The Long Take Review

For many Oscar pundits and fans, the 91st Academy Awards, held on February 24, 2019, and honoring the films of 2018, became the most notorious when Green Book, a heartwarming odd couple comedy about a black pianist and his white driver, won Best Picture instead of presumed favorite, Alfonso Cuaron’s poignantly personal historical drama about a Mexico City family and their housekeeper, Roma.
And so, of course, for our sixth Oscar Fairy Flashback episode, we wanted to confront this controversial year (and believe me when I say we deeply considered shying away from it and turning the clock back in a different direction). As with all Oscar Fairy Flashbacks, we share what we want to change about the winners and nominees, were we to be in the good graces of the all-powerful Oscar Fairy. We each have ten points plus whatever we had remaining from the last OFF episode to spend. How any Oscars will we take away from Green Book and its fellow Oscar villain, Bohemian Rhapsody?
Image Credit: Screen Rant
Here’s some more detailed context to show that this Oscar year has a mixed record to say the least.
Four films won multiple awards:
-Bohemian Rhapsody: 4 wins (Actor [Rami Malek], Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing)
-Green Book: 3 wins (Picture, Supporting Actor [Mahershala Ali], Original Screenplay)
-Roma: 3 wins (Director, Cinematography, Foreign Language Film)
-Black Panther: 3 wins (Score, Production Design, Costume Design)
-That is certainly a list of movies. Other films that won awards: The Favourite (Actress [Olivia Colman]), If Beale Street Could Talk (Supporting Actress [Regina King]), BlacKkKlansmen (Adapted Screenplay, finally getting Spike Lee a competitive Oscar), Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (Animated Feature), A Star Is Born (Song, netting Lady Gaga her first Oscar), Vice (Makeup & Hairstyling), and First Man (Visual Effects)
-Other nominated movies include The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Cold War, First Reformed, Isle of Dogs, Mary Poppins Returns, Avengers: Infinity War, A Quiet Place, At Eternity’s Gate, The Wife, and Solo: A Star Wars Story
-There were also some notorious snubs, including Paddington 2, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Crazy Rich Asians, Hereditary, and Widows
Buckle up, because we have a lot of work to do!
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Why is Spider-Man: Brand New Day spinning webs around the summer box office? How is it breaking all kinds of records? We keep returning to this question throughout this week’s episode, coming up with various theories about what might be behind the massive success of the fourth Tom Holland Spider-Man film. What does this mean for superhero movies? For the future of the MCU? For Tom Holland’s career? We speculate very broadly from every angle of this franchise, folding in discussion of the X-Men, casting announcements at D23, other iterations of Spidey, and more. Come to hear who our favorite supporting characters were and stay for the deep discussion of the political implications of this film as it reaches a hand out to mutantkind.
At one point in this episode, Greg asks why there hasn’t been a solo Hulk movie. Jen explains that Universal still holds the rights to standalone Hulk movies, but not to movies in which Hulk appears alongside other Marvel characters. That’s only partially true. Apparently, Universal holds the distribution rights to standalone Hulk movies while Disney/Marvel hold the production rights to the character across the board. Universal has a right of first refusal for distribution of Hulk-focused films only. So we haven’t gotten one in so long because Disney/Marvel doesn’t want to pay Universal a cut of whatever Hulk-centric film that they might make. The nuance of production rights vs. distribution rights should have been a part of our on-air conversation.
We go into SPOILER MODE at the 27:50 minute mark. If you don’t want your secret identity revealed yet, you can listen until then.
Image Credit: Deadline
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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It’s been a month since Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey arrived in theaters and nearly three weeks since we put out our first episode reviewing it. We’re happy to report that it’s still going strong. It handily passed the $1 billion mark in global box office by the first week of August, in spite of Spider-Man: Brand New Day breaking all kinds of records (don’t worry, we’re reviewing that for next week!). And it seems to have weathered a cycle of discourse after the translator whose work inspired Nolan’s adaptation, Dr. Emily Wilson, wrote a scathing, nay brutalizing review. Will it be smooth sailing from here to the Oscars? P.T. returns from his own mini-odyssey to provide the Oscars Watch that Greg and I abstained from in our earlier episode. We also dig into Zeus’ Law, the sea people, Circe vs. Calypso, and a quick (at the very end) updated ranking of our top 3-5 Nolan films.
[Please note that we recorded this episode before Emily Wilson’s review came out, so we do not discuss the review as we had no knowledge of it at the time.]
We go into SPOILER MODE at the 21:00 minute mark. If you just want to get home without them, you can listen safely until then.
Image Credit: New York Times
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
All music licensed through Epidemic Sound.
Logo art: Illustration 73265080 © Worldofvector | Dreamstime.com


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You know, you have ONE troubled production that culminates in Harry Styles allegedly spitting on Chris Pine and that’s all critics want to remember you for. That may very well be a major frustration for Director Olivia Wilde as she tries to promote her newest film, a sex comedy drama called The Invite. Because over and over again I have seen headlines and reviews from critics framing their praise of the A24 film in relation to Wilde’s previous controversy-embroiled flop, Don’t Worry Darling. Never has a compliment been so back-handed. The praise is deserved just the same, as this comedy for adults has been deemed a box office success in spite of competing against The Odyssey.
On this episode of The Long Take Review, we were lucky enough to have Antonio back on the show to pick apart The Invite’s screenplay, discuss each of the performances/characters that constitute the foursome at the center of the story, and speculate as to whether or not this film has any “little indie that could go all the way to the Oscars” energy. Join us for some jamón and flan!
We go into SPOILER MODE at the 23:53 minute mark. If you wish to take a raincheck on spoilers, you can listen safely until then.
Image Credit: IndieWire
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Happy Spider-Man weekend to all who celebrate! Our review of Spider-Man: Brand New Day may take a little while because I’m on vacation for the next couple of weeks, but, to tide listeners over, we wanted to record an episode in which we discuss Tom Holland’s portrayal of your friendly neighborhood Avenger up until Brand New Day. And who better to join us than our very own Marvel correspondent, Colby Mead of The ColbyCast?
We begin by sharing our relationship with Spider-Man as a character/franchise and pinpointing what unique qualities Tom Holland brings to the role. Then we rank all six films in which Tom Holland has appeared as Spider-Man* in order to set up a larger discussion about how much the MCU has defined his version of the character and to what extent we can historicize each Spider-Man as a product of Hollywood and American culture at the time.
*This number doesn’t include Venom: Let Their Be Carnage, which P.T. notes should technically be on the list. Guess how many times we mention this Sony Spider-Man Universe film before you listen.
Note that we’re doing all spoilers for any Spider-Man or MCU-related content in this episode from the start.
Image Credit: IndieWire
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Image Credit: original image from Meming Wiki, modified in Canva
All music licensed through Epidemic Sound.
Logo art: Illustration 73265080 © Worldofvector | Dreamstime.com


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