David – Page 2 – The Media by Us

State of the Race: Independent Spirit Award Nominations Announced!

Happy Thanksgiving! We have our second award domino to fall (after the Gotham Award nominations), and this one is also similarly unconnected to the actual industry. The Spirit Awards are given by Film Independent, a nonprofit arts organization supporting independent films and filmmakers, for “independent” movies made for under $25 million. Prestige arms of big studios still get in here, like Fox Searchlight, Paramount Vintage, and Sony Pictures Classics. But also, big prestige films that win Oscars get celebrated here too – Best Picture winners like The Artist (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013), Birdman (2014), Spotlight (2015) and Moonlight (2016).

The nominees are shown below – along with the number of Academy Award nominees from the previous year in the respective categories, as well as how many Oscar nominees the Spirits tend to nominate since 2009 (the year of the increase in Best Picture).

2020 Oscar Predictions: TJ Versus David – October Edition

Here we go! We’re updating our predictions month to month as we get closer to the 2020 Oscars. Sorry for the delay – Chris got married, and we were all there! This month, we have more categories!

Best Picture

We Agree: The Irishman, Marriage Story, Parasite, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, Ford v Ferrari, The Farewell (8)
We Disagree: TJ – 1917 and Joker (2), David – The Two Popes and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2)
Biggest Riser: Parasite (+4)
Biggest Fall: Little Women (-5)
New Entries: None

2020 Oscar Predictions: TJ Versus David – September Edition

Here we go! We’re updating our predictions month to month as we get closer to the 2020 Oscars. Going month to month, TJ and David will give their picks to see what’s rising and what’s falling. Without any further ado, away we a-go:

Best Picture

We Agree: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Marriage Story, Jojo Rabbit, The Irishman, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Parasite, Ford v Ferrari, Little Women, The Farewell (9)
We Disagree: TJ – 1917 (1), David – The Two Popes (1)
Biggest Riser: Jojo Rabbit (+7)
Biggest Fall: 1917 (-6)
New Entries: The Two Popes, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

2020 Oscar Predictions: TJ versus David – August Edition

We’re going to try something new with The Media By Us – writing about the Oscars. We will be updating our predictions month to month as we get closer to the 2020 Oscars. Going month to month, TJ and David will give their picks to see what’s rising and what’s falling. Without any further ado, away we a-go:

Best Picture

We Agree: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Irishman, 1917, Little Women, Marriage Story, The Farewell, Ford v Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit, Parasite (9)
We Disagree: TJ – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (1), David – The Laundromat (1)

Talkie Talk #176: Avengers Endgame / Short Term 12 / Survivor / GoT

Talkie Talk

Talkie Talk #176: Avengers Endgame / Short Term 12 / Survivor / GoT

00:00 / 1:15:32

Thanos snapped his fingers and only David and Brent are left to talk about some recent megahits (Endgame! Crazy Rich Asians!) and some programmed watches (best of the decade research and… whatever Brent does when he’s sick). Speaking of megahits – TV! (Game of Thrones reactions, Survivor catch up!).

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David: Anthony Jeselnik: Fire in the Maternity Ward (1:25), Frank (4:43), Young Adult (11:30), Short Term 12 (15:24)

Brent: The Greatest Showman (15:19), Swiss Army Man (23:01), Punch Drunk Love (26:53), Crazy Rich Asians (31:06), The Conjuring (33:46), Moon (37:39), Avengers: Endgame (40:27), Jumanji & Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (49:24), Eyes Wide Shut (51:15)

Reality Roundup: Survivor (54:45)

Checkin’ In: Game of Thrones Season 8 (58:50)

Breezy on the Streets (1:06:45)

What 2 Watch (1:11:00)

Warning: Some mild language. Some language is picante.

> Intro theme courtesy of The Willow Walkers
> Outro song “Extemporaneous Birth” courtesy of Boo Reefa

Talkie Talk #157: Y Tu Mamá También

Talkie Talk

Talkie Talk #157: Y Tu Mamá También

00:00 / 1:12:04

¡Hola! Brent, TJ y Chris están aquí para discutir si la película Y Tu Mamá También pertenece a nuestra Talk of Fame. ¡Te amo!

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> Contact: email, Facebook (movies, TV, games), and Twitter!
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Warning: Some mild language. Some language is spicy.

> Intro theme courtesy of The Willow Walkers
> Outro song “Extemporaneous Birth” courtesy of Boo Reefa

100% Accurate 2019 Academy Award Predictions

Kevin Hart is hosting. Oops, he’s not.
A new popular film category is happening. Oops, it’s not.
Kevin Hart is back hosting. Oops again, he’s not.
Only two Original Songs are being performed. Oops, now it’s all five.
Four categories will be announced during commercials. Oops, they’re back.

There’s a non-zero chance that the 91st Academy Awards are not actually announced on Sunday February 24th, from how the Academy is currently going. In the chance that they actually do happen, David and TJ will present their predictions in every category. We’ll break down the nominees, our predictions, and will present the prediction from the Darkest Timeline – the worst case thing that could happen… might just happen. Here we go.

Talkie Talk #153: Who Should Win, Pt. 2

Who should win the Oscar! Part 2 has the (more) major awards!

Talkie Talk

Talkie Talk #153: Who Should Win, Pt. 2

00:00 / 1:17:47

3rd Annual Talkie Awards (The Timbus)! We go through an extensive town-hall style debate to see which movies should win in every category of the 2019 Academy Awards. The winners… may surprise you. The discussion… may just save your life.

Part 1 has the specialty categories and technical awards (check out TT #152). Part 2 here has the heavy hitters here: cinematography, writing, acting, directing and Best Picture.

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Below is The Media By Us Oscar vote; we indicate a winner along with the vote totals (and the runner up, where possible):

Cinematography: The Favourite (3-1, Roma)
Original Screenplay: First Reformed (4-0)
Adapted Screenplay: BlacKkKlansman (4-0)
Supporting Actor: Sam Elliott, A Star is Born (3-1, Mahershala Ali)
Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz, The Favourite (2-1-1, Regina King, Emma Stone)
Lead Actor: Christian Bale, Vice (2-1*, Bradley Cooper)
Lead Actress: Olivia Colman, The Favourite (4-0)
Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Roma (4-0)
Best Picture: Roma (2-2**, The Favourite)

*Lead Actor Protest Vote – Ethan Hawke should be here.
**Best Picture – deadlock, went to #2 votes to break tie.

Warning: Some mild language. Some language is picante.

> Intro theme courtesy of The Willow Walkers
> Outro song “Extemporaneous Birth” courtesy of Boo Reefa

91st Academy Awards Predictions

It’s nearly here! Which means our Oscar prognosticators need to go head to head (to head) to see who can come the closest – also helpful if you want another set of picks if you’re doing a nominations pool. Come Tuesday January 22st, we shall see who is the Oracle amongst us. We’ll shown the category, and each prognosticator’s picks (with consensus ones in bold).

The Shorts

Specialty Movies

Super Techs

Music and Makeup

Making it Beautiful

Screenplays

Supporting Acting

Lead Acting

Final Cut Pros

Best Picture

State of the Race: Guild the Lily

So many guilds, so little time before Oscar nominations. Using statistics to make sense of predicting a wild movie year.

There are multiple ways to predict the Academy Awards – come January 22nd, we’ll find out which way was most correct. Until then, you could go with your gut, you could check out sites that aggregate bettings odds on the favorites (thank you GoldDerby for existing!), and you could also go with what the guilds say.

Making a movie requires interfacing with many unions in the multi-faceted levels of production – these unions (for acting, directing, writing, costume design, etc.), who also describe themselves as guilds, all annually reward their peers across the industry for the best in show. The convenient aspect of these guilds is they announce their nominees and/or winners before the Oscar nominations come out. The other obvious convenient aspect of these guilds is they actually overlap with the members of the Academy that vote for the Oscar awards.

You can trust your gut, or give GoldDerby more page views, or you can read on and see what these guilds are trying to tell us about nominations. So far, the following guilds have announced nominees: