Oscar Podcast #29: Oscar Pundits, that Joy screening and special guest Todd VanDerWerff

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In our 29th podcast I welcome back Todd VanDerWerff, the Culture Editor of Vox.com to talk about the strange year of Oscar punditry and the ‘wait and see’ type of predictions that have been slowly settling in over the years and is especially evident this year. Is old fashioned predicting gone forever?

We dig deeper into how we think AMPAS looks at films year to year, how with Suffragette, Carol, Room and Joy that this might be an actual ‘Year of the Women’ in film and what that means for Oscar’s Best Picture race.

We also talk about the Joy screening that happened last week. Two AwardsWatch members were there and reported back to me on their findings and the piece I wrote caused quite a stir in the Oscar prognostication community. Will it or The Revenant or The Hateful Eight break the December curse to be an Oscar Best Picture?

Don’t forget to follow AwardsWatch on Twitter at @awards_watch and Todd at @tvoti.

And hey, this podcast is under an hour! Perfect for the commute home or to work, on the treadmill or while hate-watching the newest season of American Horror Story: Hotel!

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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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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.

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