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. 27: REVIEWING ALL OF THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS
Thanks to a generous screener link option given to us, the Prizefighters had an opportunity to watch all of the Oscar nominated short films for the Animated Short, Documentary Short and Live-Action Short categories. London and Bradly took the lead in watching every last one of them so they could report back to Justin on what they felt were the best of the bunch. Now you can actually have an excuse to say you know someone who actually watched the shorts to help you with your Oscar pool!
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP. 26 PT. 2 – REVIEWING THE 2019 BEST ORIGINAL SONG NOMINEES
After some delay, we finally finished our analysis of the nominated scores for this year: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, If Beale Street Could Talk, Isle of Dogs and Mary Poppins Returns. We also do some recommendations for other score gems you may have missed. Samples of nearly every mentioned score will be included in the podcast. Enjoy!
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP. 26 PT. 1 – REVIEWING THE 2019 BEST ORIGINAL SONG NOMINEES
Time to get musical in this show! It’s that time of year that Justin loves so much where we do a thorough discussion on the Oscar nominees for Best Original Song and Best Original Score. This year, however, we decided to bring on a professional. Our very own Eye on the Prize composer Lorenzo Emmanuel, who also composed the themes for The Gathering and Screener Squad, makes his podcasting debut to lend his opinion on what worked or didn’t work with these nominated pieces of music. Together with Justin, Shak, and Bradly, they get into a thorough discussion that had to be broken up into two parts. Just another day when Justin is in charge of a podcast…For this part, we discuss the nominated Original Songs for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Black Panther, Mary Poppins Returns, RBG and A Star Is Born. Edited samples of the nominated scores, along with a couple other mentioned songs, can be heard throughout.
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP. 25 – CATCHING UP ON THE SAG
Justin and Brad do a quick recap of the Screen Actors Guild winners to see what contenders are locked in place for Oscar wins, who is on the fence and all the other things that happened during the ceremony. It’s a quick episode, but a good one!
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 24 – REACTING TO THE 2018-19 OSCAR NOMINATIONS LIVE
Ever wanted to watch the Oscar nominations live with your favorite awards season podcasters? No? Well, how about just listening to them? Justin, Shak and Bradly watched the nominations as they were announced this morning and you can hear them comment on them right here, followed by some brief post video conversation. The video will also be included on the post just in case you want the visuals too (the audio from the video starts at minute 1:48 on the podcast)
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 23 – PREDICTING THE 2018 OSCAR NOMINEES
The Oscar nominations are around the corner and it’s time to solidify our predictions. Justin, Shak, Brad and Justin’s fiancé Lexie give their thoughts on who will make the final cut tomorrow. Make sure to tune in tomorrow to hear our cover the nominations live too!
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 22 – A BIG GOLDEN TURKEY
The Golden Globe winners were announced and…well, there was a lot to discuss. Justin, Brad and Shak give their thoughts on the highs and lows of this year’s Golden Globes, from memorable moments from the ceremony itself to that one particular film that won Best Drama that earned some vitriol across the internet. We also discuss some of the other guild contenders as well as recap some of the movies we caught up on over the holidays.
EYE ON THE PRIZE SPECIAL: ‘BEST OF THE REST’ – 2018 EDITION – PART 3
The Best of the Rest concludes as Justin, Shak, Nick, Bradly and London name off their top 10 of the year lists, whether it’s strictly movies or just top 10 of anything in 2018. They also cover a couple stragglers at the end because, as we said before, there was just too much good to cover this year!
EYE ON THE PRIZE SPECIAL: ‘BEST OF THE REST’ – 2018 EDITION – PART 2
The Best of the Rest continues as Justin, Nick, Shak, Bradly, and London continue naming off their favorite things in entertainment for 2018. You’ll hear a lengthy talk about Crazy Rich Asians, Justin defending Detroit: Become Human and the group name off each of their worst movie of the year (and believe it or not, not all of their picks came from Screener Squad. Just most of them…).
EYE ON THE PRIZE SPECIAL: ‘BEST OF THE REST’ – 2018 EDITION – PART 3
The Best of the Rest concludes as Justin, Shak, Nick, Bradly and London name off their top 10 of the year lists, whether it’s strictly movies or just top 10 of anything in 2018. They also cover a couple stragglers at the end because, as we said before, there was just too much good to cover this year!
EYE ON THE PRIZE SPECIAL: ‘BEST OF THE REST’ – 2018 EDITION
You thought you heard all of the very best in movies, TV and overall entertainment on The Gathering? Oh, my friend…you barely scratched the surface. There was so much good entertainment this year that we had to do another podcast to shine a spotlight on anything you may have missed. So for this podcast, we assembled an all-star team to cover 2018 with Davey Peppers (at least for the first of these three sections), Justin Zarian, Bradly Martin, Nick Thyes, Shakyl Lambert and London Vayavong. Together, they’ll do a roundtable discussion highlighting some of the notable picks, name their very worst movie of the year, and then cover their lists for the top 10 movies (or just top 10 out of everything). It’s a long and wild ride, but it’s a fun one!
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 21 – NOT SO SHORTLISTS
The Academy has surprised everyone by announcing preliminary shortlists for nine of the categories all at once rather than doling them out gradually. Justin and Bradly responded quickly to tackle these lists to let you good people know who is eligible, who got snubbed and what might end up on the final five lists for each of the following categories: visual effects, make-up and hairstyling, foreign film, documentary feature, original score, original song, animated short film, documentary short film and live-action short film. There are also a few more critic award winners, so let’s see which groups did or didn’t put Roma on the top of the list.
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 20 – CATCHING UP WITH THE CRITICS
The Prizefighters return to catch up on the mountains of critic group awards, the Screen Actors Guild nominations and a last-minute opinion on Kevin Hart stepping down as Oscar host. Who is leading the early prizes? How is the race shaping up? Will there actually be a host this year? Check it out here! Also, you also get to hear Shak’s…um, ‘spot-on’ impression of Sam Elliott.
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 19 – GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS LIVE REACTION
The Prizefighters are breaking away from tradition and themed this episode around a live-viewing of the Golden Globe nomination announcements (due to some technical issues, we’re late to the party posting this. We did actually record this as the awards were announced live). Who made it onto the shortlist for this important precursor? We also cover some of the other major critic awards and nominations that are shaping the race into a very interesting year so far. Come check it all out here! The Globe nominations commentary begins around 11:44 and the other precursor discussion begins around 41:49.
EYE ON THE PRIZE EP 18 – WE GOT SPIRIT
The Prizefighters have gathered once again to prepare for the onslaught of precursor award shows in the coming weeks. With one of the original co-hosts J.C. DeLeon returning for this episode, Justin and Bradly discuss the Producers Guild of America Documentary nominees and the Independent Spirit Award nominees. And because they discovered that the Gotham Award winners would be announced while they were recording, Justin and Bradly did a last-minute analysis after the fact to see how these initial winners may or may not influence the Oscar race. Fasten your seatbelts, because the next few weeks are going to get busy as these films go for the gold.
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.
