Dean will be heading to Los Angeles this week and plans to deal with a “haunted vacuum”? Paramount Pictures (and its parent company) are for sale. Dean and Phil discuss the ramifications of this. Many great films premiered in competition at the recent Cannes Film Festival. Dean and Phil examine the award-winners. A film festival favorite available now on Netflix is Richard Linklater’s dark romantic comedy Hit Man. Dean and Phil discuss it. Then, they take a deep dive look at three “art house” films of recent vintage and use that dive as the vehicle for exploring the function, importance and failure of critics. The films in question are Joanna Hogg’s ghost story The Eternal Daughter and Jane Schoenbrun’s coming-of-age psychodramas We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and the current theatrical release I Saw the TV Glow.

Today is the day the annual movie awards season comes to a merciful conclusion and your friends in podcasting stick the final nail in its coffin with their annual review of the Oscars telecast wherein they reveal who they predicted would win in all 24 categories. As always, there’s a wager involved and for the 2nd year running, you’ll be treated to some classic clips from Academy Awards presentations past. And now, the envelope, please …