Mailbag: The Most Cutthroat Below-the-Line Oscar Races and What's Going on With the New Casting Category

Little Gold Men by Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair

Tv & Film

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Rebecca and John are joined by VF Senior Editor Hillary Busis to answer a slew of mailbag questions. They highlight some of the more interesting below-the-line races, including cinematography and editing. They also debate if having a popular TV show can help an Oscar contender's chances, and whether "KPop Demon Hunters" has a shot at a Best Picture nod. Finally, they make their December movie picks for films that are worth catching in theaters this month.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Little Gold Men, Vanity Affairs podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers.
0:10.0	I'm Rebecca Ford.
0:11.0	And I'm John Ross.
0:12.0	John, do you have a good Thanksgiving?
0:14.0	I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends in Los Angeles.
0:19.0	How was yours?
0:20.0	It was good.
0:22.3	I was up in the Bay Area with family.
0:23.7	I had a very nice time.
0:26.3	But now we have to get back to work.
0:28.3	There's a lot happening in December.
0:33.0	And first of all, I really want to let everyone know that we're going to be recording a Little Gold Men live episode in Santa Monica on December 11th at 6 p.m. And we have a very special guest,
0:40.1	trained dream star Joel Edgerton. So if you live in Los Angeles and you want to come
0:45.1	watch the magic happen live in person, you can send us an email at Little Gold Men at vf.com.
0:51.5	We've got a select number of tickets to give away to our loyal and lovely listeners. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that one. And that film, Train Dreams and Joel's performance keeps gaining momentum. So we're excited to talk to him. And then there's a little cocktail party afterwards. So you're not just listening to us. You also get a little drinking food, which when you're in award season in Los Angeles is very important.
1:16.7	And now that it's December, we're really in it.
1:20.1	We are seeing a big acceleration in the Oscar race.
1:23.3	Yeah, it feels like there's something every day.
1:24.8	This week we had the Gotham Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, and the Indy Spirit nomination. So the awards picture is coming into clear focus. And John, you got to, you're in New York, so you got to go to Gotham's on Monday, right? Yes, and in some ways I'm still there. It's a very long night.
1:45.7	Right, because it's not televised, so it can go on forever.
1:47.6	Oh, no, it's not televised.
1:49.2	And it's not anywhere in a state to be televised.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 17 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Vanity Fair, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Vanity Fair and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.