my picks for tonight’s 97th Academy Awards (the Oscars for 2024’s films) (winners indicated)
I correctly guessed 12 out of the 23 categories, which is exactly as well as I did last year. (Five of my “should win”s did win!) At least I’m consistent.
Guy Pearce
OFCS 2024 awards winners announced
Anora and The Substance are the big winners; Ava DuVernay, Barbara Crampton, and Nicolas Cage are honored with Special Achievement Awards…
The Brutalist movie review: red, white, and brutal
Stark and unsentimental, as stubborn and as challenging as its protagonist, and as monumental as his works. Adrien Brody’s performance is extraordinary, full of flinty anger and palpable melancholy.
AWFJ 2024 EDA Awards winners announced
The Brutalist, Conclave, and The Substance are the big winners…
daily stream: when you hit the gym and the gym hits back
2015’s Results is streaming on Kanopy in the US, Prime in the UK.
Bloodshot movie review: bloodshit
Incoherent action sequences and strained sci-fi woo-woo can’t save a clueless mashup of Robocop, The Matrix, and Captain America that makes a mockery of its protagonist. Deeply terrible.
Alien: Covenant movie review: game over, man
A rote disappointment. There is nothing shocking or even mildly unexpected here. But there is an ironic weakening of the power of the xenomorphs to terrify.
Holding the Man movie review: grand romance, no qualifiers needed
Told with a lovely romantic sweep and full of raw, honest emotion, this is a gay love story that’s also just a great love story, full stop. Yay.
Results movie review: emotional workout
Bracingly off-kilter, a sort of anti rom-com that sends up a cultlike subculture while embracing the full, curious humanity of those who live in it.
Breathe In review: every man’s fantasy — blech
Dear Penthouse Forum: I am an ordinary high school teacher, happily married. I never thought anything like this would happen when we hosted a beautiful, brilliant British foreign exchange student…
