Oscar Noms & American Propaganda, Oh My!
Vol. 2 Issue 4 – 25th January 2025
The big three
Dominating the news cycle this week were the most coveted nominations of awards season in Hollywood, a new American president and his politics, and a thinly veiled propaganda scheme that played with people’s dependency on social media apps.
Oscar noms: Here’s the full list.
To the chagrin of many, Emilia Perez leads the nominations with 13 nods. The musical about a Mexican trans drug boss has been in the news for not being well-researched.
Nominated in the Best Actor category for The Brutalist, Adrien Brody is under fire after it was revealed that AI was used in post-production to enhance Brody’s Hungarian accent and pronunciation to make him sound more authentic.
All five Academy Award nominees for Best Director on Thursday — Brady Corbet for The Brutalist, Sean Baker for Anora, Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez, James Mangold for A Complete Unknown, and Coralie Fargeat for The Substance — are first-timers in the category!
All Best Actress nominees, except Cynthia Erivo are also first-time nominees.
Succession alums, Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice and Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain are nominated for their first Oscar, in the same category of Best Supporting Actor.
Other first-timers include Demi Moore, Ariana Grande, Monica Barbaro and Sebastian Stan.
Timothee Chalamet could become the youngest Best Actor winner if he wins for his Bob Dylan portrayal.
Challengers was paid dust, as it has been at the rest of the awards circuit. Dune 2 while nominated for Best Picture, Denis Villeneuve missed out on a Best Director nod.
Donald Trump’s swearing-in ceremony: Trump became president again and while the record number of executive orders he signed leans more mainstream news that you should inform yourself about, let me point out what the internet noticed at the event.
Melania’s outfit, specifically the hat
Barron Trump probably dreading his return to NYU.
Hillary Clinton reacting to Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
The Bernie Sanders sitting meme returns.
Mark Zuckerberg checking out Amazon’s assets.
Elon Musk doing the Nazi salute……
TikTok “ban”: Despite getting an extension from the Biden administration, TikTok shut down early in the United States, which led to an upsurge of 911 calls of upset users. While the users were initially shown the message in the first picture, it soon changed to the second one, name-dropping the incoming president. The public turmoil was short-lived as the app was up and running less than 24 hours later, also obviously thanking the president. The CEO of TikTok also attended his swearing-in ceremony.
In other news
Before season 3 could even premiere, it’s been announced that HBO’s The White Lotus has been renewed to return for a 4th season already!
Timothee Chalamet is set for double duty at Saturday Night Live, the promo for the same sees him reuniting with his lookalikes from the infamous lookalike contest.
Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho is back with another wild story after 2019’s Parasite. The second trailer for Mickey 17, starring Robert Pattinson is here.
The trailer for A24’s Opus, starring Ayo Edebiri has dropped, and people are wondering if the concept is a bit too similar to A24’s previous release, The Menu. Watch it here.
At the Coldplay concert in Mumbai, Chris Martin, the band’s lead singer, thanked the audience for welcoming them even though they are from England and apologised for British colonialism.
Rumour has it that Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Niall Horan will possibly pay tribute to Liam Payne together at this year’s BRIT Awards.
The 67th Annual Grammy Awards will take place on the 2nd of February as scheduled, despite the LA wildfires, and the performance line-up has just been announced! Billie Eilish, Charli xcx, Raye, Benson Boone, Doechii, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Teddy Swims, and Shakira will be the ones gracing music’s biggest stage.
Apparently, Sabrina Carpenter is being considered for the role of Rapunzel in the live-action Tangled movie. Jennifer Lopez or Kathryn Hahn may play Mother Gothel.
For those who followed the latest season of dating reality show Love Is Blind USA, Ashley and Tyler have announced their split a year after getting married on the show.
Allegedly, singer Gracie Abrams and actor Paul Mescal have broken up after a London restaurant patron saw the two upset and crying.
Music festival - Tomorrowland’s line-up is out.
After racing with Mercedes for 12 years in Formula 1, seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton signed with Ferrari last year for the 2025 season. This week, he visited the Ferrari factory in Maranello and drove in red for the first time.
Martin is 78 years too late imo :)
Harvey's picture is the only good thing about the new Suits spinoff trailer. Why is the main lead so.... *find me an English word for dheela*. Also I see how Opus is extremely The Menu coded