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2026 Academy Award Nominations

We made it! The Oscar nominations are here and there are some great surprises (Delroy! Ugly Step Sister!) Some weird surprises (Wicked For Good completely blanking) and of course some egregious snubs. (I hunger and thirst for The Testament of Ann Lee) Sinners is now the most nominated movie of all time with a whopping 16 nominations! Below is a list of the nominee + my thoughts and comparisons to my predictions that I shared on Blue Sky. Best Picture Bugonia F1 Frankenstein Hamnet Marty Supreme One Battle After Another The Secret Agent Sentimental Value Sinners Train Dreams I went 9/10 with my predictions. I had It Was Just An Accident over F1. F1 is the only one I haven't seen yet, so I'll be getting on that soon. I never expected that movie to get so popular.   Best Director Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another Ryan Coogler – Sinners Josh Safdie – Marty Supreme Joachim Trier – Sentimental Value ChloĆ© Zhao – Hamnet I went 5/5 with my predictions here! I think this i...

Review: No Other Choice

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Official synopsis:  After being unemployed for several months, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition. Director Park Chan-wook keeps delivering us hit after hit, and yet the Academy refuses to nominate him. This film was South Korea's submission for Best International Film at this years Oscars, where it unfortunately missed and after watching it, I can confirm they've made a grave mistake. No Other Choice is a dark comedy. It starts with a happy, almost dream like moment between Man-su and his family before his gradual descent into an over the top plan to kill off his competition to get back into the Paper business. It has to be paper. That's what he knows and what he's good at. Nothing else will do.  Lee Byung-hun gives a great performance. He really makes you think for a while that he won't go through with what he's about to do, and when everything starts playing out, he still gives you hope that he might no...

Review: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

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Official synopsis:  As Spike (Alfie Williams) is inducted into Jimmy Crystal's (Jack O'Connell) gang on the mainland, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) makes a discovery that could alter the world. We are very lucky to be blessed with The Bone Temple so soon after the great 28 Years Later came out last year. This time, it's Nia DaCosta in the director's chair, and she fits perfectly into the world that Danny Boyle and Alex Garland has crafted. She perfectly blends the film's superior budget while still throwing in some shots that feel very reminiscent of 28 Days Later , the film that started it all.  While the first part of Years caught me off guard with how emotional I felt watching it, Bone Temple caught me off guard with laughs. Which is kind of insane considering how dark this film gets. Ralph Fiennes' Dr. Kelson takes center stage this film and his interactions with his Alpha Sampson are one of the strongest parts of the film. They provide a lot of humor all whil...

Review: The Plague

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Official synopsis:  A socially awkward tween, Ben (Everett Blunck) endures the ruthless hierarchy at a water polo camp, his anxiety spiraling into psychological turmoil over the summer. If you're a parent of a t(w)een, mainly a teenage boy, buckle up. Watching a group of kids my son's own age like this in a film made me want to scream. I promise, this film is good! But I wanted to scream. Kids can be cruel, especially kids like Jake (Kayo Martin) who is a ring leader that no one wants to cross, even if they know piling on Eli (Kenny Rasmussen) is wrong. Eli is already different, he's very much coded as being on the spectrum, but he's also clearly having an eczema flare up and thus gets labeled the titular "plague."  Ben tries to befriend Eli, he knows what Jake and the other boys are doing is wrong, but his own anxieties start to the best of him. Plus, he's at a sleepaway camp, there's really no one he can go to aside from his coach, Daddy Wags (Joel E...

Review: Sirat

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Official synopsis:  A father (Sergi Lopez) accompanied by his son (Bruno Núñez Arjona)  goes looking for his missing daughter at a rave in Morocco.  Sirat has been making ways lately in the Oscar conversation. It's been nominated for a Golden Globe, it's appeared on more than one Oscar short list. Needless to say my interest in this has sky rocketed in the past few weeks. And boy, what a 180 this film does on the viewer. Realistically, I didn't go into this expecting a happy ending. It's already about looking for a woman who hasn't been heard from in 5 months, and her last sighting was at a rave. Those aren't great odds, but I was not expecting the level of cruelty this film actually goes to with the characters involved. The back half of this film is such a downer, and some of it felt pretty unnecessary.  I can see why this film was shortlisted for casting though, They have a diverse cast of characters. Not all are trained actors, and in the more dramatic scenes...

2026 Golden Globe Winners

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  That's a wrap for the Golden Globes! I went  23/28 in my picks. Below is a list of winners, my thoughts, and a few out of context quotes from the broadcast just for fun. "What can I say? I'm a greedy bitch" - Jean Smart "I'm Zoe Kravitz, I have my own shrooms" - Zoe Kravitz "This pussy don't pop for you" - Paul Thomas Anderson "And it turns out, we're dumb.." - Nikki Glaser "Bill Maher, you give us so much, but I'd like a little less" - Wanda Sykes BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA Frankenstein Hamnet It Was Just an Accident The Secret Agent Sentimental Value Sinners When Sinners won the box office award, in the back of my mind I was like "What did they give drama to instead?" When Wagner won, I thought The Secret Agent, but no, it was Hamnet all along. I think Sinners is the best film here, but I'll never be upset about a Hamnet win. What an excellent film. Chloe's speech was lovely.  BEST MOTION PI...

Review: The Testament of Ann Lee

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Official Synopsis:  Ann Lee, (Amanda Seyfried) the founding leader of the Shaker Movement, proclaimed as the female Christ by her followers. Depicts her establishment of a utopian society and the Shakers' worship through song and dance, based on real events. Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet struck gold last year with The Brutalist with Corbet at the helm. Now this time around, while they wrote together again, Mona takes the directing reigns and what a beautiful film she's crafted here. The Testament of Ann Lee is mesmerizing. It's a beautiful blend of drama, singing, and dance and flows together perfectly. It also works somewhat as a companion piece with The Brutalist . Ann is also a European seeking new life in America after being persecuted back home.(Though because of her religious fanaticism instead of a war) I think it would've been really easy to look at The Shakers with a cynicism. I know I would have, but Fastvold doesn't judge them, she just shows them for wh...