Katie Richcreek

“give me Blanchett at anything plus money.”

Official Academy Awards results confirm that Cate Blanchett to win Best Actress settled lost as recorded.

“Long shot is worst person in the world to win best international feature. My case for that very quickly is just the film has generated a lot of buzz. Joaquin Trier foot the rom-com strip to fit 2022. And the buzz coupled with its original screenplay nomination makes it just viable enough of a contender within this category to make the value at 10 to one worth a bet.”

The Academy official 94th-Oscars winners list confirms the stored outcome.

“Wide open is the correct way to explain it. And we're about to get into some more categories after this one that are also open, thus creating value. I personally like King Richard's value for film editing. It won the ACE over the favored dune and over Power of the Dog. So I'm seeing value at that plus 200 price. Pamela Martin's work on the fighter and battle of the sexes prepped her for the challenge of editing a film about sports, but really this is a film about complex characters and her editing really enhanced Will Smith's performance of Richard Williams. So this is the film I'm targeting for editing.”

The Academy official 94th-Oscars winners list confirms the stored outcome.

“I'll disagree with Colin in terms of why I think Kristen Stewart hasn't gotten as much buzz for this award. I think it has less to do with Twilight and more to do with Spencer being a little bit controversial in terms of how it was received by folks. Maybe not controversial, but polarizing. People either really liked it likely because you already liked the royal family or you were unlikely to even see it in the first place So but I do agree with Colin that I do think four of these five actresses could viably win on Sunday. So I'm going to take my chances with Nicole Kidman, given the fact that Jessica Chastain's odds are now at minus money. Nicole Kidman does check that same historical figure box, obviously having played Lucille Ball and being the Ricardos. At 54, as Colin mentioned, She does fall into that unlikely category for age. But Kristen Stewart, my argument against her is that she's young enough and will have chances later down the road in bigger films that more of the Academy will have seen and love. And Nicole Kidman hasn't won this award since 2002 when she portrayed Virginia Woolf in The Hours. So, you know, given how wide open it is, I like the value on Kidman at Plus Money. I said I'm sitting this one out I'm team Chastain uh even at the at the the current numbers but I”

The Academy official 94th-Oscars winners list confirms the stored outcome.

“So my pick for adapted screenplay is on Power of the Dog, although it's really against CODA, given the fact that we can still get Power of the Dog at plus 130.”

The Academy official 94th-Oscars winners list confirms the stored outcome.

“So only twice over the past 11 years since the Oscars flipped to preferential voting for Best Picture, which means they're ranking their picks, not just selecting one. Only twice over that 11-year span has the winner of Best Picture not also taken home the screenwriting award that they're nominated for. so we'll get into the nomadland discussion for best picture later but all you need to know right now is that it's a heavy favorite in that category i personally am not willing to pay up for that because i think that category is going to be more open than people and the odds reflect um but that said i'm way more willing to pay minus 400 for nomadland to win here um than for best picture which is really the only reason I am even touching this category.”

The Academy's 2021 winners page lists The Father, not Nomadland, as Best Adapted Screenplay winner.

“The knock on Viola Davis is her age, which I know Colin will get into right now, because historically this award has not favored women in their 50s.”

The Academy's 2021 winners page lists Frances McDormand, not Viola Davis, as Best Actress winner.

“Especially in the best actress category, and that also applies to Viola Davis. So Oscar Magics actually is a very interesting tidbit for when two of the five nominees have played nonfiction instead of fictional characters. You would expect the two nominees to play nonfiction. Nonfiction nominees to win 40% of the time in a five-person field, obviously. But historically, closer to 50% of winners who have portrayed real-life characters end up winning this when it's a two to three in the five-person field. The knock on Viola Davis is her age, which I know Colin will get into right now, because historically this award has not favored women in their 50s. That said, we just saw Renee Zellweger buck this trend last year, upset Cynthia Erivo. Renee, I believe, was 51 at the time that she accepted the award. So I'm willing to bet that if any actress is able to follow in that same path, Viola Davis, who is beloved by many, including the Academy, could follow that same path. So I'm actually splitting my bet on this between Viola Davis and Andra Day.”

The Academy's 2021 winners page lists Frances McDormand, not Andra Day, as Best Actress winner.

“I loved Promising Young Woman. That definitely had the wow factor column that you mentioned. It is one of those movies where you don't want to spoil it for other people. So I won't go into details, but I really liked it. this for a lot of the reasons you've already outlined. I'm actually splitting my bet again between Promising Young Woman and Trial of the Chicago 7. So right now I'm just going to focus on making the case for the latter. So while Best Director is a pretty good predictor of Best Picture, aka Nomadland, should be the favorite for Best Picture considering historical trends and the betting odds favored Zhao winning Best Director, which we've covered deeply so far. But when history has bucked that trend, there's precedent for the winner of Best Ensemble at the SAG Awards pulling off the Best Picture upset. So since the SAGs introduced the award for Best Ensemble, which was only a year after they started, this was in 1995, there have been nine instances that the Best Director winners at the Oscars haven't also won Best Picture. And in five of those nine instances, the upsets were pulled off by films that also had won best ensemble at the SAGs. Spotlight was the most recent example of this, which was I think about five years ago, this past year or this year, Trial of the Chicago 7 was this year's winner for best ensemble, which is why Aaron Sorkin's film is again one of the two dogs I'm taking as long shots in this category because the common theme for this category is that we are all aboard the fade”

The Academy's 2021 winners page lists Nomadland, not Promising Young Woman, as Best Picture winner.

“And the nominees are Nomadland minus six seventy. The Trial of the Chicago 7 at 6-1, Minnery 14-1, Promising Young Woman 17-1, Judas and the Black Messiah 33-1, Mank 33-1, Sound of Metal 50-1, and The Father 100-1. We're probably going to have a lot of back and forth on this one. This is the category that most people are interested in. We saved it for last. How, and I'll start with you. What's the formula? The formula for picking best picture is to have more nominations than the average of your peers And the bar this year is 6 nominations in 2021 Mank is leading the pack at 10 There are plenty of similarities between Mank and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood from last year Once Upon a Time in Hollywood last year had more nominations than anybody And still I think it was fourth on the board in odds for Best Picture Didn't pull a lot of things. Brad Pitt got a Best Supporting. I've got to add this to my Tinder profile. And I feel like Mank is kind of falling down that same path. It's a movie about the industry. It's got the total number of nominations. but once upon a time didn't even hold a torch to a movie a powerhouse like Parasite. You know, Meg actually reminds me of the other Netflix movie, The Irishman. Like, doesn't it feel kind of similar where it's like, this is that movie, like this is that Netflix movie, and it looks great until a bunch of other movies come out, and then it's like, oh, I don't know. Yeah, well, I mean, The Irishman was 23 hours long, too. So, I mean, you could fit in all seasons of True Detective in that time. So, you know, Nomadland did win Best Flick at the Director's Guild, the Producers Guild. Best Flick? It's a catch-all. So, I mean, Nomadland did win Best Picture, Best Flick, but that doesn't make it an auto winner here. The biggest element after nomination size is having candidates in the big boy categories. And this is where I was just choking on 1917 last year. 1917 didn't have Best Actor, didn't have Best Actress, Best Supporting. They didn't have the categories that some of these others do. You have to have director. You have to have editing. You have to have screenplay. So with that being said, Promising Young Woman has all three of those categories with a best actress nod to boot. This is my long shot to take down Nomadland. Give me Promising Young Woman. Buy it now because the more people learn about how crazy this film is, I mean, Parasite was nuts. last 15 minutes of Parasite gangbusters bat shit crazy promising young woman bat shit crazy at the end so I I feel like we've hit all the big boys director editing screenplay best actress nod this is my pick take it now before this team comes in I really like promising young women too and I first need to apologize to Emerald Fennell I left her out when we were discussing best director in the context of before this year there had only been five women who were nominated for this award This year there are two, Chloe Zhao and Emerald Fennell. I loved Promising Young Woman. That definitely had the wow factor column that you mentioned. It is one of those movies where you don't want to spoil it for other people. So I won't go into details, but I really liked it. this for a lot of the reasons you've already outlined. I'm actually splitting my bet again between Promising Young Woman and Trial of the Chicago 7. So right now I'm just going to focus on making the case for the latter. So while Best Director is a pretty good predictor of Best Picture, aka Nomadland, should be the favorite for Best Picture considering historical trends and the betting odds favored Zhao winning Best Director, which we've covered deeply so far. But when history has bucked that trend, there's precedent for the winner of Best Ensemble at the SAG Awards pulling off the Best Picture upset. So since the SAGs introduced the award for Best Ensemble, which was only a year after they started, this was in 1995, there have been nine instances that the Best Director winners at the Oscars haven't also won Best Picture. And in five of those nine instances, the upsets were pulled off by films that also had won best ensemble at the SAGs. Spotlight was the most recent example of this, which was I think about five years ago, this past year or this year, Trial of the Chicago 7 was this year's winner for best ensemble, which is why Aaron Sorkin's film is again one of the two dogs I'm taking as long shots in this category because the common theme for this category is that we are all aboard the fade Nomadland train. Yeah, Nomadland at minus 670. That's an implied probability of 87%.”

The Academy's 2021 winners page lists Nomadland, not The Trial of the Chicago 7, as Best Picture winner.