Why Luca Guadagnino Got Snubbed at the 2025 Oscars
Luca Guadagnino is no stranger to critical acclaim - or Oscar snubs. In 2024, the Italian director delivered two strikingly different but equally lauded films: Challengers, a steamy, slow-burn tennis romance, and Queer, a moody adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novella. Both films were praised by critics, yet neither received a single Oscar nomination.
In The Shadow of The Brutalist
Yes, The Brutalist is long. It’s pretentious. It’s ambitious and unapologetically grand. But this is what makes it interesting. It’s a film that forces you to bear witness to an unchecked ego and sit with that discomfort. Far from being a stock tale of genius, the film is a complex (and flawed) meditation on the forces that can elevate and destroy a man.
How I Finally Understood The Substance
I didn’t like The Substance at first, likely because I was trying to avoid the reality that most women, indeed, are victims. That conversations around women’s bodies go beyond mere comments or jokes—they compose our being. They dictate how long others deem us worthwhile partners or employees. They tell us to spend our New Year’s at the gym instead of with our families. To spend that extra minute dawdling in front of the bathroom mirror. To gawk when we see a woman over 60 on our movie screen. And that no matter how good at your job you are, everyone is talking about your boobs.
A Face in the Crowd: Prescience at What Cost?
There is one film, though, that I believe deserves the modern parallels it often invokes: A Face in the Crowd. Released in 1957 to moderate acclaim, the film is the work of Hollywood envelope-pusher Elia Kazan and screenwriter and novelist Budd Schulberg, whose eponymous collection of short stories the film is based on. A Face in the Crowd focuses on the meteoric rise of a jailbird from Arkansas.
A Beginner's Guide to the French New Wave
The French New Wave was a radical departure from conventional filmmaking. Utilizing jump cuts and location shooting on a yet-unseen scale, the movement prioritized low-budget, singular films that allowed creatives to break out of the confines of the studio system. New Wave films were further proof for domestic and international audiences that film was more than mere entertainment.
Death, Possession and the Undead: Community and Horror Constructs in Fourth Cinema
I first argue for extending the class of common constructs for analyzing horror media to two more constructs: constraints and character responses. I then analyze horror films belonging to the Fourth Cinema, i.e. Indigenous cinema as described by Barry Barclay. I plan to argue that these films have a distinct conceptualization of these three constructs that stems from ideas about community.
The Sage is not Humane: Sam Peckinpah’s Five Best Films
Sam Peckinpah occupies a unique station in the canon of American film directors because he found success just before the creative floodgates of New Hollywood. He then went on to push the boundaries of what could and couldn’t be shown on film—crafting works more transgressive than many of his younger peers. This made him the target of studio meddling and censorship, but his legacy is nonetheless founded on grit, ingenuity, and daring.
They Live: Inside John Carpenter’s High Genre Masterpiece
The basic premise of They Live is borrowed from a short story published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction: a race of malevolent alien beings has infiltrated the highest ranks of human society. These creatures send out a signal that disguises them from ordinary people, and they use their considerable influence—wealth and political power—to will humanity into submission.
Black Widow: A Tale of Teen Spirit
This might be one of the darkest Marvel films we have seen so far. We always knew that the First Lady of the Avengers, Natasha Romanov AKA Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), had a tragic backstory. It is an entirely different experience watching it on screen.
The Voyeuristic Faux-Feminism of Poor Things
Lanthimos’s strength, to me, seemed to lie in crafting thought-provoking concepts, even when his execution was markedly wanting in depth. Poor Things continues this trend, featuring an intriguing set-up (based off the novel by Alasdair Gray) and a resulting film that is underwhelming eye-candy at best and morally transgressive at worst.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of Even More Unanswered Questions
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings stars Simu Liu as the titular character, renowned in the comics for his martial arts abilities. Starring alongside him are Awkwafina as Katy and Chinese actress Meng’er Zhang as Shang-Chi's younger sister Xialing. The film is a lesson on reconciliation and accountability. The story highlights that forgiveness and reconnection are possible following a rift.
Dune: Part Two: A Modern Epic
Dune: Part Two doesn’t need any help in immersing the viewer. This is a film that trusts its audience and isn’t afraid to throw them directly into a new world without any entrance ramp. From the nightmarish opening Harkonnen attack scene, we are fully on Arrakis with Paul Atreides and Lady Jessica. The direction is assured and confident, the performances are admirable, and the editing is flawless.
House of the Dragon Season 1: A Worthy Successor to the Game of Thrones Legacy
Succeeding Game of Thrones (GoT), one of the most widely discussed and watched shows in television history, is no easy job. The shows will be compared, and previous baggage always remembered. House of the Dragon, a show about the rise and fall of a ruling house in the GoT universe, stares down that daunting prospect with aplomb and more.
The Moviegoer’s 2024 Oscar Picks
The Academy Awards Ceremony, which passed on March 10, 2024, provoked the usual discourse surrounding snubs and disagreements over who should have won. With that in mind, here is the Moviegoer’s review of the 2024 Oscars.
Halloween: A Brief Tour of Horror’s Most Overrated Franchise
There are few villains in cinema more iconic than Michael Myers. From his misshapen William Shatner mask to his trademark kitchen knife, mere suggestions of these images are enough to send chills down the spines of generations of Americans, even for those who haven’t seen the Halloween films. I’ll be honest with you from the start: I don’t like Halloween very much, but give me a chance to explain.
Grasp The Nettle! The Wondrous Balderdash of Baron Munchausen
I was one of those kids at school who needed the crayons to be taken away from them. My mom tells the story of my first day of school, and how I cried at the end of the day when I wasn’t able to bring the picture I’d drawn home with me. I was the artsy kid in high school, even more artistic kid by the time I got to enrolling into a Fine Art degree in college. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always made things. But when I think about the kinds of things which have influenced me along the way, one of the earliest memories I have is of gloomy Sunday afternoons growing up in the bleak seventies of rural England, and watching the sketch comedy series, Monty Python’s Flying Circus with my Dad.