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#17. The Envelope, Please.
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Dudes Chatting — Oscar night reaction: A short bonus episode (11 minutes) recorded immediately after the 2017 ceremony. Moonlight wins Best Picture in one of the biggest upsets and snafus in Oscar history: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announce La La Land as the winner before the error is discovered. JVL speculates the confusion was a staged publicity stunt; Sonny doubts it and blames Faye Dunaway for reading the wrong card. Vic had privately predicted the tide turning toward Moonlight after seeing it win the Spirit Awards. Discussion of Jimmy Kimmel's performance as host (his O.J. Simpson joke), Viola Davis winning Supporting Actress for Fences (and being one step closer to the EGOT), and Denzel Washington visibly shaken by his Best Actor loss to Casey Affleck.
Full transcript
?00:00:00♪♪
Sonny00:00:07We lost, by the way, but, you know.
Guest00:00:09I'm sorry. No. There's a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture.
JVL00:00:15Moonlight won. This is not a joke.
Guest00:00:18This is not a joke. I'm afraid they read the wrong thing. This is not a joke. Moonlight has won Best Picture. Moonlight, Best Picture.
?00:00:30♪♪
Vic00:00:37Hello, and welcome to a special bonus edition of The Weekly Substandard. Victor Matus, Jonathan V. Last, and Sonny Bunch. We are here to talk about immediate reactions to the Oscars and what to make of one of the biggest snafus in the history, probably the biggest snafu in the history of the Academy Awards, Jonathan, you want to go ahead and just give us your hot take.
JVL00:01:01I'm so glad I told people last week not to watch the Oscars. It's just one more great piece of advice I've given you. It might have been fixed.
Sonny00:01:12This is your big thing. Your theory is that they did this to gin up controversy to get people to tune in next year.
JVL00:01:19Which would be unheard of in Hollywood. Nobody would ever do something like that. Very underhanded. Remember, you had a conspiracy theory over this. You had a conspiracy theory over the Star War, the original Force Awakens trailer with the Black Stormtrooper, that it was prefab controversy in a box.
Sonny00:01:35Well, that wasn't exactly my theory.
JVL00:01:37I think that was your theory. No, somebody wrote this. This strikes me as almost the same thing. Controversy in a box designed to get everybody talking about it in ways that they might not have been talking about it, certainly would not have been talking about it, except for this. Although the other thing I thought, now in retrospect, why didn't we all assume that Moonlight was going to win Best Picture all along?
Vic00:01:58Because it checks every box, except for alcoholism and retardation. I haven't seen it, so I can't comment. However, I will say this. I said to Sonny on Saturday night, I was looking at my phone and all the variety breaking news, and it was from the Spirit Awards. And I noticed that Moonlight had won for Spirit. And I said to Sonny, "I bet it's going to be Moonlight. The tide is turning."
Sonny00:02:22I'm glad that our expert, Vic Mattis, had nailed it. No. I was as shocked as everyone else, literally everyone else. Nobody was predicting this. Nobody who knew anything about the awards was predicting this. And it was a classic 95% from Nate Silver.
JVL00:02:41One more 2016 going to get you.
Sonny00:02:45I mean, honestly, this has just really been a six-month stretch here. Trump, Atlanta Falcons, and now the Oscars.
JVL00:02:55These things come in threes. You think it's over now?
Sonny00:02:58No, I would say, so obviously the big thing at the end with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Was it a work? I don't think it was a work. I think it was real. And I think that this is a good reminder that you should never let ancient, elderly people do live things.
JVL00:03:14Why? Not their fault, right?
Sonny00:03:16It was definitely Faye Dunaway's fault. So Warren Beatty looks at the envelope and is like, "This is wrong." Because it says, "Emma Stone, La La Land." And Faye Dunaway just looked at it and went, "La La Land!"
Vic00:03:28I think people are unduly blaming Warren more than they should be blaming Faye, if anything, right?
JVL00:03:33I don't. Look, if Warren Beatty was so sure, then he would have, instead of passing the buck to Faye Dunaway to make the mistake, he would have said, "Something's wrong here. Excuse us."
Vic00:03:41If I were Faye Dunaway, I would be, if I were her, I'd be saying, "Well, Warren's hand was covering the word Emma Stone. I just saw La La Land, so there you go."
Sonny00:03:48Anyway, so this is the big controversy. I thought it was a great show, though. I thought Jimmy Kimmel did a really, really good job as host. He works this very delicate line between flattering Hollywood's prejudices and also kind of shiving Hollywood at the same time. And he does it in ways that a guy like Ricky Gervais couldn't quite get away with. For instance, his O.J. Simpson joke, which was not only funny in and of itself, but it was hilarious because the audience is kind of groaning and getting very close to booing. What was the O.J. Simpson joke, Sonny? Literally cackling behind him, like right in the foreground. Mel Gibson thinks about the joke and then goes, "Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho." You're talking about Ricky Gervais' O.J. Simpson joke, or are you talking about Jimmy Kimmel?
Vic00:04:37No, no. Jimmy Kimmel's O.J. Simpson joke.
Sonny00:04:39What was the joke? It was like, "Well, I have to tell an O.J. joke now. I wasn't expecting to be here 20 years later." Sorry. And the joke was something like, "There's an extra piece of bologna on his prison cafeteria sandwich," or something. I don't know. It doesn't matter. Telling jokes from other jokes is bad podcasting, Vic.
Vic00:04:56I do it all the time. People love it. He told another similar joke in a previous awards ceremony after Courtney B. Vance won for Best Supporting Actor for playing Johnny Cochran in The People vs. O.J. Simpson. And Kimmel said something to the effect of, "That's wonderful. I'm sure Johnny Cochran's smiling, looking up at us." So, there you go.
JVL00:05:15Jonathan, how is it that Viola Davis wins for Fences and not Suicide Squad?
Sonny00:05:21Well, the Academy Award-winning box office smash, Suicide Squad, would be one of the best movies of the year. This is a very good question, JBL. And frankly, the fact that Viola Davis' outstanding work as the head of a team of supervillains trying to save the day—
JVL00:05:42She's the best part of that movie by a mile.
Sonny00:05:45Yes.
Vic00:05:47Fact check true? That's probably true. And you realize Viola Davis now has completed the trifecta. Yes, she has the Oscar, the Emmy, and the Tony. She's missing one thing. She doesn't have a Grammy. The EGOT. This is the Tracy Jordan EGOT. God, that would be so great when she gets this.
JVL00:06:03All she has to do—you know what, though?
Vic00:06:05She's got to do like a spoken word.
JVL00:06:07Don't they give it for audiobooks? She's got a great voice. She should just go record an audiobook tomorrow.
Vic00:06:15But you know what, and still she won't have what Mike Myers had, which was the Blockbuster Award. Unfortunate for her.
JVL00:06:22I hope that when she gets it, she actually gets the Tracy Jordan EGOT. The Tracy Jordan EGOT necklace and wears it around.
Vic00:06:28That would be so great. We'll have to go put that in show notes. The link of where he explains how every single award he got and how that happened. You were mentioning before about publicity stunts, Jonathan, and, you know, it wouldn't be above them. It was funny. I was reading the Variety take on the Academy Awards, and they talked about how they also like Jimmy Kimmel, and it was just the right amount of spontaneity, but then they talked about just like the spontaneity and the generous and the selfie. Wasn't that a publicity stunt for Samsung, the phone?
JVL00:07:00I think so, yeah. I believe it was. You know, the line between paid content, sponsored content, and publicity stunts. You know, I notice we're all wearing Status Audio headphones right now, Victorino and Sonny.
Vic00:07:15What a coincidence. Have you guys noticed that? No. The Status Audio. And they fit heads of all sizes. Really great. From a normal Sonny head to my melon-headed and a Jonathan's tiny. Tiny pinhead. Tiny pinhead. So, Status Audio.
JVL00:07:28Is there any other outrages or things we were excited about from last night?
Vic00:07:33Denzel Washington, I thought, should have.
Sonny00:07:36Denzel Washington, who looked like he was near tears when he did not win. Like, he looked actually visibly emotionally shaken, which I, like, I frankly am a little bit turned off by. I like Denzel a lot. I love him. I think he should have won, frankly. I had picked him to upset Casey Affleck. But it was a little unbecoming. I was like, God, keep it together, man. You've already won two of these Oscars.
Vic00:08:00If you go back to YouTube, you should see the look on Burt Reynolds' face when Robin Williams wins for Good Will Hunting. Oh, I remember Boogie Nights. It was hard. It was hard.
Sonny00:08:10Did you guys see— That's not as—I'm sorry. Michael Keaton sadly folding up his piece of paper after not winning for Spotlight and, like, putting it back in his jacket pocket is one of the saddest things I've ever seen. Don't take it out. Don't take it out until you're— Yeah. It's just heartbreaking, really.
JVL00:08:25My favorite of these reaction shots is the year Amy Mann was nominated for Best Song for Magnolia. And in an interview, like, the week before, she said, "Look, they're probably just going to give it to whatever piece of crap song Phil Collins has out." And, of course, Phil Collins wins the Oscar. And the four-panel reaction shot, Amy Mann, just the biggest stone face you've ever seen. Do you remember what movie it was for Phil Collins?
Vic00:08:51It was probably Tarzan.
JVL00:08:52Yes, it was. It wasn't Tarzan. I guess it was. It was Tarzan. Did you guys see the Hollywood Reporter story over the weekend about shrinks? And there's a great piece about the Hollywood shrinks and what it's like dealing with Oscar season for all their creative clients and their directors and their actors and the writers and who's the most neurotic. Dealing with everyone who has won and hasn't won? Both. So there's, like, the equivalent of survivor's guilt for the people who win and then the feelings of worthlessness and narcissism of those who don't win. Survivor's guilt. It's fantastic. We'll put it in show notes.
Sonny00:09:27Yeah, put it in the show notes.
Vic00:09:28So do you think Emma Stone is now doomed because she won Best Actress Oscar? Remember, this is, people have talked about this. John Podhort certainly has.
Sonny00:09:39No, I don't think so. That's dumb. It certainly hasn't hurt Meryl Streep.
JVL00:09:44Nothing John Podhort says is dumb. Young. He'll say young actresses. No, no.
Sonny00:09:49Oh, I'm not saying John Podhort is dumb. I'm saying that this is not a, this is not, I mean, she plays a very specific role. Very specific type of role where she's kind of the fluffy, lighthearted, you know, she's not doing like actressy work, right? She's not like doing the, anyway, I like her fine and I'm glad she won and I'm, Moonlight I think is a totally fine win, but nobody will remember this in five or ten years. It's going to be like the Hurt Locker.
JVL00:10:16Would you say that Moonlight is better than or equal in greatness to 12 Years a Slave,
Sonny00:10:22Sonny? It's going to take 12 years to make, so it is not as good as Boyhood.
Vic00:10:28And that's all we have for the special bonus edition of The Weekly Substandard. Thank you for listening and remember the regular episode, which is two hours long, just kidding, of The Substandard will appear on Thursday at 11:00 a.m. Until then.
Sonny00:10:53Nailed it. Right? Nailed it. Yeah. Nailed it. Ten minutes. Ten minutes.
Vic00:11:02That's good. Oh, you were watching the class.
?00:11:04I saw what you were doing. Yeah. That's why I held my finger up and said, "One minute."
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