Contending at the Water Cooler

This week, we’re breaking down the 2027 Best Actor race which could include Digger‘s Tom Cruise and will not include anyone from The Social Reckoning.

It’s truly two wildly different conversations on this week’s Contending at the Water Cooler podcast. First up, Joey and Megan have endured Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning. So, the results aren’t good despite game performances from the cast. Where does the film go wrong? Is it entirely Sorkin’s fault? Does he need to be placed in movie jail? Then, following last week’s Digger conversation, Tom Cruise (and to an extent the film itself) have passionate defenders in the 2027 Oscar race. Can Cruise crack the Best Actor five? We talk frontrunners, Cruise’s position, and potential dark horse candidates.

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click here to listen, and our video podcast follows below!





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The post Oscars 2027: A ‘Reckoning’ Over Cruise and the Best Actor Five appeared first on The Contending.

On this week’s Water Cooler podcast, Joey and Megan take nuanced, thoughtful, opposing stances in their Digger review.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Tom Cruise teamed up to deliver the most polarizing film of the year, Digger. Is it a climate change satire? Is it a satire of climate change satires? Twitter / X will tell you with thousands of hot takes, but here, Joey and Megan offer (SHOCK) thoughtful takes on their opposing reactions to Iñárritu’s film. They consider what works, what doesn’t, and whether or not the film has stayed with them since seeing it. Plus, does it still have a place in the 2027 Oscar race? We cover this and more on our Digger review podcast!

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click here to listen, and our video podcast follows below!





Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex

https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/

The post ‘Digger’ Review: Cruising Into Climate Disaster? [VIDEO] appeared first on The Contending.

Yes, we do see how this looks–and we think it’s good!

With Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime lighting up the box office for A24 this weekend, it was obvious that Megan and Joey were eager to dive into their thoughts of the film. How did the film live up to expectations? Is there room in the Best Actor for Robert Pattinson’s driven performance as Chris Hansen? Could it be possible that Merritt Wever or Skyler Gisondo could ride Pattinson’s coattails? Or is the film too dark for some voters?

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click here to listen, and our video podcast follows below!





Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex

https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/ 

The post ‘Primetime’ Review Podcast: You See How This Looks, Right? appeared first on The Contending.

With Joey, Megan, and Frank all back from the first rounds of film festivals, we take stock of the 2027 Oscar race and see how the landscape has changed.

The recent Telluride, Venice, and Toronto film festivals gave us our deepest view yet into the 2027 Oscar race. Many contenders emerged and faced shifting winds as they screened for varied audiences. Joey, Megan, and Frank attended the major three early festivals and share their informed view of the 2027 Oscar race on this week’s podcast. Which films surprised or disappointed them? What can we expect now that La Bola Negra received the often predictive TIFF People’s Choice Award? Can anything stop The Odyssey‘s march to the podium?

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click here to listen, and our video podcast follows below!





Podcast Music:

Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex

https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/



The post Oscars 2027: First Fests Wrap-Up, Updates on 2027 Oscar Race appeared first on The Contending.

The whole Contending team gets together to review and recap the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards.

And with that, another Emmy season comes to a close.

Last night, Apple broke last year’s The Studio record for wins with Widow’s Bay completely steamrolling over Hacks in all the acting categories (except for Jean Smart, of course). Many predicted The Pitt to dominate, but it only went home with two in the major categories, for Drama Actor and Drama Series. Finally, it was a good night for DTF St. Louis, which took home Outstanding Limited Series, except most of the other wins it took home weren’t televised (we would have dropped some of those music numbers to see Linda Cardellini and David Harbour receive their trophies).

Team Contending got together to review the 2026 Primetime Emmy Awards hosted by Mariska Hargitay and discussed how the newbie host did overall (she at least gets an A for effort), why some of us were left unfulfilled by the Dolly Parton dedication, whether The Pitt needs to rethink their actor and episode submissions, and why Love Story fell out of love with voters.

Plus, we open our 2025 Emmy Time Capsule to find out whether last year’s predictions came true and make predictions for next year (hint: Furious might be on some of our wish lists).

We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click here to listen or watch our video podcast below!





Podcast Music:

Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com

Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex

https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/



The post 2026 Emmys Review Podcast: The Good (Rhea!), the Bad (No Hacks?), and the Ugly (Those Songs) appeared first on The Contending.