Oscar Podcast #17: AFI – Selma Soars, American Sniper Shoots Blanks

Big happenings with some major premieres of Oscar hopefuls at AFI this last week in the form of Selma, American Sniper and A Most Violent Year give the Gold Rush Gang (Richard, Jason and myself, Erik) a lot to talk about in this podcast. We discuss the mixed test screening (attended by a trio of AwardsWatchers) that led to some frantic predictions changes to a complete reversal after its stellar debut at AFI. American Sniper didn’t fare as well and might be out the majors as a result and A Most Violent Year gets the reviews it needed to stay in the race.

We also discuss various tech predictions like Cinematography, Film Editing, Visual Effects and the Sound Categories. Is once frontrunner Interstellar out of the running here? Will a Best Picture frontrunner find itself with a few extra tech noms to pad its total? Can Roger Deakins finally win?

We end with some Independent Spirit Awards talk and predictions. Those are announced on Tuesday the 25th (not the 24th as I keep mentioning in the podcast) and we’ll have a follow-up podcast post-nominations and before the wealth of critics awards start rolling in during the first week of December.

Direct Download

Permalink

• Author
• Recent Posts

Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

Latest posts by Erik Anderson (see all)

• 2025 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTOR (November) - November 21, 2024
• 2025 Oscars: Eligibility Lists for Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and International Feature Film for the 97th Academy Awards - November 21, 2024
• Nava Mau, Sean Wang Among 2024 BAFTA Breakthroughs Championing New ‘Must-Watch’ Creatives - November 21, 2024