Parasite

Tuesday

Alexander Larman

The 2025 Oscars is the hardest to predict in a long time

Usually, by the time the BAFTAs — now comfortably established, along with the Golden Globes, as a dress rehearsal for the Oscars — roll around, it is fairly clear which film or films are likely to be taking gold at the Academy Awards next month. Thanks to the often frenzied behind-the-scenes lobbying and intriguing of various well-paid publicists, a storyline will emerge, and it is only in relatively rare cases that there will be a genuine surprise on the night. After all, nobody wants to spend a fortune on promoting (or celebrating) a lost cause. This year, however, is wildly unpredictable, and in fact is the first occasion since 2019 that it’s genuinely difficult to know which film is going to be triumphant.

anora oscars

Monday

Josh Glancy

Heart and Seoul

After cooking rice, most people scrape the charred, sticky residue off the bottom of the pot and never think about it again. Why would you? In South Korea, however, it is typical to pour hot water into the pot and bring it back to the boil, infusing the water with the flavor of scorched rice. Then you drink it. This delicacy is called sungnyung and, to an untutored palate (mine), can taste a bit like imbibing dishwater. Yet while dining with a group of high-powered Hyundai execs in Seoul recently, we all ended our meal by dutifully slurping down our reheated rice leavings. “Korea was terribly poor until recently,” one of my companions told me. “Sungnyung was a way of getting the most out of your rice bowl.

Korea