Sasha Stone, Awards Watch‘s Erik Anderson and I discussed this morning’s Oscar nominations for the latest Oscar Poker. Sasha was initially upset about Ridley Scott not being nominated for Best Director, which means, of course, that The Martian has essentially been given a cottonball Best Picture nomination — i.e., a sop that means nothing. So Erik and I had to go kinda easy and let Sasha work through her feelings like a rational adult, which she did. Neither Erik nor Sasha would admit that The Revenant is far and way the likeliest winner of the Best Picture Oscar at this stage. Not would they grapple with my riff about current racial profiling gripes (i.e., why no nominations for Straight Outta Compton and Creed?) not being worth discussing except in the case of Beasts of No Nation‘s Idris Elba, who definitely should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Again, the mp3.