Contending at the Water Cooler

Help! Clarence is deserted on a remote island–someone save him! Or, perhaps, Megan and Joey are talking about Sam Raimi’s Send Help and he’s a little under the weather. Even an S.O.S. can be dramatic.

If you follow Megan on any social platform, you will notice how much she loves Raimi’s latest, which finds Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien butting heads and slaughtering boars after their plane crashes on a business trip to Bangkok. McAdams’ Linda has the survival skills, but O’Brien’s Bradley thinks he’s still in control. How does Raimi fare when giving this workplace hierarchy dark comedy his trademark bloody twists?

A few new trailers dropped this week, and Joey and Megan give their instant reactions to The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette. Is the lighting that bad for Miranda Priestly’s return? Will the Ryan Murphy produced limited series be more in line with the quality of The People vs. OJ Simpson?

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We were not ready to say “Goodbye” to Catherine O’Hara today.

When a friend send the news that she’d passed, it felt like a punch to the gut. I mourned not only the great comedic performances she’d given — Best In Show, Waiting For Guffman, Beetlejuice, and her Emmy-winning work in Schitt’s Creek — but I also mourned the great performances she’d yet to give. No matter her age, O’Hara always seemed down to play, and I always imagined her bringing that same inspired lunacy straight into her 90s.

But the universe had different plans for her.

In 2017, I had the great fortune of speaking with Catherine O’Hara when I wrote for Awards Daily. It would emerge as one of my very favorite interviews. She was kind, she was generous, and she was very, very funny as she dove into the process of Schitt’s Creek and Moira Rose. We talked just as the comedy hit Netflix and exploded into pop culture. She and the rest of the main cast would eventually go on to win well deserved Emmys for their work.

Here, in this podcast interview, O’Hara and I chat about her work on the series and her partnership with Eugene and Dan Levy. Listening to the podcast again today, I’m struck by how, at times, I wished I’d asked different questions. I wished I’d broadened our conversation to compare Moira to the great roles of her career. I wished I’d gushed a little less. Yet, she remained friendly, open, and ever in praise of the collaborative process that gave us Schitt’s Creek.

So, join me in remembering this great actress: her brilliance, her razor-sharp humor, and her life.

And in the words of Annie Murphy’s Alexis Rose:

“Goodbye to a great actress. ”

Click here for my full podcast interview with the brilliant Catherine O’Hara or via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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We let the dust settle from last Thursday’s 2026 Oscar nominations, and now we’re ready to break them down. We chat about our surprises, our disappointments, and our favorite nominations. We also take our first stab at winner predictions. We have a long way to go before the 2026 Oscars, including major guild wins. Things are bound to change before we lock things in, but these predictions are what we’re feeling in late January.

Following that, Megan recently reviewed Sam Raimi’s Send Help. Rachel McAdams plays a mousy woman trapped on a deserted island with her dude-bro boss. Based on the trailer, we think she’s not up for his shit. Megan weighs in on the film and McAdams’s performance.

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It’s finally that time of year. On Thursday, January 23, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will unveil the nominations for the 98th Academy Awards. The nominations will be read live by Danielle Brooks (Oscar nominee for The Color Purple) and Lewis Pullman. To prepare for the big day, Team Contending gathers around the Water Cooler to dish on their 2026 Oscar nomination predictions in all 24 categories. We’ll be finalizing our predictions on the site by end of day Tuesday!

Be sure to stay with The Contending all week as we cover the 2026 Oscar nominations!

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Seasoned character actor Saul Rubinek’s incredibly diverse resume boasts collaborations with some of cinema’s greatest filmmakers. He worked with Oliver Stone on Wall Street and Nixon. He co-starred in Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning masterpiece Unforgiven. He was also featured in Tony Scott’s True Romance, based on a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino. His career also boasts memorable turns on such long-standing television series as Frasier, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lost, Hunters, and most recently Peacock’s The Copenhagen Test.

Created by Thomas Brandon, The Copenhagen Test stars Simu Liu (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and Melissa Barrera (Scream). Liu plays Alexander Hale, an intelligence agent whose brain is hacked which allows access to everything he sees and hears. Rubinek’s Victor Simonek, a former intelligence analyst who now runs a restaurant, mentors Alexander, but is there more to their partnership?

Rubinek joined the series thanks to a lifetime of adoration for the spy thriller novels of Ian Fleming or, later, John le Carré. Rubinek considers showrunner Brandon’s work a descendant of the storytelling-focused spy novels he loved.

“This piece, when I read it, I realized, ‘Oh my god, this is a grandchild of that world!’ This writer knows it and is not talking down to the audience. It is complex, interesting, and propulsive,” Rubinek explained. “The real metaphor here that Thomas Brandon is using is creating a situation that poetically, entertainingly, and very excitingly creates a situation where the ends and the means are put right up against each other. Especially on an immigrant kid who needs maybe more than anybody else to prove his loyalty to the country that has stopped giving his parents safety.”

Here, in a podcast interview with The Contending, Saul Rubinek talks about much from his extensive career within theater, film, and television. He praises The Copenhagen Test show runners Thomas Brandon and Jennifer Yale for their ability to create an atmosphere of safety. He marvels at their ability to create a set that sponsored artistic freedom and risk-taking. He also calls series star Liu a “generous leader” who deeply understands the mutual support system between star and supporting cast required to create something great.

Rubinek also shares several stories from his personal life, many of which he describes in his new book All in the Telling: a somewhat true story, which is now available on Amazon. He dives into his incredible past, including his introduction into theater in his Canadian childhood. He also shares perspectives on his recent critically acclaimed performance as “Saul Rubinek” (or a variation of himself) in the recent off-Broadway play Playing Shylock. Rubinek will soon re-stage this performance in Montreal.

Rubinek is a gifted character actor whose performances grace many of film and television’s best creations. But, most importantly, Rubinek is a gifted storyteller with a great deal to share.

Click here to listen to the full podcast with The Copenhagen Test co-star Saul Rubinek!

The Copenhagen Test streams exclusively on Peacock. 

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One Battle After Another and Hamnet took home the big Best Picture wins at the 2026 Golden Globe Awards. On this week’s podcast, we review the ceremony and host Nikki Glaser, its winners, and the best / worst moments of the evening. Plus, following last night’s actress wins, how does the 2026 Oscar Actress landscape change? Is Teyana Taylor the de facto frontrunner? Is Jessie Buckley unstoppable? Will Rose Byrne’s acclaimed performance in the challenging If I Had Legs I’d Kick You finally bring the actress Oscar attention? We tackle these questions and more as we dive into the 2026 Oscar Actress races.

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

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Alexandr Molochnikov’s Oscar-shortlisted film, Extremist, is ripped from the headlines. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has turned into all-out war, and citizens across multiple continents protest in any way that they can. Extremist tells the true story of Sasha Skochilenko, a Russian artist and musician who finds herself behind bars after she places facts about the conflict on stickers on products in a nearby store. While Molochnikov never shies away from the real implications behind Skochileno’s imprisonment, Extemist turns this story on its head to surprise the audience with a remarkable ending.

More filmmakers should take risks with how they tell real-life stories, and Molochnikov explains that he wasn’t ever scared or worried to write a film that hones in on the truth. You cannot avoid the news of the war in Ukraine, and one way to protest the violence is by not shying away from it.

Molochnikov shows two different worlds living side-by-side. Skochilenko fills her world with color and life, galavanting around the woods with her friends and her lover, Sonya. Under the Russian rule, the filmmaker bathes the film in greys and blues, so a shade of red lipstick or shimmer of gold glitter sparkles even brighter. It’s almost as if the visual palette is an accompanying protest.

Extemist avoids becoming another true story tale for the light infused within it. The film feels very present, not just because this event happened so recently but also because our anger and frustration with this war is something that we see and hear about almost every day.

If a regime can steal your freedom for simply telling the truth, they can do anything. If a sticker can land you in prison, what will happen when you march in the streets?

Extremist can be viewed via The New Yorker’s YouTube page here.

Click here to listen to my conversation with Extremist director Alexandr Molochnikov.

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On our first podcast of 2026, we take stock of the upcoming 2026 Golden Globe Awards. On the TV front, will they mostly rubber stamp the 2025 Emmys and award The Pitt, The Studio, and Adolescence? Or will another series break through? On the film front, how many of its 9 leading nominations will One Battle After Another receive? What about Sinners or one of the three multi-nominated foreign language films? Find out where we stand on our 2026 Golden Globes Predictions podcast. Check out the website later this week for predictions from the full team at The Contending.

But first, Megan has returned from her first trip to the Critics Choice Awards. She recaps her experience at the ceremony, and we review the winners and their potential impact on the awards race. We also spitball potential nominations we’d love to see at the upcoming The Actor Awards (formerly the Screen Actors Guild Awards).

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

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It’s our final podcast of 2025. To celebrate, we finally squeeze in our wildly overdue Fantasy Oscar second round draft trades with a few modifications. We’ll be posting a new page on the website so you can track our progress as we march to the Dolby and the 2026 Oscars. Then, we review two new Christmas releases: Marty Supreme and Song Sung Blue. Hopefully, you’ve read Megan’s take on the film, but what did Joey and Clarence think? And does the Neil Diamond-inspired Song Sung Blue make us joyful or… blue? Find out on this week’s podcast!

SPOILER ALERT WHERE WE DISCUSS THE ENDING OF BOTH FILMS:

Marty Supreme: 50:00 – 55:00

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

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Two people sitting alone in a room talking is the basic premise of Ira Sachs’ marvelous new drama, Peter Hujar’s Day. Some contemporary audiences might not be used to such a simple concept, but the performances from Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall (and Sachs’ direction) are an exercise in how communication can be balanced by nuanced listening. Wouldn’t you just die to have Rebecca Hall listen to you speak about your day?

Would you be able to take in someone speaking about their day like Hall does as Linda Rosenkrantz? The famed journalist wanted to capture an ordinary day in the life of an artist in New York City in 1974, and it’s surreal to hear Whishaw’s Hujar casually mention names like Susan Sontag, Allen Ginsburg, and William S. Burroughs. Without seeing any of these other people, Sachs’ writing allows these titans of the literary and artistic worlds to become everyday people again. Sachs’ film is not a biopic as much as a sliver of time in the life of two friends and two people creating something wholly unique with one another.

Hall has always brought a bold intelligence to all of her characters, but because Sachs’ script requests her to listen so much, you are drawn in by how her Linda observes and absorbs Peter’s words. She almost instructs the audience how to take in information. As the camera initially spends so much time on Whishaw, Linda primarily asks questions in response to color Peter’s stories more deeply before the interview settles evolves into a conversation between two friends. At one point, Peter asks Linda how much tape is left and suggests that he is worried that what they are doing isn’t good. ‘It’s all good,’ she says. ‘No, you’re not boring me.’ It’s a line that could be seen as comforting a friend, but she’s also working as a journalist.

After we talk about Hall adjusting her voice to sit further back in her register, we discuss how her physicality becomes more relaxed as the day wanes into night. Because she loves the era so much, it was easy and exciting for her to research and settle into this period. I originally wondered if Linda was concerned if Peter was telling her the truth about his day, and then I thought…would it matter? While Whishaw spiritedly takes the opportunity to expel so much information, it’s entirely thrilling to see how Hall consumes it and volleys back. We are so steeped in our own media and image that something like Peter Hujar’s Day is a breath of fresh air.

Rebecca Hall is so luminous that she almost doesn’t have to say a word.

Click here to listen!

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