Ep. 59: Blind Film Critics Society 2025 Awards

Alex and Lee are joined by special guests, John Stark and Ren Leach, to present the 2nd annual Blind Film Critics Society nominations and awards, which honor the best in cinema for 2025.

Follow Alex on Letterbox'd at @alexhoward11 and Lee at @leepugsleyla 

Follow John Stark at:
https://www.macthemovieguy.com
YouTube - @macthemovieguy 
Rotten Tomatoes - John Stark

Follow Ren Leach at: 
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Letterbox'd - @renleach 

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Transcript

Lee Pugsley
Happy March everyone, and welcome back to another episode of The Dark Room, where two blind cinephiles illuminate the sighted. I'm Lee Pugsley.

Alex Howard
I'm Alex Howard.

Lee Pugsley
And this is a podcast hosted by two legally blind guys for film lovers of all abilities. So we are fresh out of Oscar season now. We just had the ceremony this past week, and we are excited to dive into our thoughts on the Oscars with some special guests, as well as giving our nominations and winners for the Blind Film Critics Society. And to help us with all of this, we have a few special guests that we'd like to introduce. Uh, John Stark, who has been on our podcast before. Welcome, John.

John Stark
Thank you, Lee. I'm excited to be here again. Love the podcast.

Lee Pugsley
And we also have Ren Leach, who has also been on our podcast before with our Penguin episode. Ren, welcome back to the show.

Ren Leach
Hi, Lee. Hi, Alex. Great to be back.

Alex Howard
And Ren, we want to welcome you to the Blind Film Critics Society as well. You're the newest member.

Ren Leach
Thank you. As such, do I get to stop carrying everybody's stuff around when we go from city to city, or do I still have to do all the rookie stuff?

Alex Howard
Oh yeah, that was part of the hazing for sure.

Ren Leach
Oh, okay.

Alex Howard
You're in now.

Ren Leach
All right. Well, okay, good. Great.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, you have earned your rite of passage, so you are officially in. Congratulations.

Ren Leach
[chuckling] Thank you.

Lee Pugsley
To start off with, let's go ahead and share your thoughts on the Oscar ceremony. Any surprises or things that stuck out to you?

Alex Howard
So I thought the tie was really interesting, and I thought it was funny that there was a tie and then two speeches, obviously, because both of them had to speak, and then Sean Penn didn't show up. So it kind of made up the time— Sean Penn not speaking made up the time for the two speeches. So I thought that was really interesting.

John Stark
I was gonna say, there have been very rarely ties. The last one was for Best Sound, the year of Zero Dark Thirty, when it tied another film.

Alex Howard
Yeah, I think it was funny because like, you know, we had the La La Land debacle, and so I don't think we've had a tie since then. So he had to literally be like, this is not a joke, there's a tie, we're gonna handle this. And everyone, I think all of us thought it was a joke at first.

Ren Leach
He did a great job.

Lee Pugsley
He did.

Alex Howard
I was actually at a party with someone who worked on a live-action best short, one of the ones that actually won — I think it was the first one, The Singers. And so when he said there was a tie, like, our room was so locked into who was going to win because we wanted her to win. So it was super intense. We were like, oh my God.

Lee Pugsley
One of the other things that stuck out to me, and I've talked to Alex about this, is I really wish they would have done snippets of all 5 of the best song nominees. I understand that K-pop Demon Hunters and Sinners were the most popular with "I Lied to You" and "Golden," but I just think it's very respectful to give each of the songwriters in that category at least I don't know, 30 seconds to a minute of time just to sample the work that they've been nominated for. So I'm curious to know what you guys think of that.

John Stark
I think it's a dangerous gamble unless somebody is— supposedly they're not supposed to be privy to the results. So if they choose to highlight the two popular songs and then suddenly something crazy happens and "Golden" doesn't win, it goes to something else, the song they didn't highlight, then they look like, it's like in comparison to the year when they really, really thought Chadwick Boseman was gonna win Best Actor. I don't know if anybody remembers that year. So, oh yeah, we closed with Best Actor. Like, it was after, it was the last category.

Alex Howard
Not only did we close with Best Actor, not only did we close with Best Actor, he wasn't even there to accept it.

John Stark
Yeah. And it was the most deflating thing. So yeah, if you're gonna bet on Best Original Song, you better damn well be sure that "Golden" is gonna win, because if it hadn't won, that would have been really awkward.

Alex Howard
I honestly thought it worked out this year because I think they took the time they were gonna take for the 3 other songs and put that into the In Memoriam, which I thought they did a really good job with because they highlighted 3 major celebrity deaths that we had this past year. With Robert Redford...

John Stark
Diane Keaton and Rob Reiner.

Alex Howard
Rob Reiner, yeah. And so the fact that they took their time with that, I think it— everyone was pretty happy with how they did that. So I think the only way they were able to do that right was if they cut down on the songs.

Lee Pugsley
I understand where you're coming from with that. I just feel like it's respectful to all 5 songwriters to at least feature a snippet of their songs. This doesn't even have to be the whole song. It could just be like 30 seconds and we could do like a 2 or 2-and-a-half minute medley of all of the best song nominees.

John Stark
Yeah, I mean, we spend so much time at the opening with Conan doing like nonsensical stuff to like warm up the audience. It's like, it feels like we, we have time. Like there's time there, you know, within the show itself. They're just, they just don't know how to manage it.

Alex Howard
Speaking of the opening though, the Weapons spoof was so good. I thought that was so funny.

John Stark
It was. The Weapons spoof was hilarious.

Alex Howard
Did any of you watch it with audio description? I didn't do it.

John Stark
I did. I did. I watched the red carpet and the, the whole telecast with audio description. I really thought that the telecast was excellent. Uh, the audio description was excellent. The only time, uh, and I posted this on my website for my Small Screen Diaries, the only time where I was like, "Come on," was when Amy Madigan won and she thanked Ed. And I was like, I know I shouldn't expect a lot from every single narrator, but she's been married to Ed Harris, an Academy Award-nominated actor, since 1983. And they kept saying her partner. But yet when we got to Paul Thomas Anderson, they had no problem clocking Maya Rudolph. So I just, I kind of like, if you have a famous spouse, I feel like they should be clocked, you know? Like, the blind audience should have known it was Ed Harris, not just some Ed, like some dude named Ed.

Alex Howard
For the audio description, did they read the— all the names on the in memoriam?

John Stark
Uh, as far as I know. I mean, we'll never— that's the thing about being blind is I'll never know if they missed anybody, if they skipped somebody. But based on the outrage, the people that I noticed that were missing were the people that apparently were missed. Uh, Eric Dane and James Van Der Beek were two standouts, but also Robert Carradine. I think honestly Eric Dane's probably the biggest one because he does actually have film credits, so it's easily, to write him off as just a TV actor, it really does his film credits a disservice, and he was actually in films in 2025. So I think Eric, bare minimum, should have been. James has a couple film credits to his name, Uh, Robert has less. He's, he is actually mostly well known for Lizzie McGuire, but, and for being attached to the Carradine family in general. But Eric has been in films his whole career. He was all the way back, I remember, before he was ever on Grey's Anatomy, he was in the third X-Men movie playing, uh, Multiple Man. So he's had a decent career in film. It was a weird snub considering the fact that he had committed to advocacy and stuff, it would have been a nice finish to have him included.

Alex Howard
For me, when I watch it without audio description, because I'm usually at a party, so I don't have them turn it on at the party. To be fair, I didn't ask though. But whenever I'm sitting next to someone, I kind of ask, oh, who's that? Who's that? When they're coming out to present and things like that. And so one of these years I'd like to watch it with audio description. But what did y'all think of the winners and snubs and all that stuff?

John Stark
It's not a category we would normally talk about as blind, uh, individuals, but that is an amazing win in cinematography. They were not projected to win, and 98 years, uh, it's been 98 years coming. So bravo.

Alex Howard
100% agree.

Ren Leach
Yeah.

John Stark
They took 98 years to finally give it to a female cinematographer. I'm okay that I missed that in my Oscar pool. Like, that's, that's the best miss to have. If you're gonna have a miss on your Oscar list, that's the one, you know?

Ren Leach
Yeah.

Alex Howard
Yeah.

John Stark
So I was not mad at all. I was super happy for her and, uh, for setting, you know, a new standard in that category.

Lee Pugsley
I would agree with that as well. I was very happy about that win. And as for the rest of the winners, I don't really feel like there were any big surprises. The only thing I guess would be best casting, but we have no idea what that's based on right now. And it was between Sinners and One Battle After Another. We all knew those were the top two contenders, and I could have seen it going either way. So I wasn't surprised when One Battle pulled it out over Sinners. If I was voting, I would have voted for Sinners for best casting, but I also figured One Battle had a fair shot as well.

Alex Howard
And I think I can ask— John would know this— but, um, I was hoping that we were gonna get... We got Best Documentary Short with audio description. I don't think the Best Documentary winner had AD. Am I wrong on that?

John Stark
No, as far as I know, it does not. It's not even in English.

Alex Howard
Okay. And then I don't think the Best Animated Short had AD. The one of the live-action shorts does. The Singers does.

John Stark
Well, again, the animated short is also not in English, so it has to overcome that as well.

Alex Howard
That's no excuse, but yeah.

John Stark
It's not. It's coming from— it's a Canadian short coming from Canada, so it's possible it has— maybe somewhere in Canada they played it with audio. I don't know.

Alex Howard
But The Singers, the live-action short that 

John Stark
— yes

Alex Howard
...Has AD on Netflix. And the other one, um, Exchanging Saliva, does not, correct?

John Stark
Correct. It's, uh, just— it's on YouTube. It's just— it's just on YouTube. They could put it— I realize they could put it. That's not an excuse. I'm just saying it's just on YouTube.

Alex Howard
Ren, do you have any thoughts on the Oscars?

Ren Leach
Well, the only thing I think that I would add to it was how they took a moment to recognize Marlee Matlin and talked about the advancement and acceptance of captioning in cinema. I thought that was a really nice moment. And by the same token, I also think that's a great springboard moment to open the discussion about audio description. And as we're just talking about why is it not available on all of the nominees within the Academy. I think that would be the bare minimum of where they should start. But there's something, so hopefully we can build on that.

Alex Howard
Oh, for sure. I was hoping for Neon to get a big fat goose egg at the Oscars, but then I figured out it was impossible because they were going to win something for Best International Feature. They got one. But...

Ren Leach
Yeah.

Lee Pugsley
For anyone who did an Oscar predictions ballot, how did you do?

Alex Howard
I got 19 out of 24.

Lee Pugsley
I got 20 out of 24.

Ren Leach
Wow.

John Stark
I got 15. It was not an amazing night for me.

Alex Howard
But you did a lot of No Guts, No Glory predictions. So.

John Stark
Yeah, I mean, I, I always try to find the risks, the, the big swings first. The, the funny thing is, like, I went with the wrong ones. I really overplayed Sinners. I really, like, kind of bet a lot on Sinners. And then the categories in which I bet for Sinners— like, I didn't bet cinematography, but I had it in casting. I thought it was gonna win. I didn't think Frankenstein was gonna get all three, so I had Sinners for makeup and costume design. Um, costume design, you know, that's a pairing that, that has won before, the two of them. Um, so I thought maybe that would be an upset. But the short categories, I feel like, always kill people. Like, I didn't get animated, or even with two winners, I still missed live-action short. I had A Friend of Dorothy as my pick, so...

Alex Howard
Yeah, the, the one, um, that I was kicking myself on was I put Delroy Lindo for best supporting actor, and, uh, in my— Sean Penn, I think, had the best performance if I'm being objective. But I didn't want him to win because he didn't want to win and he didn't care. And he's—

John Stark
No, he didn't care. And I really thought that was going to matter for them because there's so much talk about, uh, Chalamet's, you know, um, like him sort of almost like overdoing it. I'm like, well, if he's over and they're paying attention, then that means that they're paying attention to awards, uh, you know, races and, and all of these... And then they're noticing Sean's not doing anything. So, I mean, they're noticing— they have to notice that he didn't go to the BAFTAs or the Screen Actors Guild. Like, they have to notice that stuff, right? And they still voted for him. And I just thought, that's insane. Like, that's his third Academy Award and he couldn't be bothered. And there were actors there who have been acting at least as long as Sean Penn with Stellan Skarsgård and Delroy Lindo as old as they are, and they've been in Hollywood forever. And I just don't know why it couldn't have been one of them. You know, Stellan was the one when I was willing to give Neon because of Stellan, because I think he's done phenomenal work throughout his career and he has plenty of English language stuff. So if he had won for that, I would have been happy for him individually as an actor.

Alex Howard
One thing I do want to point out that no one really seems to be talking about is Warner Brothers won 11 Oscars between One Battle After Another and Sinners, which ties the record that New Line had with Return of the King, and MGM had with Ben-Hur, and Paramount had with Titanic. So that's tying the record of the most Oscars for a studio in one night, and they are about to get sold to Paramount after— but they tied the record for the most Oscars, and then they broke the record for box office last year. And yet they're about to get sold.

John Stark
I— it doesn't make any sense. I feel like Warner Brothers should be buying Paramount, not the other way around.

Alex Howard
I'm still hoping that it won't go through, through the government, but that's another conversation. Lee, did you have any final thoughts, or do we want to jump into the Blind Film Critics Society?

Lee Pugsley
No, I think those are all of my thoughts. But yeah, let's go ahead and shift directions now to talking about the Blind Film Critics Society. And this is our second year, which is very exciting, of doing nominations and awards from 4 blind film critics. And John, I'll pass it over to you just for any new listeners out there to talk about your vision for why you started the Blind Film Critics Society and what the mission is.

John Stark
Well, I came up with the Blind Film Critics Society to encourage more people to be in the space and more blind film criticism just in general. You know, I was inspired just— Oddly enough, by the way that the Razzies started, just in like some dude's living room back in the day. It was a bunch of like industry insiders and they just kind of voted on what they thought the worst films are. And now they're this sort of weirdly recognized awards ceremony every year. I'm like, if they can do it, why can't we? Every organization starts somewhere. So I just started with the blind film critics that I knew and have been trying to expand. Our requirements are quite low. You just have to have seen a minimum of 25 films in a year and have a social media presence publicly somewhere where you can write about film. So not like 'friends only' on Facebook, like you have to be able to post so that people can see.

Alex Howard
The easiest way to do it is to get a Letterboxd account.

Lee Pugsley
Yes.

Alex Howard
Put reviews on there. I mean, that's what Ren does. That's what I do. And the other requirement is you have to be legally blind, obviously. So.

John Stark
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You have to, well, you have to be at least low vision enough to where audio description is the thing that you use.

Alex Howard
Yes.

John Stark
Like if, if, yeah. Like you have, because the whole point of it is audio description. We only award and nominate films that have existing audio description tracks. So we don't award anything, which makes our international feature category look completely different than anybody else's. I think that's the great thing is that we're celebrating it from our perspective. It's different than anybody else's. And maybe we'll continue to grow our ranks. And we're just such an underrepresented community that I think it's important because if we're not doing it, then who is? So we have to still continue to be out there pounding the ground because this year the Oscars were a great example of how easily dismissed we can be in terms of audio description, uh, being such an afterthought. The fact that we have two Best Picture nominees without audio description from a major studio, uh, it just is— it just— it's, it's unacceptable.

Alex Howard
And it's not for the lack of awareness because they've done audio description before for foreign films. We beat that drum before. But yeah, last year for the Blind Film Critics Society, we had 3 members. This year we have 4 with the addition of Ren. So this is our second awards ceremony.

John Stark
Hopefully somebody will reach out to us and join us for next year for our third annual.

Alex Howard
Yeah, so if you'd like to join the Blind Film Critics Society, you can email us at DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com, and we would love to have you.

John Stark
Once we have enough people, we'll try to make an actual social media presence that is not contacting us individually on our own social media platform. But, uh, yeah, we are small but mighty right now.

Lee Pugsley
And it's great just to see even growth in small ways. The fact that, Ren, you're here this year— like Alex was saying, we have 4 people this year rather than 3. It's like, it's progress, you know, small but mighty nonetheless.

Alex Howard
And the cool thing is, since we have such a small group, our nominees and winners are very unique, as you're about to see.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, you'll see that they don't line up completely with the Oscar nominations, which is okay.

Alex Howard
And politic-free, mostly.

Lee Pugsley
And we do a voting process just like any other organization would. I feel like it's a very fair and judicious process where we discuss, we do rankings, so on and so forth. And yeah, I really enjoy this process. I think it's fun every year.

John Stark
Yeah, for anybody who's interested, we do ranked choice voting. Which is what a lot of other— I vote for several other critics' awards, and some of them do ranked choice. The higher up, the more points it will get down to the bottom. And the Oscars do it the same way. Even their final ballot for Best Picture was ranked. So there was a lot of conversation about whether or not that would help or hurt certain films if they were too divisive. So that's how we vote.

Lee Pugsley
And another thing that sets us apart is that we do awards for best audio description for different genres as well, because we want to celebrate the work that audio description writers, performers, and companies are doing to make film accessible for all of us.

Alex Howard
The way this is going to work is we're going to do the below the line categories, then go up to actor-director categories, then go into the audio description category, and then end off with Best Picture.

Lee Pugsley
All right, well, go ahead, Alex, and kick us off. Um, Alex will be the one that will be reading each category, and he will also announce the winners for each category as well. And then me, John, and Ren will be reading the category nominees.

Alex Howard
And this is going to go quick because I don't have a room of writers to write skits and jokes for every category.

So the nominees for Best Sound are:

Lee Pugsley
Ballerina, F1, Frankenstein, Sinners, and Warfare.

Alex Howard
And the winner is Warfare, which had outstanding sound.

So for our next award, the nominees for the Best Original Song are: 

John Stark
"Waiting on a Wish" from Snow White, "I Lie to You" from Sinners, "Golden" from K-pop Demon Hunters, "Soda Pop" from K-pop Demon Hunters, and "Girl in the Bubble" from Wicked for Good.

Alex Howard
And the winner is "Golden" from K-Pop Demon Hunters.

And moving on to the next one, the nominees for Best Original Score are:

John Stark
Daniel Blumberg for The Testament of Anne Lee, Jerskin Fendrix for Bugonia, Ludwig Göransson for Sinners, Alexander Desplat for Frankenstein, and Michael Giacchino for Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Alex Howard
And the winner for Best Original Score is Ludwig Göransson for Sinners.

The nominees for Best Comedy are:

Ren Leach
The Naked Gun, Facom Hall, One of Them Days, The Ballad of Wallis Island, Friendship.

Alex Howard
And the winner is The Naked Gun.

The nominees for Best Horror Film are:

Ren Leach
Weapons, Sinners, Final Destination: Bloodlines, Frankenstein, Bring Her Back.

Alex Howard
The winner is Final Destination: Bloodlines.

The nominees for Best Film Not Primarily in the English Language are:

Ren Leach
Arco, Rental Family, A Private Life, Nouvelle Vague, 2,000 Meters to Andrivka.

Alex Howard
And the winner is Rental Family.

The nominees for Best Documentary are:

Ren Leach
The Alabama Solution, Come See Me in the Good Light, Perfect Neighbor, Deaf President Now, John Candy: I Like Me.

Alex Howard
And the winner is The Perfect Neighbor.

The nominees for Best Animated Feature are:

Ren Leach
Zootopia 2, K-Pop Demon Hunters, Elio, Arco, In Your Dreams.

Alex Howard
I'm gonna do my best Kumail Nanjiani impression. We have a tie. This is not a joke. We have a tie. The winners are K-pop Demon Hunters and Zootopia 2. And that's what happens when you only have 4 voting members. [laughter]

The nominees for Best Screenplay are: 

John Stark
Will Tracy, Bugonia. Zach Creggor, Weapons. Eva Victor, Sorry Baby. Ryan Coogler, Sinners, and JT Mollner, The Long Walk.

Alex Howard
And the winner is Sinners for Ryan Coogler.

So that was the end of the Under the Line category, so we're going to move on to Actor. So the nominees for Best Supporting Actress are:

Ariana Grande, Wicked for Good, Odessa A'Zion, Marty Supreme, Glenn Close, Wake Up Dead Man, Amy Madigan, Weapons. Sally Hawkins, Bring Her Back.

And the winner is Amy Madigan for Weapons.

The nominees for Best Supporting Actor are: 

John Stark
Ben Foster, Christy. Sean Penn, One Battle After Another. David Jonnson, The Long Walk. Jacobi Jupe, Hamnet, Jack O'Connell, Sinners.

Alex Howard
And the winner is Ben Foster for Christy.

The nominees for Best Actress are:

John Stark
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. Sydney Sweeney, Christy. Jessie Buckley, Hamnet. Emma Stone, Bugonia. Eva Victor, Sorry, Baby.

Alex Howard
And the winner is Jesse Buckley for Hamnet.

Um, the nominees for Best Actor are:

Jesse Plemons, Bugonia. Dylan O'Brien, Twinless. Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme. Michael B. Jordan, Sinners. And Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon.

And once again, we have a tie. We would love to have a 5th member, so if you'd like to join, please join us. Um, the winners are Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme and Michael B. Jordan for Sinners. So between them, they played about 4 roles, 5 roles between the 2 actors. So good job, guys.

So the nominees for Best Director are:

John Stark
Yorgos Lanthimos, Begonia. Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme. Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another. Ryan Coogler, Sinners. Zack Cregger, Weapons.

Alex Howard
And the winner is Ryan Coogler for Sinners.

And our award for Best Disability Representation, the winner is Sora Wong for Bring Her Back. She was an authentically cast blind actress.

The nominees for Best Audio Description Action are:

Lee Pugsley
Ballerina. Company/Deluxe. Written by Christina Stevens. Performed by Laura Post.

Bugonia. Company/Access Media Group. Performed by Sylvie Zamora.

Predator: Badlands. Company/Deluxe. Performed by William Michael Redmond and Jedediah Barton.

Superman. Company/Deluxe. Written by Christina Stevens and Carrie Canning. Performed by Jedediah Barton.

Tron: Ares. Company/Deluxe. Written by Christina Stevens. Performed by Laura Post.

Alex Howard
And the winner for Best Audio Description Action is Ballerina. The audio description track is from Deluxe, written by Christina Stevens and performed by Laura Post.

So the nominees for Best Audio Description Horror are: 

Lee Pugsley
28 Years Later. Company/Deluxe. Written by Anusha Badajiri. Performed by William Michael Redmond.

Bring Her Back. Company/Deluxe. Written by Matthew Christofferson. Performed by Laura Post.

Fear Street: Prom Queen. Company/IDC. Written and performed by Liz Gutman.

Final Destination: Bloodlines. Company/Deluxe. Written by Meg Ryan. Performed by William Michael Redmond.

Frankenstein. Company/IDC. Written by Liz Gutman. Performed by Anna Franca Duval.

Alex Howard
And the winner for Best Audio Description Horror is Final Destination: Bloodlines from Deluxe, written by Meg Ryan and performed by William Michael Redmond.

The nominees for Best Audio Description in a Comedy are:

Lee Pugsley
Friendship. Company/Deluxe. Written by Justin Sol. Performed by William Michael Redmond.

Happy Gilmore 2, Company/DVW, written by Connor DeWolf, performed by Justin Smallbridge.

Marty Supreme, Company/Deluxe, written by Anusha Vidhajiri and Justin Sol, performed by Roy Samuelson.

The Naked Gun, Company/Icon Group. Written by Caitlin Bosford. Performed by Erin Hansen.

Twinless. No publicly available credits.

Alex Howard
And the winner is The Naked Gun. Audio description provided by Icon Group.

The nominees for Best Audio Description Drama are:

Lee Pugsley
Father Mother Sister Brother. Company/Princess Productions.

A House of Dynamite. Company/IDC. Written by Liz Gutman. Performed by Jamie Lamchick.

The Long Walk. Company/Deluxe. Written by Stony M. Schuler. Performed by William Michael Redmond.

Train Dreams. Company/IDC. Written by Liz Gutman. Performed by Jamie Lamchick.

Warfare. Company/Deluxe. Written by Christina Stevens and Matthew Christofferson. Performed by Nicole Zanzarella.

Alex Howard
And the winner is Train Dreams from IDC, written by Liz Gutman and performed by Jamie Lemchik. And now we are moving on to the final award of the night. The nominees for Best Picture at the Blind Film Critics Society are:

Ren Leach
Sinners, Bugonia, Frankenstein, Weapons, Marty Supreme, Train Dreams, The Long Walk, Sorry Baby, Twinless, The Plague.

Alex Howard
And the winner of Best Picture at the 2nd Annual Blind Film Critics Society is Bugonia. Congratulations to all the winners.

Ren Leach
Yay!

John Stark
Bet nobody saw that coming.

Lee Pugsley
Yes, a huge congratulations to all the winners and a special shout out to all the audio description companies, writers, and narrators of all of these films who made film accessible for us in the year of 2025. Thank you guys so much.

Alex Howard
Yeah, this was a lot of fun voting, um, a lot of fun coming up with the nominees, you know, talking with my fellow blind constituents. And this is just a lot of fun, and it's great that we have our own awards ceremony because I know a lot of times the Oscars— I mean, the Oscars really didn't align a lot with us, but it's always nice to, you know, have our own opinions and be able to shout them out to the world.

Lee Pugsley
And once again, we'd love to continue adding to the Blind Film Critics Society. So if you do want to join and you watch at least 25 films a year and you have a public social media presence where you can post about them in any form, please feel free to email us once again at DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. That's DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. And Jon and Ren, we'll throw it over to you for any final thoughts.

John Stark
Yeah, this was amazing. I really look forward to doing this again next year, hopefully with more members. And I really love the fact that we definitely beat to our own drum and we don't feel like we have to conform at all to industry norms. And a couple categories that we did align with other awards groups and bodies, it largely just was how we felt. As evidenced by the categories where we truly did not align, or nominations that we gave that nobody else was giving. So I'm really proud of the fact that we stand on our own and don't feel like we have to go to the whims of campaigning. If you want to continue to follow me, I have MacTheMovieguy.com and I have a YouTube. @MacTheMovieGuy. I'm also on Rotten Tomatoes, John Stark. You can follow me on there and see which films I put on the Tomatometer as currently the only blind film critic on the Tomatometer. But as this group is evidence, I hope that will change at some point.

Alex Howard
Yeah, that would be great if Rotten Tomatoes expanded their disability presence. Ren, where can they— what's your Letterboxd handle, or where can people find you and your reviews?

Ren Leach
Um, you can find me on Letterboxd. Uh, I believe I am Audio Cinephile on Letterboxd, and you can reach me at, uh, Ren@RenLeach.com. And I would just like to echo what everybody has been saying so far about joining the group. That's one of the great things about this group is how welcoming and open people have been to accept other people in, and we want more of you. So please come in and let your opinions be heard and help us break some of those ties.

Lee Pugsley
Well, thank you guys so much once again for being here today, and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and Instagram @DarkRoomFilmCast.

Alex Howard
Yes, and you can please— I mean, if you want to join, email us, but you can also email us if you just want to tell us your thoughts on our award winners and all of that too. So one more time, our email is DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. And you can also follow me personally on Instagram. My Instagram is MeAndMyBlazer. I post a lot of reviews on there as well, so feel free to follow me there.

Lee Pugsley
And you can follow me on Letterboxd at LeePugsleyLA. And we'd also like to thank All Senses Go and Matt Lauterbach for making transcripts of this episode possible. As well as BlindCAN, our editing sponsor.

Alex Howard
Great, thank you guys so much, and we'll see you next time on The Dark Room.

Lee Pugsley
Thank you, take care, guys.