#6. 2019 Oscars Roundup
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A "micro episode" recorded the morning after the 2019 Oscars, and it opens with JVL cheerfully admitting he skipped the ceremony entirely and instead read Sonny's live tweetstream in four minutes, which he insists was a millionfold more entertaining than the broadcast. The bulk of it is the settling of accounts on their Oscar draft, where Sonny declares himself the winner with 82 points to JVL's 63 and Vic's 37 — and JVL spends the rest of the episode filing dissents, pointing out he actually picked ten winners to Sonny's and Vic's nine combined, and needling Sonny for hoovering up "meaningless nominations in loser categories" with Vice and The Favourite. All three concede their first-round picks were disasters (Sonny's A Star Is Born, JVL's On the Basis of Sex, Vic taking Roma second), with JVL comparing it to drafting Sam Bowie while Michael Jordans sat on the board. On Green Book's Best Picture win, Sonny is unbothered and treats it as proof that the internet isn't real and that the actors' branch always rewards showcases for actors, while JVL demands to know what the supposed travesty is and runs the 2006 Crash comparison into the ground by listing that year's forgettable nominees. Along the way: the audible booing of Nick Vallelonga, Richard Rushfield's Ankler item about The Cut's editor being married to Netflix's awards chief, Rami Malek winning because actors love watching people pretend to be musicians (Sonny already calling it for Taron Egerton), Olivia Colman upsetting Glenn Close, and Vic bewildered by Ridley Scott directing a Hennessy commercial and by Guillermo del Toro presenting Best Director.
From the show notes
#cdata-section -------------- On this special micro episode of the Sub-Beacon, the gang discusses last night's Oscars. Green Book (and Sonny—or ...
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to a micro episode of The Sub-Beacon, sponsored by Robinhood. Robinhood is an investing app that lets you buy and sell stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptos all commission-free, while other brokerages charge up to $10 for every trade. Robinhood doesn't charge any commission fees, so you can trade stocks and keep all of your profits. Plus, there is no account minimum deposit needed to get started, so you can start investing at any level. The simple, intuitive design of Robinhood makes investing easy for newcomers and experts alike. View easy-to-understand charts and market data and place a trade in just four taps on your smartphone. You can also view stock collections, such as 100 Most Popular. With Robinhood, you can learn how to invest in the market as you build your portfolio. Discover new stocks, track your favorite companies, and get custom notifications for price movements so you never miss the right moment to invest. Robinhood is giving listeners of The Sub-Beacon a free stock like Apple, Ford, or Sprint to help you build your portfolio. Sign up at subbeacon.robinhood.com. I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. Just a quick reminder, full episodes of The Sub-Beacon are available. They're available every Thursday around 11 a.m. Well, not every Thursday. Well, we can get to that in the main. Well, we can get to that on Thursday. Gentlemen, the Oscars were last night. Any surprises, Sonny?
JVL00:01:39Hi, Sonny. Hey, what's up? I, this morning, sat and read your tweet stream from last night. I didn't watch the Oscars. Yeah. But I can't imagine that the Oscars were one thousandth, one millionth. Of as entertaining as your Twitter stream last night. I did it all in like four minutes. Why would anybody watch the Oscars when they can spend four minutes reading your tweets the morning after?
Sonny00:02:03This is a great question. I just, I hope people appreciated my tryout for next year's hosting day. Because I really, I feel like I killed it. I feel like I killed it. It was amazing. And I didn't even, I didn't even really go hard.
JVL00:02:17Brian Singer, you cowards! He really was.
Sonny00:02:21It was amazing.
Vic00:02:21That's who they really wanted to award.
Sonny00:02:22That's who they, must be driving them crazy. It was amazing because it was like all of these, every, so I think Bohemian Rhapsody won three awards. The sound mixing and sound editing and then Rami Malek. And every time they go up there, they're like, they're thanking everyone. You know, it's like this movie was directed by no one. There was like this movie was directed by nobody.
JVL00:02:43Steve from Craft Services was amazing. We really loved him. The best boy, a guy named Jim. Right. Fabulous. Don't forget the key grip.
Vic00:02:51Don't forget key grip. Gaffer. So who replaced him as director officially on, at the end? Nobody. He's credited.
JVL00:03:01You mean if you go to IMDb right now, it still says Bryan Singer?
Vic00:03:05Yes. Oh my gosh.
Sonny00:03:07Yeah, they couldn't, I mean, they couldn't take him off because of guild rules. He was, he was required to.
JVL00:03:12Well, also, he wasn't director for hire. This was his passion project. This was his for years. No, no, no, no, no, no.
Sonny00:03:18See, I, I, I dispute that because he's not a producer on the film, which I found very interesting. Because when, when all of this started happening, I was like, boy, it's going to be really awkward if he has to go up there and accept any trophies. He's not a producer on the film. And this is the first time he hasn't been the producer on a film in a long time. So it was very, it was interesting to me.
Vic00:03:38Now, you want to get right to the, the end numbers here, Sonny. People have been wondering for the last 24 hours or so.
Sonny00:03:45Yeah, I won. The, the Oscar draft? I won.
Vic00:03:47No, because we count the nominations, right? I picked more winners. We count the nominations. That doesn't matter. We count the nominations.
Sonny00:03:52Oh, I'm sorry. Oh. I know. So here's the final, here's the final tally. Of winners. Vic has 37 points.
JVL00:03:58Oh, that's good. I thought I had zero. We're talking about points, not winners.
Sonny00:04:02JVL has 63 points. Sonny Bunch has 82 points. Oh, man. Come on. I did not quite get as much as both of you combined. Not like after the nomination process.
JVL00:04:13No, by my count, when we do winners.
Sonny00:04:15So when you, when you do. I want to hear about winners. But winners isn't the thing that's interesting because that's not, we weren't playing. We weren't playing by who got the most actual. Winners. Right. No, we had a, we had a scoring. We had a scoring.
JVL00:04:26Who picked up a bunch of meaningless nominations in loser categories with vice and the favorite.
Sonny00:04:32If we had just wanted to pick winners, we could have done a normal Oscar, you know, little Markov box sheet like everyone else does. But no, we did something special and interesting. Let's just do it. And just like the candy draft, I have emerged triumphant again. I'm the king of drafts. You know, it's questionable.
Vic00:04:49I think let's just do a hypothetical Oscar winners. So I picked 10 winners.
JVL00:04:55Wow. Sonny picked five and you picked four. So I, I picked more winners than you guys combined. Despite the fact that I drafted in the number three position.
Sonny00:05:04Wow. I drafted last. Well, you got the, you got the snake. That's the best part. Yes. The three, four. As we discussed on the draft, the three, four is the best part.
Vic00:05:10I'm always in the middle. It's the worst.
Sonny00:05:12The worst. Shakeweight? Are you doing shakeweights? It's a shakeweight, yeah. The most impressive thing is that you managed to do this despite throwing away your first round pick. As do you.
Vic00:05:22Let's talk about it. As did you, Sonny. As did all of us. No, did you see? As did all of us.
JVL00:05:26So the number one picks, our number one picks were not good, right? Terrible.
Sonny00:05:28No, mine were great because I got a lot of nominations and that got me a lot of points.
JVL00:05:31Your number one pick was Star is Born. Yes.
Sonny00:05:33And it got tons of nominations. One win.
JVL00:05:35It doesn't matter that it got one win. My number one pick was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. No, it was Black Panther. No, it wasn't. It was based on the basis of sex. Vic, yours, you didn't go lead with Roma, did you? No, I thought I did.
Vic00:05:45I thought I led with Roma, but I didn't. I started, Roma was my second pick.
JVL00:05:48So we were all drafting Sam Bowie when the Michael Jordans were sitting there.
Sonny00:05:55I was going to say Kwame Brown. There were no Michael Jordans in this draft, though. I mean, this is the interesting thing. If you look at the winners, I don't think any movie got more than three trophies, right?
JVL00:06:06Well, that's because this was such a strong year for quality film entertainment. That's right. It was just parody.
Sonny00:06:13Across the board excellence. Just at the top of the level.
Vic00:06:17Here's the thing. If we started that draft again and you were to go back in time and you said, okay, what's your first pick? And you said Bohemian Rhapsody, we'd laugh at you.
JVL00:06:25Or Bohemian Rhapsody was my third pick. Again, my number one pick was bad, but I believe my top four were Basis of Sex, Black Panther, Green Book, and Bohemian Rhapsody.
Vic00:06:39Three of my top four picks were gold. Two surprises for me in terms of snubs, right? So A Star is Born. Right, which got...
JVL00:06:48That died on the vine.
Vic00:06:50The movie got the best song. Best song. And then what was your... Oh, If Beale Street Could Talk.
Sonny00:06:58If Beale Street Could Talk. I thought that was going to kill it. Best supporting actress. Barry Jenkins. You know why it didn't do very well?
JVL00:07:05No Italians in it.
Sonny00:07:07True. Needed more Italians. Did you hear everyone booing Nick Vallelonga? Oh, I heard. It was faked. Oh, you didn't watch. It was faked. It was faked. Both when they... So Green Book. Green Book winning for best screenplay, best original screenplay, was the first, I think, inkling we all had that this was going to happen, that Green Book was definitely going to win. Even though I actually said on our Oscar recap, Oscar draft recap show that I thought Green Book would win Best Picture.
JVL00:07:35But the... Well, Roma winning Best Foreign Film also, right?
Sonny00:07:39Well, Roma was definitely going to...
JVL00:07:41Roma was never going to win both.
Sonny00:07:42It could have won both.
JVL00:07:43It could have won both. I thought it was going to win both. It could have won both, but I think the resistance...
Sonny00:07:46I thought they would choose it. I think the resistance to Netflix in the entertainment community is stronger than any of us really noted at first because...
JVL00:07:56But this is also the problem with foreign films. So, I mean, foreign films, the Academy can always reward it with a Best Foreign Film and then feel like they've done their due diligence, they don't have to give it Best Picture.
Sonny00:08:05Right. This is the same with Best Animated Picture. Correct. But, sorry, what were we talking about? The booing. Yes, the booing. The booing, yes. He was... There was a small but persistent booing for Nicky. Coming from Alalonga.
Vic00:08:16Where was the booing coming from, right? That's what I wanted. I have a theory.
JVL00:08:18Because they have... Yes.
Sonny00:08:20I have a theory. Spike Lee. Well, the booing is the only real remnant we have of the controversies surrounding that film. I mean, I have to say, when it won Best Screenplay, despite the bad tweet that was resurfaced, as people like to say on Twitter, I think... I think it was all done then. It was in the bag. Because if you're going to reward the screenwriter, you're definitely going to give it Best Picture.
JVL00:08:53Did you read the Richard Rushfield thing I sent you about this, Sonny?
Sonny00:08:56About the campaign against Green Book? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JVL00:08:59I read it because I've subscribed to his newsletter. So, our buddy Richard Rushfield, who runs The Ankler, to which everybody should subscribe, points out that the story about the screenwriter broke... I forget where. The Cut. And the woman who runs and is the editor of The Cut is married to the guy who is head of award campaigns at Netflix.
Sonny00:09:25Weird.
JVL00:09:26Weird, huh? Just, who knows? I suspect they just have great reporters at The Cut who are out there, able to, just digging through 21-year-old pieces of data, just looking, looking, looking. It's amazing. Okay, I have a question. How did Rami Malek win? Extra teeth. No, it's because there's so much goodwill towards his sister, Malin Ackerman.
Sonny00:09:52The correct answer here is that, for some reason, actors love rewarding people who pretend to be singers more than anything else in the whole world. But impersonations. Yeah, impersonations in general. This is going to be great for Taron Egerton. I'm picking that already. I'm picking it now. But there was the Johnny Cash biopic. There was the... Yeah, there's a history of it. The Jamie Foxx playing Ray Charles. This is... People love... Actors love people pretending to be musicians. That's just a stone-cold fact.
Vic00:10:19What did you like... I saw most of the Oscars last night. What did you think about the hostless nature of it? I thought it was great. I thought it kept things moving.
JVL00:10:31How did they do it? And what was the total runtime? They just voiceover. There's a person behind.
Sonny00:10:35They just kept introducing people. Yeah. They would have people go up and do it, and they'd do their thing, and then they'd leave. The next people would go up, they'd do their thing, and they'd leave. It was great. Was it Voice of God, LaFontaine.com? John LaFontaine.
Vic00:10:46It was a woman's voice.
Sonny00:10:49We all know that that could possibly be God.
Vic00:10:53Also, it's interesting because Trevor Noah had come out to present an award, and I got the sense that he was auditioning for next year or something.
Sonny00:11:00Sonny said he was funny. He was funny. He made a funny Mel Gibson joke. He made a... I don't know. It was actually not bad. It was clever. It made me laugh, anyway. It made me laugh more than any episode of The Daily Show has ever made me laugh. It made me laugh, so...
Vic00:11:15Did you like the commercial by Ridley Scott?
Sonny00:11:17I thought that was really something. I was shocked. I was like, why is... Well, first off, I was like, why is Ridley Scott making a commercial? Then I was like, what is this commercial for? And it gets to the end, and it's for Hennessy.
JVL00:11:29Yeah, so, you know.
Sonny00:11:30Ridley Scott making a commercial for Hennessy.
JVL00:11:32Is that a conflict with the Blade Runner... Johnny Walker? Oh, yeah. No, I'm not sure. I have to look into it.
Vic00:11:39Is Hennessy owned by Diageo or not? Diageo owns Johnny Walker, so that's a very good question. But they do that because... What's his name who directed Silver Linings Playbook? David O. Russell. Yes, David O. Russell. He directed Kettle One Vodka commercials. I mean, if you pay him enough, they'll do it.
Sonny00:11:58Well, I mean, I... What's his name? Fincher's always making commercials still.
Vic00:12:03I was going to say, my other thought was Olivia Colman.
Sonny00:12:08That was, I would say, the biggest surprise of the night. Because everyone had that penciled in for Glenn Close. She'd won all the awards. I know. I know.
Vic00:12:15I'd never even heard of this movie. I thought it was a TV...
Sonny00:12:17I thought it was like... I'm thinking of damages. Well, this is why I think Olivia Colman won is because more people... I mean, it's not like The Favorite was an enormous hit at the box office, but more people saw that than The Wife. I saw the...
Vic00:12:30The only clip I saw was during the Oscars. During the Oscars. And I said, oh my gosh, Christian Slater's in this movie.
Sonny00:12:35Exactly. Christian Slater's in this movie. Maybe I'll see it now. Maybe I'll see it.
Vic00:12:38So that was it. But obviously, this is big for going into The Crown Season 3.
Sonny00:12:44I'm... So... If we can just get back to Green Book for a second. I am fascinated that for all the jibber-jabber about, you know, the Academy getting younger and all of the talk about the increased diversity and all of the anger on the internet about, oh, this old-fashioned, you know, race picture would fit in the 1970s or 80s is getting all the awards buzz. It still won Best Picture. It still won Best Picture. And I... This is a reminder that, A, the internet is not real, B, that there is still a very large chunk of kind of older people. But also, it's worth considering that this is also a reflection of the power of the Actors Guild, because if you know, Roma never had any chance in any of the acting categories. As much as everyone liked the story about the indigenous woman who this is her first starring role, nobody was ever going to vote for her. But, Green Book had a bunch of solid performances. It had Mahershala Ali, who won his award. He's very good. Viggo Mortensen was not nominated, but everyone loves him.
Vic00:13:57He wasn't even nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Best Actor. He would have been Best Actor, yeah.
Sonny00:14:01He wasn't even nominated, but everyone loves him in that performance. So, it is a reminder that actors love acting. Actors love the movies that have good showcases for actors.
Vic00:14:10I thought it was a very sweet, poignant movie, even though I didn't pick it in my Oscar draft So, I was very happy for Green Book. Any other Oscar thoughts?
JVL00:14:18Yeah, there's a lot of Green Book hate going on right now, as if it's a travesty. But, look, I am happy to say that I did not see Green Book. I merely picked it. Did I say that I picked Green Book? I merely picked it. I think I didn't see Roma. But, I'm sorry, what is the travesty? What is the clear, 100% so much better than Green Book? Ten years from now, we're going to look back on this other movie. This is not Dunkirk.
Sonny00:14:50I made this point last night, that I'm not angry about this, because there's no movie in the field that I wanted to win. There's no movie that I was like, this is definitely the best picture of the year, and if anything else wins, it's a travesty. You know, like with Dunkirk, or with The Arrival, or with any number of films from previous years. I'm used to being angry about my movies losing, but this year, I couldn't be angry, because I didn't really care if any of these movies won. I probably liked A Star Was Born better than the rest of them. I liked Vice. I liked Roma, but I liked The Favorite, but none of these movies I loved. I don't think a single film from the list of nominees made my top ten last year, and I have to go check again, but I'm pretty sure none of those movies made my top ten, because they're all just kind of fine.
JVL00:15:41So here is, the thing I keep seeing is that... This is the worst winner since Crash. Yeah, Crash has been coming up. So Crash was awarded Best Picture in 2006, and do either of you fellows remember what the truly great movie of 2006 was, that it was such a travesty that Crash beat?
Sonny00:16:03Brokeback Mountain. No. That's what everyone says.
JVL00:16:07Except that Brokeback Mountain is not like none. When you go look at the other nominees, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, and Munich. Munich is Lesser Spielberg. Yeah. Good, but Lesser Spielberg. I would say Munich is my favorite of those films by far. Of those films, Munich is your favorite. But none of these are movies that anybody ever goes back and... It wasn't that exciting. Right, it was a bad year. You look back, none of these movies is classic. And even if you look at the rest of the things that were out that year, it's like Walk the Line. Nobody goes back and looks at Walk the Line anymore. Speaking of the Johnny Cash movie. Yeah, there you go. Speaking of the Johnny Cash movie, North Country. North Country. I don't even remember what North Country was. The Constant Gardener, A History of Violence. These are all serialized. A History of Violence. Speaking of Big O. The Squid and the Whale, Match Point. These are the movies of 2006 and it is another year where you could say that Crash was a terrible movie.
Vic00:16:52It's a terrible movie. It is.
JVL00:16:54But you know what? All of those movies are terrible movies. I still can't. I'm the same this year, except for Black Panther. Black Panther is a legitimately great movie.
Sonny00:17:01Black Panther was like the third best Marvel movie released this year.
JVL00:17:05Yeah.
Sonny00:17:06After the... I mean, it depends on if we want to consider Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse.
Vic00:17:11I was very excited that they won. I thought they should win and they won. So that worked out well. They? Well, so many people.
Sonny00:17:18They won.
JVL00:17:19I was surprised, actually, that Spider-Verse beat out Incredibles 2.
Sonny00:17:24I'm not. I wasn't. That looked like a pretty solid block.
JVL00:17:28I just thought the money that Incredibles 2 did...
Sonny00:17:32It did a quiet $600 million. I mean, this movie has grossed $1.2 or $1.3 billion around the world. And it is a very quiet $1.2 or $1.3 billion. And part of me wonders how much of that has... It has to do with Pixar hunkering down because of Lasseter and all that stuff. Yeah. That's right. But, yeah. So, anyway, I think... Are we all done here?
Vic00:17:53Yeah, I was just... The only thing that I was confused by was at the end when they had the best director announcement and Guillermo del Toro comes out. I said, wait, didn't he just direct Roma?
JVL00:18:04I'm sure it's fine.
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