Consumer Stories

Tuesday morning saw the Motion Picture Academy’s annual awards nomination announcement. We know it as the Oscars, and as previously published, when the gold season comes, people watch. The nomination rollout saw lots of surprises, lots of confirmations, and a handful of disappointments. Last summer’s “Barbenheimer” campaign paid off, with a total of twenty-one nominations for both films. Oppenheimer, as expected, led the way, with nods in thirteen categories – everything from costumes and sound effects to star Cillian Murphy, who earned his first-ever nomination for Best Actor. Whoever the

This week, Monday night to be exact, saw the Iowa’s Presidential Caucuses, which commence the 2024 election cycle (incidentally, taking place during the height of Hollywood’s own campaign season). Election nights feel somewhat like movies for the politically or socially intrigued: with results painting a picture of a shifting people while revealing strengths and weaknesses in candidates. 2020 felt more like an HBO Miniseries that wouldn’t end. Nevertheless, there are many movies where elections serve as a driving motivator for characters, a climax, or a chance to thwart the direction

Social Media was all a-buzz when the first few production stills were released for Maestro, the new Bradley Cooper-directed-written-starring vehicle regarding the legendary American composer and conductor, Leonard Bernstein. The talk was not positive, for instead of gasping at Cooper’s inhabitance of Bernstein’s skin, all anyone could dish on was the large prosthetic nose included in Cooper’s makeup. The small controversy led to the Anti-Defamation League giving clearance to the piece. Bernstein, of course, was Jewish, and the emphasized snout brought echoes to the minds of some viewers of antisemitic