Hello, welcome to the extra credits of 2025.
I'm Trey and. I'm Kelsey.
The Oscars are a week away and we usually put our top 10s or
20s or 30s of the previous year after catching up on movies
we've missed. But we're doing our end of year
episode a little bit different for 2025 as we're now three
months into 2026. Yeah, it always takes us so long
to do these, but I, I'm going to say this, I'm going to repeat
myself off of past episodes. I don't think we should put best
of list out at the end of the year, at the end of the year
because we saw access to everything.
Yeah. Possible broader audiences don't
have access to all the international films, like even
just films that are not distributing wide.
So yeah, I feel justified and waiting to or just being able to
watch most of the movies here and and talk.
About them, I know for a fact. I actually don't know for a
fact. But I assume with some evidence
now being in critical circles and being a part of different
bodies or getting screeners over the past year or two, that there
are some movie pundits out there who put their list out at the
end of the year who have not seen all of the movies and yet
put those movies on the list. I I'm almost certain of this.
And I assume that's, you know, actually not that crazy of a
take considering much of the Oscars awards voters have been
voting for movies they haven't seen here for a century.
Yeah. OK.
So usually we just collectively rank our movies.
And this year, I'm trying to turn that collective ranking
into a game show that I thought would be fun.
We're calling this the Extra Credits Cup.
Which I feel like we well, we can't have a song that's
actually popular that's like sports adjacent.
But like the you know, that would be cool if there was like.
AI mean we can license a Jay song for just this episode?
I think that seems like a lot of work we had to like search for
one next year and if anyone has any recommendations for an extra
cut, it's cup. Or if there's.
Any song that's specific? Artists out there who want to
compose a theme song for the extra credit to Cop, hit us up.
That sounds like, I mean that would be amazing, but I do feel
that what if we are like this is great, but I don't know if it
like fits and then they spent all this time creating.
I feel like if you're an artist, most of the time you, you know,
rejection is just a part of the day-to-day, you know what I
mean? I feel like an extra annoying
situation for them. OK.
But yeah, I. Just know I supported your music
and Kelsey did not. OK, so this is the Extra Credits
cup. This is going to be a bracket
driven. Well, actually, Kelsey, why
don't you explain the cup to people?
Oh, sure. OK.
So this is something that Trey proposed.
Yeah. And.
Yeah, what is your? What is the history?
Of this, we went to happy hour to have a little business
meeting about it and we basically for 30 minutes Trey
explained it to me and I was like stop, let me explain it
back to you to make sure I understand.
Sounds like a podcast. And that was just how that went.
So my understanding of me showing up here today is we are
going to have brackets like a March Madness style, whatever
other bracket you want to to conjure and it will have
different categories and it is March.
And it's the Olympics time. So this is like Olympics time.
That's. True.
Yeah, it's a very sport competition.
You know, it's in the air. I think, though here's here's
the gist. OK, we have brackets and then
we'll go through different categories to decide, like what
was the most ambitious movie from this set of movies?
What was the most interesting? Well, I could just like, do it.
What are What are? What's the best support
supporting like? Cast.
Sorry. I was trying to go up with
someone that was like interesting or creative, the
best line or something. Which I do think that the the
goal for this like later on as we get further into it beyond
just like a ranking episode, which we'll kind of do is to
have categories like best speech in a movie.
You know, like we'll get more creative as we go.
Just for our first cup, we're going to do like most ambitious,
best lead, lead role, you know, best supporting role.
Across gender. Yes and and so then we'll like
decide, you know, out of the set of movies, comparing 1 battle
after another to Eddington, who's going to move along in the
bracket and then we'll have like the winner of the most
ambitious. Then we'll go to the next
bracket exercise. That was great and and do like
best, you know, supporting performance.
This is going to be a little bit of like an improv game because I
am sort of figuring this out as I go implanting it and I you
actually explained it extremely well considering we, I haven't
really explained all the rules to you, but I promise this will
make more sense soon. What?
Considering we haven't explained.
All the rules. No, I'm speaking to you like
directly. Like I haven't gone through
everything with you. So you actually explained it
really well because I've tried to like leave you alone about
the game ever since we talked about it originally.
Because I was like, she doesn't really care.
So I'm going to like come up with the rules myself, but
here's how the game works in terms of like the rules of it.
Each main category has four head to head matchups.
I chose the nominees, Kelsey looked them over, gave me a
check mark for the nominees, added some of her own, and
basically of those categories, as Kelsey said, the winners will
move forward into the next round and we will eventually crown one
category champion. And those category champions
will eventually face off against one another, and we will decide
which movie from 2025 deserves the most extra credit they will
win. The extra credit, OK, I didn't
understand this last mega round. It's like the winner from all of
these that is going to go into like, and I guess we'll have to
talk about like what it means to to win the best extra credit
award at the end we're. Going to have to create our own
rubric, but it's essentially our version of Best Picture.
Yeah, to a certain degree, I guess.
Well, not I actually think it's different because it's like, I I
think that's what our show, you know, has set out to do is to
look at like what maybe is being under discussed or right, like
what deserves more more credit from like a screenplay
thematically, performance wise. But I think that's more So what
it it is. I don't think it's like Best
Picture, like it's not. I said our version.
Oh yeah. But it's not what deserves.
Most recognition we're not saying what is the best movie
objectively. Yes, yeah, it's not like a
ranking, which we will on our we'll probably talk about the
Oscars at some point on the main feed and we will just like talk
about our favorite movies of the year in a less long form
ranking, Yeah, 'cause we. Usually do like 5 hour end of
year episodes but we just don't have it in us this year to do
that. Yeah.
We'll we'll return next year and we'll probably just like add it
on to the cup honestly with. Yeah, in.
The following years. That reminds me, if you are
hearing this on the main feed, this is likely going to be the
first 30 minutes or so, so you at least have some kind of like
what are Train Kelsey's like, Best of 2025 lists, or our
favorite movies from this past year.
The full version of this episode will be over on Patreon with the
100 other episodes we have on there, which you can check out
in the description of this episode.
If you want to be a free member, there's a lot of free episodes
on there for you. OK, so let's go over the
categories very quickly and then we're going to jump into our
first round in this Olympics March Madness style bracket.
The categories go most ambitious, which is the biggest
swing, the most scope, I think the most risk taking of a group
of film makers and what kind of movie they set out to make.
The degree of difficulty of making that movie, which film is
basically trying to do the most and is succeeding at doing the
most. Then we have best craft, which
is kind of direction, cinematography, editing, sound
design, score, all feeling like they're in conversation with
each other or conflicting. But there's like a thematic
point for why they're conflicting and moving toward
the same direction as a through line of whatever thematically is
going on in that film. So that would be best craft, but
that's our that's our extra credit to lens on best craft,
best lead across gender, strong essential performance, anchoring
of film, best supporting again across gender scene, stealing
performances across all genres of movies.
And this is only for like 1 supporting or is it?
Because for me, I kind of think it it's interesting to talk
about like the supporting cast in general.
The ensemble. Yeah.
But I guess maybe we'll get more in the weeds when we're doing
that bracket because there might be like 1 supporting performance
that kind of like outshines something that then it would
like push it forward. Maybe in future years we're
going to be like the top three supporting performances from a
movie because I feel like it's unfair 'cause there's like
Ocean's level movies this year. Yeah, there's like centers or
one battle after another, which the the $100 million movies.
So they can afford 8 movie stars to A to B movie stars.
Then we have best screenplay adapted or not, just across the
board. What is the sharpest writing,
whether that's structure, dialogue, thematic work,
whatever it is, I like it. Here's where we get to just
things I made-up that I thought would be fun to discuss that
again. This is going to be kind of a a
theme of all of our Extra Credits cups in the future.
Most impactful? The movie that was both
culturally significant but also personally significant to us and
what movie lived in our minds the longest after seeing it?
Because I'll give a good example.
Sentimental value is a movie that in the theater while
watching it I was like holy shit, this is like an out of
body emotional experience. I really I just love this
conversation about generational lineage and trauma and hope and
wisdom. It just like passing through
this house and the architecture of the home matching the
architecture of the themes in the film.
I thought it was beautiful. Haven't thought about it since.
And that's a good example of like, I'm just going to step on
that now. That's a movie that has not
lived with me, and I'm not saying it's not good.
I'm not saying those things were effective.
For whatever reason, that movie specifically has not spoke to me
to this day after seeing it. As opposed to a movie like
Hamnet, which is what a lot of people feel about Hamnet.
I feel the opposite, which is that movie stuck with me every
day I've seen it. Fair.
Yeah, does. That make sense?
Yeah, it's really interesting too, because like with
sentimental value, a lot of people have been asking us,
especially around like Oscar season, a lot of people are
like, what should we watch like for, you know, if we're at a
party or something. And I always am like, don't
watch sentimental value first. Watch worst person in the world,
you know, and then go to sentimental value.
But but a lot of people want to be in on the conversation, which
totally makes sense. But yeah, I I'm excited to talk
about sentimental value. I definitely liked it more than
you. And then I have best vibes,
which is like the strongest atmosphere, strongest mood, the
cinematic environment. This might also be like a a
theater experience situation that's.
True. I also originally had on their
movies, like I'll give an example again to step on it, 1
Battle after another. And then after reflection, I was
like, I don't want this category to be like, what is the most
realized cinematic environment? I wanted to be like, what has
the strongest atmosphere that feels collectively like we're
joined in on something. I actually feel like movies like
1 Battle can be divisive and I don't want that for best vibes.
So I kind of switched it up, if that makes sense.
I don't know what is a good example right now, but maybe,
like, the Phoenician scheme has some good vibes.
OK Yeah. All right.
Most rewatchable is our last one.
This is the movie, obviously, that we're likely to watch 5 or
more times over the next decade. And I'm pulling this from the
Bill Simmons podcast of Rewatchables.
And I thought this would be a fun one for us to try to be
prophetic about. About what will we watch 10 more
times over the next few decades. OK.
I love it. And then for fun at the end, for
fun, this is not going to be going on the next round.
It will not be advancing the which is just to shit talk and
be haters. Best of the worst prestige
edition. So not best of the worst movies
of the year, necessarily the best of the worst of movies that
were intended to be 5 star prestige heavy.
Box office successes. That just never worked for us.
Maybe they were box office wise, but they just fell off
narratively or thematically or emotionally.
Or maybe they didn't get to the box office achievements, but
they were critically adored in some ways, but we never
connected with them. So this is going to be an
interesting, very subjective 1. OK.
Yeah, I like it. And this is the first time I'm
hearing like all of the categories.
So that's great. That's.
Why I said what I said on this? Journey oh I understand you were
like saying like OK I. Don't want to sound pretentious,
you're like both. Telling the audience and meme,
but I, I think also for future, you know, cups, extra credit
cups, people in the comments, let us know what are some
categories that you would want to see in the future?
And also I'm thinking like for next year or future years we
could do, I don't know if it would work with brackets, but I
I think like we could do mini awards of like, like I was just
saying like best speech of a movie or, you know, best
monologue or something like that.
Superlatives. From 2020. 5 That's what we
should call it. It's like a yearbook.
To. Keep it school.
Themes. I also only called it the Extra
Credits Cup because of the Goblet of Fire.
I was trying to think of something that was like, I don't
know, that was resonant with different films that are about
like an Olympic styled situation, but there aren't a
lot. I guess you could just say that
this is also Marty Supreme inspired because I was thinking
a lot about that movie too. Anyways, yeah, some more
categories coming for next year. We also have a ton of questions
from listeners that we're going to be answering throughout this
episode in between categories. And also if you get confused,
and you surely will get confused rather than me, read back to you
everything that's been nominated for each category.
We already posted images, little cards like category cards on our
Instagram and on Patreon. So you can go and check over
there or follow us over there to see what those cards look like
so you can keep up while we're watching or while we're talking
about these movies. You did a.
Great job organizing all those now.
Appreciate it. OK, we're going to start off,
we're at the 15 minute mark. We're going to start off with
our first category, most ambitious.
I also have our computer hooked up to our TV so Kelsey can see,
but I'm double mousing right now and it is kind of throwing me.
Off double mousing, Yeah, you do have two, two mice over there.