After a very long awards season, the 94th Academy Awards will finally be presented this Sunday on ABC. Josh, Chase, and Jenn huddled together (virtually) to talk through the nominees, read the tea leaves, and make some guesses about who’s going to (and who should) win Oscars.

Best Picture

Nominees: 

• Belfast
• CODA 
• Don’t Look Up 
• Drive My Car
• Dune
• King Richard 
• Licorice Pizza
• Nightmare Alley 
• The Power of the Dog
• West Side Story 

	Chase	Jenn	Josh
Will Win	The Power of the Dog	The Power of the Dog	The Power of the Dog
Should Win	The Power of the Dog	Licorice Pizza	Drive My Car

Josh: Let’s start with the big one, a.k.a. The category that’s killing me to make a prediction or even a personal choice. Sure, I would’ve liked to see nominations for Pig or the Green Knight in here, but most of this year’s nominees are decent or better. It’s a very respectable cross-section of the films of an abbreviated 2021 with very few of the hero vs. villain narratives that have come to dominate recent Oscar campaigns. (Don’t Look Up is trash, but even I admit that parts of it are pretty damned funny. If only Adam McKay trusted his audience to get the point without bashing us over the heads.)

As to my votes … Drive My Car is a quiet revelatory masterpiece that I can’t get out of my head. Paul Thomas Anderson is easily my ride-or-die favorite American filmmaker; Phantom Thread was better but I’d have no problem if he got his Oscar for Licorice Pizza. Dune made a grand scale space opera surprisingly comprehensible and looked phenomenal in IMAX. West Side Story affirms that Steven Spielberg really really knows how to work a camera, something that we all seem to forget. They’d all be fighting for space with Power of the Dog at the top of my preferential ballot. 

Despite the recent swing for CODA,  a perfectly nice film with a great message and admirable representation that plays to the heartstrings with some incredibly corny elements, I think Jane Campion’s twisty tale of toxic masculinity  hangs on to the momentum that it’s been building since its debut at all of the big fall festivals and wins the big prize.   

CODA’s win would certainly be a fun feel good moment for the ceremony to end on (and we have confirmation that this category will return to its rightful place as the ultimate award) for everyone except the team at Netflix who have been throwing money at winning Best Picture for the last few years. Do Academy members really hate Netflix that much? It’s really bizarre. Who else is going to fund their big budget dream projects without any apparent concern for commercial success? 

My ranked choice ballot (1 – Drive My Car; 2 – Licorice Pizza;  3 – The Power of the Dog; 4 – West Side Story; 5 – Dune;  6 – King Richard; 7 – Belfast; 8 – CODA; 9 – Nightmare Alley; 10 – Don’t Look Up)

Chase: I am going all-in on The Power of the Dog hanging on to win. I agree with you, Josh, that some love to both Pig and The Green Knight would have been great though I also think this is still a pretty solid year overall. At the very least, this list doesn’t have a total disaster of a film like Green Book (still absolutely bitter about that winning to this day). I also similarly feel like Don’t Look Up is the worst of the bunch even as I think there could be a good version out there of this incredibly poorly made movie. 

The reason I am going all in on The Power of the Dog, both for should win and will win, is that it feels like it still has the most deserved momentum going for it. Yes, there has been late buzz and chatter about CODA making a late comeback though I still don’t think that film can compare to Campion’s work. 

Don’t get me wrong, all the acting was good in CODA and gives it a lot of heart. However, the rest of the film just is not all that well-made and mostly settles on being competently sweet yet superficial. Drive My Car would be my second choice and is as good as you’ve been told though it is still unlikely to win. Licorice Pizza never resonated with me as much as it did with others even as I have enjoyed reading the writing, both critical and praiseworthy, about it more than anything this year. I like the way it complicates nostalgia more than I think people really give it credit for though don’t anticipate it taking the top spot. I have enjoyed Dune the more I reflect on it and expect it to get technical awards though I think we will have to wait for the second part for it to have a better shot at the top spot. I feel similarly about West Side Story and love how it has gained a newfound appreciation though I don’t think it will be in the top race. Belfast, which I appreciate more than most, shouldn’t but it may swoop in. The same could be true with Nightmare Alley which would crack me up if it got it as it would be the most chaotic choice. King Richard is probably the least likely pick though it does set Will Smith up well for the top spot for Best Actor. 

My ranked choice Ballot: (1 – The Power of the Dog; 2 – Drive My Car; 3. – West Side Story; 4 – Dune; 5 – Licorice Pizza; 6 – Nightmare Alley; 7 – King Richard; 8 – Belfast; 9 – CODA; 10 – Don’t Look Up)

Jenn: I’m in pretty much total agreement with both of you guys. This was the first year ever that, in advance of the ceremony, I’ve actually managed to watch not just all 10 Best Picture nominees, but every feature film nominated for any category of this year’s Oscars (that’s 39 total films), and there’s a lot of really great stuff in there. There’s also lots of really great stuff that’s been left out of the conversation (especially agreed about the Green Knight snub, and also what about C’mon C’mon??). Of the ten that did make this cut, I also liked-to-loved all of them and have a hard time ranking them against each other (although I did do that below). I guess my top choice by a hair would be Licorice Pizza, which (aside from a couple weird notes I could do without) I did just fully feel with my whole heart, just hit exactly the right notes for me about what falling in love and experiencing new things at that young age feels like. I did also strongly like (love?) both Drive My Car and Power of the Dog, although I didn’t quite emotionally engage with either like I did with PTA’s. I listed Dune as my favorite film of 2021 in our year-end wrap-up, which I’m not sure I’d still stand by but did still super love it, just not sure (especially being such and obviously incomplete first-of-a-series entry) it merits Best of the Year awards status. Basically maybe I have caveats or asterisks regarding just about everything on the list but not really strong objections (besides maybe, yeah, to Don’t Look Up, but agreed it’s no Green Book), honestly did enjoy all of them to varying degrees, so really any of these winning would be pretty fine with me!

My ranked choice ballot: (1 – Licorice Pizza; 1 – Drive My Car; 3 – The Power of the Dog; 4 – Dune; 5 -Belfast;  6 -Nightmare Alley; 7 -West Side Story; 8 – CODA; 9 – King Richard; 10 – Don’t Look Up)

Best Director

Nominees: 

• Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
• Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
• Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
• Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
• Steven Spielberg, West Side Story

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Campion	Campion
Should Win	Campion	Campion

Josh: Unless her gaffe about the Williams sisters sinks her, this has to be Jane Campion’s. But congrats to the Critics Choice Awards for plying attendees with lots of drinks with only a little bit of hummus to stake their claim as “the boozy wild show” to fill in for the disgraced Golden Globes. As above, I’d be thrilled if PTA finally won a directing award or if the academy went wild and picked Hamaguchi, but I live in the real world and respect Campion’s direction of this exquisitely made slow-burner. 
Chase: Even as that “joke” was certainly an unforced error, I don’t think that will influence Campion’s chances. She absolutely shouldn’t have said it, alcohol or no, and it still is bizarre to see it in retrospect. However, her work on the film still is remarkable and a testament to how impressive her career has been. I still would lose my mind in excitement if Hamaguchi came from behind to get it as that would be a pleasant surprise.

Actor in a Leading Role (Female)

Nominees: 

• Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
• Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
• Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
• Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
• Kristen Stewart, Spencer

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Jessica Chastain	Jessica Chastain
Should Win	Kristen Stewart/Oliva Colman/Penélope Cruz	Kristen Stewart

Josh: She should’ve won long ago for ZeroDarkThirty, but maybe Jessica Chastain gets her “it’s time” Oscar for disappearing under an insane amount of makeup in a perfectly-average biopic that exists primarily as a showcase for its leading lady? There are three of those roles in this category and my favorite is Kristen Stewart who went all the way in on Diana’s tics to convey the horror show of suffering through a terrible family Christmas, multiplied by being a princess in the public eye on the precipice of a divorce. 

Or better still even though she’s a recent winner, to Olivia Colman, forever the queen, as a fictional character on a very bad vacation. The look that she gives the camera when the rowdy family pulls up at her once-private beach is an entire mood.

Chase: I think this category has some of the best to choose from and I mostly just do not think Nicole Kidman should get it as I stand by that she is just woefully miscast. Chastain seems positioned to be the favorite which is similarly frustrating though still settles in a bit better. I think Stewart should get it as it really proved she has a lot of range though I also would be happy with either Colman or Cruz.  

Actor in a Leading Role (Male)

Nominees: 

• Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
• Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
• Andrew Garfield, Tick, Tick…Boom!
• Will Smith, King Richard
• Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Will Smith	Will Smith
Should Win	Benedict Cumberbatch / Denzel Washington	Benedict Cumberbatch

Josh: This one feels like the year’s surest thing. For some reason, people really want to see Will Smith get an Oscar. I don’t necessarily understand that impulse, but it seems vitally important to the good people of Hollywood that this win happen. Again, this would be a classic case of rewarding a committed and convincing impersonation of a real person. On top of that, it’s giving a prize to a huge Hollywood star for producing a film that represents its subjects in a way that makes everyone proud. As much as it exists as pure validation of Richard Williams’s — let’s say, idiosyncrasies in coaching his daughters to tennis royalty and maintaining fierce independence — King Richard is definitely a crowd-pleaser. I didn’t get a chance to write about it at Telluride since I saw it late in the festival, but it was the film that everyone in the lines could agree about and being a great watch with a strong story; so this is probably where this film gets its hardware. (I’d still probably cast my vote for Benedict Cumberbatch, whose big, snarly performance as Phil Burbank is a lot more layered with subtleties than it seems on first glance.)

Chase: Yeah, this is Smith’s award to lose. I do think he put in a lot more of himself into this role than some of his other previous performances, though part of me really hopes either Washington or Cumberbatch would be in that place as they both did so many interesting things with their performances. 

Actor in a Supporting Role (Female)

Nominees: 

• Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
• Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
• Judi Dench, Belfast
• Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
• Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Ariana DeBose	Ariana DeBose
Should Win	Ariana Debose	Jessie Buckley

Josh: As much as I’d like to see Jessie Buckley have an Oscar, she has plenty of time. So I have no quibbles with the historical rhyme of Arina Debose also winning for the same role that won Rita Moreno a historic Oscar for the 1961 film. Anita is the best character in the show and Ariana DeBose is more than up to the challenge. This one feels set in stone and congratulations to the glorious remake of West Side Story if it wins anything after its disastrous theatrical rollout just as Omicron was chasing what would’ve been its core audiences back into lockdown. 

Chase: I share in the love that Buckley is outstanding, as are many of the nominees in this category, though DeBose is going to take this one. She doesn’t just recreate what made the character great from the original but really made it her own with one of the most dynamic performances of the year. 

Actor in a Supporting Role (Male)

Nominees: 

• Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
• Troy Kotsur, CODA
• Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog
• J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos
• Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Troy Kotsur	Troy Kotsur
Should Win	Troy Kotsur	Troy Kotsur

Josh: Troy Kotsur has the big moment that makes you cry in CODA, with all of the movie’s recent hype as voters discover it in their screener piles or on Apple TV+ his is the role that is most likely to be rewarded. Plus, he’s been killing it with each and every one of his acceptances on the circuit. Unless the Kodi-stans rise up to reward Smit-McPhee’s nervy turn in the Power of the Dog, this historic victory is Kotsur’s to lose. 

Chase: Back to closely aligning with you Josh, this is going to go to Kotsur. Even as I do think most of the picks are really solid here and Smit-McPhee gives an understated performance, it is hard to see this taking away from the commitment of Kotsur. Here’s hoping he doesn’t fall out of a chair like he did earlier this awards season. 

Josh: To an extent, falling off that chair is why he’s going to win this award; so more power to him for it!

Screenplay (Original)

Nominees: 

• Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
• Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
• Adam McKay and David Sirota, Don’t Look Up
• Zach Baylin, King Richard
• Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier, The Worst Person in the World

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Licorice Pizza	Licorice Pizza
Should Win	The Worst Person in the World	The Worst Person in the World

Josh: Gold Derby has this as a neck-and-neck race between Licorice Pizza and Belfast. This always feels like a category where the cool kids have a shot; so I’m holding out for PTA to finally win an Oscar for his shaggy, open-hearted, reminisce of the boundless possibilities of life in the Valley and the clumsy road to figuring out that you’re an idiot. However, I’d really love Eskil Voght and Joachim Trier to stun everyone with a well-deserved win for The Worst Person in the World, their episodic take on being a hot mess and figuring out your life in your early thirties. 

Chase: I swear I am not copying you, but I am in lockstep with you on this. The Worst Person in the World is one of the most sharp and interesting stories I’ve seen in a while though Licorice Pizza has definitely has got Hollywood by the throat. Belfast could sneak its way in though I don’t see that coming to pass. As long as it isn’t *shudders* Don’t Look Up I will be okay. 

Josh: Yeah, I’m very worried that this is where they throw Don’t Look Up a bone. It certainly has a lot of writing. 

Screenplay (Adapted)

Nominees: 

• Sian Heder, CODA
• Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, Drive My Car
• Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth, Dune
• Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
• Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Drive My Car	The Lost Daughter
Should Win	Drive My Car	Drive My Car

Josh: The professionals also call this a dead heat between CODA and The Power of the Dog, but I somehow think that Maggie Gyllenhaal has a shot to win for The Lost Daughter, her adaptation of an Elena Ferrante novella about the lingering traumas of motherhood. Were I casting a ballot, though, it would be for Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe’s Drive My Car, which finds a transfixing three hour film about grief in a slim Haruki Murakami story. 

Chase: The work of adaptation is an art in its own right and this is where I go all-in on Drive My Car for the rest of the awards it has a chance for. The little details and nuances of the story has stuck with me making it my top pick. It is still an underdog and has some tough competition though I would love to see it pull this one out.  

Cinematography

Nominees: 

• Greig Fraser, Dune
• Dan Laustsen, Nightmare Alley
• Ari Wegner, The Power of the Dog
• Bruno Delbonnel, The Tragedy of Macbeth
• Janusz Kaminski, West Side Story

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	The Power of the Dog	The Power of the Dog
Should Win	The Power of the Dog	The Power of the Dog

Josh: I don’t care if Sam Elliott thinks it’s a crime that New Zealand doesn’t look like Montana. Ari Wegner made it look spectacular and her win would be a long-overdue first for a woman to win in this category.

Chase: Oh, Sam Elliot. Maybe he liked the realism of Dune which would have been my second choice and still has a chance to take it home. But yeah, The Power of the Dog still has a good shot at this. 

Editing

Nominees: 

• Don’t Look Up
• Dune
• King Richard
• The Power of the Dog
• Tick, Tick…Boom!

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Dune	tick, tick … BOOM!
Should Win	Dune	tick, tick … BOOM!

Josh: I have no idea … the editors guild awarded Eddies to both King Richard (dramatic) and tick, tick … BOOM! (“comedy” – talk about category fraud), but that’s not a super-reliable predictor. Recent Oscar winners tend to be action or musical-oriented like Sound of Metal and Bohemian Rhapsody (gross); so I’m putting my chips on the musical winning. It does do quite a lot of editing and this might be where Lin-Manuel Miranda’s vibrant adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical musical grabs a statue.

Chase: I think this one is more of a toss up considering how badly the Academy has dropped the ball before with the disastrous pick of Bohemian Rhapsody which makes me deeply distrustful of any of what they say for this category. However, I think I disagree that just because there is a lot of noticeable editing doesn’t mean it is the best edited. I think the way Dune is constructed from its fast-paced action scenes to its more quiet conversational ones stood out to me more than anything. This is the one I am perhaps the least confident in because of just how chaotic this award choice can be but I still think Dune has the best shot. 

Original Score

Nominees: 

• Nicholas Britell, Don’t Look Up
• Hans Zimmer, Dune
• Germaine Franco, Encanto
• Alberto Iglesias, Parallel Mothers
• Jonny Greenwood, The Power of the Dog

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Han Zimmer	Hans Zimmer
Should Win	Jonny Greenwood	Jonny Greenwood

Josh: I can see how Jonny Greenwood’s score might rub Academy eardrums the wrong way, but it’s so essential to the tension of the Power of the Dog and the Radiohead guitarist is long overdue for an Oscar. On top of that, he did two other totally different and equally tremendous film scores this year (capturing the sweet uncertainty of youth and possibility in Licorice Pizza and the horror jazz of royalty in Spencer). But it’ll probably be Hans Zimmer’s inventive vocal manipulations and unconventional instruments that contributed so much to the otherworldly appeal of Dune that’ll win and I can’t be too mad about that. 

Chase: I’m back to agreeing 100 percent with you Josh, The Power of the Dog would absolutely not be the same without the power of Greenwood’s score. He has been just putting out great work on every single film he is involved in and, if we are going to be honest, I think Zimmer’s score for Dune is frequently misjudged. At times it is great at conveying the scope of its science fiction world and, at other moments, I think it proves to be a bit distractingly out of place when it needn’t have been. Still, it has been cleaning up so I think it is also a pretty sure bet. 

Josh: Among the shuffling of certain “below the line” categories to being pre-recorded during the red carpet, this one is perhaps the most bizarre. It’s almost certain to be won by an actual rock star (Greenwood, yes, but Zimmer has also played Coachella), put these people in prime time!

Documentary 

Nominees: 

• Ascension
• Attica
• Flee
• Summer of Soul
• Writing With Fire

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Summer of Soul	Summer of Soul
Should Win	Summer of Soul	Flee

Josh: Flee is magnificent, stretching the bounds of personal narrative, getaway story, self-discovery, all in a way that uses its animated medium to maximum effect. But this is a category that was won by a movie about a creepy guy who fell in love with an octopus. Questlove’s Summer of Soul is probably going to win. I just wish that they’d been a little more straightforward about the “… when the revolution could not be televised” part of the title. 

Chase: *shudders* oh, I forgot about the octopus. Even as I also was enthralled by Flee I think Summer of Soul both should and will win. At the very least, it won’t be as bad as last year. 

Josh: Yeah, these are all really strong nominees. I’m still a bit prickly about the Documentary guild keeping the Rescue out of the field just because Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin won so recently for Free Solo. The omission of their pulse-pounding film about the divers who navigated flooded caves to save stranded Thai soccer players was an astounding piece of work and the omission here is strange.

International Film 

Nominees: 

• Drive My Car (Japan)
• Flee (Denmark)
• The Hand of God (Italy)
• Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan)
• The Worst Person in the World (Norway)

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Drive My Car	Drive My Car
Should Win	Drive My Car	Drive My Car

Josh: I love every movie in this category, even the sweet simple one about the yak who does, in fact, spend some time in a remote Bhutan classroom.  I wish that all of them could win!

Chase: I will confess that I think this has a slim chance of potentially going to The Worst Person in the World as they have been campaigning hard for some hardware. However, I will stick by Drive My Car as it both deserves the win and will get it. 

Animated Feature 

Nominees: 

• Encanto 
• Flee
• Luca
• The Mitchells vs. the Machines 
• Raya and the Last Dragon

	Chase	Josh
Will Win	Encanto	Encanto
Should Win	Flee	Luca

Josh: I’m an oddball who found Encanto weirdly creepy and underwritten. But it has that “Bruno” song that everyone loves; so my beloved Luca with its sensitive take on adolescence in a charming Cinque Terre village is probably destined to lose. Was the Shape of Water really the end of the road for the “Justice for Fish People!” movement? 

Chase: I am also an oddball, though for different reasons we won’t get to here, though I liked a lot of what Encanto did even as the music was hit or miss for me. However, I think that what Flee did with animation as a storytelling device was quite interesting and would be a bold choice for the pick. However, we all know that this is most certainly a lock for Encanto as it always ends up seeming to be for Disney films.

Rapid-fire final thoughts on the rest of the categories. 

Josh: I was so close to being an Oscar nominee completionist, but this is where things fell apart for me. Among the features, I’ve seen everything but Free Guy and Coming 2 America and (apologies to thirteen time nominee-but-not-winner Diane Warren) I refuse to watch a movie just because it has a nominated song. So let’s just do quick sand-dance hot takes on our guesses for the rest of these categories. 

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

• Jenny Beavan, Cruella
• Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran, Cyrano
• Jacqueline West and Robert Morgan, Dune
• Luis Sequeira, Nightmare Alley
• Paul Tazewell, West Side Story

Josh: I don’t know anything about costumes other than that I would like to own everything from the Atreides Fall/Winter collection; so I’d vote for Dune. 

Chase: I too wish it would go to Dune but I think the flashy elements of Cruella, a largely mediocre film, are unfortunately going to get it. 

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

• Zsuzsanna Sipos and Patrice Vermette, Dune 
• Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau, Nightmare Alley   
• Grant Major and Amber Richards, The Power of the Dog
• Stefan Dechant and Nancy Haigh, The Tragedy of Macbeth 
• Adam Stockhausen and Rena DeAngelo, West Side Story 

Josh: Who doesn’t want their own Pain Box, but Nightmare Alley is all Production Design; so maybe Guillermo del Toro’s stylish remake wins this award? Cate Blanchett’s office alone deserves a prize. (Justice for Wes Anderson’s the French Dispatch, particularly in this category.)

Chase: On Production Design, I would be happy with either Nightmare Alley or Dune though I think the latter is going to take this one as well. Agree about how there was not enough love for The French Dispatch overall.

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

• Coming 2 America
• Cruella
• Dune
• The Eyes of Tammy Faye
• House of Gucci

 Josh: I’d give it to the weird wild world of Gucci, but you make Jessica Chastain look like Tammy Faye and you’re getting the goddamned Oscar.

Chase: For Makeup and Hairstyling, part of me doesn’t want to see The Eyes of Tammy Faye get it because I think it is distracting and an excuse to not do casting of lesser name character actors though it is hard to imagine anything getting it. 

BEST SOUND

• Belfast
• Dune
• No Time to Die
• The Power of the Dog
• West Side Story

Josh: Big Dune Worm Go Boom.

Chase: Full agree on Dune for Sound, that is one it is both fully deserving of and almost certain to get.  

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

• Dune
• Free Guy
• No Time to Die
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
• Spider-Man: No Way Home

Josh: Throw Spidey a bone, will you? Even though it’s in the pre-show, the Savior of Moviegoing must be appeased. (Even though it shouldn’t have ever been a part of the Best Picture conversation or the #OscarFanFavorite or whatever, I still loved every bit of this movie and insist that they should’ve campaigned Andrew Garfield for a supporting actor nod for his work here). 

Chase: Sorry to be snarky about this, but we absolutely do not need to throw Spider-Man a bone for visual effects. It has already grossed more money than all the other films combined and doesn’t deserve recognition just to appease people. It is a good movie for what it is, but Dune is the more deserving choice that is absolutely going to get it here. 

Josh: True [insert Don Draper, “That’s What the Money’s For GIF].

Short Films

ANIMATED	LIVE-ACTION	DOCUMENTARY
Affairs of the Art Bestia Boxballet Robin Robin The Windshield Wiper	Ala Kachuu The Dress The Long Goodbye On My Mind Please Hold	Audible Lead Me Home The Queen of Basketball Three Songs for Benazir When We Were Bullies

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

• “Be Alive,” King Richard
• “Dos Oruguitas,” Encanto
• “Down to Joy,” Belfast
• “No Time to Die,” No Time to Die
• “Somehow You Do,” Four Good Days

Josh: This take is not going to win me a Best Popular Opinion Oscar, but want to shorten the Oscar ceremony? Drop these shorts and song from the broadcast altogether. 

Chase: Also got to disagree with you on both the Shorts and Songs, the Oscars should embrace their full excesses rather than continually trim it back. They all deserve their moment on the stage. Also, No Time to Die is going to win for the song and it is a complete toss up on all of the shorts as always. 

Josh: You’re probably right but this is Lin-Manuel’s chance to go EGOT; so who knows?

BEST HANDWRINGING ABOUT DECLINING RATINGS

Chase: Final prediction, I anticipate that ratings are not going to be great this year. Yes, this is a safe bet considering their general decline, but I don’t anticipate all the changes that rightfully angered a lot of the people being shunted off the awards are going to pay off in the slightest. 

Josh: I agree, but they’ve got to be better than last year’s ratings. I really don’t understand why the Oscars don’t want to be THE OSCARS. Go all in, you beautiful weirdos! Bring back the lifetime achievements, hire David Ehrlich to make your montages, put on some razzle-dazzle. You’re the movies, goddamnit!