Eye on the Prize
Hosts: Justin Zarian and Various Hosts
Eye on the Prize is a limited run podcast series led by Justin Zarian focused on tracking the film award season. Working with dedicated co-hosts like Ian Butcher, J.C. DeLeon, Shakyl Lambert, Bradly Martin and Davey Peppers, the team keeps tabs on the week-to-week leaders and losers leading up to the Academy Awards. They also give retrospectives on prior Oscar races, including memorable moments and their favorite winners or nominees, and reviews for past Best Picture winners to see their legacy on future films.
The season two theme music was composed by Lorenzo Giusti (credited Lorenzo Emmanuel). You can listen to the rest of Lorenzo’s work right here.
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 17 – GOING TO GOTHAM
The Prizefighters return for another round of Big 8 predictions from Bradly Martin and Shakyl Lambert, but first Justin will take them through the nominations announced by the Gotham Awards along with some other awards season news.
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 16 – BEST PICTURE REVIEW – CASABLANCA
The Prizefighters return to discuss another Best Picture winner! This time, they are going deep into the vault to discuss one of Hollywood’s most beloved films made during the studio system era: Michael Curtiz’s 1942 masterpiece Casablanca. We’re sure you know the story here. Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) runs a cafe in Casablanca, Morocco in 1941, where the city is under the thumb of the Nazi government through its Vichy puppet organization. One day, a former lover of Rick’s named Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) arrives with her husband Victor Lazlo (Paul Heinreid), a fugitive wanted by the Nazis for escaping a concentration camp and promoting the resistance against them. Though jilted over Ilsa abandoning him years ago, Rick is asked to aid them in escaping Casablanca before the Nazis can close in on them. Can he mend his broken heart long enough to aid in their fight or will he keep standing on the sidelines as he has for far too long?
Justin, Shak, and Brad go in-depth in reviewing this movie and discussing various trivia surrounding the film along with its legacy as a Best Picture winner. From humorous stories about Michael Curtiz’s thick Hungarian accent to discussing the impressive resume of cinematographer Arthur Edeson, this is a worthwhile discussion of an enduring classic whose influence continues to be felt to this day.
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 15 – LET THE 2018-19 PREDICTIONS BEGIN!
October is here and a number of major Oscar contenders are finally getting their wide releases. So it’s time once again to start making predictions for who will make it onto this year’s shortlists. Follow Davey and Justin as they go over some awards season news, have a lengthy discussion about the major foreign film contenders and, for the bulk of the show, give their impressions on who will be the big players in the ‘Big 8’ categories (Picture, Director, all four acting categories and both writing categories). Check it out here!
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 15 – BEST PICTURE REVIEW – DRIVING MISS DAISY
The Prizefighters are starting a new subsection of Eye on the Prize! Every now and then, they will review prior Best Picture winners to not only judge their own merits but to see what kind of legacy they have left on film. How have they held up over time? What performers or crew went on to bigger and better things? It’s a chance to fill in blind spots in their Oscar knowledge and, like the rest of this podcast, fully nerd out!
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 14 – BEST PICTURE REVIEW – DRIVING MISS DAISY
The Prizefighters are starting a new subsection of Eye on the Prize! Every now and then, they will review prior Best Picture winners to not only judge their own merits but to see what kind of legacy they have left on film. How have they held up over time? What performers or crew went on to bigger and better things? It’s a chance to fill in blind spots in their Oscar knowledge and, like the rest of this podcast, fully nerd out!
For their first review, they decided to tackle an easier target with Driving Miss Daisy. Due to its status of being regarded as a ‘weak’ Best Picture winner, Justin and Brad have neglected to watch this movie for a long time. Now they have corrected that to see if the film truly deserves the flack it receives and see what good possibly came out of it.
Since this is the first episode of a new segment, it will be a little rough in spots as we find our footing to tackle this review. If you have suggestions for how to improve the reviews or anything you’d like to hear in future recordings, please comment!
The review goes to about 23:25 and then it’s analysis of it’s Oscar competition and legacy right after.
EYE ON THE PRIZE- EP 13: BEST POPULAR FILM?
The Academy just made an announcement to make radical changes to the 2020 ceremony. Along with shortening the ceremony, the biggest, and most controversial, change is adding a new category recognizing ‘outstanding achievement in popular film.’ What does this category mean? What qualifies something as a ‘best popular film?’ The Academy gave no answers on this yet, but the Prizefighters have some thoughts over why this is a hasty and poorly thought out idea. Join Justin Zarian, along with newcomers Bradly Martin and Davey Peppers, as they discuss their feelings on this announcement and ways to improve the situation.
EYE ON THE PRIZE- EP 12: SEASON 1.5 – HALFWAY THROUGH 2018 PREVIEW
The Prizefighters are back for a preview episode as the award season comes closer and closer. Justin Zarian and Shakyl Lambert take a look at the Los Angeles Online Film Critics list of their nominees for best movies from the first half of the year to see if anything has a chance of making it to the end of the year. They then lend their own thoughts on who deserves recognition from the first half and then their most anticipated Oscar season films coming this year.
They also got a new title theme, once again composed by Justin’s good friend Lorenzo Giusti. Check out more of his work on his Soundcloud page here.
EYE ON THE PRIZE- EP 11: SEASON ONE VICTORY LAP
The Prizefighters bring season one to a close by discussing the Oscar winners, best moments from Sunday’s ceremony and anything else that comes to mind. We also wish to express our sincerest gratitude to everyone who has listened to our coverage of the 2017 season and we cannot wait to return as this year’s Oscar race picks back up!
EYE ON THE PRIZE- EP 10: PREDICTING THE NOMINEES
March 4th is upon us! We will soon find out who will take home statues at this year’s Oscars, so it’s time to make predictions and place bets. Justin, Shakyl, and J.C. make educated guesses on who they think will win (with Ian’s to follow in a comment post), along with doing one more retrospective covering the best director and picture winners of the last decade. Oh and there’s a bit about Justin and Shakyl talking about their Black Panther theater experiences that is pretty amusing.
NOTE: For some reason, my Audacity would occasionally cut out bits of my audio if someone started talking while I talked (which I suppose is fair for all the times I’ve interrupted people). I’ve tried to smooth out the most egregious errors throughout the podcast, but you may hear a few audio hiccups now and then.
EYE ON THE PRIZE- EP 9: OSCAR OVERTURE
The Prizefighters return after a week hiatus with an extra length episode and the return of J.C. DeLeon. Listen as he teams up with Justin and Shakyl to discuss their week, analyze the nominated music from this year’s Oscars (scores and songs) and discuss their picks for the best screenplays of the last decade.
EYE ON THE PRIZE- EP 8: AND THE NOMINEES ARE…
The Prizefighters have gathered to cover the event they’ve been eagerly anticipating: the Academy Awards nominations. There will be a thorough discussion of that, detours into their favorite best actor and actress winners, a dissing on the Razzies and other bits of sleep deprived silliness we won’t spoil. Comment on the page to talk about your favorite nominees or biggest omissions.
EYE ON THE PRIZE – EP. 7: NOMINATIONS EVE
The Oscar nominations are coming tomorrow and it’s time to lock in our final predictions. Shak and Justin hold the fort as they share their picks (along with picks sent by Ian and J.C.), discuss recent films they saw and generally get prepared for “Oscar Bowl 2018,” as Shak puts it.
EYE ON THE PRIZE – EP. 6: THE SOUND OF WINNING
The prizefighters are back with a truckload of awards talk. Justin Zarian, Ian Butcher and Shakyl Lambert take a deep dive to talk about the Golden Globe winners, major guild nominees and their favorites from the Oscars’ music categories (with bite-size pieces from the mentioned tracks). There’s also a notable amount of talk over The Book of Henry as Shak and Ian rant about one of the very worst movies of the year.
And since the Oscar nominations are coming very soon and we will do our final predictions next episode, we’d love to hear your ideas for who will make the list. Will The Shape of Water lead in total nominations? Is Get Out the best picture of the year? Are people criminally snubbing Blade Runner 2049 for major categories? The answer to that last one is yes, but feel free to offer your thoughts in the comments.
EYE ON THE PRIZE – EP. 5: ALL AROUND THE GLOBES
The team is reunited and it feels so good. Justin Zarian, Ian Butcher and Shakyl Lambert battle sleepiness and a cold to give you predictions for this Sunday’s Golden Globe ceremony, some of the guild nominations, some news and their picks for the best of cinematography, production design and visual effect winners from the last decade.
EYE ON THE PRIZE – EPISODE 4: THE BIG SHORTLIST
Justin Zarian and Shakyl Lambert hold down the fort this week while Ian is busy being a responsible adult with a job. The two of them discuss films Justin has actually watched this week (I know, a first), a straggler from the critic group awards and official Academy shortlists for several categories. Much nerd talk and foolishness ensues!
EYE ON THE PRIZE – EPISODE 3: THE GOLDEN SAG
The Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild have announced their nominees, helping to give this largely formless competition some shape as front runners start emerging. Justin Zarian, Ian Butcher and Shakyl Lambert return once again to discuss how these and other major contenders affect the race. They also discuss the recent Oscar shortlists, recent activities in their lives and their favorite winners and nominees from the supporting performance categories.
EYE ON THE PRIZE – EP. 2: THE PRECURSOR LEGACY
A bunch of precursor awards and nominations have been announced since the last recording, so it’s time for the Eye on the Prize team to adjust their Oscar barometers. Join Justin Zarian, Ian Butcher and our newest co-host Shakyl Lambert as we discuss our week, recent Oscar news, the first round of major critic awards and our personal favorite wins for Best Actor and Actress in the last decade. We had a blast recording this week, so we hope you enjoy it.
