This 46th Oscar podcast finds Gold Rush Gang member Júlia Albuquerque and myself talking about the first huge batch of critics awards to roll in: National Board of Review, New York Film Critics, Los Angeles Film Critics and more.

Then we head over to our Golden Globe nomination predictions for tomorrow and our thoughts on the Screen Actors Guild nominations (Dec. 14).

These two award bodies have us bewildered and flummoxed with so many potential nominees in the mix. 

Will it be Arrival? Fences? Hacksaw Ridge? Hell or High Water? Hidden Figures? La La Land? Lion? Manchester by the Sea? Moonlight? Sully? Silence?

In this 45th AwardsWatch Oscar podcast, I welcome the return of Joey Nolfi from Serving Cinema. After a record-breaking podcast last month, we go at it again - this time talking a lot about Fox Searchlight's Jackie, both our love of the film and its Oscar chances. We mull over the Independent Spirit Award nominations that were announced this week and wonder how Rebecca Hall missed out on a nomination for Christine and if there is a path for her at SAG a la Sarah Silverman last year. Then there's the release this week (finally!) of the trailer for Paramount Pictures's Silence.

We end on the release of the Gilmore Girls - A Year in the Life, which was released by Netflix today and bit about NBC's This Is Us. Let's just say I was surprised by Joey's response to it and leave it at that.

In between all of this movie and TV talk you'll find copious amounts of shade so get your wig glue ready, you'll need it.

On this 44th podcast, I am joined by a special guest,  Entertainment Weekly's Joey Nolfi. 

We cover a lot of ground in this podcast (which hits the 2-hour mark): from Viola Davis's submission in Supporting for Fences and what that means for the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories now to Moonlight and if its critical impact will equal Oscar nominations. Best Actress, as usual, gets heavy rotation as we talk about our likely nominees; Emma Stone in La La Land, Natalie Portman in Jackie and Annette Bening in 20th Century Women but also those who round out a very rich category this year - Isabelle Huppert (Elle), Ruth Negga (Loving), Amy Adams (Arrival), Jessica Chastain (Miss Sloane) and of course, Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins). 

UPDATE: There is a spoiler regarding Manchester by the Sea at around the 1hr 20m mark that I forgot to edit out. I recommend that you skip forward to about 1h23m to keep from being spoiled on a specific plot aspect of the movie. I apologize to anyone who listened to the podcast and is upset by hearing the spoiler.

We dig into Best Picture and its frontrunners and wonder if there's something on the outside that we're missing. With former heavy hitters like The Birth of a Nation and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (which Joey talks extensively about) falling by the wayside, it means other contenders like Arrival and Hidden Figures become stronger while 'steak eater' films like Sully or Hell or High Water must be considered. 

The podcast closes with an 'original' piece by Joey featuring Beyoncé and Diane Ladd. 

In this 43rd Oscar podcast, I am pleased to welcome special guest Kyle Buchanan of Vulture.com.

Most of the conversation centers around the Best Actress category as it is a wealth of possibility this year. Natalie Portman (Jackie), Viola Davis (Fences) and Emma Stone (La La Land) land in the in 'sure thing' positions (although Kyle has some thoughts about Davis...) but what then? Annette Bening (20th Century Women), Isabelle Huppert (Elle), Amy Adams (Arrival and Nocturnal Animals), Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins), Ruth Negga (Loving), Taraji P. Henson (Hidden Figures) and Jessica Chastain (Miss Sloane) all seem to have paths to the final five. We talk about what role an Oscar pundit has in advocacy for a film in the race

We also talk about what role an Oscar pundit has in advocacy for a film in the race and chat about how 'Oscar Bait' has become quite the pejorative in pundit talk, using Kyle and Mark Harris' fantastic piece on it as a jumping off point. We also discuss how early major contender Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk was cut short by awful reviews at the New York Film Festival. 

Check out the most up to the minute predictions from the Gold Rush Gang starting right here. 

I recently sat down for a conversation with writer/director Barry Jenkins to talk about his extraordinary new film Moonlight. The film tells the story of a largely under-represented section of society - queer African-American males. In this interview, we discuss the film, what it means to be an active ally, his cinematic influences, and his incredible ensemble cast.

READ: Review: 'Moonlight' (★★★★)

Moonlight played the Telluride, Toronto, New York, BFI London and Mill Valley Film Festivals this fall, earning an Audience Award from MVFF this week. It currently sits at 97 on Metacritic and 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film stars Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Andre Holland, Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders and Alex Hibbert and was based on a story by Tarell McCraney. 

A24 will open Moonlight in New York and Los Angeles this Friday, October 21st, and then expands in the coming weeks. Check out where the Gold Rush Gang thinks Moonlight is in the Oscar race right here. 

The Venice and Telluride Film Festivals have kicked off the beginning of Oscar season (even though we've been at it for months!), giving us a first look at some major fall players like La La Land, Moonlight, Arrival and Nocturnal Animals. 

With my guest, Gold Rush Gang member Bryan Bonefede, we discuss how these films and their mostly stellar reviews have boosted their Oscar profiles among the Gold Rush Gang and how mixed to bad responses of Bleed for This and Wakefield have basically sunk theirs. We also talk about Sully and if this 'meat & potatoes' film will be a Best Picture contender or not. 

The second half of the podcast we cover the impact of Nate Parker's rape controversy on his film, The Birth of a Nation, and how the GRG responded in terms of Oscar predictions. 

Finally, I had to get out a beef from this week of the rumor going around that Paramount is planning on running Viola Davis in supporting for Fences. I don't agree and think that floating the 'rumor' as fact or information isn't the best way to have an Oscar conversation. Although the role in the original version of the Broadway play won the Tony for a Featured Actress for Mary Alice, Davis won the Tony in 2010 in LEAD and has spoken up about her role being even bigger in the film than in the revival of the play.

Tell me what you think about that and all of these subjects in the comments section or in the AwardsWatch forums. 

The opening music is "City of Stars" from La La Land (Summit/Lionsgate) and the closing music is "New York City by Day" by Thomas Newman from the film Desperately Seeking Susan.

This podcast runs about 1h 45m. 

On this 41st podcast our commentary is restricted to a single issue - the explosive week information regarding Nate Parker, the writer, star and director of Fox Searchlight's The Birth of a Nation, and the 1999 rape case he and his Birth co-writer, Jean Celestin, were involved in. 

There have been think pieces upon think pieces this week that began with a very careful and concerted effort by Parker and Fox Searchlight to get ahead of the controversy by having him interview for Deadline. With that followed Fox Searchlight's immediate statement of support for Parker but very soon after came the revelation that the acquitted Parker and convicted Celestin's victim had committed suicide in 2012.

On the podcast we try and examine the case as honestly and as factually as possible and hopefully did so with respect and integrity. We cover the media's response, the nature of Hollywood to turn the other cheek, our personal opinions and what it now means for the film's financial and awards success. I encourage this to be an ongoing conversation and you can comment here on the story as well as our podcast and in the forums of AwardsWatch. 

This podcast runs just over one hour with intro and outro. 

In our 40th Oscar podcast, I am joined by Gold Rush Gang members Richard Anthony and, new this season, Bryan Bonafede.

With the announcements this week of the Toronto and Venice film festival lineups, that gives us lots to talk about in terms of who rises (La La Land, Arrival) and who falls (Loving, Moonlight) in our Oscar predictions. The upcoming Telluride announcement will be even more telling and we talk about some of the films expected there as well.

We detail updated predictions in Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress and wonder is Ruth Negga (Loving) is as locked as some of us (meaning I) think she is and how we build our predictions. How many performances from a single film will get Oscar nominated? Is Best Actor skewing too young and is there room for a newcomer in Best Actress? Why are Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress so bleak right now and are Liam Neeson (Silence) and Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea) going to be runaway winners?

All this and much more on this podcast that runs just about two hours. 

The 2016 Emmy Nominations were yesterday and on this 16th Emmy Podcast, Chris and I break down the good, the bad and the ugly in what was, overall, a pretty good set of nominees. We talk about the breakthrough for The Americans and Mr. Robot, why Horace and Pete failed and how the Television Academy treated the final seasons of The Good Wife and Downton Abbey. We also talk about the diversity of nominees in terms of people of color, a bit of trivia and what our favorite nominations of the day were.

Don't worry, this isn't a 2 hour listen, it's only about 45 minutes.

As promised, part two of our final Emmy predictions find their way into Emmy Podcast #15 (check out Emmy Podcast #14 here) where we talk exclusively about the incredibly competitive Limited Series acting categories, most especially just how many acting nominations can The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story get and will Fargo and/or American Crime be left in its wake? Plus, will Hotel be the nail in American Horror Story's nomination coffin or will Lady Gaga nudge her way in? American Crime, which earned 10 nominations last year, could find itself on the outside of the behemoth of The People v. O.J. Simpson this year, or we could see it reap nominations in multiple acting categories. Same with Fargo; a strong second season could see a good fight and it appears Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie is going to be ground zero for that battle.

Next we tackle the Guest categories in Drama and Comedy and wonder if The Good Wife's final salvo will see a boatload of nominations here. It seems like these categories could see a lot of previous winner name-checking (Allison Janney, Margo Martindale) but there's also a lot of room for some surprises (like Octavia Spencer or Vanessa Williams).

Finally, Chris, Jonathan and myself all give up our Emmy wishes for nomination morning that include BoJack Horseman, Rectify, You're the Worst, Allison Wright (The Americans), Constance Zimmer and Shiri Appleby (UnREAL), T.J. Miller (Silicon Valley), Connor Jessup and Joey Pollari (American Crime) and more.