Buried within Sean Baker’s “Anora” is the makings of a vibrant rom-com — one about two wildly different young people meeting over a lapdance and falling in love after Ivan pays Ani $15,000 to be his “very horny girlfriend” for a week. If you’re familiar with Sean Baker — who’s spent the majority of his career destigmatizing sex workers across unfiltered and exhilarating films such as “Tangerine” and “Red Rocket” — you know there was never a chance these characters would fall susceptible to an inauthentic story. Instead, this bad-tempered Brooklyn class comedy seduces from a premise that dances closer to “Uncut Gems” than it ever does to “Pretty Woman.” A splenetically hilarious two-hour ride before reality inevitably crashes down in the film’s shattering final scene, “Anora” may have little to do with romance, but it has almost everything to do with the heartaches of the working class — an experience Hollywood so often ignores.

Mikey Madison’s colossal lead performance allows her to hide in plain sight — perhaps even especially — when she isn’t wearing anything to help disguise herself. Her naked body evolving into a veiled reality, explored by her and Ivan within the same fantasy, yet from vastly different perspectives. Baker never shames Anora for her self-deception, nor does he impose sweeping judgements on the emotional tolls of sex work. “Anora” is a film that reminds us that who we are always runs a distant second to who we might become. And as we watch Madison secure her Oscar as she breaks down in Yuri Borisov’s arms in the final act, it becomes clear that promise will continue to grow emptier with each passing day.

“Anora” captures your heart, lets you laugh endlessly, and then it guts you, but it never loses sight of the truth. The film is deserving of every flower (and Best Picture win) it is evident to receive come Oscar night.

A lot of discussion around “The Brutalist” centers around its nearly four-hour runtime and 15-minute intermission. Going into the movie I was intimidated by the length, but in hindsight I understand it.

Made with under $10 million, chump change by Hollywood standards, child actor-turned-director Brady Corbet wanted “The Brutalist” to evoke a bygone era of film. He did so by shooting on 35mm film, using VistaVision cameras and including a built-in intermission that forces people to get up, walk around and discuss.

This movie is a decade-spanning journey with beautiful vistas, architectural precision and multiple career-defining performances.

Adrien Brody is the heart of the movie, slipping effortlessly into the role of László Tóth, a Jewish Hungarian architect who escapes to America in 1947. While his heart-wrenching performance earned him another shot at Best Actor, it’s his wife Erzsébet, played by Felicity Jones, who really stole the show for me. There’s a scene toward the end of the movie that made me cry in the theater.

For one with such a human hook, it’s worth acknowledging the film’s AI usage, which could cheapen it for some. I still think “The Brutalist” is deserving of praise.

As a huge fan of folk music, I was really excited to watch “A Complete Unknown.” It pains me to say that I wasn’t all that impressed with the production. The film spans four years as Bob Dylan rises to fame in New York’s folk scene. Aesthetically, the movie was great. Chalamet’s covers of Dylan’s most popular songs were very well-performed. He also played into the role almost too well. I left the theater wondering if I actually hated Timothée, or if I hated the man he was acting as. (I still hate Timothée Chalamet, but I gotta give credit where it’s due).

Unfortunately, my love for Bob Dylan is superseded by my total disdain for Timothée Chalamet. Call me bitter or dramatic, but I could not take the film seriously with Chalaemet’s face in every frame. My biggest gripe with the movie is that, throughout the entire runtime, it felt like they were about to make some grand statement that never came. It felt like the plot got lost, and they were just stumbling to get to the end. It felt like a grotesque two-and-a-half hour-long ad for L.L. Bean. In all, I think someone’s grandma would LOVE this film. Heck, your dad would too. But for me, it would be a hard pass if someone asked me to see it again.

Before offering an actual review of the film “Conclave,” it occurs to me to ask a question: why are religiously themed films so prevalent these days? Did you see the “He Gets Us” Super Bowl ad? The “House of David” theatrical preview?

A class that I am privileged or blessed to offer at DePaul, in both the Religious Studies and Honors Program domains, focuses on the study of religion as it intersects with popular culture. “Conclave” works well with these classes because we struggle with the question, “Has popular culture replaced organized religions as the place in which we ask the ultimate questions of what it means to be human?”

Visually and technically, “Conclave” is a deeply impressive film. Directed by Edward Berger and written by Peter Straughan, the movie is based on Robert Harris’ 2016 novel. The film stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto, and Isabella Rossellini. On expertise alone, from acting to directing to staging to lighting … to everything … the film deserves Academy recognition, I think.

More deeply, our current cultural, political, and social climate is confusing, scary, and chaotic. Maybe evil. Yet we cling to things that provide us with the hope that there is deeper meaning than what meets the eye.

“Conclave” provides a means for embracing complexity or ambiguity while situated in a context that is comfortable with these things, namely, Catholicism, as odd as that might sound to the popular imagination. Nothing in faith, religions, traditions, politics or life is actually either or, black or white, absolute good or absolute bad. “Conclave” artistically mirrors this reality from a lens that uses old tropes to struggle with current issues. It deserves recognition and a deep watch.

If Gen Z’s “Star Wars” is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then that would make “Dune” its “Lord of the Rings.” This may not make much sense now, but it will when “Dune: Messiah” wins best picture. Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” is an epic marvel that not only improves every minute detail of the first film but also paves the way for modern blockbusters, visually and narratively. From the wonderstruck cinematography by Greig Fraser (as a film major focusing on cinematography, he’s a modern idol of mine), to the ridiculously snubbed composition by Hans Zimmer (“A Time of Quiet Between the Storms” and “Harkonnen Arena” are impeccable), to Vermette’s brutalist yet distinctly alien production design, “Part Two” feels like a massive step in the right direction for what a blockbuster should be.

In a year of “Wicked” and “Deadpool & Wolverine,” to see a film with a distinct vision and cinematic experimentation in the domestic top ten box office is a sigh of relief for the plethora of mediocre studio sequels sharing its space; such notable mentions as “Mufasa: The Lion King” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” come to mind. While it isn’t a wholly original film, to see something of this scale and quality measured with such delicate craft nominated for five Oscars is quite gratifying. I cannot wait for “Dune: Messiah,” and for my Kwisatz Haderach/Maud’Dib prophecy to fulfill itself come the ninety-ninth Academy Awards.

“I’m Still Here” is about a family torn apart by the forced disappearances carried out by the Brazilian military dictatorship. It’s pretty, but sappy, precious, and doesn’t have much to say. The fire fizzles out in the middle and it crawls to the end like a dying animal; perhaps the stagnation of pace and plot is meant as a manner to enter our protagonist’s psyche, to leave us holding on to the mystery of her husband’s disappearance without closure. Instead, it leaves us yawning.

Fernanda Torres (daughter of Fernanda Montenegro) is spectacular in the lead role and the only saving grace. She instantly wins us over and never lets us go with her vulnerability and power.

The film is remarkably apolitical — I don’t think Medici’s name is mentioned even once — but it’s easy to be apolitical when you’re the heir to the Itaú Unibanco fortune. Walter Salles doesn’t need to have something to say in order to make a movie; he can just make one. Nostalgia-porn super 8mm film and melancholic needle drops may be enough to cover it up for him. Maybe to the Academy, maybe to the world, but not to me. I want something more.

Sometimes, the Oscars almost make the right choice. In recent years, there’s usually been at least one foreign and/or independent film so undeniably monumental that the Academy tosses it a Best Picture nomination despite it having no real chance of winning. In 2022, we had “Drive My Car.” Last year, we had “The Zone of Interest.” This year, we have RaMell Ross’ “Nickel Boys.”

Based on Colson Whitehead’s novel “The Nickel Boys,” the film doesn’t just follow but is almost entirely, literally seen through the first-person views of Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), two African American boys who bond at Nickel Academy, a racist and brutal reform school, in 1960s Tallahassee. I could go further into the specifics of the story, but none of them would do justice to how singularly the visual language of Ross’ narrative debut conveys it.

Second only to Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” “Nickel Boys” is the most formally radical, almost avant-garde Best Picture nominee I’ve ever seen, and one of the most capital-M-Major achievements of American cinema of the decade so far. It’s an unbelievably dense melding of memories and archival footage, a towering work of marginalized historical and sensorial perspectives that washes over you like a tidal wave.

In a just world, “Nickel Boys” would have so much more than just two measly nominations — Jomo Fray’s exquisite cinematography not being nominated is up there with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score for “Challengers” as the most embarrassing snub of this year’s Oscars — but I’m not sure the Academy is deserving of a film this brilliant anyways.

I was late to watching “The Substance” and I can confidently say that I will forever and always regret not seeing this movie in theaters. I’m not much of a horror gal, especially body horror, but I finally got around to watching “Hereditary” and it gave me a much-needed confidence boost. So, I decided to sit down and watch “The Substance” — it rocked my world.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film like this before, truly. Coralie Fargeat, writer and director, made something raw, uncut and naked. Sure, it’s crazy and even gross at times, but if you boil it down, the movie is simply about women disregarding themselves when they are no longer perceived as “pretty.” Around her 50th birthday, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) finds herself fading into irrelevance after being fired from her long-running aerobics TV show. God! It doesn’t get any more frustrating than this. Fargeat has brought into discussion something that has long since been ignored — society stops valuing women at a certain age and, as a result, women stop valuing themselves. It is also beautifully shot with spectacular performances from Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.

“The Substance” is funny, disgusting and soul crushing all in one. Just incredible and it’s a movie only a woman could make. I’m manifesting that “The Substance” gets all the awards and recognition it deserves. If you haven’t watched it yet, it’s time to consume “The Substance.”

I have been into the Wicked musical since my freshman year of high school. As an avid fan, I was a bit scared to see how the first movie would turn out. Thankfully, it was better than anything I could have ever imagined.

I cried six times the first time I watched it (yes, I’m an emotional person!) and I stepped out of the theater stunned. This is a great movie that focuses on self-identity and friendship. Even though I’ve seen the musical at least 10 times and I know the story like the back of my hand, I felt like I was experiencing the story all over again with the new scenes that director Jon M. Chu added. The singing, the beautiful sets and costumes and, of course, the actors were absolutely everything.

Thanks to Chu, because of how diverse the movie was, Wicked on Broadway finally hired their first ever full-time black Elphaba, Lencia Kebede. I don’t know why it took them 22 years to hire one, but it’s finally happening.

Wicked better find a place where they belong at the Oscars; if they don’t win anything, I would be absolutely shocked.

For a brief moment, I was proud to be able to champion that this film has obtained the first ever nomination for a transgender woman, Karla Sofia Gascon, in an acting role. That was before it was revealed she was super racist, so I’ve since rescinded that pride and can now say with confidence in my voice: this film is worthless. 

Not only is it an embarrassing depiction of Mexico and transsexuality through the lens of a cisgender European director, it’s just boring. It has the “Joker: Folie a Deux” problem, where most musical sequences consist of two characters sitting down and singing at each other. The exception to this is the much maligned and meme’d “La Vaginoplastia” sequence, which comes out of nowhere, feels stylistically out of tune with the rest of the film and presents gender-affirming surgery as this sterile, creepy procedure in which faces hidden behind gauze tape scream the word “penis” at you. 

The music is grating, the cinematography is gaudy and the acting is, to be charitable, misguided. The fact that this is nominated for 13 awards is a stain on the Academy, equal only to the “Green Book” Best Picture win in 2019.