Tom's Top 3: March 4, 2025
An Ode to Anora
Hi everyone! Welcome to this week’s installment of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays, where I highlight three pieces of content (Podcasts/Shows/Songs/Articles/etc.) that I found interesting or noteworthy from the prior week.
The Academy Awards was on Sunday, and I really didn’t know what to expect. It has been an interesting awards race, between the Emilia Perez scandal, The Brutalist AI allegations, and a building sense that Anora could win the day.
Anora was one of, if not my favorite movie of 2024, but I was not convinced that it had the juice to run away with Best Picture. So I was pleasantly surprised to hear it announced as the winner of FIVE Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing.
This week’s edition is an Oscars/Anora themed one.
[Podcast] The Big Picture - The 2025 Oscars: ‘Anora’ Has the Greatest Day
In case you missed all 3.75 hours of the Oscars this year, this is a very entertaining recap. Sean and Amanda go through their highlights and lowlights of the show, so I figured I’d give you some of my takes to supplement.
Highlights:
Conan’s performance was perfectly witty and innocuous
Flow winning Best Animated Feature Film, topping Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot (also featured in the February 4th edition of Tom’s Top 3)
Scarlett Johansson and June Squibb’s presentation of the Best Makeup award
Lowlights:
I was not a fan of Adrien Brody’s acceptance speech — love him as an actor, but his speech was long, rambling, and a little self-righteous
Even worse was Camille’s acceptance speech for ‘El Mal’ as Best Original Song
This was not only cringey, it actually made me mad watching her try to get a sing along started for a song nobody cares about
A terrible James Bond tribute that was confusing and time consuming
[Podcast] Script Apart - Anora with Sean Baker
With Anora winning Best Screenplay, I thought it only fitting to share this episode. I’m a new fan of Sean Baker, and his many speeches on Sunday further cemented that.
A few things stood out to me from this interview:
He doesn’t approach a script thinking about or planning for a typical three-act structure, it usually just ends up having three acts in the end
He also wrote an epilogue to the film, which he shared with the actors as a directing tool
A heroin addiction in his late 20s forced him to start his career from scratch
He believes his empathy for others grew out of seeking empath during this tough time in his life
[Podcast] The Town - How to Win Best Picture on a Budget, With Neon’s Tom Quinn
The title of this podcast would lead you to believe that it just came out in celebration of Anora’s success. Actually, this episode was released over a year ago.
Tom Quinn, Neon’s founder and CEO, has caught lightning in a bottle twice. Neon’s first breakout, Parasite, won Best Picture in 2020, shocking many. Now, Anora has done the same on just a $6M budget.
Quinn described how Neon’s speed—their ability to act quickly and collapse windows (even being first to airlines)—has allowed them to have success as a smaller indie producer/distributor.
He also gave his advice for how to win Best Picture:
Never be the front runner.
Looks like he took his own advice.
That wraps up this edition of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays. If you made it to this point, please drop a 1️⃣, 2️⃣, or 3️⃣ in the comments to let me know what you found most interesting/useful. And as always, please like and consider sharing with a friend who you think would enjoy! I’ll be back next week. ✌️