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Ron: Hello and welcome to a surprise episode of Stereo Geeks. We’re still thinking about the 2025 Oscars, so here we are chatting about it. I’m Ron.

Mon: And I’m Mon. 

Mon: While we will be talking about the Oscar-winning films, we won’t spoil anything about the films we’re discussing. 

Ron: The 97th Academy Awards were described as the most open of recent years. There didn’t seem to be a clear winner by the time the Oscars came around. This entire awards season has been unpredictable except for maybe a handful of categories. I liked that the show started off with music but the musical interludes for the rest of the show could have been more engaging.

Ron: Conan O’Brien wasn’t the worst host but I wish he’d sped up that introduction. And I really needed a warning for those body horror scenes from The Substance. While Anora’s wins caught me by surprise, there were some good moments during the night. Paul Tazewell was the first Black man to win the costume design Oscar. He won it for Wicked. No Other Land won the best Documentary Feature Oscar. The film was directed by two Palestinians and two Israelis about the destruction and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Their speech was heartfelt and powerful. One of the most important moments of the night, in my opinion. 

Mon: I agree with you about that. 

Mon: After a long time, I tuned into an Oscar’s evening with very little interest or excitement. Conan O’ Brien made some funny jokes. But there were some really weird choices. The song about not wasting time, which did waste time. The James Bond interlude, that was topped off with a bizarre, lacklustre dance performance and two boring renditions of Bond themes. Doja Cat was great though. But the night finished in less than four hours, which was great. This must be a record. 

Mon: Moving onto the categories. Kieran Culkin won for Supporting Actor. I wasn’t invested in any one winning, but he seemed to be exactly like his character? So he really did get an Oscar for playing himself? Bizarre. 

Ron: This category didn’t feel as heavily-contested as last year’s. Culkin seemed to be a shoe-in. I would have picked between Jeremy Strong and Guy Pearce. They really disappeared into their roles. Culkin was great to watch in the film but everyone’s saying that he’s basically playing himself.

Ron: Zoe Saldaña had been winning this category at some of the other award shows so it wasn’t that surprising that she won the Oscar. She’s the only Dominican to win an Oscar and she talked about being the child of immigrants in America. But I do wish she’d mentioned what’s happening to the trans community in the US. None of the Emilia Pérez winners mentioned trans people even once and it’s a film where the protagonist is trans! 

Mon: And it’s central to the story. Saldaña winning was somewhat of a surprise since I wasn’t expecting Emilia Pérez to win anything at all. But not a real surprise considering Saldaña’s been sweeping it this season.

Ron: This wasn’t a hotly-contested category either. I mean, The Brutalist is probably Felicity Jones’ worst performance ever and she got nominated. Isabella Rossellini was nominated for less than 8 minutes onscreen. It looked like they were grasping at straws for this one.

Mon: Flow won Best Animated Film. 

Ron: I can’t believe we managed to catch all the animated films. I thought the box office hits The Wild Robot or Inside Out 2 would have had a good chance. But I was 100% onboard for Flow and I’m delighted that this independent film from Latvia won. I loved that film. It was gorgeous, it was stressful, it had the cutest cat protagonist. It does so much without a bit of dialogue. How it was nominated alongside Wallace & Gromit, I can’t say.

Mon: Hey, Wallace & Gromit was kinda fun. But I’m so happy that Flow won. 

Mon: Anora winning Original Screenplay seems ridiculous to me.

Mon: You know which film was missing from this category? The Fire Inside. You watched it at TIFF last year and wouldn’t stop talking about it. I finally got to see it and I’m gutted it wasn’t recognized at the Oscars. 

Ron: This category did nothing for me. I didn’t want any of them to win. The best original screenplay should’ve gone to The Fire Inside.

Mon: So Conclave won Adapted Screenplay. How do we feel about that?

Ron: Conclave was good and tense but how did it win this category? I was torn between Nickel Boys and Sing Sing because they were two of my favourite nominees. They were gorgeous films and I cannot wait to read their screenplays. Particularly Nickel Boys; that’ll be educational for screenwriters.

Mon: How is The Piano Lesson not on here? I don’t get it. But, to be honest, Conclave is an interesting win. Coming at a time when the US is aggressively turning to Christian nationalism, anger, hate and discrimination, Conclave makes some interesting points. Not that the awful people in the US will watch it. 

Mon: Sean Baker won Best Director for Anora. Yeah, I don’t know how to feel about all these Anora wins. Because I hated the film so much. It was unfunny, uninteresting, not unique, and, honestly, disgustingly gratuitous and exploitative. Apparently Mikey Madison was comfortable enough to refuse an intimacy coordinator, but it still came across as kinda gross. The ending undermined any message of ingenuity it had. Really not a fan. 

Ron: I think I should’ve watched Anora but it’s impossible to catch everything. We have day jobs. I also wish I could know how they choose the directors? There can only ever be one woman, if any. None of these directors were my choice.

Mon: Why were James Mangold and Sean Baker here, but RaMell Ross, who directed Nickel Boys, wasn’t? Please explain this to me!

Ron: I thought Nickel Boys was so creatively directed. But no nomination for the director? The only reason starts with an ‘r’ and ends with an ‘m’. Racism.

Mon: No other reason. 

Ron: Adrien Brody won the Best Actor Oscar and I’m disappointed. He was winning throughout so it shouldn’t have been a shock but I wanted an upset. I don’t think this was a good performance. He was indecipherable half the time and was over-acting. I didn’t like this movie, so that doesn’t help. 

Mon: Am I right in saying that we were both rooting for Coman Domingo? 

Ron: Colman Domingo was my choice because Sing Sing was incredible on every level. But you know what, Sebastian Stan was ridiculously good as Trump in The Apprentice. He’s a great actor and I hope he’s recognized one day for another more deserving performance. 

Mon: Yeah, Stan is a really good actor. Contrary to popular opinion, just because someone’s in Marvel movies doesn’t mean they can’t act. Honestly, Brody plays the same kind of broken, tortured character in every role we’ve seen him in. I thought all the other performances were so much stronger.

Ron: Mikey Madison winning Best Actor was a surprise. I thought at least Demi Moore would win.

Mon: The Oscars tend to give it to young women actors in this category. That’s what it always seems like when I tune in, though I know a lot of stalwart actresses have got the prize. Madison isn’t bad in the role—she has to do a whole different accent than her regular one. But does the performance move the dial? Frankly, a lot of Best Actress performances don’t. 

Ron: Really thought it would be Demi Moore’s year. 

Mon: I honestly don’t think enough Academy members watched The Substance. 

Ron: I still can’t believe Pamela Anderson wasn’t nominated for The Last Showgirl. She was phenomenal even if the film itself didn’t work for me. She brought more to her character than the story did. But I would have nominated the entire cast of Piano Lesson. Danielle Deadwyler was extraordinary. John David Washington was equal parts driven and annoying. Everyone in that film was incredible.

Mon: Well, one of the best performances of last year didn’t even get nominated. There must have been a reason why The Fire Inside wasn’t selected. I mean, other than blatant racism. Ryan Destiny and Brian Tyree Henry should have been amongst the nominees.

Ron: I didn’t have mixed feelings for most of this year’s Best Picture nominees; I had no feelings. Many of them I wouldn’t have cared to watch. But I was actually hoping for a shock win for Wicked. I had no interest in it at all but when we eventually watched it, the film won me over. Absolutely gorgeous visuals, a couple of songs you could bop to, believable chemistry between the actors. And the message about being true to yourself especially when you’re different. I loved it and celebrated the few wins they did get.

Mon: Personally, I was rooting for Nickel Boys. It was one of the more inventive directing efforts out there, with a heartfelt and heart-rending story at its core. 

Mon: Half the Best Picture nominees lacked a cohesive storyline. Like The Brutalist, Dune: Part Two, and A Complete Unknown. They felt a lot like a bunch of plot points thrown at the screen. But they got nominated. Weird choices. 

Ron: In the end, Anora won Best Picture. I didn’t watch it but it seems like an odd choice. It is an independent film so maybe we should be happy that a relatively small budget film won such a major award?

Mon: I’m all for indie films getting kudos. But this one? By the end of the night, we knew Anora was going to win. It had swept the other big categories it had been nominated in. I’m just… disappointed. That’s the word of the night. Like, I’m not seeing what’s so extraordinary about this film. Maybe I’m just being curmudgeonly. It was so irritating to watch! 

Ron: The scenes they showed during the Oscars made me cringe. I don’t think I could sit through the entire film. 

Mon: Oh, they were! And you know this just means we’re going to now get a stream of seemingly prestige movies about strippers and sex workers and they’re all going to be horrendous. I mean, this movie had the chance to push boundaries, but all of the dancers were conventionally sized and most of them were white. And now we’re going to be inundated with non-inclusive movies about an already exploitative industry. Remember Hustlers? That movie had a much stronger, important and universal story about women. That got so little love at the Oscars. Yet Anora wins. 

Ron: And you know those movies will never hire actual sex workers and give them a career. We’re unlikely to see diverse bodies and races in those films. 

Mon: So right. 

Mon: I feel deflated after this Oscars. I know I shouldn’t, but after the promise of an inventive, creative film like Everything Everywhere All at Once winning a couple of years ago, it seems the Academy has gone back to its default of selecting and awarding relatively safe films in the major categories. By safe I mean the ones that appeal to old, white dudes. It’s just disheartening. What are these wins telling us? Yes. I’m aware an indie won big this year, but it wasn’t inclusive or body positive, so, really, I can’t get behind the Anora win at all. 

Ron: This wasn’t an exciting Oscars season for me. I wasn’t that invested in the films. The ones I fell in love with, like The Fire Inside, Piano Lesson, Sing Sing and Nickel Boys didn’t get the recognition they deserved. The Oscars still aren’t as diverse as they should be. With what’s happening in the US right now, I don’t even know what the next four years will look like for Hollywood.

Mon: That’s our Oscars 2025 round-up. We would have liked to get through all the categories but that would have been a much longer episode than we have time for.

Ron: And with that, we bid adieu to Season 5 of Stereo Geeks. We’re going to take a short break and be back in April with Season 6. See you then.