AILSA CHANG, HOST:
All right, Hollywood's big night is this Sunday, the Academy Awards, which means absolutely everyone is talking about "Sinners"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SINNERS")
SAUL WILLIAMS: (As Jedidiah) You keep dancing with the devil, one day he's going to follow you home.
CHANG: ..."One Battle After Another"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER")
LEONARDO DICAPRIO: (As Bob, shouting) Viva la revolucion.
CHANG: ...And whether Timothee Chalamet hates the fine arts.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TIMOTHEE CHALAMET: I don't want to be working in ballet or opera or, you know, things where it's like, hey, keep this thing alive (laughter).
CHANG: Whoops. That is Chalamet getting himself in trouble in a chat with Matthew McConaughey at an event sponsored by Variety and CNN. There's also quite a bit of online chatter about whether best actress nominee Jessie Buckley is or is not a cat person. Here to sort out these pressing artistic controversy (ph) is NPR movie critic Bob Mondello. Hi, Bob.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Ailsa, I am so out of my depth.
(LAUGHTER)
CHANG: I mean, we're sort of making light of this, but when the nominations were announced, Timothee Chalamet was, of course, considered the best actor front-runner for his performance as a ping-pong champ in "Marty Supreme." And now people are saying his popularity tanked after those remarks, and he may have ruined his chances. What? Is that true?
MONDELLO: Well, I guess it's possible. I mean, this is why we should not treat what is basically a popularity contest in Hollywood as if it had anything to do with art.
(LAUGHTER)
MONDELLO: I have said this every year. If Chalamet's performance is award worthy - and it is - what he says off screen shouldn't matter.
CHANG: Yeah.
MONDELLO: Besides his grandmother and his mother and his sister all danced for the New York City Ballet.
CHANG: Oh.
MONDELLO: He doesn't hate ballet. He loves it. He just knows it's not as broadly popular as movies.
CHANG: I guess that's kind of fair. So why is this causing a social media meltdown, then?
MONDELLO: Because there's six weeks between nominations and the Oscars telecast and people have to talk about something.
CHANG: (Laughter) Oh, God.
MONDELLO: Listen, they used to talk about the movies because the nominations got people to go see them, you know, back in the '50s and '60s and '70s. And they boosted ticket sales, and that was called the Oscar bounce. And sometimes, like with "Slumdog Millionaire," it could amount to tens of millions of dollars. This year, you can already watch all of the best picture nominees at home, so there's not much of an Oscar bounce or much reason to talk about the movies 'cause they're all out there already.
CHANG: Yeah. I mean, God, just thinking about going to the theaters in the run-up to the Oscars just sounds like a lifetime ago. Do you think people are talking about these side issues like ballet because this year's movies, I mean, they're just not worth talking about?
MONDELLO: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's a great year for film.
CHANG: OK.
MONDELLO: The two front-runners are the best matched best pictures in ages. "Sinners" is a terrific genre flick with all kinds of resonance about music and racial history. "One Battle After Another" is an artful thriller with a social conscience. Both are the kind of big-studio big swings that people say they don't make anymore, and both weirdly are from one big studio, Warner Bros.
CHANG: Yeah.
MONDELLO: That's the one that's being sold probably to Paramount, which has no recent history of making adventurous movies. So this is maybe not a good thing.
CHANG: But let's just remind everyone, there are 10 nominees for best picture, right? Like, it's not just those two. There's "Hamnet," "Marty Supreme" of course, "Frankenstein," "F1," "Sentimental Value," "Secret Agent," "Bugonia," "Train Dreams." There's a lot of movies.
MONDELLO: Fair. Sure. And there's a tricky rank-choice voting system that muddies the waters a bit, but it tends to favor front-runners. So it's still likely "Sinners" or "One Battle."
CHANG: OK, well, are there any other categories that you're paying close attention to?
MONDELLO: Well, sure. I'm curious about the new category best casting and how it lines up with other categories. Years ago, as soon as best editing was announced, you knew what the best picture was likely to be, and best casting could be like that. And I will be delighted if Jessie Buckley wins best actress for playing William Shakespeare's wife, Agnes, in "Hamnet." She made me cry buckets.
CHANG: I expect you'll be watching Sunday night, but the question is on ABC or Hulu?
MONDELLO: No, the question is whether I can find a production somewhere of "Giselle"...
CHANG: (Laughter).
MONDELLO: Or maybe "Swan Lake"?
CHANG: Take that, Chalamet.
MONDELLO: No, I'll be watching. It starts at 7 p.m. Eastern on ABC and Hulu.
CHANG: That is NPR movie critic Bob Mondello. Thank you so much, Bob.
MONDELLO: It's always a pleasure, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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