Best in Show: Meet the Hosts
MIA Hi and welcome to our teaser episode introducing Best in Show: a limited podcast series all about awards season, brought to you by The Letterboxd Show. Throughout this series, we’ll be discussing the noms and gongs, the snubs and surprises from throughout cinema history and we’ll be letting the Letterboxd data tell us why the voters were right or... somewhat misguided. We’ll meet contenders from this year’s movies and interrogate insiders about the role of awards season in the film ecosystem. But mostly, we’ll do what we always do—celebrate cinema. I’m Mia Vicino, the West Coast Editor here at Letterboxd, and ing me each week during award season will be our Editorial Producer and Hollywood veteran, Brian Formo.
BRIAN Hello, hello, hello.
MIA And our Editor-in-Chief, Gemma Gracewood.
GEMMA Hi there.
MIA We’ll also be having some very special guests on the show throughout the season—from big time Academy Award winners to Hollywood insiders, all helping us to demystify this whole awards season business. But for this teaser episode, we will answer just one question: why are we doing this, Gemma? Why are you letting Brian and me loose on Hollywood’s red carpets? [Gemma laughs]
GEMMA Excellent question, and I have been thinking a lot about it since you warned me you were going to ask, and the best answer I can give is that, as Rowlf and Kermit once sang: “You can’t live with ’em, you can’t live without ’em. There’s somethin’ irresistible-ish about ’em.” And okay, okay, they were singing about Lady Muppets, but I guess that’s how I feel about awards for movies. Giving out trophies for art is crazy—it’s really, really stupid to pit one movie against another but don’t we also love it when art wins? We love it. We love it. Right?
BRIAN Yeah...
MIA We love it.
GEMMA Yeah, we love when art wins. And I know I’m not the only one who thinks calling one thing ‘the best’ is dumb. But it’s also really great when we get to celebrate a movie for being excellent. The whole thing is gloriously confusing and that’s what I’m hoping to uncover during Best in Show. Let’s hear from TÁR’s writer and director Todd Field, who had something to say about this at the Gotham awards recently, where he won Best Script.
[clip of Todd Field’s acceptance speech plays]
TODD FIELD We must celebrate and each other’s work and forever eliminate this ridiculous word ’best’ from the conversation. That word should be left to the titles of wonderful films involving dogs, directed by Christopher Guest. This is fragile. We have this moment together. It’s fleeting, and fantastic. Thank you very much.
MIA Gemma and Brian, I do believe we just got the stamp of approval from Todd Field himself for our show’s name—a certain Christopher Guest, and Parker Posey, movie. [Gemma laughs]
BRIAN Mia, I don’t know if you’ve recovered yet, but we also have Brad Pitt telling us on the Babylon red carpet about his love for a certain Best in Show actress...
[clip of Brad Pitt on the red carpet plays]
BRAD PITT I mean, what’s on my mind right now is White Lotus, because I just saw the finale last night. Jennifer Coolidge, please. She’s just—it’s the greatest thing I’ve seen all year. So, please don’t miss it.
MIA Thank you so much.
BRAD PITT I go back and rewind and watch again and just laugh my ass off.
MIA Ahhh!
GEMMA Whaaat? [Gemma laughs] Oh my gosh, that’s amazing.
MIA This is the first thing we did when you let us loose on Hollywood’s red carpets. We talked to my ex-husband, Brad Pitt. [Gemma laughs]
GEMMA How did you cope? And was he suitably respectful towards you?
MIA Well, Gemma, it was my 27th birthday, and what’s funny is that my 21st birthday was spent seeing La La Land with my friends in the theater and now my 27th birthday is spent talking to Damien Chazelle himself on the red carpet. So, it’s come full circle.
GEMMA You’re moving up in the world. And you know what, Brad Pitt is right—Jennifer Coolidge for all of the awards—ever. Speaking of red carpets, though, Mia, you’ve been chosen to lead us down that path because you, it’s reported, are an awards fanatic. Let’s check our bonafides—have you ever won an award?
MIA Hoo, hoo, hoo. Well, Gemma, I am trying to stay humble, but I did win a trophy for Most Accurate Oscar Ballot Predictions at Demi Adejuyigbe’s Oscar party earlier this year. I did get sixteen out of 22 correct.
GEMMA Wow, okay. And basically you put that on your resume and you got the job.
MIA Yes, that’s all it took.
GEMMA That’s how it works. That’s how it works around here at Letterboxd. It’s all good.
MIA It’s all good, yeah. So these Oscar parties and celebrations are kind of the only times I ever truly understand why sports fans are rooting so hard for their teams, like how LA feels about the Dodgers is how I feel about Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár, like, “Go Tár, yes girl! Delete those emails!” You know? [Gemma laughs]
BRIAN Actually, that is a great analogy because Dodgers fans hate the Astros more than anything else, and that is also one way that we approach awards—who we’re rooting against, not just who we’re rooting for.
GEMMA Oooh... [Gemma laughs]
MIA Brian with the sport analogies that go over my head. [Mia laughs]
GEMMA I’m so glad we have you here, Brian, because sports and movies—has a sports film ever won Best Picture?
BRIAN Rocky and Million Dollar Baby.
MIA I was right! I second guessed myself.
GEMMA Oh, don’t do that, Mia.
MIA No, I’m gonna build more confidence to host this show.
GEMMA Sixteen out of 22—can’t be wrong.
MIA Sixteen out of 22! You’re right. Gemma, Gemma...
GEMMA Yes.
MIA Have you ever won an award?
GEMMA Apart from a couple of swimming medals—medals and ribbons, no trophy—the only trophy I’ve ever won was from Women in Film and Television New Zealand, who named me their Woman to Watch in around about the year, I don’t know, 1962. And I feel like they’re still kind of watching me. Like it’s weird—it’s wonderful to be a woman to watch, but it applies a lot of pressure on one. And I think about that a lot when I think about awards season and about about what we’re doing here at Best in Show because there’s a lot of conjecture in awards season. There’s a lot of, ‘oooh, up-and-coming, oooh, here they go.’ And this is not that—we’re here to talk about what is rather than what might be, if that makes sense. And what ‘is’ is—if I can get cheesy for a minute—an incredible year of films, from massive blockbusters in the air and in the Pandora ocean, teaching us the way of the water, all the way through to tender, low-budget debuts from Charlotte Wells, all filled with craftspeople who worked through an entire pandemic no less, ratting and PCR-ing every three hours to get these movies made for us. And that is why we need our own insider on the job—Brian Formo, you’ve been on this racket for a while. It’s time to list your bonafides.
BRIAN Well, I won—not to brag—it is a little small potatoes, because it is Idaho and potatoes is a pun. [Gemma laughs]
GEMMA Lol!
BRIAN I’m already dropping puns. But I won the Review Writing Awards from the Idaho State Journalism Coalition three years in a row.
GEMMA Yes! Three years in a row! Mia, retire. I’m retiring.
BRIAN Well, it made me feel like I should move to LA where it’s a lot harder to carve your way than in Idaho. But actually, I think what is most applicable—I’m gonna go back to sports and Gemma dropped in swimming, so it’s fine. When I was struggling at—well, I had a good jump-shot, but I was struggling at basketball—basically, I was short, that’s what I’m saying. I was very short. [Gemma laughs] And I won the Hustle Award, which means basically you have a lot of heart but not the most talent.
MIA Aw...
GEMMA I love that award! I love—I want that award.
BRIAN Because ‘hustle’ actually applies more than journalism to this racket, especially if you followed something like the Golden Globes controversies—it’s no surprise that journalism isn’t really at the forefront of everything. But ‘hustle’ is, because in LA for like five months, it’s nothing but event after even—it’s everything everywhere all at once. From the Craft Guilds, to the American Association of Retired Persons, to our very own Letterboxd Year in Review, there are so many freakin ’awards. And that will be reflected here, because to be clear, this is not an exclusive Academy Awards t. We are covering a season of awards that starts in earnest in November and runs through March. The Oscars are the finish line—that’s another sports thing. Man. [Brian & Gemma laugh] But we did say this is movie sports, so buckle up! I can say this as the resident insider and I’m so glad to have Mia on this with me—it’s fun! The awards season is fun. There’s a lot to talk about, and awards are markers of life for those who win it or are nominated. And as much as any other big events, for those on stage getting their trophies and for us at homes in the suburbs or on the farm—as far from Hollywood as you can get.
GEMMA So yeah, Best in Show is also about demystifying the whole awards season shebang. You know, as a little old New Zealander living sort of as far from Hollywood as you can get and growing up watching that particular ceremony, the Oscars on TV, it’s like, ‘well how did those people get there?’ And in a way, Best in Show—even though we’ve named this show not after sports, we’ve named it after the Christopher Guest movie, which is all about dogs and how they dress themselves up and do their little jumps. So it’s not just about the movie itself, it’s about how you play the season. Right? It’s about how you walk onto that carpet, it’s who you choose to be interviewed by during the whole shebang. There are certain ceremonies that matter more than others that the general public would have no idea about. Why does the whole thing last months and months and months? Why do the films we love the most sometimes miss out? And what do they need to do to get noticed? And we’re also going to talk about, like, we’ve got the data, right? So how the Letterboxd community notices these films—sometimes years later, but certainly during the season, the films that are at the top of our chats compared to at the top of the awards season chart. So there’s a whole lot of demystifying to do there.
MIA Yes, exactly. And I feel like it’s very, very easy to pretend like the Oscars and awards in general don’t matter at all, because I mean, most of my favorite films have never been nominated or even considered for these things, like Mikey and Nicki barely even came out, you know? And then when they do get nominated, oftentimes, my favorites lose. So I just have to keep reminding myself, ‘I don’t need the validation of the academy or any of these awards bodies to enjoy a work of art.’ And I think that that—
GEMMA Justice for Paddington. Justice for Paddington.
MIA Exactly. He doesn’t need those statues, he has a healthy way of looking at things.
GEMMA He’s a statue in and of himself.
MIA Yes, exactly.
GEMMA He’s fine...
MIA Yes, I think that this is a healthier way in general of looking at it than simply, ’awards don’t matter’ because they do, they unequivocally do. They majorly affect what type of studio movies get made next, who’s handed these opportunities and also the recipients lives of course. So this whole show is meant to push against this structure that is both archaic and modern, and we’re going to carve out our own space and reclaim awards season as a means of championing and uplifting the art and artists we love, rather than tearing down that which we don’t—Crash’s Best Picture win excluded. [Gemma laughs] Sorry to Crash, Brokeback Mountain should have won—it’s just a fact at this point.
GEMMA It’s true. And speaking of cowboys, I just want to say for the listeners, you can’t see that I’m wearing my Girls on Tops tees Jane Campion t-shirt.
MIA Ooh!
GEMMA And Mia, as you said, it really matters. I think that without Ada and The Piano, and that whole push for an Oscar for that film, we wouldn’t have had Bronco Henry and Jane Campion’s win at the last Academy Awards.
BRIAN And we’re not going to have Bronco Henry on this show...
GEMMA Aw!
BRIAN But we will be interviewing filmmakers on Best in Show in addition to discussing the haps and gos on the trail—lots of haps and gos though. We’ve already—we’re gonna—so this is meant to hook you in, so here’s the hook: we’ve already bagged a few majors like Roger Deakins, ever heard of him? One of the greatest cinematographers of all time, you’ve definitely seen probably at least 50 of his movies that he shot. And Catherine Martin, one of the greatest Costume and Production Designers of all time. Together, they’ve won six Oscars, and we’ve already talked to them and that’s the type of thing you can expect from Best in Show. But before we get into the flow of the show, can I ask if there was a certain film that got each of you interested in this crazy awards system?
MIA Oh, I have a funny little answer. So I was a bit late to awards world, I must it, you know, I occasionally watched the Oscars with my mom. But it wasn’t until Karen Oh performed the Moon Song from the movie Her on the Oscars stage in 2013, that I was completely hooked. I don’t know why that was it. That did it. That song is so beautiful and so is she. And since then, I’m in baby.
[clip of Karen Oh performing at the Academy Awards plays]
GEMMA Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. I think I’ve always watched the Oscars growing up because my dream as a child was to be a Hollywood actress, you know, as you do. But I got really interested in, I guess, award season and what awards can do for a film and indeed for an artist, when a very young Anna Paquin won Best ing Actress for The Piano, the aforementioned The Piano, and proceeded to get on stage and take up minutes of valuable primetime advertising airtime with her little gasps for air as she thought about who she was going to thank and then in her broad Kiwi accent, went: “I’d like to thank Jane.” And just hearing that little Kiwi rising ...
[clip of Anna Paquin’s Academy Awards acceptance speech plays]
ANNA PAQUIN I’d like to thank the Academy for the honor of letting me be here today. I’d thank Jane, Jen and Holly, for making this all possible. I’d like to thank Eddie Campbell, Pat Cook, and, and Beanie for taking such good care of me during the making of the film.
GEMMA Made my heart sing and I’ve been a fan ever since. What about you, Brian?
BRIAN Well, you can expect a lot of gasps for air from me, so that’ll be involved in this as well. [Brian laughs] But L.A. Confidential was my first golden obsession, but the proper answer is probably just that the film year of 1997 was. I’m gonna age myself throughout this podcast, so stay tuned. But, okay, so let’s talk about 1997. High schools used to do this thing where you fundraise via magazine subscriptions, and young people are like, ‘what are magazines?’ But they used to be the best. [Gemma laughs] I bought multiple movie magazines in 1997 for myself, subscriptions for them. And the first issue I ever received was the Entertainment Weekly Fall Movie Preview with Jackie Brown on the cover. Boogie Nights had a huge spread in there, L.A. Confidential did too. I knew nothing of Film Noir, so once I loved that movie and read more about it, it took me to Chinatown, Double Indemnity, all these great movies. I knew nothing of Robert Altman, so Boogie Nights introduced me to Short Cuts. So 1997 became my film literacy year. And then 1998 is when I start writing professional movie reviews. So yeah, 1997—this is the last thing I’ll say about this—was also important for me, because to what Mia had mentioned about not wanting to root too hard, that was the year of Titanic, it was so obvious it was gonna win everything. So I was trained early on to just vote for—or not vote—to just root for maybe one or two categories and let the rest fall where it happens, because if you get invested in everything, you’re just going to drive yourself nuts.
GEMMA 1997—what a year. Brian, Mia has invented a game for us that we’re gonna be playing across the Best in Show season.
MIA It’s true, I’m a little Jigsaw. [Gemma laughs]
GEMMA I’m a little scared.
BRIAN I’m a little ready! [Gemma laughs]
GEMMA Well, it seems like you are because from what I understand of the rules, I feel like 1997 could be one of your years. Mia, can you talk to us a little bit about your game?
MIA Oh, I would love to Gemma. Thank you. So I did make up a little game called The Heart Rate. So what we’re going to be doing is checking the heart rate of a specific year in category to see how they hold up according to Letterboxd and ourselves. So I’m not too good at math, but this is some of the only math I can do—the heart rate is the ratio of likes to logs.
GEMMA Yeah, so you know that little heart on Letterboxd, this is what I understand this game to be. Sometimes when you log a film, you don’t give it a rating, some people don’t rate, they just give it a little heart. And that’s their way of going, ‘I liked it’ or ‘I loved it.’ And so often on Letterboxd, you’re looking at the overall rating for a film and if you’re comparing the five Academy Awards finalists from a particular year, for example, you can sort them by Highest Rated fine. But when you sort them by Highest Rated plus the most number of hearts, that people who have watched it have given it, it’s getting really confusing. And I’m no math professor, but I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. And we get to choose a different year and category each throughout the season. Is that correct?
MIA You nailed it, Gemma. Exactly. [Gemma laughs] You know the rules of the game better than I do even! [Mia laughs]
GEMMA I am going to be Jigsaw in the sequel.
BRIAN There’s also homework in it, that we all have to watch a movie we hadn’t seen from that year. So it has a little bit—if you’re familiar with Weekend Watchlist, there’s a little bit of that in there too.
GEMMA Yeah. So that is the whole point of The Heart Rate, is that, for those who are going, ‘ugh, I hate awards season!’ A, what’s wrong with you? But B, never fear! Because we’re going to be talking about movies that may not end up at the Oscars, but that you love this year anyway. And we’re also going to be looking at beautiful, classic movies from the past. So it is really a show for everyone. Additionally, Mia, I do believe that you’re going to be writing a weekly column that covers some of the things we talk about in Best in Show, and also a lot of the kind of Critics Awards and Guild Awards that happen throughout the week. I’m excited about that. I love your writing.
MIA Thank you, Gemma. Yes, I am writing a column—I’m in my Carrie Bradshaw era. [Mia & Gemma laugh] It’s true, it’s true. Movies and the City.
GEMMA And because it’s Best in Show, we are also going to be—just like the cute little dogs in the Parker Posey movie—we will be awarding a Best in Show Player of the Week, every episode, someone on a red carpet or at an awards ceremony who has comported themselves—and we’re not talking about what they were wearing—we’re talking about what they did or what they do to make this wacky industry built on white supremacy and patriarchy, just a little bit better every day.
MIA Yes, exactly, Gemma. So if you are sufficiently teased by this teaser, you can tune in every week during awards season starting January 3. So one last little rundown of the show: we will be covering the latest nominations and ceremonies, spill about the red carpets we managed to hit—and the parties we finagle our way into—plus we’ll talk to current nominees and former winners, like, and I cannot say his name enough, Roger Deakins!
GEMMA The GOAT.
BRIAN We will have our own familiar Letterboxd crafts people guiding us through this as well, with Jack’s Facts and though Slim will have a deserved time off from being a talking head, he’s going to be banging his head trying to get each episode under an hour. But before I get played off by the music, it is time for a word from our sponsor.
MIA This episode was brought to you by Emily presented by Bleecker Street. A daring richly imagined portrait of the brilliant mind behind the novel Wuthering Heights, s O’Connor’s directorial debut stars Emma Mackey as Emily Bronte, a reclusive and rebellious preacher’s daughter with a ion for storytelling.
GEMMA Bethany writes on Letterboxd: “Emma Mackey is absolutely phenomenal. Her chemistry with Oliver Jackson-Cohen was off the charts and that girl can act! Set against the rugged ever changing beauty of the Yorkshire Moors, the film uses the few known facts about Emily to craft a ionately told fable about the complex and iconoclastic writer.”
MIA And if you still haven’t added Emily to your watchlist, Letterboxd member s writes: “The drinking smoking opium eating clergy effing Emily Bronte we deserve.” Emily is in theaters only this February.
MIA Thanks so much for listening to Best in Show, a limited award season series brought to you by The Letterboxd Show. Long story short, please come back from January 3 every week until just after the Oscars for Best in Show: our limited award season series brought to you by The Letterboxd Show. You can follow HQ page on Letterboxd using the links in our episode notes.
GEMMA Thanks to our crew. To Letterboxd member Slim for editing and Brian for producing. And you, for listening.
BRIAN No one’s playing me off yet—I still got stuff to say. Don’t forget, we also have our other podcasts Weekend Watchlist in the same feed that you found this episode in. Your guide to what’s screening and streaming each week. Plus, I highly encourage you to go back and explore episodes of The Letterboxd Show Four Favorites. We had a great season in the books. And in the spirit of things, I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating—I don’t care if it’s a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece of music, anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us.
MIA We think this world would be unlivable without art and we thank you. Best in Show is a Tapedeck production.
GEMMA Snaps! We did it!
MIA Yesss!
GEMMA Yeah!
[Tapedeck bumper plays] This is a Tapedeck podcast.