The Holdovers

The Academy Awards are a strange affair. Last year, they ignored Tár, a brilliant film that will be remembered as long as cinema exists, in favor of Everything Everywhere All At Once, an over-excitable picture that barely deserves to linger in the memory as long as you can recite its unmemorable name. But the nature of awards is that its directors — the Daniels! — are now Oscar-winning filmmakers, and so score above Hitchcock, Kubrick, Fincher and the rest. Anyway, we are now in that brief period where Christopher Nolan, the most significant director of the past two decades, is not an Oscar winner, yet soon, that will no longer be the case.

This Sunday, the annual orgy of back-slapping, expensive frocks, frenzied behind-the-scenes campaigning and self-promotion will finally climax with the 96th Academy Awards, taking place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The ceremony itself is perhaps the most predictable and consequently least exciting for years. Barring an upset of unimaginable proportions, Oppenheimer will win Best Film and Best Director, and its co-star Robert Downey Jr. will win Best Supporting Actor — a popular award for a popular figure — and Da’Vine Joy Randolph will win Best Supporting Actress for The Holdovers.

Amber Duke, Washington editor Talk to Me John Carpenter made some of the best horror movies of all time because his work did more than just try to scare the audience — it explored what really drives fear. Halloween toyed with the nature of evil. The Thing is a commentary on human isolation and the psychological effects of distrust and suspicion. That’s why Talk To Me, a 2023 horror flick from the much buzzed about studio A24, is so good. Yes, it’s about demonic possession and conjuring spirits, but at its core it’s a story about grief. Namely, the poor choices we can make when we miss someone so terribly and we just need a respite from the pain.