I listened yesterday to Marc Maron’s WTF interview with Sam Elliott, which has blown up due to Elliott’s trashing of The Power of the Dog. Twitter, of course, is depicting moustachioed Sam as a homophobe.

Yes, Elliott is a rugged traditionalist type and perhaps not as embracing of non-straight sexuality as he could be, but I don’t believe he’s homophobic in any kind of problematic sense. Ask anyone — Sam is a decent, considerate fellow who just happens to deal straight cards.

Two fellows of serious character and accomplishment have sent opinions and projections about the Oscar situation right now. They’re both director-screenwriters. HE to commentariat: Don’t start throwing names around — just read what they wrote. Here we go…

Fellow #1: “From my vantage no one gives a fuck about the Oscars anymore. They don’t mean a thing. I could hardly bring myself to vote, try alone watch [the nominees[.

“It’s not just they suck, which they do, especially in comparison to the television (streaming) we’re getting here and from around the world, but also how political everything has become. Movies are not an art form anymore. [In the minds of the comintern] they’re now a vehicle to change society, which is not the Academy’s mandate. It may be one of film’s functions, but no one made the Academy in charge of societal development.

“They screwed the pooch when they didn’t let Kevin Hart host it so the LGBT community wouldn’t be upset. He was a major film star. They were supposed to protect him, and not gay people — they have a group for that. They’re not supposed to protect women’s rights or black people. They’re all covered.

“The Academy’s task is to protect filmmakers and the art of movies. But they’ve cheapened the hell out of it. Everyone that wins now has an asterisk next to their name. I don’t care how many women win this year. None of them will feel as good about it if the Academy hadn’t dragged their purses through the mud on the way to the show.”

Fellow #2: “CODA will not win. No way. Too much of a trifle. But I do think it’ll be the dad for supporting actor.

“I don’t think The Power or the Dog wins either. That movie is an odd slog. I have yet to talk to anybody who has seen it and actually likes it. And nobody is buying Benedict [Cumberbatch]. I guess there will be a kneejerk vote for Campion.

“Oddly, I think Best Picture may go to West Side Story. I just sense the town would love to see that happen. It would make us all happy. Five years ago Spielberg would’ve won for Best Director. Power of the Dog equals Roma and WSS equals Green Book.”

HE to Fellow #2: Then why didn’t West Side Story win SAG’s ensemble award?

Message to Russian troops from Kyiv's Defenders. pic.twitter.com/mac42RziS9

— UkraineEnglishUpdates (@EnglishUkraine) February 27, 2022

Who doesn’t love the voice and attitude of the great Sam Elliott? I’ll tell you who doesn’t like his voice and attitude — the Netflix guys!

The Power of the Dog dissing (“That piece of shit?”) starts at 1:04:20. Elliott does say that Jane Campion is “a brilliant director…I love her work…[her] previous work,” but otherwise, this is pure disdain.

Elliott #1: “I didn’t like it anyway, but I looked at it down in Texas when I was doing 1883…there was a fuckin’ full page ad out in the L.A. Times…it talked about the evisceration of the American myth…”

Elliott #2: “Cumberbatch never got out of his fuckin’ chaps. He had two pairs…a woolly pair and a leather pair, and every fuckin’ time he’d walk in from somewhere, he’d walk into the fuckin’ house, storm up the fuckin’ stairs, go lay on his bed in his chaps and pull out his banjo. And I said ‘what the fuck…what…the…fuck? Where’s the western in this western?’ I take it personal. I take it fuckin’ personal.”

So the (apparently) likely winner of the Best Picture Oscar was directed by Sian Heder and the locked-down Best Director Oscar winner is Jane Campion. So women are definitely ruling the roost on 3.27.22. A white male winning in either category is a strict nyet.

With Oscar voting beginning on Thursday, 3.17, and ending on Tuesday, 3.22, women everywhere will be voting for this pair — where is the downside in not being on Team Heder-Campion?

With The Power of the Dog finished as a Best Picture winner and eight other nominees (Belfast, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, West Side Story) more or less scratched due to this and that factor, CODA seems like the most likely champ.

I hate to admit this but where else can I go?

CODA has only three nominations (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Oscar), and a film with three noms or less hasn’t won Best Picture since the late ‘20s and early ‘30s — Grand Hotel (’32) had only one Best Picture nom but it won — Best Picture winners Broadway Melody of 1929 and Wings had three or fewer.

The New Academy Kidz (virtue-signallers, gender and POC representation is everything, down with white males) believe that West Side Story can’t win because (a) it flopped commercially and (b) it’s a white man’s movie (directed by a white man, originally written by an English white man, adapted by a white man in the mid to late ’50s, recently re-adapted by a white screenwriter).

The New Academy Kidz don’t like King Richard for Best Picture, apparently, because they don’t like that the story was focused on a gnarly, obstinate, not hugely likable man of color (i.e., Richard Williams). Sends a mixed message — they only want POC characters who are 100% sympathetic.

In the view of “Yvan,” an Awards Daily commenter, the state of the Oscar race is about mediocrity prevailing.

“Yvan“: “CODA, Will Smith and The Eyes of Tammy Faye? After all of the great films and performances last year, this is what’s it come down to? I’m gonna keep following along in hopes of Kristen Stewart or Penelope Cruz prevailing on Oscar night but wow, DeBose aside, this is shaping up to be an exceptionally bland set of TV movie winners.”

Last weekend 1619 author Nikole Hannah Jones and others tweeted that news reporters, saddened and appalled by savage Russian attacks upon Ukraine — a white, middle-class, Eastern European nation whose president is a former professional comedian — are conveying insidious racism because they were somewhat less alarmed by similar war–torn scenarios in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thus proclaimed the woke Comintern — too much empathy shown for whitey-white Ukranians is a highly suspicious and probably racist thing. News media professionals and especially in-the-field reporters are advised to take note.

Shamed and threatened, D’Agata has since apologized for his rhetorical misstep, which was basically prompted by conveying too much sympathy for Ukrainian citizens and refugees

This D’Agata-Hannah Jones mishegoss has ignited a firestorm of outrage directed at D’Agata and other like-minded reporters and media types who may be guilty of conveying racist bias against war-victims and refugees of color.

Earlier: Two days ago CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata apparently ignited this concern in a report about the Ukrainian carnage.

The above was a Western Union-style message from an industry guy that I received this evening — seven words that might shake the world John Reed-style, and which, right now, are certainly putting a slight chill up the backs of Netflix execs after CODA having won SAG’s Best Film Ensemble prize.

“You’re kidding,” I replied. “In terms of Best Picture? I mean, I get the fact that it feels a lot warmer and more huggable than The Power of the Dog. But CODA is basically a heart-massaging sitcom, an ABC after-school special, La Famille Belier, etc. It’s fine but calm down, for heaven’s sake! Eugenio Derbez (Mexican music teacher) saved it.”

Regional director–writer: “CODA has the heart factor going for it, despite its plodding execution at times. POTD has zero support from the industry. It hasn’t won any guild awards. Belfast could benefit but that feels hollow at this point. CODA could start picking up momentum from the SAG win.”

Scott Feinberg analysis