The AwardsWatch Podcast #146: Comic-Con, Spielberg does TIFF, Emmy talk and our thoughts on ‘Nope’

The AwardsWatch Podcast returns this week, with episode 146, as executive editor and host Ryan McQuade fell ill but, the trooper that he is, and who called in from the hospital (!), is here on this week’s show with me back in the host seat (just this once). We are joined by Nicole Ackman, Dan Bayer and Josh Parham.

After a brief check in with Ryan we dive into this year’s Comic-Con, which unveiled Marvel’s closure of Phase 4 of their worldwide domination and the entering of Phases 5 and 6. While the con itself was a little light on actual content, the one that stood out was the very first trailer (and look of any kind) of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Stunning visuals, a performance from Angela Bassett that looks immediately memorable and quotable (hello, Keke Palmer!), this epic teaser took San Diego and the world by storm, racking up 15M views on the Marvel YouTube and 32.6M on its Twitter in less than 24 hours.

Up next is fall festivals news about what’s going to be playing where, highlighted by the big surprise news last week that Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, his first-ever appearance there. Could it be the stage for a return to Oscar glory? It certainly won’t hurt.

We move into Emmy talk is with the group looking at how the notorious ‘vote-splitting’ believers could rear their ugly heads in categories were few shows dominated. The White Lotus, Succession, Ted Lasso and Hacks all find themselves with the lion’s share of acting nominations in several categories but does that mean they’ll cancel each other out? Not so fast, as history has shown that not to be the case, especially when there are built-in frontrunners in more than one.

Opening this weekend with high anticipation and expectation was the latest from Oscar winner Jordan Peele (Get Out) with his sci-fi/horror and homage to directing greats, Nope, starring Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer. Thoughts are wildly mixed among the panel (Nicole sits this one out as she hasn’t seen it yet) with Josh (who reviewed the film for the site) liking it better on his second viewing, Ryan being a full-fledged superfan of the film, and Dan and I, who both liked it but with reservations about its screenplay hobbling it from being great. This conversation, which runs from the 52:00 mark to 1:22:50, is spoiler-heavy so if you haven’t seen the film, skip on over.

Listener questions are next from Bryan Sudfield, S2S Movie Reviews, JacobK2022 and TV Fontaine who want to know our thoughts our favorite Emmy nominations and biggest snub, what’s to be done about shows dominating Emmy categories, career comebacks like Cameron Diaz and why certain Oscar narratives fail and others succeed.

Next week’s show will revisit the listener questions that went unanswered from two weeks prior, plus the group reveals their favorite Criterion releases ever.

This podcast runs 1h47m. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro) used by permission