My eyeballs popped out of their sockets Wile E. Coyote-style (boiinnnggg!) when I took a gander at Scott Feinberg’s final pre-Academy-balloting prediction piece in The Hollywood Reporter, and more specifically when I saw that he regards Warren Beatty‘s Rules Don’t Apply as a longshot for a Best Picture nomination.

Actual Wells to Feinberg email message: “By using the term ‘longshot’ do you mean that potential nomination-wise, Rules Don’t Apply is bound and gagged and tied up inside a burlap bag and buried under 50 tons of soil, sand, gravel and concrete? I’m just trying to clarify what ‘longshot’ means.”

Do the producers of Nocturnal Animals and Patriots Day have reason to be upset at Feinberg for lumping them in with Beatty’s critically lamented Howard Hughes pic? Patriots Day producer to Feinberg: “How could you do this to us, Scott? Did we do something to personally hurt you? If so, we apologize because this is ridiculous. Patriots Day is 10 or 15 times more successful than Rules Don’t Apply. They’re not even in the same league much less the same ballpark. The Watertown shoot-out sequence is a classic. You’ve really hurt our feelings and damaged us in the eyes of the community. I hope you’re satisfied.”