Amongst Essendon’s injury crisis, he was the fourteenth out of fifteen players to have their AFL debut last year. Essendon have since re-signed him and he is now an AFL Cultural Diversity Ambassador.

As a lifelong Hawthorn supporter, it pains me to give Essendon credit for anything. But as a Vietnamese person, it is incredibly special to see Jayden Nguyen play the game I’ve loved my whole life.

Because of this, I’ve been paying close attention to the way that people are talking about him.

The headlines

Last week, the ABC published a story about how Jayden Nguyen is the AFL’s first Vietnamese player. Let’s do a quick fact check of what they said.

The headline: ‘Jayden Nguyen may be a rookie but the AFL’s first Vietnamese player has already made his mark’.

Correct, if we take AFL to mean the men’s competition.

The story then includes the line, ‘Nguyen is the first player of Vietnamese heritage to play Aussie rules at the highest level.’

Incorrect. Well, hilariously, it is partially right. But it isn’t Jayden. The first player of Vietnamese heritage to play Aussie rules at the highest level was named Nguyen – specifically, Mai Nguyen, who played AFLW in 2017.

AFL? AFLM? AFLW?

Unfortunately, the language used in footy circles is pretty confusing at the moment.

This is due to the fact that upon the introduction of the women’s competition, the AFL (the organisation) chose to only gender language related to the women’s game. Officially, the men’s competition is known as ‘AFL’ and the women’s competition as ‘AFLW’.

I am not a fan of this as it suggests that men’s sport is the default and women’s sport is othered.

Dr Kasey Symons, Lecturer in Communication (Sports Media) at Deakin University and co-founder of Siren Sport, shares similar concerns about the thought process behind adding women’s programs and teams to competitions.

‘The process is exactly that, ‘adding’, not including and authentically embedding women’s teams into core business. As such, we usually end up with a ‘W’ assignment to women’s programs with the overall product, sport, code remaining unchanged and normalising sport as for men as the default, with women added in a secondary capacity. I find that divide deeply problematic,’ Dr Symons said.

Currently, ‘AFL’ has the following four meanings:

This means that it is technically correct to say that Jayden Nguyen is the first Vietnamese AFL player. He is the first men’s player, and the men’s competition is officially known as ‘AFL’ while the women’s is ‘AFLW’.

He is not, however, the first Vietnamese player in the entire league. To use the ABC’s wording from within the article, he is not ‘the first player of Vietnamese heritage to play Aussie rules at the highest level.’ Because Mai Nguyen did that by playing AFLW in 2017.

Why am I being so picky? You could argue that from the context of the article, it’s clear that the ABC is talking about the men’s competition.

However, I think that language is especially important when it has been used to exclude women from traditionally masculine sporting contexts for decades. The way we talk about sport reveals our sexist bias as a society: that men are the default and women are an afterthought.

‘There is a very active othering of women’s sport, just by the nature of women’s sport being referred to as ‘women’s sport’. We see this all the time in sports media and marketing of sport. The messages we receive constantly reinforce women’s sport as outside of the normalised sports environment, a men’s sporting environment, as something secondary,’ Dr Symons said.

These instances are common. Tennis player Andy Murray has gone viral several times for correcting a journalist in 2017 who claimed that Sam Querrey was the first US player to reach a major semi-final since 2009. Murray interrupted the journalist and said, ‘Male player.’ Murray was correct: Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Coco Vandeweghe, Madison Keys and Sloane Stephens had all made a major semi-final since 2009.

Just a couple of weeks ago, while I was watching the Winter Olympics, a commentator of the men’s ice hockey final remarked that it had been a long time since the US had won a gold medal in ice hockey. I thought, no it hasn’t: the US women won one literally three days ago.

Language in sport matters because it is used to make women in sport invisible.

Mai Nguyen

Let’s meet the first player of Vietnamese heritage to play Aussie rules at the highest level.

26-year-old Mai Nguyen was drafted at pick number 49 in the inaugural 2016 AFLW Draft by the Greater Western Sydney Giants. Her home club was the University of New South Wales-Eastern Suburbs Stingrays (now known as the Bulldogs).

The ABC described her as ‘a spritely, tenacious and exceptionally fit young woman’.

She made her debut in Round 2 of the inaugural 2017 season against Carlton at Princes Park, where GWS lost by thirteen points.

She played three games across Rounds 2 to 4, rupturing her ACL in the third game which put an end to her season. She was subsequently delisted by GWS.

Who cares?

Some people might read this and think, well, okay, why would we care about a woman who played three games and then got delisted? AFLW was barely a thing in 2017, whereas AFLM is a massive million-dollar force in 2026.

It matters because Mai Nguyen was part of history. She played three games of Aussie Rules at the highest level. That’s not nothing. That’s three more than me.

AFLW in 2017 was revolutionary. It is incredibly difficult to be the first at anything and Mai was part of the inaugural season. The inaugural draft. She was a pioneer. Every single player from that first season was.

According to the ABC, Mai likely did it for as little as $8 an hour. She continued to work ‘close to 30 part-time hours a week’ at her job as a physiotherapist in order to get by.

‘Australian rules football has such a great opportunity to bring more people into the game that has been predominantly played by white Australians. There is so much capacity for more inclusion so to see Vietnamese players coming into the AFLM and AFLW leagues is so powerful and hopefully signals to more people that this sport is a space they can be part of too,’ Dr Symons said.

But also, say that no one else does care. Guess what? I care. I’m a Vietnamese fan of Aussie Rules football. I think it’s very cool to see people like me play my favourite sport and hear them talk about their experiences using the same shared language as me.

Jayden and Mai have both described the struggles of reconciling Vietnamese cultural expectations with sport. Mai ‘used to sneak out and go to training’ and found it ‘very hard’ to tell her parents that she was going to pursue professional sport.

Jayden said, ‘The Asian stereotype is your parents want you to become a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer … those sorts of jobs’.

Like both of Jayden and Mai’s fathers, my mother came to Australia as a refugee from Vietnam.

Wrap up

I am so thrilled to see Jayden Nguyen play men’s AFL. I will cheer him on every week (except when he plays Hawthorn).

But let’s not erase women like Mai Nguyen from history – especially not when AFLW history is only just beginning.

This year’s ten films delivered on so many levels. After a lacklustre crop in 2025, the 2026 line-up was a much-needed salve.

Here are my thoughts on all ten films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Affeksjonsverdi (Sentimental Value) dir. Joachim Trier

At the centre of Affeksjonsverdi is the family house. The film opens with a monologue about the house, something which is often lost amongst the (well-deserved) discussion of the great performances in this film. The monologue so perfectly sets up the film; it would not be nearly as good without it. It allows the house to occupy an almost gothic sense as a character in the film.

Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård make for an excellent father-daughter duo. It is their stories which carry the heart of the film. Through their characters, the film does a good job of avoiding some of the narcissistic pitfalls which other films suffer when talking about themselves. While this is a movie about making movies, it has enough else going on for it all to remain interesting.

In a crowded category, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas delivers what is probably my favourite Best Supporting Actress performance of the year as Agnes. The scene at the library where she is struggling to hold back messy tears in the quiet environment was the highlight of her performance.

Similarly, Elle Fanning is given a hefty challenge in her performance as American actress Rachel Kemp, brought in to star in Gustav’s movie after Nora turns him down. Fanning manages to traverse the thin line of making it clear that Kemp is a good actress not without merit, but that doesn’t make her right for the part.

Bugonia dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

Bugonia marks Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ third film nominated for Best Picture (following The Favourite and Poor Things) and overall the fourth that I have watched. Given the eccentricity and bizarre nature of Lanthimos’ work, it comes with little surprise that his newest film involves aliens and that is its major problem. Having experienced much of Lanthimos’ shock value before, his films have completely lost their novelty to me.

Bugonia is markedly different as it is not entirely a Lanthimos creation. Instead, it is an English-language remake of the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet! written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan.

Bugonia is not without its moments. Similar to The Favourite, Lanthimos actually does shine with ordinary moments. The strained conversations between unhappy cousins Teddy (Jesse Plemens) and Don (Aidan Delbis) are well-constructed. Their small town life feels grandiose enough to be the story’s setting. Jerskin Fendrix’s score is nervy and unsettling and Robbie Ryan’s cinematography is stellar.

F1 dir. Joseph Kosinski

What is Brad Pitt doing here? No, really. F1 sets up a wonderful new Lewis Hamilton-inspired story starring Damson Idris as up-and-coming driver Joshua Pearce and yet we’re forced to deal with the washed up nonsense of former legend Sonny Hayes instead. The film’s best moments centre around Pearce, and yet by the end of the film it’s clear that this has actually been Hayes’ story all along.

Some of Kosinski’s brilliance from Top Gun: Maverick remains present in the beauty of the race sequences (particularly the most dramatic one, which is the clear highlight of the film). However, the film oscillates wildly between moments of genuine enjoyment and feeling like one of those dressed up in-flight safety videos that an airline is begging you to watch.

The character of Sonny Hayes is yet another entry in the rude and misunderstood genius canon (and I have no patience for them given there are arguably four on the line-up this year). Even Kerry Condon’s female technical director Kate cannot make him interesting.

F1 is an outlier on this year’s nomination list. Even though I didn’t love every single film on this list, at least I can say that the others took swings. I cannot say that F1 took any swings or did anything new for filmmaking.

Frankenstein dir. Guillermo del Toro

I am far from an adaptation purist but it’s fitting that del Toro’s Frankenstein ends not with a quote from the author Mary Shelley, but instead from the poet Lord Byron, given that it strays so far from the source material. Where Shelley’s story was rich with philosophical meaning and nuance, del Toro’s beats you over the head with its purpose countless times. Instead of a tortured tussle between creator and creature, del Toro makes it clear that the creator is the villain in the strongest sense long before his creation has even come to life.

Once I realised that this was not going to be the good Frankenstein adaptation that I had hoped for, I cast Shelley’s story aside and tried to evaluate the film on its own merits. I was still left with very little. Oscar Isaac gives a concerningly average performance as Victor, explaining his absence from the Best Actor conversation. While the design elements of this film have been well-lauded and it expects to win several Oscars in this department, I thought the film was dripping in ugly CGI and could not connect the decision to dress the film in a sense of extravagant luxury with its themes. It felt like a major misfire.

Australia’s own Jacob Elordi does stand out amongst the mess, delivering a solid performance as the Creature. Elordi’s tall stature and strangeness gives the Creature a decent otherworldliness.

Hamnet dir. Chloé Zhao

When I heard that Nomadland director Chloé Zhao was at the helm of Hamnet, I admit that initially I was confused. How could the masterful storyteller behind the quirky Nomadland be the best fit for a Shakespeare piece? Zhao quelled my anxieties in the opening few minutes: Hamnet is very much the story of Agnes, not Will, and she is first and foremost a lover of the forest. Zhao’s gift for shooting nature, and its importance to this film, shone through immediately. The Academy’s second (and still only one of two) female Best Director winner had done it again.

I am a sucker for a story about grief and I am a sucker for a story with any connection to Shakespeare. So this film did have an unnatural advantage over the others. But I still believe that Hamnet delivers outside of appealing to my personal interests through its true magnificence of storytelling and filmmaking craft.

Hamnet is not a subtle film. Hamnet is a film which builds and builds, like a symphony orchestra warming up. It overflows by its conclusion. Jessie Buckley delivers a truly masterful performance as Agnes. The hype for her is absolutely real and deserved.

Much also has been made of Max Richter’s hauntingly beautiful score, particularly the decision to reuse his famous ‘On the Nature of Daylight’ at the film’s end. Having spent a lot of time relistening to the score as a whole since and thinking it over, I love the decision. To me, at the heart of the film is the fact that grief is wholly unoriginal. Sometimes it is even boring. It is not new. It was not new when Shakespeare wrote about it. It was not new when Zhao made this film, or when Richter wrote any of his music. I think the song fits perfectly.

Hamnet is one of five films nominated for the newly-added Best Casting award for Nina Gold’s efforts, presumably due to her stroke of genius in casting brothers Jacobi and Noah Jupe to play Agnes’ son Hamnet and onstage Hamlet respectively. Much praise has been given to Jacobi for his spectacular turn as the titular Hamnet, but Noah must be applauded as well. Despite being Shakespeare’s most famous leading man, I have seen mediocre Hamlets before. Noah Jupe was certainly not one of them. Through a cinema screen, he made me feel the emotions of the theatrical role tenfold.

I’m willing to call it: getting out to see Hamnet in a cinema is one of the best decisions I’ll make this year. The absolute brilliance of the ending—water is present throughout the film, and the end felt like a dam bursting—meant that nobody in my cinema was ready to leave when the credits rolled. I cannot remember the last non-Marvel movie where that happened. By the time the credits had finished, the cinema was still half-full. I went to see Hamnet by myself; it didn’t feel like that at all.

Marty Supreme dir. Josh Safdie

Do not be fooled: despite the prevalence of the orange ping pong ball, this is not a movie about table tennis. It is a movie about a grifter.

Timothée Chalamet definitely demonstrated his star power by drawing out such a big crowd with his high-powered press tour for an A24 movie about a table tennis player that nobody really knew. Chalamet is a good actor, but he has certainly reshaped last year’s Bob Dylan into another annoying male protagonist.

I enjoyed the larger-than-life feeling of Marty Supreme. Josh Safdie did a good job of establishing all the different locations throughout the film, including 1950s New York (which probably explains the alleged $70 million budget). While this sounds like an obvious thing to accomplish, the success of it stood out in stark contrast to last year’s similarly jet-setting Emilia Pérez.

Overall though, Marty Supreme fell flat for me. I couldn’t seem to be that interested in seeing Chalamet’s controversial figure of Marty succeed or fail. I knew that he would do either equally spectacularly, but I never quite bought into the idea of ‘dreaming big’.

O Agente Secreto (The Secret Agent) dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho

Given that this marks the second Brazilian film nominated for Best Picture in the space of two years, it meant that I watched O Agente Secreto shortly after Ainda Estou Aqui creating an unintentional Brazilian military dictatorship historical film double feature.

I do have to say it took me a lot longer to get invested in O Agente Secreto given that its mystery unfurls slowly. But it was certainly worth sticking around, as the third act was its finest and it came to an immensely satisfying conclusion.

I held high expectations for Wagner Moura, given that he is nominated alongside Chalamet, DiCaprio, Hawke and Jordan for Best Actor, and he absolutely lived up to them. Similar to the film itself, I had my doubts early, but he absolutely won me over in the end. His place among the American giants of the category is well-deserved.

Tânia Maria as Dona Sebastiana is the textbook definition of a scene stealer, her charisma oozing out of each appearance. She would be a real contender for a Best Supporting Actress nomination in a more normal and less crowded year.

I can see why the Jaws references helped this film appeal to an American audience. They certainly help establish the identity of coastal Recife.

One Battle After Another dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

As a certified Licorice Pizza hater, I am ready to apologise to Paul Thomas Anderson. He knows how to make a movie. One Battle After Another is a great drama which expertly traverses many other genres at the same time with its comedic and thrilling moments.

Take your pick from the excellent performers: Leonardo DiCaprio continues to thrive in his loser era. Bob Ferguson is for all the people who missed his performance in Killers of the Flower Moon. Chase Infiniti shines as his daughter Willa completely on her own merit, let alone for a debut film performance. Sean Penn is a terrifying and idiotic villain. Benicio del Toro, Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall are complete scene stealers whenever they are present.

One Battle After Another also stood out to me as a film on this list at its peak form. Michael Bauman’s magnificent cinematography revealed many exciting visual moments which were made for the screen. It wasn’t a story which could exist anywhere; it was made for film.

I go to the movies to feel something and I felt stressed for at least a solid hour of this movie. I give at least half the credit to Jonny Greenwood’s wonderful score for creating such a gnawing sense of dread.

Sinners dir. Ryan Coogler

Regular readers of this series will be deeply surprised to learn that I managed to watch Sinners. So am I! As a shameful self-professed coward, horror is certainly my least favourite of all film genres. But I had heard so many good things about Sinners, and I cannot resist a film which boasts original music, so I left all my lights on and dove in.

In an era of endless reboots and biopics (this year’s Best Original Screenplay nominees contain two films based on figures who existed in real life), I love that Sinners feels brand new. Certainly, it pays homage to what came before it (which is evident by the number of consultants listed in the credits) but does so in both a novel and interesting way.

Again, this is another film with a whole host of great performances: Michael B. Jordan seeing double as protagonist twins Smoke and Stack, Hailee Steinfeld as the alluring but lost Mary, Jack O’Connell in a terrifying turn as vampire leader Remmick and Wunmi Mosaku as the witchy Annie. A wonderful surprise on nominations morning was the news that 73-year-old Delroy Lindo has earned his first Oscar nominated for his performance as Delta Slim.

Autumn Durald Arkapaw also made history on nomination morning, as the fourth woman nominated for Best Cinematography. She will be the first woman to win if her name is read out this morning.

The music lived up to its great reports, both Oscar veteran Ludwig Göransson’s wonderful score and Miles Caton’s great debut performance as blues musician Sammie. Perhaps underrated was Jayme Lawson’s dazzling performance as married singer Pearline.

Train Dreams dir. Clint Bentley

It felt like I was committing a horrible crime to watch a film as visually beautiful as this one at home on Netflix. By far my favourite part of Train Dreams was Adolpho Veloso’s cinematography and I was extremely pleased to see him land a nomination for his work. I loved the style of the film overall, well held together by its unusual voiceover narration by Will Patton as an unnamed narrator.

Train Dreams is a small-scale story and I liked that it knew that about itself. It never dared to venture much further than protagonist Robert’s life and it didn’t need to.

Despite less screen time, Kerry Condon is given much better material here in her role as Claire. Her scenes are some of the best in the film. And following her performance last year in The Brutalist, Felicity Jones once again did an excellent job as someone’s wife. The women do really shine in this film.

Ranking

This was a particularly tough year for ranking the films and reminded me why I hate it. In any year, I could happily see any of Hamnet, One Battle After Another and Sinners as the winner. Affeksjonsverdi (Sentimental Value) does not feel that far behind them either.

My ranking for 2026:

1. Hamnet dir. Chloé Zhao

2. One Battle After Another dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

3. Sinners dir. Ryan Coogler

4. Affeksjonsverdi (Sentimental Value) dir. Joachim Trier

5. Train Dreams dir. Clint Bentley

6. O Secrete Agente (The Secret Agent) dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho

7. Bugonia dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

8. Marty Supreme dir. Josh Safdie

9. F1 dir. Joseph Kosinski

10. Frankenstein dir. Guillermo del Toro

Here’s to an exciting ceremony for 2026!

The 98th Academy Awards ceremony will air on Channel 7 from 10am on 16 March 2026.

Except for me. Last year, I didn’t manage to fulfil my annual quest to watch all ten movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. I submitted the thesis for my Master’s degree shortly before the ceremony and then felt too burnt out to really do anything productive after that (the whole story is here if you’re interested in further details). In the back of my mind, I knew I still wanted to watch all the movies at some point later in the future.

Therefore, I am pleased to introduce my belated breakdown of all the movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars 2025.

Unfortunately, due to my ongoing cowardice in the face of horror movies, I was unable to watch The Substance.

But I have good news! Instead, I have procured an expert to cover it: my friend Leah Anderson will be providing a review of The Substance. Her credentials include a Master’s degree in film history, watching 14 films at the Melbourne International Film Festival last year and nine years of on-the-ground consumer-based research (also known as working at Hoyts).

A Complete Unknown dir. James Mangold

After 140 minutes, unfortunately Bob Dylan still remains a complete unknown to me. Perhaps this film provided some joy to his knowledgeable fans, but to an outsider it felt like a glorified highlight reel of his greatest hits strung together with some half-true moments from his life.

This movie was completely devoid of all the magic that usually inhabits music. It offered no real interrogation into Dylan’s creative process or decision-making. It is simply another forgettable entry in the ongoing trend of movies about male geniuses who get away with being socially awkward, uncommunicative and unkind. For those wanting a version of that story with something to say, I’d skip this and watch Tick, Tick… Boom! instead.

Timothée Chalamet, while a great actor who will likely win an Oscar one day, is not remarkable enough to save this film. Chalamet’s best performances so far have instead come when he has been directed by Greta Gerwig.

Elle Fanning (Sylvie Russo) and Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez) both manage to do their best to play Dylan’s various discarded love interests despite an overwhelming lack of interesting material to work with. Barbaro in particular shines whenever she plays Baez onstage.

Ainda Estou Aqui (I’m Still Here) dir. Walter Salles

It is hard to say that I enjoyed watching a film about forced disappearances during Brazil’s military dictatorship, but I can say that I remained captivated and invested throughout. Ainda Estou Aqui is a brutal film which tells the true story of Eunice Paiva’s life after her husband is arrested by the Brazilian military. It is based on a memoir written by her son.

Fernanda Torres is magnificent as Eunice Paiva. She gets her big, splashy moments but what I loved most were the quieter ones where she is struggling yet managing to hold herself together.

Ainda Estou Aqui does such a great job of establishing the everyday life of the Paiva family. The children love music, soccer and going to the beach. They conflict with Eunice’s efforts to shield them from what is happening.

The film exposes a beautiful tension between Eunice’s frustration with her husband’s friends as they seek to hide his revolutionary activities from her while she conceals the horrors of her husband’s disappearance from their children.

It is not a narrative film’s job to teach me anything, but I do enjoy the side effect of learning about periods of history from the Oscar quest.

Anora dir. Sean Baker

Anora is a well-made film with a clear story arc that is at its best in the comedic sequences. It was much funnier than I expected and those were the parts I enjoyed the most.

Mikey Madison delivers a spectacular performance as Anora. Her often lightning-quick switch between the bubbly, fun Ani and fierce, independent Anora was a real highlight of the film. She is a real talent who is very memorable.

Call me cynical, but I didn’t think this film contained as much Cinderella optimism as it claims to beyond a brief glimpse into Gatsby-style extravagant indulgence and carelessness. There are sources of tension in the film, but whether Anora is in love isn’t one of them. Instead, I felt we were offered a bleak outlook on the struggle of getting by in this world.

The film felt very devoid of detail at times, not really letting us into Anora’s world that deeply. I wanted to know more about her and while this presented a level of intrigue early in the film, I wasn’t left satisfied by the end.

The Brutalist dir. Brady Corbet

Suffering through all 215 minutes of The Brutalist made me consider implementing a DNF rule for this quest. Ordinarily, I’m absolutely fine with people switching off a movie partway through if it’s not for them. But I’ve believed that in order to review something, you need to consume it in its entirety. The Brutalist really made me question that.

I’ll start with the good: Adrian Brody is a terrific actor. While his peak might be that one episode of Poker Face, he is marvelous in this film and clearly blows Chalamet out of the water. Felicity Jones also demonstrates her value once again, as does Guy Pearce.

I enjoyed the choice to shoot on film. The movie had its moments of visual beauty, particularly the opening sequence of Lazlo arriving in New York. Perhaps those who awarded The Brutalist with Best Cinematography decided that the opening sequence was so good they could ignore the following three hours and twenty minutes of the film.

Overall, The Brutalist is way too long and heavy-handed. It does not delve into nearly enough detail to earn its runtime. It does not trust itself to deliver an understated message so instead resorts to cheap tricks.

Conclave dir. Edward Berger

What I enjoyed most about Conclave was the idea of looking deep into a secret part of the world, the process for electing a new Pope. I greatly relish a film with a unique and distinctive viewpoint.

Conclave boasts a lineup of great acting performances: leading man Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence, Stanley Tucci as the people’s champion Cardinal Bellini, John Lithgow as the sniveling Cardinal Tremblay and Isabella Rossellini as the quiet yet firm Sister Agnes.

The film provided great push and pull as the various candidates fought for power against each other. The set evoked an enclosed and fraught setting which only heightened these tensions.

However, for all the various threads that it pulled, it didn’t feel like the ending wove them all back together quite nicely enough.

Dune: Part Two dir. Denis Villeneuve

How did Dune: Part Two fall out of the conversation so quickly? It’s a mystery to me. To be fair, it doesn’t fit the Academy’s usual model in several aspects: it’s a sequel and a science fiction film. But in a lackluster line-up, I thought it would’ve shone much brighter.

Where Dune was solid and impressive, Dune: Part Two is exciting and mesmerising. The first film suffered for only being half of a story. While it looked good and felt promising, I walked away not feeling like it had stuck the landing yet. I needn’t have worried as Dune: Part Two proves that the pieces were there all along.

It’s true both that the movies are better watched as a pair, and of course that the Oscars can only adjudicate them individually.

It’s difficult to highlight a single acting performance from this film. Timothée Chalamet shines as Paul Atreides (much more so than he does as Bob Dylan), Zendaya is great as Chani and Rebecca Ferguson is excellent as Lady Jessica.

But the standout for me is Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha. Having seen his charismatic performance as Elvis recently, the complete turnaround to become the ruthless Feyd-Rautha is impressive. It’s truly a shame that not a single member of the cast received an acting nomination.

The visuals in Dune, as always, are stunning. What made this installment a step above the first was the choice to shoot the outdoors of ‘black sun’ planet of Giedi Prime in black and white. Usually a hater of black and white visuals in the colour era, I absolutely loved this choice. It made the scenes on Giedi Prime sharp, raw and biting and well-matched the House Harkonnen.

Emilia Pérez dir. Jacques Audiard

The fact that Emilia Pérez received 13 nominations is an indictment on all 9,000+ voting members of the Academy. It is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, let alone one of the worst amongst serious Oscar contenders.

Probably the nicest thing I can think to say about Emilia Pérez is that it takes bold swings. It’s just a shame that none of those bold swings pay off at all.

The music is some of the worst I’ve ever heard. The whisper-speak style of singing present throughout the film is awful. Several of the songs are simply just lists of things. They are not interesting musically or lyrically.

One thing that the film does do well is it sets up clear motivations for its leading ladies. Both Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón) and Rita (Zoe Saldaña) are the driving force of the film. However, the film is deeply confused about who the protagonist is. It basically forgets about what Rita wants in the second half.

Jacques Audiard’s terrible direction reveals itself everywhere in the film: the lackluster performances from across the cast, the confused script and the awful writing. Perhaps the worst offender is the continued choice to signify location changes using onscreen text followed by a boring interior soundstage shot completely void of a sense of place. The decision to tell a story across so many different countries should be a strength of the film. Instead, it barely feels like we are anywhere at all.

Emilia Pérez is not worth watching, not even for the meme value or to be part of the conversation.

Nickel Boys dir. RaMell Ross

It is a crime that Amazon bought Nickel Boys then proceeded to stick it on their platform without seemingly telling anyone about it.

Nickel Boys is an emotionally poignant and visually beautiful film from RaMell Ross in his narrative feature debut. Perhaps it is Ross’ documentary background which gives this film so much life.

By far the highlight of Nickel Boys is its distinctive choice to shoot in a first-person point-of-view. Jomo Fray’s bold and breathtaking cinematography is some of the absolute best from this line-up of contenders, rivaled only by the epicness of Dune: Part Two. It is an incredible shame it wasn’t even nominated in the category. It takes ordinary things like trees, streets and buildings and finds the most interesting and light-filled angles.

Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson, each only delivering their third performance in a film, are excellent in their leading roles as friends Elwood and Turner.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor follows up her Oscar-nominated appearance in King Richard from a few years ago with another captivating performance. It’s impossible not to feel something when she is onscreen.

Most of all, Nickel Boys enters a well-established canon of prison-focused films, such as The Shawshank Redemption and Holes, yet unlike some Oscar contenders’ reluctance to test a tried and true formula, it has something to say. Namely, it shines a light on the unfair and unjust treatment of African American boys in 1960s Florida.

The Substance dir. Coralie Fargeat

Review by Leah Anderson

I’m of two minds about the presence of The Substance on the Best Picture nominees list. On one hand, it’s great to see a genre film make the cut, especially one so unabashedly gory and strange. It’s even better to see a horror film on the list, as The Substance is one of only seven Best Picture horror nominees in 97 years.

On the other hand, I never really clicked with The Substance. I found the film itself overly long and, frankly, substanceless.

The runtime for The Substance is two hours and twenty minutes. With a film of that length you would expect a nuanced analysis of gender roles and beauty standards, but the film is painted in only the broadest strokes.

The central theme of The Substance is that relentless beauty standards push people in Hollywood towards dangerous cosmetic procedures. That theme is too insubstantial for a runtime of this length.

It feels like a short film stretched out to a movie that is already long by most standards. The start is slow and takes almost an hour to reveal itself as a gory gangbusters dark comedy. By the fourth fake out ending an audience member shouted, ‘Just wrap it up already!’ I couldn’t have agreed more.

Despite this, there is a lot to enjoy. Demi Moore turns in a Best Actress worthy performance from start to finish. Her work is only bolstered by Margaret Qualley’s spectacular turn as a younger, better Moore.

The colour palette for this film is beautiful and it compliments the bold, distinctive cinematography. The practical effects are beyond words, I couldn’t believe how great everything looked. The audience was gasping, groaning, and even gagging by the twenty-minute mark and the film never lets up.

I just wish that these visuals and performances belonged to a film with more to say.

Wicked dir. Jon M. Chu

Adapting a much beloved musical for the screen was always going to be a daunting task, but Jon M. Chu’s decision to split one two and a half hour musical into two very long films confuses me on principle.

Sticking to the first act of the musical, Wicked lasts one hour longer without adding any new songs or plot points. Instead, that extra hour seems to come from dramatic pauses and characters staring at each other across the room.

The hype for Ariana Grande is real, although the revelation that a funny Glinda is the best Glinda was not as surprising to me given I’d seen Australia’s Courtney Monsma shortly beforehand. She gave the standout performance, although it was as much of a supporting performance as Saldaña’s (read: complete category fraud).

Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero also give excellent performances. Given the reverence of the original Broadway cast and many replacements since, the casting for the film adaptation has done a fantastic job of living up to the expectations of Wicked.

In some ways, Wicked is very visually interesting. Paul Tazewell’s costume design is new and innovative, with a particular highlight being Glinda’s pink and orange petal dress in the Ozdust ballroom sequence of ‘Dancing Through Life’.

However, so much of the beautiful set is badly and dimly lit leaving things feeling rather dull. Sequences that appear to draw on the fantastical nature of Oz instead feel overly fake and bleak.

Despite Erivo’s fantastic vocals, the Marvelification of showstopping nunber ‘Defying Gravity’ was disappointing to see. There’s no reason that song needed to be drawn out and yet the climax of the film takes forever to resolve.

Ranking

As you may have gathered by now, I didn’t feel especially enthusiastic about this year’s crop of films. It’s always a mixed bag, but usually there are a solid handful which change my life.

Here’s my ranking (minus The Substance):

1. Dune: Part Two dir. Denis Villeneuve

2. Nickel Boys dir. RaMell Ross

3. Ainda Estou Aqui (I’m Still Here) dir. Walter Salles

4. Conclave dir. Edward Berger

5. Anora dir. Sean Baker

6. Wicked dir. Jon M. Chu

7. A Complete Unknown dir. James Mangold

8. The Brutalist dir. Brady Corbet

9. Emilia Pérez dir. Jacques Audiard

I’m looking forward to a more interesting lineup in 2026.

The 97th Academy Awards ceremony took place on 3 March 2025. Anora won Best Picture.

It’s the first game of the 2025 season. Carlton are playing Collingwood in tribute to the very first game of AFLW in 2017 which was so well-attended that the gates at Princes Park had to be locked because the ground was full.

Ten seasons later, here we are again. All eyes are on Ashley Centra because she was selected by Collingwood as the #1 pick in the 2024 draft. 

Centra is easy to spot even though she began the game on the bench. She is one of only two Collingwood players to opt for the long-sleeve jersey in the cold August night, the black and white stripes snaking around her arms. 

On one hand, it seems strange to celebrate a player for merely running onto the field. Centra hasn’t done anything yet. She hasn’t even touched the ball.

But on the other hand, Centra running out onto the field marks an ending just as much as a beginning. It signals the end of her journey to play football at a national level. She’s officially made it.

Asked of her debut after the game, Collingwood coach Sam Wright remarked of Centra: 

'She's got like a cult following. Every time she got near the ball, whether she got it or not, you could hear the crowd get up and about. I just think it’s so great for our game.’

After a promising first quarter fizzled out into a disappointing loss, Centra kicked the only goal for Collingwood in the remaining three quarters of the game. She joined the exclusive first kick, first goal club. It seemed to say: Pies fans, don’t despair. The future is bright. 

collingwoodaflw

A post shared by @collingwoodaflw

From the stands to the field

Over on the other team’s bench sat another remarkable debutant: Sophie McKay, daughter of Carlton champion Andrew McKay and sister of current Carlton captain Abbie McKay. 

What once more seems like the beginning of a story is also an ending. 

As children, Abbie and Sophie McKay rang the bell at that first AFLW game in 2017 to commemorate the first ever game of women’s football. Sophie was ten years old.

aflwomens

A post shared by @aflwomens

Now, nine years and ten seasons later, the sisters have shifted from the stands to the field.

They run out alongside each other as the fireworks sparkle in the night sky above them and the song their dad used to sing blares from the speakers.

He watches from the stands of Princes Park alongside their brother, who wears both his sisters’ numbers on his back. Abbie wears #5 in honour of their dad, Sophie wears #55 in honour of them both and their brother wears #555 in honour of them all.

The story starts and ends in so many different points across history depending on how you decide to tell it.  

Is this the end or the beginning?

2025 marks the tenth season of the AFLW. 

But it still feels like we are in the beginning. We are only at the beginning of a new generation of girls who have been able to play football their whole lives. We are slowly watching the barriers dissolve one by one.

History is being made out on that field with every single game. 

I’m proud to say I was swamped by that massive crowd at Carlton v Collingwood in the first season and in the stands for the tenth. There were four players on the ground for both games: Brit Bonnici, Breann Harrington, Ruby Schleicher and Darcy Vescio.

There were five debutants on the ground in the tenth season: Ash Centra, Kellyann Hogan, Sophie McKay, Poppy Scholz and Violet Patterson.

Each debut of a new player in the AFLW feels especially exciting because that new energy is reflective of the competition as a whole. It was a long journey to get here. We will cheer as loudly as we want. But this is not the end yet. This is the beginning.

Memoir of a Snail dir. Adam Elliot

In 1970s Australia, Grace’s life is troubled by misfortune and loss. After their mother dies during pregnancy, she and her twin brother, Gilbert, are raised by their paraplegic-alcoholic former juggler father, Percy. Despite a life filled with love, tragedy strikes anew when Percy passes away in his sleep. The siblings are forcibly separated and thrust into homes on the opposite sides of the country.

It was wonderful to see not only an Australian film but a Melburnian film on the opening night of MIFF. Memoir of a Snail is a stop motion animation film from Australian director Adam Elliot and starring the voice of Succession’s Sarah Snook as Grace.

Memoir of a Snail follows a predictable but still very enjoyable coming of age arc as Grace tries to move on from her tragic childhood and become an independent adult. While the tone veered too melodramatic at times, eventually it tugged on the right heartstrings. Plus, it was great to see an Australian film acknowledge the existence of Canberra. 

The 2025 Oscars are still very far away, but it’s exciting to see this Australian movie on Variety’s radar at the very least.

Julie Keeps Quiet dir. Leonardo Van Dijl

As the star player at an elite tennis academy, Julie’s life revolves around the game she loves. When her coach falls under investigation and is suddenly suspended, all of the club’s players are encouraged to speak up. But Julie decides to keep quiet.

There will definitely be a crowd of people who call this movie too slow. If you can’t stand a movie where the plot doesn't advance every five minutes or you find yourself guilty of checking your phone in the cinema, then this one definitely isn’t for you. I, however, who sat through all three hours of Drive My Car, thought that the slowness of this movie was haunting and earned.

Why do we expect so much of victims and not perpetrators? Why should they have such lofty expectations to save the day put on their shoulders instead of the people who should have been protecting them?

This Belgian French- and Flemish-language film (with an extra sprinkling of German just to keep you on your toes) reveals a sophisticated style from debut director Leonardo Van Dijl. Tessa Van den Broeck delivers a brilliant breakout performance as Julie. While the majority of the movie is quiet, as the title suggests, the well-timed choral music from Caroline Shaw is excellent too.

I would absolutely love to see this in contention for the Oscars and it’s frustrating that it’s going to be better than half the movies nominated.

Fungi: Web of Life dir. Gisela Kaufmann and Joseph Nizeti

Much of life on Earth is connected by a vast, hidden network that we are only just beginning to understand. Out of sight, between the world of plants and animals, another world exists—the kingdom of fungi.

Fungi: Web of Life is a 45-minute three-dimensional documentary film which tells the story of the world’s fungi narrated by Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk. While it might sound like an eclectic recipe for a film, the result is a stunning and beautiful production.

The absolute marvel of this film are the various time lapses of growing fungi shot by Stephen Axford, Patrick Hickey and Wim van Egmond. What might only be a few centimetres tall in real life has been expanded into incredibly tall IMAX vision.

In Vitro dir. Will Howarth and Tom McKeith

On an isolated cattle farm, a couple experimenting with biotechnology have their lives upended when they discover a disturbing presence on their property.

In Vitro feels like an Australian take on a missing episode of Black Mirror and I loved it. Sure, it was messy and some parts of the plot might fall apart if you think about them too much, but it had the guts to ask some big questions and I enjoyed it.

There’s much to love about Shelley Farthing-Dawe’s great cinematography of the isolated Australian bushland and the impressive industrialist design of the near-future farm.

Those who are faint of heart, like me, do be warned that this thriller does borrow some conventions from the horror genre and veers into actual scary territory as opposed to simply having general spooky atmospheric vibes. Maybe watch it with the lights on instead of late on a Thursday night in a pitch-black cinema (although I did enjoy listening to other people’s gasps).

COPA 71 dir. James Erskine and Rachel Ramsay

The extraordinary story of the 1971 Women’s World Cup, which was held in Mexico City and witnessed by more than 100,000 fans. This landmark tournament was dismissed by FIFA and written out of sports history—until now, with dazzling archival footage and interviews with the former players.

I’ll happily admit it: I cried watching COPA 71. Women over history have fought so many hard, pointless battles to simply play sport. Women’s football used to be illegal in many countries, including England where it was banned until as recently as 1970.

Directors Erskine and Ramsay have done a fantastic job of tracking down many of the key players from the ‘unofficial’ World Cup in 1971 as they give terrific interviews recounting their experience of the tournament. The emotions on display are real, raw and truly remarkable.

COPA 71 is a brilliant rebuttal to all the recurring arguments we see against women's sport: it’s not profitable and nobody watches it. Those of us who actually care about women’s sport know that this has never been the issue and that the real problem is men with power who are unwilling to share it. COPA 71 does not shy away from sharing the foul things that they have said and continue to say today as they block women’s sport from success.

The Melbourne International Film Festival will return in August 2025.

I told him that while it looked fun—I’d seen Free Solo and was in awe of climbing—surely he remembered that I was a deeply unathletic person and I’d be really bad at it. He brushed my concerns aside and said that didn’t matter. 

That was how I had a brief rock climbing phase in between the various lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. I’d drive out to Blochaus in Fyshwick, give the walls a go and try to gleam some strategy off my more experienced friends. 

I was right: I was completely rubbish. I had a really bad fall during my first visit and scraped both my forearms. But I kept coming back. 

What Free Solo had shown me and what my friend had described in between drinks at that party had been true: climbing was wonderful. 

Paris 2024

In the lead up to the Paris 2024 Olympics, the event I was most excited to watch was sport climbing. 

Sure, there were other exciting things on the schedule: cheer for the Aussie women in the pool. Catch Jessica Fox in the canoe slalom. Watch Simone Biles dominate in gymnastics. See if they’d really make the triathletes swim in the Seine. But the sport that had dazzled me the most in Tokyo was sport climbing so it sat at the top of my list.

I watched every single second of the sport climbing in Paris: the men’s and women’s; the heats, semi-finals, finals; the speed, bouldering and lead.

I got particularly lucky with the time zones: the climbing was on every evening from around 6 to 9pm across Monday to Saturday in the last week of the games.

Paris 2024 was particularly special because Australia’s Oceana Mackenzie made it through to the final eight climbers after finishing 19th out of 20 in Tokyo. Seeded 10th in Paris, her 7th-place finish in the final showed that she was really punching above her weight. 

Why climbing?

I think the answer to this question harks back to what attracted me to Blochaus in the first place. What made me return after that painful fall. 

Climbing is a full body sport that requires strength in your arms, legs, core and mind. Even though it looks like an upper body sport—aren’t they pulling themselves up the wall?—as soon as you try it for yourself, you realise how much strength you need in your entire body. It’s a challenge that requires a whole range of skills including flexibility, agility and explosiveness. 

But the thing that always brings me back to climbing is the strategy. 

I will never flourish in a sport based on physical ability. My crowning glory in sports comes from finishing third-last in a biathlon when I was thirteen. I couldn’t believe I’d beat not just one, but two whole people. 

Bouldering requires thinking. Just being strong will never get you to the top. You need to be able to analyse the holds and envision the route in your head. You need to know how to play your own strengths and weaknesses. 

This is what elevates sport climbing for me. It requires the athletes to be fast on their feet at problem solving. In both the bouldering and lead disciplines, no two routes are ever the same. The athletes can’t watch each other compete so they don’t know how their competitors are approaching the route. It’s just you and the wall. 

The fear of falling

In Free Solo, the directors try to figure out why Alex Honnold isn’t afraid of falling and eventually, thanks to an MRI scan of his brain, find out that there is little or no activity in his amygdala in response to fear-inducing scenarios.

Watching the climbers compete in the lead climbing at Paris left me truly awestruck. They climb a 15-metre high wall—approximately the equivalent of a five-storey building—clipping themselves in as they go. 

The only way is up. If they miss a hold, they will fall. 

Across the entire lead competition in Paris, every single competitor fell. Nobody made it to the top. Several got close: Japan’s Ai Mori got one hold away in both the semi-final and the final and Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret got one hold away in the semi-final before her eventual gold medal win.

But every athlete felt that terrifying moment when their hand slipped unexpectedly and they entered free fall before the rope caught them. 

I struggled with this a lot when I was climbing. I didn’t understand how I could put so much faith in myself to land a leap. The sting of my most recent fall always played heavily on my mind. I felt so much respect for the Olympic climbers.

LA 2028

Like most of my sporty endeavours, I lost interest in climbing eventually. I drove out to Fyshwick for the last time without even realising it. 

But I think my love of watching sport climbing is here to stay. I’m grateful for my brief flirtation with the sport because, ultimately, I think that’s what drew me to watch it: I tried it. I understand it. I know how hard it is. 

I’m looking forward to LA 2028 already (and I’m hopeful that they’ll separate bouldering and lead climbing to add at least one more climbing medal) but I plan on watching as much as I can before then, too. 

The next major climbing tournament is the International Federation of Sport Climbing European Championships which will be streaming on their YouTube channel from 24 August 2024. Free Solo is streaming on Disney+.

This Preliminary Final has led to a personal revelation: it doesn’t matter how much I cheer for Hawthorn, how many games I attend, how much I pray for success, there’s nothing I can do that will have any impact on whether they win or lose. While seemingly obvious, realising this stuns me. All the screaming and crying, the tears and the shouts, mean absolutely nothing. I can’t keep giving them my all only to walk away disappointed.

SINCE UPSETTING THEM to win the 2008 Grand Final, we have lost eleven games in a row to Geelong. Nine of those are by less than ten points, five by less than a goal and two by a kick after the siren, bringing them another last-minute victory and stabbing a knife right through my heart. It is improbable that we can’t scrape a single victory. We play at least twice every year and on each meeting I watch in slow-motion as we fall apart and Geelong find a way to vanquish us.

Given no real world reason for our failure, we turn to folklore for an explanation. After we shock every pundit and beat favourites Geelong in 2008, our president Jeff Kennett gives an impassioned speech where he backs Hawthorn unequivocally:

‘What they don’t have, I think, is the quality of some of our players; they don’t have the psychological drive we have. We’ve beaten Geelong when it matters.’

The Geelong players take Jeff’s words to heart. They decide that no matter what, they will never lose to Hawthorn again and the Kennett Curse is born. Even when the betting companies run the numbers and declare that Hawthorn should win, Geelong find a way to make the impossible possible.

IN 2012, HAWTHORN are on fire. We finish the home and away season on top of the ladder.

All I want is to see a Hawthorn premiership in person. My dad hasn’t seen one either, despite Hawthorn’s massive success in his lifetime, having spent most of his younger years putting in his hours at the hospital.

When Geelong are knocked out by Fremantle in the first week of finals, I breathe a sigh of relief. They can’t make us stray from the path. We get through to the Grand Final. This is our year. I am certain. My dad and I’s dream will come true.

We lose to Sydney by ten points.

My dad and I are silent in the car on the drive home.

In the driveway, scarf still around my neck, he says to me, ‘Jules, I’m still really happy we got to go. Thanks for coming with me.’

I’m much less gracious. I’m trying hard not to cry. All I can think about is that Hawthorn worked so hard the whole year to get to the Grand Final, that winning a flag is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and they are going to have to start all over again the next year. The dream is dead.

BUT THE OFF-SEASON is five months long and I manage to pick myself up from the ground and dust off my dream. In the first round of 2013, we lose to Geelong for the tenth time. I keep my usual eye on them all season, willing them to lose games, but they match our pace the whole season.

With one, singular exception: Brisbane.

Brisbane are woeful. They are not having a good season. They will not play finals. Ash McGrath is playing his 200th game but it will not be a celebration. They are down 52 points against Geelong in the third quarter. They have never come back to win from a deficit that large.

When I look up the score afterwards, my jaw drops when I find out that Brisbane has won by five points. I scramble to find footage of the last two minutes of the game to piece the story together.

The video gives me endless reasons why Brisbane shouldn’t win. Geelong forward Tom Hawkins kicks the most unconvincing behind with 55 seconds left to put Geelong in front by one point. Brisbane try to push forward, but Geelong defender Josh Hunt takes a massive mark with 45 seconds left.

Brisbane defender Daniel Merrett answers with a thrilling mark of his own, but there’s only 20 seconds left and his feet are on the edge of Geelong’s goal square. The ground is 170 metres long. Elliot Yeo, Simon Black, Joel Patfull. Five seconds left. Jed Adcock has it on the ground. A desperate handball to Dayne Zorko who barrels it forward into the palm of none other than milestone man Ash McGrath.

The siren sounds. Geelong coach Chris Scott looks furious on the sidelines. Commentator Anthony Hudson is losing his voice.

‘THIS IS BETTER THAN A FAIRYTALE,’ he calls. ‘YOU CAN’T DREAM THESE SCENARIOS.’

Ash McGrath lines up over 50 metres away from Brisbane’s goal.

‘Ashley McGrath in his 200th game. A behind will create a draw. A goal will give the Lions an incredible victory. Ash McGrath comes in. It’s ON ITS WAY! It’s THERE! THE MIRACLE ON GRASS! THE BRISBANE LIONS HAVE KICKED EIGHT GOALS IN THE LAST QUARTER AND AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR THEY HAVE WON!’

I smile and wonder what it would feel like to get a taste of that.

BY THE END of the season, Hawthorn have finished on top of the ladder. Here we go again.

We enact revenge on Sydney and smash them in the first week of finals, which means I get to sit back and watch who gets the privilege of playing to play us in the second week. I hope for a different result, but Geelong beat Port Adelaide, setting up the inevitable reunion.

Oh well, I think. It’s been a good run. This Preliminary Final will be our last game of the year. But, just maybe, a smaller part of me thinks, that this is how it’s meant to be. We can’t win a flag unless we beat Geelong. We can’t get the gold unless we slay the dragon first. We can’t sneak past, we have to beat him even when he is breathing fire down our necks.

The game is agonising. At three-quarter time, I swear off football. I’ve had enough. I can’t take this anymore. We’re going to lose and there’s nothing I can do about it. We’re down by twenty points. We can’t even win when we’re ahead at three-quarter time.

The fourth quarter is absolute torture. I’ve sworn off football, but my dad and I agreed we never leave games early. I watch most of it from behind my scarf. Slowly, we inch forward. We start to close the gap. But time is running out.

The calls come every couple of minutes.

‘WHO’S GOT A RADIO?’

There’s be a slight pause before the answer comes back.

‘SEVEN MINUTES AND FORTY-FIVE SECONDS.’

We all groan.

I’m holding the hand of the lady sitting next to me. I’d never met her before tonight. I don’t even know her name.

When Shaun Burgoyne kicks the goal that puts us in front again, we erupt.

There is over five minutes left in the game. It is excruciating. A lifetime exists in those five minutes. Radio call, four minutes left. Hide behind my scarf again. Radio call. Barely any time has passed. Nobody is scoring.

When the siren sounds, we are five points up. Captain Luke Hodge throws his hands in the air. We scream, shout, celebrate. The curse has lifted. Cinderella goes to the ball. Sleeping beauty awakens from her slumber. I hug my dad. I hug the lady next to me. Everybody bursts into tears. We’ve done it. We’ve actually done it. We’ve accomplished the impossible. I feel invincible. I don’t care who is waiting for us in the Grand Final next week, we will beat them. Football is beautiful. Football is the best thing in the world. I could never give up football, not when this is the euphoria waiting at the end of eleven straight losses.

Goddammit, I think when we’ve calmed down. That buffoon Jeff was right. We win when it counts.

I GET MY dream. My dad and I go to the Grand Final. After eleven straight losses to Geelong, we kick eleven goals and eleven behinds to win our eleventh flag.

None of it makes any sense. We get to go back the next year, and the year after, to watch Hawthorn win three flags in a row.

It’s better than a fairytale. You can’t dream these scenarios. I could certainly never write it.

Since then, the internet has been inundated with reviews, scores, verdicts and hot takes about the album.

But given it’s only been a week and a half, should we maybe slow down and take a breath?

‘How we critique music is broken’

In her article ‘Taylor Swift Is Proof That How We Critique Music Is Broken’ for Bloomberg, Jessica Karl argues that critics and fans alike need to push back against the fast-paced hot take nature of the internet and take more time to digest such a rich album before we arrive at our opinions.

‘Where’s the “delight” in staying up until dawn to finish listening to an album as if it’s a college paper we’re cramming to complete by the morning?’ Karl writes.

She doubts the ability of a critic to fully digest a two-hour double album of 31 songs in a mere matter of hours, which is when the reviews started spilling out of major music outlets.

It’s an instant classic ! It’s a 6.6 out of 10, unruly and unedited! It’s a five-star pleasure! It’s audacious and transfixing! It’s vulnerable but vicious!

It was even faster on the fan side of internet: the live reactions, first listen rankings, updated Taylor Swift album rankings, trending snippets and lyric sleuthing deep dives appeared on TikTok within minutes.

What is more important: listening to the album, or getting to be part of the discourse?

Then there are people like Channel 7 reporter Matt Doran who chose not to bother to listen to Adele’s 30 before interviewing her. Surely there’s something wrong with criticism if a journalist doesn’t feel the need to engage with the music at all? Is the scoop Adele herself? Does it even matter what the record sounds like?

Slow burns

I can assure you that I have listened to The Tortured Poets Department from start to finish. And, as the internet exploded in a far-off corner, my first instinct was that it would take some time to sink in.

Because, I do fall in love with some songs immediately. Sometimes I hit play on a new song and instantly my heart races and I know yes, this is the one! This song will fix my entire life!  

‘Blank Space’ by Taylor Swift, from the second I hit play on that music video. ‘doomsday’ by Lizzy McAlpine, as soon as I heard the devastating lyrics (‘But the funny thing is I would have married you / If you had stuck around / I feel more free than I have in years / Six feet in the ground’) and my heart broke along with hers. When Jonathan Larson finally has his genius breakthrough in tick… tick… BOOM! and the song he’s spent the entire film trying to write ‘Come to Your Senses’ is really, actually, genuinely worth the wait.

But others take time.

‘Turning Tables’ by Adele was released in 2011. I heard it on Adele’s second album 21 and covered by Gwyneth Paltrow on Glee. I didn’t fall in love with it until I sang it myself in 2015. As I memorised the lyrics, I was hit by the vulnerability and rawness of the song.

Upon first listen of Olivia Rodrigo’s much anticipated sophomore album GUTS, I didn’t feel certain that she had lived up to the SOUR hype. Lead single ‘vampire’ didn’t stand out to me. But a couple of months after the album came out, I fell in love with the yearning of ‘making the bed’. I couldn’t tell you what I thought of it on the first listen. Only that sometime afterwards, there was a day where it clicked in my brain and became one of my all-time favourite songs.

In the summer of 2015 and 2016, I became obsessed with a new Broadway musical called Hamilton and its subsequent Tony Awards sweep was unsurprising. But, eight years later, I can’t remember the last time I put the cast recording of Hamilton on. Instead, I’ve listened to the Waitress cast recording, the Sara Bareilles concept album and the cut songs album all in the last month alone. There’s no denying the spectacle of Hamilton, but I can’t quite seem to shake the quiet honesty of Waitress and it’s stayed with me all these years.

Timely and relevant

When I wrote theatre reviews for ArtsHub, I was expected to turn them in within 48 hours of seeing a show. A review was only worth publishing while it was timely and relevant. If it was a short run, the pressure was even greater to get the review out before the show closed.

This is true of everything: theatre, music, literature, etcetera. It must be new and hot off the press! Last year’s crop is old news! Put it out to pasture!

Often, it was fine to write a review that quickly. Deadlines are useful motivation. It was good to write about a show while it was still fresh. But occasionally, I would have appreciated some extra time to consider things more deeply.

While I am in favour of taking the time to soak up music for as long as I can, will publishing ever be?

‘Please don’t be in love with someone else’

So I can’t tell you what I think of The Tortured Poets Department just yet. Ask me in a couple of months.

I can tell you that when I saw Taylor Swift perform at The Eras Tour in Melbourne two months ago, I fell in love with a fourteen-year-old song called ‘Enchanted’. Imagine, if this song had disappeared as soon as Speak Now wasn’t the hottest thing on the block anymore, I wouldn’t have gotten to have such a sparkling night.

Our trip was motivated by a singular purpose: the AFL hosted all nine games for the week out of Adelaide in a festival of football called Gather Round.

It wasn’t my first time travelling to watch footy and it wasn’t even my first time watching Hawthorn at Adelaide Oval, but it was my first time going to an event of this nature and I’m pleased to say it was an absolute blast!

Here are my five highlights from the weekend.

5. Autumn leaves

Road tripping through Australia usually doesn’t offer you a particularly exciting variety of landscape as you drive through the countryside. The route from Melbourne to Adelaide is not very visually appealing (apart from the Big Koala). Instead, it’s many hours spent driving past similar looking fields.

When we finally pulled into Hahndorf, the German village in the Adelaide Hills where we were staying, we were greeted by a beautiful row of trees dressed in reds, oranges and yellows for autumn. I didn’t expect the leaves to be falling this early and after the many hours of driving had blurred together, the red leaves were a wonderful welcome surprise.

4. The inflatable Sherrin

During our meandering around Adelaide, we discovered that the AFL had installed a giant inflatable Sherrin football in the middle of Adelaide’s Rundle Mall. So silly and yet so fun!

It was really exciting that wherever we went in Adelaide, we saw signs, posters or gigantic footballs to celebrate Gather Round.

3. Monarto Safari Park

We had one spare morning sans football and we chose to spend it hanging out with the animals at Monarto Safari Park.

At Monarto, you jump on a bus and drive through all the large animal enclosures instead of walking around like at a zoo. It’s the largest safari park outside of Africa. My favourite animals were the inquisitive meerkats and the energetic Tasmanian devils.

2. Bakeries

When I found out that Adelaide had several 24-hour bakeries, I knew that it was a city of culture. Over the weekend, I visited as many bakeries as humanly possible: on the drive there, in Hahndorf and in Adelaide.

I did make it to one of the elusive 24-hour ones, Café de Vili’s, which did an excellent sausage roll. The German Cake Shop up in Hahndorf had wonderful warmed up pretzels and bee sting cake (although the owner is about to retire so I will sadly never eat there again). And Café 1813 did fantastic pancakes.

1. Watching Hawthorn play at Adelaide Oval

The whole purpose of my visit to Adelaide was for football so, obviously, the number one highlight was getting to see Hawthorn play at Adelaide Oval.

Travelling for football might sound like a fanatical thing to do, but I did keep in mind I’ve also travelled for theatre. There’s something special about making a fun weekend out of something you really love and going the distance to make it happen.

Adelaide Oval is a great venue for football. I loved watching the sunset glow as the twilight game progressed and the planes flying over the hill became blinking white dots in the sky. 

Best of all, tomato sauce was free. The MCG could learn something from that.

Here are my thoughts on Maestro, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Poor Things and The Zone of Interest, all nominated for the big prize of Best Picture.

Catch up on Part 1 for my thoughts on the other half of the line-up: American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, The Holdovers and Killers of the Flower Moon.

Maestro dir. Bradley Cooper

One of the main reasons that I decided to watch all the movies nominated for Best Picture each year is to expand my horizons by checking out movies that I otherwise would never have watched.

Maestro is one of those movies. Without the Oscars, I don’t think I ever would have watched it because on the surface it sounds like another boring and unoriginal Oscar-bait vanity biopic.

Maybe that’s still true, but Maestro was such a pleasant surprise in several ways. I’ve never been a big fan of 21st century black and white movies but Maestro felt like the first movie to finally challenge my view on this. 

It was beautifully shot with wonderful cinematography from Matthew Libatique and direction from Bradley Cooper. Each scene felt deliberately considered and expertly framed to produce a truly stunning film.

I’m also not usually a fan of actor-directors but I was stunned by Cooper’s direction in this. I’d really love to see a movie from him where he directs but doesn’t star.

Unfortunately, Maestro loses its way with a rather average screenplay. It appears that the film is trying to tell the story of Leonard Bernstein’s life through the prism of his relationship with wife Felicia but I came away feeling like I hadn’t learnt much about either Bernstein’s music or his relationship with his wife.

There are occasional glimpses of brilliance in the dialogue, particularly when delivered by Carey Mulligan, but the overall narrative is way too messy for these moments to really land.

Oppenheimer dir. Christopher Nolan

Oppenheimer is widely tipped as the Best Picture favourite this year (so widely in fact that there are many people complaining that the Oscars will be boring this year as a result) but it’s not even my favourite Christopher Nolan movie, let alone my personal pick for Best Picture this year.

I’ve seen almost all of Christopher Nolan’s filmography (I’ve only got Following, Insomnia and The Dark Knight Rises left to go) and despite its ambitiousness, Oppenheimer isn’t his best work. It’s a vast improvement from Tenet, but I didn’t think Oppenheimer remotely matched the visual feast of Inception or the emotional depth of Interstellar.

Overall, the story drags and I often questioned what certain scenes and sub-plots added to the narrative.

It’s still a solid movie. There are several moments where it hints at the more emotional place I was hoping it would go, such as when Oppenheimer grapples with the enormity of his invention and the haunting moments towards the film’s end. Ludwig Göransson’s Oscar-nominated score is wonderful and there are many great performances from the cast, including Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh.

I greatly respect the sheer volume of its ensemble cast. Where many biopics will happily merge and modify real life people to fit into a better Hollywood mould (and occasionally just make them up entirely, like Alan Arkin in Argo), Oppenheimer set out to employ every up and coming male actor in a supporting/cameo role to demonstrate the massive amount of people who contributed to the Manhattan Project.

Past Lives dir. Celine Song

Past Lives is a spell-binding, impossibly beautiful debut film from Celine Song. I was drawn in from the very first image of the movie which shows Nora, Hae Sung and Arthur sitting together from the perspective of a stranger on the other side of the bar who asks, ‘Who do you think they are to each other?’

As we delve into the story and learn the answers – Nora and Hae Sung grew up together in Korea, Nora and Arthur are married, Hae Sung’s visit to New York is the first time he has seen Nora in over twenty years – we explore questions of love, ambition, dreams and fate.

On one hand, Song’s previous work as a playwright shines through in this movie: the brilliant tension dripping through the wonderfully crafted dialogue and the immense magnitude of an intimate story based around three people. But on the other hand, her brilliant execution of filmic visual storytelling makes it hard to believe that this is her first feature film. I really would have loved to see Song nominated for Best Director alongside her nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

This film marks another debut, not just Song’s. The wonderful score by musicians Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen is also their debut writing for film. Their reserved, luminescent, nostalgic score – reminiscent of the twinkling city lights outside Nora and Hae Sung’s bedrooms and the falling rain – is a marvellous feat in musical composition.

Poor Things dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

On paper, this movie has so much going for it: starring Emma Stone. Clearly inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. From the wonderfully weird and creative mind of Yorgos Lanthimos.

And yet I would rank it as the solid third out of three Lanthimos movies I’ve seen (after The Lobster and The Favourite). 

Visually, it was spectacularly bold in its commitment to fantastical and artificial sets which clearly linked to the themes of the film. Many scenes feel like stepping into a psychedelic painting.

Lanthimos always commits to a visual style for his films and it is clear from watching Poor Things that he is only becoming better at this aspect of filmmaking.

But I found the story itself messy and lacking. The film felt confused between whether we were experiencing the events of the story through the misshapen eyes of its supposed protagonist Bella or through the eyes of her scientific observers medical student Max and her not-so-subtly named creator God.

Poor Things delves into some interesting ideas but I didn’t feel like it had anything particularly new, or even bold, to say about the Frankenstein myth.

The Zone of Interest dir. Jonathan Glazer

While I respect the bold and unique vision of The Zone of Interest, I ultimately did not see as much brilliance in this film as most critics did.

I loved the decisive choices made by Jonathan Glazer’s direction and Łukasz Żal’s cinematography. The pure white and green colour palette perfectly creates the sickening vibe of this dream house built on the same ground as Auschwitz.

The best scene of the movie is clearly when Rudolf and Hedwig argue beside the lake. Sandra Hüller’s ability to convey Hedwig’s petulance in this scene is brilliant and begs the question of whether she should have been double-nominated in the acting categories.

There is also a brilliant sub-plot which showcases another bold design choice from Glazer and further explores the ideas of the film but sadly it does not go anywhere interesting.

Ranking

Ranking the nominees always feels like an impossible task.

I’ve been formulating a list of questions that I ask myself when writing this list: how did the movie make me feel? How did the storytelling and technical aspects excel? Do I want to rewatch it?

So here it goes:

1. Killers of the Flower Moon dir. Martin Scorsese

2. Past Lives dir. Celine Song

3. Anatomy of a Fall dir. Justine Triet

4. The Holdovers dir. Alexander Payne

5. Barbie dir. Greta Gerwig

6. Oppenheimer dir. Christopher Nolan

7. Maestro dir. Bradley Cooper

8. The Zone of Interest dir. Jonathan Glazer

9. Poor Things dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

10. American Fiction dir. Cord Jefferson

Killers of the Flower Moon, Past Lives and Anatomy of a Fall are my solid favourites which I suspect will stay with me for a long time.

I can’t contain my excitement any longer, thank goodness the Oscars are on today!

The 96th Academy Awards ceremony will air on Channel 7 from 10am on 11 March 2024.

It’s taken a while but I have watched all ten films nominated for this year’s Best Picture award and therefore completed my annual Oscar quest.

I’ve got too many thoughts to squeeze into one article, so this week I’ll be sharing my thoughts about half of the Best Picture line up – American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, The Holdovers and Killers of the Flower Moon. 

Then you’ll get Part 2 featuring Maestro, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Poor Things and The Zone of Interest, along with my overall ranking, next week on Oscars morning.

Here are my thoughts on the first five Best Picture nominees.

American Fiction dir. Cord Jefferson

American Fiction has a fantastic premise. It explores some genuinely interesting ideas instead of rehashing the same old dramatic themes. There are some truly laugh out loud moments that are usually incredibly rare during Oscar season. Jeffrey Wright delivers a stellar performance as grumpy professor Monk (rivalled only by Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers). 

But, I am so sad to say it, I was really disappointed by American Fiction. I looked forward to watching this movie so much – I was super excited by the unique premise, the laughs (it did deliver on those) and an in-depth look at the literary industry. I kept waiting for this movie to take me to a more interesting place but it never really delivered.

Within quite a solid story structure, it was let down by some truly terrible dialogue. There was nothing visually interesting – the cinematography and art direction felt particularly lacking for a Best Picture nominee. And for a movie which ultimately seemed more interested in critiquing the movie industry than the literary one as it claimed to, it didn’t do anything to advance the art form. 

Anatomy of a Fall dir. Justine Triet

Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute) is an intimate portrait of a three-person one-dog family at an incredibly invasive time of their lives. From the moment that Samuel’s body is discovered by his son Daniel and his wife Sandra becomes the prime and only suspect in his death, their entire lives are picked apart by the police and the court system. Don’t be fooled, though: this is not a whodunnit and the tension will not lift.

It’s no wonder that Justine Triet has become only the eighth woman ever to be nominated for Best Director. Anatomy of a Fall is so well-executed that Justine Triet makes filmmaking look easy. 

Of course, this is far from the truth. The screenplay, co-written with Arthur Harari, is razor sharp and the cinematography by Simon Beaufils both shows off the beautiful French scenery and heightens the dramatic tension of the story.

Anatomy is blessed with a brilliant main cast, with Sandra Hüller shining as the suspect woman of the hour and Swann Arlaud as her old friend turned legal counsel who doesn’t know if she’s innocent or if he cares. 

But I’ll go out on a limb and say that the best performance in this film doesn’t come from the incredible Sandra Hüller and not even Messi as Snoop (winner of the Palm Dog Award at Cannes). Instead, it is Milo Machado-Graner who steals the scene by the film’s end with a heartbreaking performance as Daniel.

It’s brilliant to see that Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s jab about English-speaking audiences getting over subtitles seems to be coming true as Anatomy of a Fall is one of the three Best Picture nominees in a language other than English this year (alongside Past Lives and The Zone of Interest). A decent chunk of Anatomy is in English anyway, as the film uses Sandra’s understanding of language as a clever metaphor for her disconnection.

Barbie dir. Greta Gerwig

How do you make a movie about a plastic doll? The premise of Barbie demonstrates a true creative brilliance from the minds of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach.

There’s so much to love about this movie: Margot Robbie’s brilliant performance as Stereotypical Barbie, the lush plastic design of Barbie Land and the killer soundtrack of hit after hit demonstrating exactly how Barbie landed three out of the five nominations slots for Best Song at the Golden Globes.

The story does lose its way a handful of times. For a movie named Barbie, there is an exceptional amount of time devoted to Ken. He gets dangerously close to overshadowing the point of the movie, most notably with the massive dance number ‘I’m Just Ken’. 

I’d hope that if studio executives take anything away from the cultural phenomenon of Barbie, it’s how much women want to see stories about women on screen (something the Oscars have traditionally ignored) – but I’m sure they mistakenly think we just love commercials about toys and cars instead.

The Holdovers dir. Alexander Payne

This Christmas movie would’ve been such a splash hit if it hadn’t come out in Australia on January 11.

This year’s Best Picture line up has a few really fresh original ideas on it for once and The Holdovers is one of them. Even though it does feel like it’s following in the footsteps of Dead Poets Society and openly harks back to the 1970s, The Holdovers is a great example of honouring past stories while still creating something wonderful and new.

The titan of awards season so far and surely a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actress, Da’Vine Joy Randolph is brilliant as grieving mother Mary. The Holdovers doesn’t try to tell some magical new story about grief – it just lays it bare, honest and messy as it is.

Newcomer Dominic Sessa is wonderful as charming yet annoying student Angus Tully, somehow making you switch between wanting to punch him and wanting to root for him constantly throughout the film. It’s an incredible debut and he was unlucky not to land a Best Supporting Actor nomination in a crowded year.

Amongst the last few years of Best Picture nominees with ambitious ideas that fail to stick the landing, The Holdovers is also refreshing in having a satisfying ending. It’s not perfectly wrapped up in a bow, but the kind of ending that feels real and allows you to walk out of the cinema feeling content.

Killers of the Flower Moon dir. Martin Scorsese

I’m still letting it sink in over six months later but Killers of the Flower Moon might be the best drama film I’ve ever seen.

In classic Martin Scorsese fashion, Killers of the Flower Moon lays bare the vast extent of plain human evil and white supremacy. The film is a brilliant illustration of how an entire white community was complicit in the the genocide of the Osage people and how racism was ingrained in all the social structures (‘Can you spot the wolves in this picture?’).

A far cry from his charming performances in movies like Titanic and even The Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio plays an absolute weasel of a man as Ernest. Both DiCaprio’s Ernest and Robert De Niro’s King Hale are laid so bare in their pure villany.

As has been obvious to anyone watching this movie, the standout performance comes from Lily Gladstone as Mollie, an Osage woman whose family is at the centre of the new oil money and therefore the murders. Gladstone delivers an absolutely masterful performance in thinly veiled rage, unrelenting grief and eventually sorrowful fury. If there’s anything that comes out of this Oscar season, I hope it’s the cemented status of Gladstone as a superstar.

Truly, the film boasts a wonderful ensemble of actors. Tantoo Cardinal delivers a haunting performance as Lizzie Q, Mollie’s mother, and Cara Jade Myers is phenomenal as Anna May, Mollie’s sister.

Much debated during its release, I left the cinema feeling absolutely furious that the 3.5 hour runtime was incredibly deserved. I wouldn’t cut anything out. In fact, I wanted more: I went home afterwards and read every page of David Grann’s nonfiction book which formed the basis for the movie.

The 96th Academy Awards ceremony will air on Channel 7 on 11 March 2024.

Last year there were five novels and I’ve got four again this year (maybe five?). I want even more than that from Australian publishing – but in the meantime, here are the four titles from traditional publishers I’m looking forward to reading this year.

I Hope This Doesn’t Find You by Ann Liang

Release date: 5 March 2024

Sadie Wen is perfect on paper: school captain, valedictorian, and a ‘pleasure to have in class.’ It’s not easy, but she has a trick to keep her model-student smile plastered on her face at all times: she channels all her frustrations into her email drafts. She'd never send them of course - she'd rather die than hurt anyone's feelings - but it's a relief to let loose on her power-hungry English teacher or a freeloading classmate taking credit for Sadie's work.

All her most vehemently worded emails are directed at her infuriating co-captain, Julius Gong, whose arrogance and competitive streak have irked Sadie since they were kids. Sadie doesn't have to hold back in her emails, because nobody will ever read them… that is, until they're accidentally sent out.

Overnight, Sadie’s carefully crafted, conflict-free life is turned upside down. It's her worst nightmare - now everyone at school knows what she really thinks of them, and they're not afraid to tell her what they really think of her either. But amidst the chaos, there's one person growing to appreciate the ‘real’ Sadie - Julius, the only boy she's sworn to hate…

As a big fan of Ann Liang’s If You Could See the Sun and This Time it’s Real, I am so excited to read her next young adult romance novel! She’s the queen of overachiever protagonists and creating nail-biting tension between her romantic leads. I can’t wait to meet Sadie and read what’s certain to be another enticing pageturner.

Katie Goes to KL by Su-May Tan

Release date: 12 March 2024

Sixteen-year-old Katie Chen lives in the unremarkable suburb of Narre Warren in Australia with her somewhat reclusive Malaysian father. Coming to Australia when she was five and losing her mother at seven, she has always struggled with issues of identity. Things quickly change when she goes back to Malaysia for her grandmother's funeral and discovers that her mother – long-thought dead – is alive. 

Set in a fictionalised Kuala Lumpur (KL), Katie struggles to reconnect with her mother whom she discovers is Malay. Navigating KL's underground music scene and the underlying tensions of a country she doesn't understand, how far is Katie willing to go to find a place to belong?

Su-May Tan has previously published the short story collection Lake Malibu and Other Stories (shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards) but Katie Goes to KL is her YA debut and I can’t wait to read it! I’m so intrigued by the idea of a fictionalised KL and the dramatic hook of finding out that your mother is still alive.

The Girl with No Reflection by Keshe Chow

Release date: 6 August 2024 (US)

Princess Ying Yue believed in love… once upon a time. Yet when she’s chosen to wed the crown prince, Ying’s dreams of a fairy tale marriage quickly fall apart. Her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, confining Ying to her room for reasons he won’t explain. Worse still are the rumours that swirl around the imperial palace: whispers of seven other royal brides who, after their own weddings, mysteriously disappeared.

Left alone with only her own reflection for company, Ying begins to see things. Strange things. Movements in the corners of her mirror. Colourful lights upon its surface. And when, on the eve of her wedding, she unwittingly tears open a gateway, she is pulled into a mirror world.

This realm is full of sentient reflections, including the enigmatic Mirror Prince. Unlike his real-world counterpart, the Mirror Prince is kind and compassionate, and before long Ying falls in love—the kind of love she always dreamed of.

But there is darkness in this new world, too. It turns out the two worlds have a long and blood-soaked history, and Ying has a part to play in the future of them both. And the brides who came before Ying? By the time they discovered what their role was, it was already too late.

The Girl with No Reflection won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2022 and I’m thrilled that it’s finally about to hit the shelves! The fantastical mirror world sounds so fascinating and I’m so intrigued by the mystery of the seven brides.

Serpent Sea (Spice Road #2) by Maiya Ibrahim

Release date: 17 September 2024

In this romantic, action-packed fantasy set in an Arabian- and Southwest Asian-inspired land, Imani and Taha must save their home from an invasion after the magical enchantment that hid them from the world is defeated.

Imani is a magic-wielding warrior sworn to protect her land from the monsters that roam the desert. But an even worse enemy now threatens the Sahir. As the powerful Harrowlanders march south with their greatest weapon—spice magic—Imani knows it’s only a matter of time before their invasion of her land begins… and it will be a losing battle for her people.

One wrong move could cost them their lives—and everyone they love. But they may find there is more than meets the eye crossing the Serpent Sea… and betrayal cuts deeper than any dagger.

I immediately added Spice Road, the first book in this series, to my TBR upon finding out about this book! It sounds like a brilliant blend of multiple genres – action, fantasy, romance – and as the eagerly anticipated follow up to a Sunday Times bestseller, I’m sure the sequel will splash across bookstores later this year.

Keeping an eye out…

It feels like it’s getting harder to specifically find upcoming YA novels written by Asian Australian authors so I’ll keep looking throughout the year and update this list if I find any others.

The third and final novel in the Monsters trilogy by Vanessa Len is scheduled for a 2024 release according to Goodreads. But there’s been no official information released yet so I’ll be keeping my beady eyes out for that one. I’m dying to know the ending to Joan’s story!

As someone who writes YA literature, I have a big soft spot for children’s stories and Avatar was no exception. I thought it was amazingly written with beautiful animation. It made me laugh, cry, gasp and I always wanted to know what happened next.

Having not bothered to check out the 2010 M. Night Shyamalan film adaptation (it currently holds a shockingly bad 5% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes), I was cautiously optimistic when Netflix announced that they were making a live action TV series adaptation of the show. 

But since then series creators Michael Dante DiMartinno and Bryan Konietzko parted ways with Netflix, the trailer looks devoid of the original series’ charm and new showrunner Albert Kim has made some concerning comments about how the show ‘couldn’t just be for kids’ and needs to ‘appeal to the people who are big fans of Game of Thrones’.

It’s left many fans, including me, starting to wonder what’s the point of a remake? Avatar is a well-loved show with plenty of fans from its Nickelodeon days and still steadily picking up new fans despite the fact it finished airing in 2008. What could a live action version offer that the animated series didn’t?

It feels like we are in the era of remakes

To start with the cynical answer, movie remakes are common because they make money. If a studio is worried about their bottom line, their first instinct is often to turn to the most loved IP they have collecting dust on their storeroom shelf. Who wouldn’t want to see their favourite characters again?

While Disney have been producing live action remakes of their animated movies since 1994 with Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book starring Jason Scott Lee, a new focus on remakes clearly began in 2015 with Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella which made $540 million.

This was followed by a suite of live action remakes including Beauty and the Beast (2017) which made $1.266 billion and The Lion King (2019) which made $1.663 billion.

The numbers don’t lie – while I may have heard much more chatter recently about Barbie than I did about a new Lion King in 2019, the ‘live action’ photorealistic lion remake made over $200 million more than the Margot Robbie comedy.

So we might be in the Disney live action remake era, but movie remakes have been around for much longer. As Daniella Scott wrote for Cosmopolitan in 2021, we might feel like we’re in ‘entertainment Groundhog Day’, but remakes are nothing new in the Western film landscape.

Surely it’s more than just the money

Remakes are easy for both the studio and the audience. 

The studio doesn’t have to invest in creating a new story from scratch and neither does the audience. From the studio’s perspective, the benefit is obviously financial. 

But there’s arguably a benefit for the audience as well. Instead of taking a punt on a new film, it’s easy to go see the new Little Mermaid because you already know Ariel and the story. You may not have a great time, but you’re almost definitely going to have a good one. There’s no real investment required from the audience either.

Remix, not remake

But if we settle for what is easy, we miss out on bold stories with something more to say.

If remakes aren’t doing anything new, why bother with them at all? Shouldn’t we stick to purely original stories?

A truly original story is exceptionally rare. All stories are rooted in the ones that came before them. Every culture has a particular way and style of telling stories and there are plenty of shared narrative arcs. 

Each story continues a conversation with the story that came before it. The question should be whether each new Cinderella movie says something new instead of saying the exact same thing. Does it continue the conversation? Or is it just an empty mirror held up in front of us?

The true power of a retelling is when the film takes us on a new journey that captures the emotional heart of the source material. There’s a reason why the French story of Cendrillion has been retold over and over again, there is something there that people keep coming back to.

We can find these in Disney’s own catalogue. While the premise of Tangled is the same as the original fairytale – girl with long hair trapped in tower – the 2010 film asks the new question of ‘What if Rapunzel got herself out so she could see the world?’

Then there’s the slate of high school literary retellings, each dripping in comedic charismatic and palpable romantic chemistry: She’s the Man (a retelling of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night), 10 Things I Hate About You (a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew), Clueless (a retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma) and A Cinderella Story (as the name gives away, one of the many Cinderella retellings).

These movies often revive their source material through new characters with fresh motivations, contemporary themes and humour and a brand new setting. 10 Things I Hate About You is not Shakespeare as written – go see your local community theatre troupe staging it in the park for his brilliance – but it’s a wonderfully hilarious and charming story about two sisters struggling to navigate a patriarchal world.

So it’s definitely possible to revisit an old story in a new way. I’m just not convinced that many of these movie studios are currently brave enough to do that.

In the same interview, Albert Kim describes the new live action remake of Avatar in this exact way stating that it is ‘a remix, not a cover’. While I can’t see any evidence of that yet from the footage so far, season 1 of Netflix’s new Avatar: The Last Airbender drops later this week on February 22 so we’ll quickly find out whether the show has anything new to add to the conversation.

On Wednesday morning, actors Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid announced the nominees on behalf of the Academy.

Here are my takeaways from this year’s nominations.

10 nominees for Best Picture for third year in a row

The 10 nominees for Best Picture are:

1. American Fiction dir. Cord Jefferson

2. Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute) dir. Justine Triet

3. Barbie dir. Greta Gerwig

4. The Holdovers dir. Alexander Payne

5. Killers of the Flower Moon dir. Martin Scorsese

6. Maestro dir. Bradley Cooper

7. Oppenheimer dir. Christopher Nolan

8. Past Lives dir. Celine Song

9. Poor Things dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

10. The Zone of Interest dir. Jonathan Glazer

While there were no real surprises in the Best Picture nominee line up, making it official sets two new Academy records: most films directed by women at 3 (Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie and Past Lives) and most films in a language other than English (Anatomy of a Fall - French, Past Lives - Korean and The Zone of Interest - German).

Did Barbie get snubbed?

Let’s get into the big stuff: I went straight to sleep after watching the nomination announcement at 12:30am Australian time and by the time I woke up, the internet was ablaze with incredulity that Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig had both been snubbed for Barbie. Even Hillary Clinton tweeted about it.

First of all, let’s look at the facts. Barbie received 8 nominations. Both Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig are nominated. While she did not get nominated for Best Director, for directing the movie, Greta Gerwig is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, for writing the movie. While she did not get nominated for Best Actress, for her role as Stereotypical Barbie, Margot Robbie is nominated for Best Picture, for producing Barbie.

So it’s not totally correct to say that Robbie and Gerwig were snubbed. The Oscars definitely has a problem with celebrating stories about women – Dan Kois wrote a great article about this for Slate during the 2021 season: ‘The Revolutionary Thing About Nomadland’s Win That Everyone’s Missing’.

Kois highlighted how Nomadland was only the 6th Best Picture winner in 93 years to feature a female protagonist. Since Nomadland, CODA became the 7th (and the first Best Picture winner about a teenage girl) and Everything Everywhere All at Once became the 8th (and the first Best Picture winner about a woman of colour).

That’s not even to mention how many great women-focused, women-directed stories miss the Oscars entirely, like Alice Wu’s The Half of It and Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu).

Robbie was only competing against other women in the Best Actress category, but I would have loved to see Gerwig snag her second Best Director nomination for Barbie. Still, the fact that all three of Gerwig’s solo directorial efforts (Lady Bird, Little Women and Barbie) have been nominated for Best Picture is outstanding.

I’d also argue that Ryan Gosling had an easier run to get nominated for Best Supporting Actor – as the male lead of Barbie, he’s borderline committing category fraud depending on who you ask.

Justine Triet becomes the 8th women ever nominated for Best Director

Like I said, the Oscars definitely have a women problem and it’s rife in the Best Director category. Justine Triet makes history as only the 8th woman to be nominated for Best Director for Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute).

I was really hoping we’d see multiple women in the Best Director category this year – which has only happened once before, when Chloé Zhao was nominated (and won) for Nomadland and Emerald Fennell was nominated for Promising Young Woman – with Celine Song (Past Lives) and/or Greta Gerwig (Barbie) nominated too.

The Academy really loves a biopic performance

This is not news to anyone, but this year’s crop of Best Actor and Actress nominees really highlight how much the Academy values an actor portraying a historical figure. Three out of five nominees in each category are for performances of historical figures.

Lily Gladstone makes Oscars history

Killers of the Flower Moon actress Lily Gladstone continues to make history as the first Native American woman to be nominated for Best Actress. She is the fourth Indigenous actress following Yalitza Aparicio (Roma), Merle Oberon (Dark Angel) and Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider).

Best Original Song continues to create chaos

Let’s break down the Best Original Song nominees: it’s no surprise to see two songs from Barbie (‘What Was I Made For?’ and ‘I’m Just Ken’) or ‘It Never Went Away’ from American Symphony.

It was surprising to see ‘Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People’ from Killers of the Flower Moon and even more surprising to see ‘The Fire Inside’ from Flamin’ Hot because I didn’t even know that the Cheetos movie was a thing. It’s Diane Warren’s 15th nomination without a win yet.

Society of the Snow gets two nominations

Even though it wasn’t able to drum up enough Best Picture buzz, I was pleased to see Society of the Snow (La sociedad de la nieve) get two nominations for Best International Feature Film and Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

The love for May December was short lived

It looked like Netflix had chosen the wrong film to back for Best Picture when May December burst into cinemas to great reviews, the movie walked away with only a single nomination for Best Original Screenplay (screenplay by Samy Burch; story by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik).

Despite critical acclaim for their acting performances, none of May December’s three leads Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton were nominated.

Killers of the Flower Moon’s wins and losses

It’s hard to tell how the Academy feels about Martin Scorsese’s epic Killers of the Flower Moon. It picked up competitive nominations for Best Director and Best Original Song but missed out on Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio and Best Original Screenplay for Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth.

DiCaprio has been notably absent from the campaign trail this awards season and when he has appeared, he seems much more focused on supporting Lily Gladstone rather than himself. So it might be that once he got his win for The Revenant, DiCaprio was one and done.

It’s looking increasingly likely that Killers of the Flower Moon will walk away empty handed unless Lily Gladstone wins for Best Actress.

The 96th Academy Awards ceremony will take place on 11 March 2024.

What are the Oscars?

Also known as the Academy Awards, the Oscars is an annual awards ceremony presented by the American association the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for achievements in the film industry.

The first ceremony was held on 16 May 1929, making the Oscars older than the Emmys, the Grammys and the Tonys.

Who even is Oscar?

The Academy doesn’t actually know for sure. Probably just some guy! 

One story goes that Academy librarian and eventual executive director Margaret Herrick thought it resembled her Uncle Oscar and said so, and that the Academy staff began referring to it as Oscar. Another is that legend Bette Davis remarked that the statue resembled her husband Harmon Oscar Nelson.

They do know that Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky was the first to use the nickname in writing in his 1934 column in reference to Katharine Hepburn’s first Best Actress win. The Academy began using the nickname a few years later in 1939.

What awards are there?

There are currently 24 award categories given out at the Oscars each year across different elements of filmmaking including acting, directing, writing, design and technical aspects. 

The most recently introduced award was Best Animated Feature Film which was first given to Shrek at the 2001 ceremony.

There are also a few special Oscars, like the Academy Honorary Award and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, some of which are awarded at the main ceremony while others have their own ceremonies throughout the year.

Why do the Oscars matter?

The Oscars hold immense cultural power. It’s a strange kind of power – it emerged because we bestowed it and if we woke up tomorrow and decided we didn’t care anymore, the Oscars would eventually disappear – but it’s a significant power nonetheless. 

They are seen as a significant achievement for anyone working in the film industry and the marker of a true star (how many trailers have you seen with the words ‘Academy Award winner’ or ‘Academy Award nominee’ in it?).

They also offer smaller films the chance to reach a larger audience. For example, winning Best Picture can significantly increase the box office earnings for that movie.

The Oscars definitely influence which movies I choose to watch – each year, I deliberately set out to watch all the movies nominated for Best Picture which I refer to as my ‘Oscars Best Picture quest’.

Who is the Academy? Who votes for the Oscars?

Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences vote on who wins. The Academy is a massive organisation made up of ‘film artists working in the production of theatrically-released motion pictures’.

One of the biggest misconceptions about the Oscars is the false idea that the winners are decided by a small and dedicated panel of people from the Hollywood film industry who watch all the films together. In reality, Variety estimates that the Oscars will be voted on by 9,375 Academy members from across the film industry at the 96th ceremony this coming March.

So it’s more accurate to think of the Oscars as the People’s Choice Awards for Hollywood’s best. If you’re looking for a small and dedicated panel giving out awards, that would be a better description for the jury at an elite film festival like Cannes or Venice.

All of those 9,000+ people can vote for the big Best Picture award, then there are different branches within the Academy who vote on the specific categories. Actors vote for Best Actor, directors vote for Best Director, production designers for Best Production Design, and so on.

There are also members of the Academy who hold more behind the scenes roles: there are branches for those who have worked in the film industry as executives, in marketing and public relations and agents.

New people are invited to join the Academy each year. People are considered one of two ways: either after they have been nominated for an Oscar or after they have been nominated by two current Academy members from their branch.

In 2023, the Academy invited 398 new members including Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Joseph Kosinski, Taylor Swift and The Weeknd.

Once you’re in, Academy membership does not expire unless you are expelled (like Harvey Weinstein in 2017) or voluntarily resign (like sound engineer Tom Fleischman and sound mixer Peter Kurland in 2022 after the Academy controversially chose to relegate awarding the sound categories during the ceremony’s ad breaks).

Do they actually watch every movie that came out in the last year?

Nope! Like I said earlier, there’s no mystical small group of people deciding the Oscars. 

Films must qualify for the Oscars. There’s a big document with all the rules, but essentially a movie must premiere in a cinema and screen in one of six specified areas in the United States for a minimum of seven days. This is why even though the Oscars don’t advertise themselves as a ceremony for American films, it’s still ingrained in their bureaucratic DNA.

If a film has its premiere through any other means – for example, on a streaming platform or cable television network – then it will not be eligible for the Oscars.

This is why you’ll see movies from Netflix like Glass Onion do a limited cinema release before hitting the streaming platform.

An exception to this is the award for Best International Feature Film where each country chooses one film to submit. This is why international hit Anatomy of a Fall isn’t eligible for Best International Feature Film at this year’s ceremony despite being a French film as the French government chose to submit The Taste of Things instead.

Here’s the finite list of movies eligible to win Best Picture this year. It’s only seven pages long.

Who has the most Oscars?

The person with the most Oscar nominations (59) and wins (26) is Walt Disney. Behind him with nominations (53) is composer John Williams and with wins (11) production designer Cedric Gibbons (who actually designed the Oscar statue itself).

The most wins (4) for Best Director is John Ford for The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley and The Quiet Man.

The most wins (3) for Best Actor is Daniel Day-Lewis for My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood and Lincoln.

The most wins (4) for Best Actress is Katharine Hepburn for Morning Glory, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter and On Golden Pond. Oscar darling Meryl Streep is the most nominated in this category with 17 nominations but only 2 wins.

The films with the most nominations at 14 are All About Eve, Titanic and La La Land. The films with the most wins at 11 are Ben-Hur, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

When are the Oscars?

Each year, nominations are usually announced in January with the ceremony held and winners announced in March.

This year, the nominations will be announced on Tuesday 23 January (Wednesday 24 January in Australia) and the ceremony held on Sunday 10 March (Monday 11 March in Australia).

What is Oscar campaigning?

Due to the nature of the Academy – its massive size and constitution of many busy film stars – film executives have worked out that public perception wins Oscars.

Thus, running a strong Oscar campaign is just as good, or sometimes better, than actually making a good movie.

Campaigning is made up of lots of different elements including a big marketing push from the studio, the leading stars doing lots of interviews, roundtables and magazine covers. Essentially, anything that encourages people to talk about how good your movie is. Usually, a studio will know which movie it will push as its prime Oscars candidate before it even comes out.

The other big factor in campaigning is peaking at the right time. With Oscar nominations taking place in January and final voting taking place in February, that’s when you want people to love your movie most. This is why most ‘Oscar’ movies don’t tend to hit cinemas until the end of the year. What’s better than the movie you’ve just seen, right?

La La Land was a brilliant masterpiece at the end of 2016 but by the Oscars ceremony in March 2017, opinion had shifted and Best Picture was awarded to Moonlight. 

The Academy Award nominees for the 96th ceremony will be announced on 23 January 2024.

Here are the three best books that I read in 2023. They happen to represent three different kinds of books: a nonfiction book, an anthology of short stories and a fiction novel.

Girls Don’t Play Sport by Chloe Dalton

Girls Don't Play Sport is a fierce manifesto advocating for female athletes at all levels. It explores how we got to this point and asks where we need to go next to embrace the untapped potential of women's sport. It dispels all the common myths and sexist stereotypes about women’s sport and delves into Chloe Dalton’s personal journey as a female athlete.

I have a confession to make: I am really terrible at reading nonfiction books. I’m not quite sure why as I read a lot of short-form nonfiction, but I seem to struggle to pick up books. When I do, I tend to read them slowly over several months. Even when they are about my favourite subjects like women’s sport! I didn’t read any in 2022, but that changed in 2023.

Despite that, I couldn’t put down Girls Don’t Play Sport by Chloe Dalton. I read it in less than 24 hours. It was a perfect mix of history, statistics, memoir from Dalton’s life and interviews with other athletes. Dalton is a multi-code athlete who won Olympic Gold with the Australian women’s Rugby 7s team in Rio de Janeiro and currently plays for the GWS Giants in the AFLW. She’s the founder of the [Female] Athlete Project, a news platform aiming to boost media coverage of women’s sport.

2023 really felt like the year of women’s sport in Australia, but Girls Don’t Play Sport reveals how long and how tirelessly women in Australia have been working to try and equal the playing field. While we’re still not there, brilliant writers and activists like Dalton help me believe that it will happen one day whenever the sexist voices get too loud for my liking.

Everything Under the Moon edited by Michael Earp and illustrated by Kit Fox

An anthology of twelve fairy tales spun through a queer lens to reflect our world in stories as old as time from wonderful young adult writers.

It includes stories by Michael Earp, Alison Evans, Helena Fox, Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner, Will Kostakis, Jes Layton, Gary Lonesborough, Amber McBride, Abdi Nazemian, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Alexandra Villasante and Lili Wilkinson.

Everything Under the Moon is a truly excellent anthology of queer young adult fairytales. It’s a brilliant blend of the familiar (fairy tales we all know and love) with the new (told in creative and original ways). It really pulled at my heartstrings. My favourite story was “The Cherry Blossom Queen” by Maggie Tokuda-Hall.

I really wish there were more outlets for new young adult short stories to be published in Australia and I’m glad this anthology exists.

If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang

Alice Sun has always felt invisible at her elite Beijing international boarding school, where she’s the only scholarship student among China’s most rich and influential teens. But then she starts uncontrollably turning invisible—actually invisible.

When her parents drop the news that they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship, Alice hatches a plan to monetize her strange new power—she’ll discover the scandalous secrets her classmates want to know, for a price. But as the tasks escalate from petty scandals to actual crimes, Alice must decide if it’s worth losing her conscience—or even her life.

I read both of Ann Liang’s young adult novels this year and choosing my favourite was a real tossup between the two! I am such a sucker for magical realism and If You Could See the Sun is a wild adventure of a coming of age story. Alice’s reckoning with her ambition is a Macbethian tale with many twists and turns.

Here are my thoughts about the Golden Globe nominations. There are TV shows nominated too, but I’m only going to focus on the films.

The Barbenheimer phenomenon continues

While Oscar buzz usually doesn’t start until late in the year, Barbie and Oppenheimer burst into cinemas with a splash back in July. It’s unsurprising to see them both land a nomination for Best Motion Picture and lead the nomination pack.

Lily Gladstone makes history

For her performance as Mollie Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon, Lily Gladstone is the first Indigenous woman ever to be nominated for Best Actress.

Long live comedy and Jennifer Lawrence

One of the big differences between the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes is that the Globes split some categories along genre lines (Drama and Musical/Comedy). There’s usually at least one accusation of category fraud every year about a drama film competing in the comedy category.

Even though category fraud is still rife, I really do think that the Golden Globes’ appreciation of comedy is a great thing lacking from the Oscars.

Jennifer Lawrence’s performance in No Hard Feelings isn’t on anyone’s prediction list for Best Actress at the Oscars but it’s cool to see her land a nomination for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy.

You can’t actually watch many of these movies

If you live in Australia like me, you can’t actually watch many of the movies nominated for Best Motion Picture yet. This isn’t new – there has always been a weird phenomenon where Australian cinemas hold off releasing Oscar movies until the new year – but it still annoys me.

The Holdovers, a Christmas movie, isn’t coming out in Australia until January 11 despite having an October 27 release date in the United States and Christmas occurring in Australia on December 25.

In fact, out of the twelve movies nominated for Best Picture across the two categories, the average Australian movie goer was only able to view four at the same time as someone in the United States: Air, Barbie, Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon. The other eight are all set to arrive in Australia on a delay. Anatomy of a Fall is the worst offender, releasing in Australia over one hundred days later than in the US.

The Hunger Games sings no more

I’ve seen a lot of chatter online from fans of The Hunger Games that the music from latest installment The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is Oscar-worthy but it’s looking like a very long shot after no nominations at the Golden Globes.

Firstly, none of the songs performed by Rachel Zegler as Lucy Grey Covey are even eligible as the lyrics were taken from the book written by Suzanne Collins as opposed to having been written specifically for the film. This only leaves “Can’t Catch Me Now” by Olivia Rodrigo, which has managed to make the 15-song Oscar shortlist.

Secondly, it’s a crowded year for songs, with all three songs from Barbie – Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night”, Andrew Wyatt and Mark Ronson’s “I’m Just Ken” and Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” – nominated at the Golden Globes. For me, it’s all about Barbie music this year. It’s just a question of which song will win.

Who came up with Cinematic and Box Office Achievement?

This year, the Golden Globes have introduced a new category for ‘Cinematic and Box Office Achievement’ that’s sure to be a laughing stock.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is nominated despite speculation that it didn’t even make a profit.

After criticism that their awards don’t reflect the opinions of the average movie goer, the Oscars previously attempted to introduce an award for ‘Most Popular Film’ but the reaction was so negative that they canned it before they’d even awarded it once.

No nomination for America Ferrara

Despite all the buzz for America Ferrara’s performance as Gloria in Barbie back in July, she hasn’t received a nomination in the Supporting Actress category. Is it because the hype hasn’t lasted or is it a crowded category? Cara Jade Myers also missed out for her performance as Anna May Brown in Killers of the Flower Moon.

Gearing up for a big Best Supporting Actor race

Perhaps the most hotly contested category this year is the Best Supporting Actor race. Who will win – Robert Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer in his big post-MCU return to ‘real’ cinema? The comedic brilliance of Ryan Gosling in Barbie? Charles Melton’s post-Riverdale breakthrough in May December? It’s wild that Robert De Niro’s performance in Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t even really on the radar. There are too many compelling narratives this year and only one winner. 

Will Netflix finally get their big win?

It’s no secret Netflix have been vying for a big awards season splash to give their original content a much needed air of prestige. 

I’m not convinced they know how to run a campaign at all. This isn’t going to be their year either. They appear to have mis-picked their front runner again, with May December building more momentum than Maestro.

Either way, it looks like they’ve been beaten by Apple TV again with their investment in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Past Lives is back in the race

Past Lives was losing momentum as a real contender, but nominations at the Globes for Best Motion Picture and Best Director for Celine Song are a really big endorsement. It’s a massive boost to the movie’s Oscar chances.

The 81st Golden Globes ceremony is due to take place on 7 January 2024.

While I felt grateful for the traditional publishing opportunities I have had writing for other publications, I wanted to write more. There were always stories I could never find homes for. I couldn’t find a regular gig reviewing young adult books.

So after much consideration and self-doubt, Overthinker was born. 

Thank you

Overthinker has become so much more than I could have dreamed! I’ve written and published so many more stories than I would’ve without it. 

Being able to reclaim my work in this new way has given me a renewed sense of purpose in my writing. Overthinker has taught me that writing doesn’t always have to be stressful, it can be silly and fun.

So thank you for reading! I am so grateful that you’re here. Sometimes writing feels like shouting into an empty void but this hasn’t felt like that at all and that’s all because of you. Whether you read one story, or all of them, or if this is your very first one, thank you so much for being here. 

50 stories

Over the past year, I’ve written and published 50 stories for Overthinker. That’s a massive milestone and averages out to almost one story for every week of the past year. 

These were my top five most read stories of the year:

1. Let’s talk about money

2. Every YA novel by an Asian Australian writer coming out in 2023

3. Giving up on giving up

4. Interview: John Whinfield

5. Review: Sense and Sensibility (Canberra REP Theatre)

It doesn’t surprise me at all that Let’s talk about money was my most read story of the year. I thought that the vulnerability of talking about how much money I make from writing accompanied by cold hard stats would entice readers. I’m glad it was widely read as it’s a story I really believe in. 

I was surprised that so many other people cared about Every YA novel by an Asian Australian writer coming out in 2023. One of the reasons I started Overthinker was to write about my exact niche interests that maybe no one else cared about – and I was really pleasantly surprised to learn that people did care about this one!

These two stories were also my most widely shared posts beyond this website. 

Coming in third, also a bit of a surprise, is Giving up on giving up in which I talk about how often I think about quitting writing. Similar to Let’s talk about money, I think vulnerability attracts readers. Maybe it was relatable to the other writers out there, too. It’s certainly one of my favourite pieces that I’ve written, and I’ve actually gone back and reread it in those moments where I feel like quitting. 

Special announcements

Enough with being sappy, it’s time to get to the best part of a birthday: the presents!

I’ll start with the small: Overthinker is now on Instagram! You can follow Overthinker @overthinkerpress. 

While the best way to support and keep up with Overthinker is to sign up to receive new stories as emails, I wanted to make an alternative for people who don’t need more stuff flooding their inbox. It’s totally valid if you’re not an email person, I hope you’ll join me over on Instagram. And even if you are, I hope you’ll pop over to check out the cool graphics I’ve designed for it. 

Check out Overthinker on Instagram

And now for the big announcement (drum roll, please): Overthinker is launching a new section called Fiction! It’s exactly what it sounds like: creative writing in short story and serial format. 

While Overthinker will always be primarily nonfiction-based, it feels like the right time to stop letting the short stories locked away on my computer gather dust and start sharing them. 

So without further ado, my very first story, a contemporary young adult romance called Salt, will be launching this coming Monday. 

Thanks again for an amazing first year and I hope you’re as excited about the next one as I am!

For adventure lovers - Monuments by Will Kostakis

Sixteen-year-old Connor is simply trying to avoid his ex-best friend when he stumbles upon a trapdoor to a secret chamber under his school, leading him to discover the Monuments – gods who have been buried for generations – who created the world and hid themselves away from humanity to keep us safe, only now they need protecting.

Will Kostakis is a legend of Australian young adult fiction for a reason and I’m a big fan of his under-appreciated novel Monuments. Firstly a writer of contemporary realistic fiction, Monuments is Kostakis’ foray into fantasy and it’s full of feeling, romance, adventure and fun. 

Age range: 14+ | Content warnings

For murder mystery/true crime/sarcasm lovers - Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

Everyone in Ernest Cunningham’s family has killed someone, including Ernest himself, so when a body is found at the ski resort where they’re having their family reunion, the suspects are plentiful.

This book has the near-impossible double appeal to both Agatha tragics who are convinced they know better (like myself) and to those who just want an entertaining read (like most normal people). Benjamin Stevenson has created such a distinctive voice for Ernest, a sarcastic but lovable rogue. It’s an easy to read page-turner which is perfect for the escapist week between Christmas and New Year’s.

Age range: 18+ | Content warnings

For your literary friend - A Girl’s Story by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L. Strayer

Annie Ernaux goes back in time fifty years to revisit the summer of 1958 when she worked as a holiday camp instructor in Normandy and recounts the first night she spent with a man.

Winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature, Annie Ernaux is a masterful writer. This memoir is beautifully written and considered, supported by the narrative momentum of Ernaux’s own younger life and accompanied by the wisdom of her older self looking back on the past.

Age range: 18+ | Content warnings

For fairytale lovers - Everything Under the Moon edited by Michael Earp and illustrated by Kit Fox

An anthology of twelve fairy tales spun through a queer lens to reflect our world in stories as old as time from wonderful young adult writers.

Everything Under the Moon is a truly excellent anthology of queer young adult fairytales. It’s a brilliant mix of the familiar (fairy tales we all know and love) with the new (told in creative and original ways). It’d also make a great gift for those with a shorter attention span suited to a snappy short story or those who love visual storytelling through beautiful illustrations.

It includes stories by Michael Earp, Alison Evans, Helena Fox, Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner, Will Kostakis, Jes Layton, Gary Lonesborough, Amber McBride, Abdi Nazemian, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Alexandra Villasante and Lili Wilkinson.

Age range: 14+ | Content warnings: Death, queerphobia, racism, transphobia

For the enemies to lovers die hard - The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska

Rival enchantresses Zosia and Marynka are in a bitter competition to steal the (literal) heart of Lechija’s pure-hearted prince but discover they might be falling for each other instead.

When done right, the enemies to lovers romance trope is brilliant and Alicia Jasinska absolutely nails it in The Midnight Girls. A brilliant page turner full of romance and action scenes that leap off the page into imaginary three-dimensional wonder.

Age range: 14+ | Content warnings

For someone who is constantly having an existential crisis - Constellations by Nick Payne

The story of Marianne and Roland’s relationship and how it both changes and does not change across multiple universes.

I know that reading a play might seem counterintuitive, but I read Constellations before I saw it and absolutely loved it. It’s a gift for friends looking for something a bit beyond the ordinary, something deeper than an airport flick. It’s a great read for fans of stories told in alternative and poetic formats.

Age range: 18+ | Content warnings: Death, suicide

For your teeanger - Completely Normal (And Other Lies) by Biffy James 

Stella Wilde is secretly in love with Isaac Calder, despite the fact that he already has a girlfriend, Grace Reyes. When Isaac is killed in a car accident, Grace is able to mourn publicly while Stella is left with only unresolved and complicated feelings that she and Isaac were becoming more than friends.

What would I know about what teenagers these days are into? Great question. I recommend Completely Normal (and Other Lies) for the teenagers in your life because it has recently won two awards completely voted by teenagers: the Shadow Judging Award for Older Readers from the Children’s Book Council of Australia and the inaugural Gab Williams Prize from Readings. So you don’t have to take my word for it (but my word, officially, is that I totally love this book), you can simply listen to the teens.

Age range: 13+ | Content warnings 

I spend an extraordinary amount of my time listening to music. Last year, I clocked up 62,323 minutes listening to music purely through my Spotify account. There’s nothing quite like the sensation of finding a song where the sound matches the exact frequency of your brain or the feelings that you’ve been storing away in the back of your mind.

Here are my favourite albums and EPs that came out this year. 

to love in the 21st century by Lyn Lapid

Described by Lyn Lapid as a collection of songs for ‘hopeless romantic delulus’, the instrumental opener “intro” immediately sets the scene with whimsical, dreamy, summery vibes as she takes the listener on a journey through a romantic relationship from beginning to end.

In the title track which breaks up the EP, Lapid sings ‘Nobody told me how lonely it feels to be / Young in the 21st century / I just wish I could get with the times, but / I’m not cut out to love in the 21st century’. Later, in “the alternative” Lapid sings ‘Love is a risk / But what’s the alternative?’ relinquishing this idea of giving up on love.

Everything in the EP, from the sound, the lyrics and the accompanying visuals, signals that Lapid is calling out for a relationship where things can slow down. She doesn’t want the fast paced confusion of the 21st century; she wants the simple side of romance.

The Good Witch by Maisie Peters

Somehow only 23 years old with a long history of EPs and a stellar debut You’ve Signed Up For This from Ed Sheeran’s record label behind her, English singer-songwriter Maisie Peters keeps firing on her sophomore album The Good Witch. Peters appears to have perfected the breakup bop with songs like “Lost the Breakup”, “Therapy” and “Body Better”.

The album is full of sharp lyrics, like ‘Baby, I am the Iliad, of course you couldn’t read me’ from “Coming Of Age” and ‘If you don’t love me, why’d you act it / Love’s a verb and not a bandage’ from “BSC”. It feels like an upbeat exorcism of breaking up with someone and finally rejoicing in being able to see them for the waste of time they were.

It only gets better on the deluxe version of the album. “Yoko” stands out as “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” levels of ‘how on earth did this get left off the original album?!’

Positive Spin by Gretta Ray

Amongst a sea of break up anthems and sad ballads dominating the rest of the pop charts, Gretta Ray’s title track “Positive Spin” stands out as a rare bop with a happy outlook. It feels almost more challenging to write a song about a cheerful subject without a nasty twist and Ray nails it.

Throughout the rest of her sophomore album, self-professed ‘honey-blonde Australian’ Gretta Ray is clearly living her own mantra. In “Heartbreak Baby”, instead of lamenting over a string of breakups, she declares ‘I am a heartbreak baby / Been gathering goddamn expertise / In tending to wounds then mending me’. Again, in “Upgraded”, she embraces the joy of looking forward to the best yet to come: ‘Now I’m the name you’re never escaping / Turn up your go to radio station / Your ex lover’s indie pop song’s playing / She’s upgrading, she’s upgrading’.

GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo

Along with Maisie Peters and Gretta Ray, Olivia Rodrigo released a stunning sophomore album this year. Is there something in the water for all these pop girl icons?

I wasn’t the only one worried that Rodrigo had set herself the impossible task of following up her impressive debut SOUR, but GUTS absolutely delivers. Rodrigo once again demonstrates her storytelling range: “get him back!” has such a fun and cheeky double meaning and screamable energy whereas “making the bed” is a devastating lament of being sick of oneself.

Something To Give Each Other by Troye Sivan

Ahead of his first album in five years, Troye Sivan exploded back onto the charts with dance tracks “Rush” and “Got Me Started” from his new album Something To Give Each Other.

An overall much more upbeat album, particularly when compared back to his debut Blue Neighbourhood, but it’s a great move forward for Sivan’s music. His smile on the album cover infects every song. He continues his trend of playing on religious imagery in “Honey” with lyrics that mimic the Serenity Prayer: ‘Give me the courage to say all the shit I mean’.

spiralling (over discourse on the internet) by Lucy Sugerman

Until Lucy Sugerman releases her debut album, this is what I’ve got on repeat in the meantime. spiralling (over discourse on the internet) marks a shift in Sugerman’s songwriting as she moves away from boys and onto the other big cause of her anxiety: the internet. In my favourite track “kiss the algorithm”, she reflects on whether things are changing for the worse: ‘My friend said when he woke up / And asked Alexa the news / She said the world is ending / But it didn’t change his mood’.

Hailing from my home-away-from-home of Canberra, Sugerman continues to dazzle with her impressive vocals and great songwriting skills. With each song she puts out, I’m baffled that she has yet to take her place in the charts as Australia’s next musical superstar.

1989 (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift

1989 is THE album and I knew that 1989 (Taylor’s Version) too would be a defining moment in the music landscape. It’s broken countless records in the few weeks it’s been out and only further cemented Swift’s rerecording project as a revolutionary move. Amongst the rerecords, “Clean (Taylor’s Version)” stands out as somehow even better than the original, particularly given the prominence of co-writer Imogen Heap’s signature style back up vocals.

The five new tracks represent the strongest vault yet. They match the original album so well both in synth-based sound and thematically. “Suburban Legends” gives such strong 2014 vibes with the lyrics ‘When you hold me, it holds me together / And you kiss me in a way that’s gonna screw me up forever’. In “Now That We Don’t Talk”, she laments ‘I called my mum, she said that it was for the best / Remind myself the more I gave, you’d want me less’ but eventually realises that ‘Guess maybe I am better / Now that we don’t talk’ which so well summarises the theme of 1989 as a whole.