We review Harriet, break down the Cinema Eye Honors, rant & rave about the latest Martin Scorsese interviews, discuss the Academy’s new streaming platform, chronicle the controversy over Lionheart, & react to trailers for Soul, The Banker, The Two Popes, & Citizen K. WHAT IS THIS EPISODE? - Top of Show HARRIET REVIEW: Failing Expectations - 1:20 Mike1’s Theater Going Omen - 4:47 Biggest Problems - 5:55 Agency vs Deus Ex Machina - 11:00 Highlights, Lessons, Regrets, + Final Grades - 15:33 AWARDS SEASON NEWS: Cinema Eye Honors Announce Noms - 19:58 Scorsese NYT Write Up - 23:01 International Feature Goes Academy Wide - 32:36 Nigeria’s “Lionheart” Gets DQ’d - 37:33 CONTENDER TRAILER REACTIONS: The Banker Trailer 1 - 42:11 The Two Popes Trailer 2 - 44:10 Citizen K Trailer 1 - 49:25 Soul Teaser Trailer - 54:03 Your Homework/PLEASE LEAVE US 5*’S - 57:47 What’s Next From MMO/Words of Wisdom - 59:35 Another week comes to a close, and we have a new slate of Awards Season news to discuss. But first, we must review Harriet & discuss the Oscar chances for Cynthia Erivo, her tremendous Best Original Song candidate, “Stand Up,” and all the terrific production values. Unfortuntely, the movie didn’t live up to the hype for us. Though we did take away many positives. After going 12 rounds on Harriet, we break down the nominees for the Cinema Eye Honors, which held some precedent for last year’s Best Documentary Feature Oscars category in previous years. Martin Scorsese can’t stop talking about Marvel movies. It’s almost as if he planned this, and we can’t stop talking about how he can’t stop talking about it. Soooo, well, yeah. The Academy also made some news this week by revealing enhancements to its new streaming service, which should have a tangible effect on this year’s voting. Unfortunately, the Academy also left common sense at the door with their disqualification of the Nigerian submission to Best International Film, Lionheart. We also got 4 terrific new trailers for potential Oscar nominees of the next two ceremonies. The Banker is gonna be first real candidate from the Apple Plus streaming service, and boy, does it hit all of the beats we crave in awards season films. Then The Two Popes trailer two adds to our excitement over this film, one of the bigger surprises of the Oscars 2020 thus far. Citizen K intrigued us with its trailer from renowned documentarian Alex Gibney, and we also marvel over the first look at Pixar’s Soul. Another week, another crowded Oscar Race Checkpoint to recap - the race is heating up, folks! If you’re enjoying our show, please take a few seconds to leave us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts. Just go into your app, click on our show icon, scroll down a few moments, and please click that fifth star. We cannot thank you enough! (which is why we thank you every time.) Otherwise, do send us your thoughts on any of the controversies and candidates discuss in this Checkpoint. We had a lot of fire in this episode, and we don’t mind chatting with you on social media. We’re at MMandOscar on Twitter, and we are on Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Gmail. You can subscribe / rate / review / like / share / & listen to us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Tune In, Spotify, and just about wherever you listen to podcasts. When reality sucks, keep watching movies with us. We’re Mike, Mike, & Oscar!