There was an avalanche of awards season news this past week! We have a new Academy president, a new lineup for the NYFF, a new casting award at the BAFTAs, and an old new debate between us Mikes about Disney & Fox & Dark Phoenix. What is an Oscar Race Checkpoint? - 1:16 OSCAR TRAILER REVIEW: Honey Boy Trailer 1 - 1:58 ACADEMY NEWS: A New President is Elected - 5:29 The Academy Museum Has Changes - 12:42 Oscars Commercials Will Cost More - 14:15 The Emmys Are Going Hostless - 15:06 OSCARS PRECURSOR NEWS: BAFTAs Add a Casting Category + Talk Streaming - 16:29 SAG-AFTRA Elections Get Nasty - 25:04 WGA Has Issues Too - 28:51 FALL FILM FESTIVAL NEWS: NYFF Has Its Whole Lineup - 30:04 The Irishman to Close London FF - 37:07 Joaquin Phoenix Gets a Special Award - 38:28 More Venice Controversy - 38:56 RANDOM NEWS STORIES: Lucy in the Sky Gets a Release (and a Disney Fight Between the Mikes Breaks Out) - 41:07 OSCARS FUTURES: Cate Blanchett to Star in a GDT Movie - 50:20 Tarantino Comments on His 10th Film - 51:57 Your Homework/PLEASE LEAVE US 5*’S - 54:46 What’s Next From MMO/Words of Wisdom - 56:32 So we’re having fun shaping this new show to what’s happening with Awards Season. Last week, we reviewed over a dozen Oscar contender trailers, and there was a smattering of news to cover amidst our preview of the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals. For this week, we had an onslaught of news about the Academy, including it’s newly elected president David Rubin. The guilds are all basically at war, we react to the New York Film Festival lineup, there’s a Honey Boy trailer, and we discuss other stories about the Emmys, the Academy Museum, Joaquin Phoenix, Guillermo Del Toro’s next star studded film, and Quentin Tarantino’s retirement. It’s another loaded episode in our second installment in this new series. Yes, we are planning to debut a bunch of cool drops, production values, regular segments, and audience interaction. But like a comedian working out their routine in the early days or an awards contender honing their acceptance speech at the precursors or other wishful thinks, we are basically letting this show become what it needs to become. So we thank you for listening as much as you have, and we certainly promise some more regularly scheduled programming draws going forward in the Checkpoint weekly show. But we do feel fortunate to have the space & the place to talk about all these awards season topics in this episode and hope you agree. As we’ve said, do please click the 5 stars on iTunes. It’s a quick process. Just go to your “shows” in iTunes, click on our logo, then scroll down to the bottom until you see the 5 stars. Of course, feel free to write us a few words of review. Those do help us as well, and we sincerely thank you for your cooperation and support. We’re hoping to submit an application to become Tomato-approved on Rotten Tomatoes, which would be a big step for our brand and a show. As always, we want to know what you think about who’s right in the Disney / Fox debate and if you’re hopeful about the new administration at the Academy. Let us know. 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!