similar feelings on snubs and surprises.
Speaker 3 00:03:12 The biggest surprise was seeing that drive my cause got nominated for best picture, which I was really excited about. I would've much rather see Denae get nominated for best director and Paul Thomas Anderson, or like maybe another woman directors. Like I would have loved to see Maggie Gyllenhaal get nominated, but it's fine.
Speaker 0 00:03:30 And rounding up. My panel was Nick Davis and associate professor of English and gender and sexuality studies. He didn't have anything to say about Jared Leto, but he was excited to discuss his surprises and disappointments, especially for the more technical category.
Speaker 6 00:03:43 Editors clearly understood the tick tick boom was a really hard movie to put together and make it feel like a musical, but also feel kind of scrappy and like the back of somebody's napkin and have all this wild energy. Sometimes it feels like those kinds of categories are just like editing goes to like the fastest pace movies and sound goes to the loudest movies. And so I get excited when we learn from the people who practice these perhaps to look carefully at things that might not strike everybody in the theater
Speaker 0 00:04:13 Davis, who has actually been to the Oscars, knew a lot more about how the academy operated than I did. So I figured it'd be worth getting a little history lesson,
Speaker 0 00:04:29 The academy of motion, picture arts and sciences put on their first awards show in 1929, presenting winners with gold-plated statues that eventually gained the nickname. Oscar, the academy of motion, picture arts and sciences put on their first awards show in 1929, presenting winners with gold-plated statutes that eventually gained the nickname. Oscar, the ceremony was first televised in the United States in 1953. And since 1969, they've also been televised internationally, but due to declining viewership in the 2010s, the academy set new rules, a strict three hour program, and an earlier start time. How do the awards work? It's fairly straightforward. First to be eligible for submission. A movie must be publicly shown for paid exhibition for at least one week in a commercial theater in Los Angeles county, between January 1st and December 30. First of a given year only members of the academy can nominate and vote for candidates.
Speaker 0 00:05:24 The academy itself is divided into branches of film production and each branch votes for its corresponding category. Thus writers, nominate writers, editors, nominate editors, et cetera, because voting power is solely in the hands of the academy members. There's been some criticism raised in recent years about diversity, the hashtag Oscar. So white movement started in 2015 by activists, April rain pushed back against the academies crediting mostly white and male nominees. A demographic that dominates the academy itself, responding to this pushback. The academy announced in 2020 that it had exceeded its goals of diversity with quote 45% women, 36% underrepresented ethnic slash racial communities and 49% international from 68 countries. And quote, I wanted to see what my panelists thought,
Speaker 1 00:06:14 The importance of understanding that there are so many films that don't get that, that don't get that kind of recognition because the way that this works is so political, it becomes a, it becomes a muddled in what it's trying to do, which is actually just a celebration of quality movies.
Speaker 2 00:06:30 W we've kind of moved past the whole Oscars. So white thing to a degree, but I don't think it's ever going to like reach like perfection or whatever.
Speaker 3 00:06:39 I think it's ebbed and flowed like on one hand, Moonlight won best picture. And then two years later, green book one, which is like an objectively terrible kind of racist.
Speaker 6 00:06:52 So much intention was brought to making the academy look like the world. Um, it's still not there. I also think that lists like this wind up carrying maybe a disproportionate burden of proof for what's actually the job of the industry to be creating more opportunities for more people to have the kind of work.
Speaker 0 00:07:11 So it seems like they all agree that things aren't perfect, but are trending in a somewhat positive direction. And despite the academy shortcomings and the pomp of the ceremony, perhaps there's still some value in watching every year. Davis had a nice thought about this.
Speaker 6 00:07:26 It sounds, I mean, I'm kind of a dopey person, so it will sound dopey. When I say when I was little, I couldn't believe there was a show on TV that was full of people saying, thank you.
Speaker 0 00:07:35 Oh shoot, I better wrap this up. Thank you to the academy. My interviewees to everyone at WMUR news and my parents, the 94th academy awards will air on March 27th, 2022 on ABC. And for WMUR news, I'm Alison Ralph.
