2025 Oscar Viewing Project

Just in time for Oscar next weekend, I have officially seen all of the Oscar Viewing Project contenders for 2025!  For the second year in a row, I've done this before the ceremony, which feels very in-theme for how we operate.  For those that are new, the Oscar Viewing Project has me watching every single narrative, feature-length nominee at the Academy Awards (i.e. no shorts or documentaries, unless they're in the traditionally feature-length, narrative categories), and rating them in a vacuum, picking my choices based on whom Oscar selected based solely on the quality of the 3-5 nominees in front of me.  If you are truly new, this is the 32nd of the 98 Oscar ceremonies we've done this for, and you can see links at the bottom of this list for past contests.  For the first time since 2001, we have a new category that will be added, and it will be covered (Casting), and I will also be adding it to the My Ballots going forward (though not retroactively).  I have a few more screenings left to finish up the 2025 My Ballot (where I pick the nominees), including one specific animated film that's been annoyingly hard to get ahold of, but in the meantime, we will sort through Oscar.  As a reminder, here was where the domestic box office ranked in 2025:

1. Zootopia 2

2. A Minecraft Movie

3. Lilo & Stitch

4. Avatar: Fire and Ash

5. Superman

6. Wicked: For Good

7. Jurassic World: Rebirth

8. Sinners

9. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

10. How to Train Your Dragon

(Note: I will point out this is the current lineup as of the last writing.  Avatar: Fire and Ash, specifically, is still making relatively decent domestic money, though likely not enough to outearn Lilo & Stitch and move onto the medal stand)

Of these 10 films, I've seen eight of them, skipping both of the live-action animated remakes because, as a general rule, I think these are terrible.  I think it's notable, looking at this, how we have at least one truly original movie (Sinners becoming the highest-grossing totally original story since Gravity), and that the MCU truly just fell from grace here, with Thunderbolts not even crossing the $200M mark domestically and Captain America: Brave New World making $700M less than the last Captain America movie did at the box office (and only Fantastic Four making the Top 10).  Looking down the box office list, most of the unseen movies that I haven't caught yet are horror movie sequels, though The Housemaid stands out as maybe the movie I should've caught and might try to sneak in before the My Ballot (I will definitely be seeing How to Train Your Dragon given so many people loved the visual effects).

But now, it's time to go back just a few months to a time we all were getting a crush on Zohran Mamdani, watching Taylor & Travis get engaged, and seeing the first American pope.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Picture

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. The Secret Agent

4. Sinners

5. Sentimental Value

6. Train Dreams

7. F1

8. Bugonia

9. Marty Supreme

10. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: This is a solid list in what was honestly a very good year for movies, maybe the best since 2021 or even 2017.  But there's no competition for Paul Thomas Anderson here-One Battle After Another is a profound, challenging picture with universally good acting and writing.  Hamnet is really special in second place, proving that Chloe Zhao is emerging as one of our most thoughtful and introspective directors, and I have a sincere enjoyment of the craftsmanship of something like The Secret Agent or Sinners, but One Battle is on another level, and as you'll see, is going to be batting really well this write-up.

Director

1. Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)

2. Chloe Zhao (Hamnet)

3. Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

4. Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)

5. Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)

The Lowdown: A second showdown between Anderson & Zhao (both of whom are going to repeat when we get to the 2025 My Ballot), but I won't pretend this is a close race.  I've actually been much kinder to PTA than Oscar has (his films have plenty of My Ballot statues), but I'm glad on some level that Oscar waited for (what I hope) will be a coronation here as this will become the defining work of his career.  Also, I want to say for the record that Josh Safdie's personal troubles are not why he's in last...I just really did not like his movie.

Actor

1. Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)

2. Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

3. Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

4. Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)

5. Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme)

The Lowdown: Best Actor remains the best lineup of the 2025 acting races, and I will own that none of these (not even Timmy in a movie I didn't like) is a bad performance.  In terms of a win, though, Leo's best work in years is really going to take it over Michael B. Jordan adding nuance to two different characters and Wagner Moura's steady, marked performance in The Secret Agent.  Leo's so good here-a man that even in his prime was over-his-head but in love with ideals and a woman who wouldn't stay, having to reengage with life to save the only thing he truly cares about...this is the kind of star power electricity that Leo promised when he was in his Chalamet years.

Actress

1. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)

2. Emma Stone (Bugonia)

3. Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)

4. Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue)

5. Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You)

The Lowdown: I will largely skate by the elephant in the room (I love Rose Byrne, I love Kate Hudson, but these performances are not ranked incorrectly...do with that what you will), and instead focus on the real competition: Jessie Buckley's spiritual work as a mother trying to connect with a man she loves but can't understand and a boy she knows but cannot grasp, and Emma Stone's terrifying girlboss incarnate, totally grasping on to Bugonia's bizarre (and oftentimes off-kilter) wavelength.  I'm going with Buckley because I think she is able to connect more to the ending than Stone.

Supporting Actor

1. Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)

2. Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another)

3. Stellan Skarsgard (Sentimental Value)

4. Delroy Lindo (Sinners)

5. Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)

The Lowdown: I like #3-5 in other things (truth be told, there is no acting performance of the 20 that I truly disliked even if there are movies that were cited that I disliked, which is rare), but for me it's a competition between the two Oscar-winning acting titans in One Battle After Another.  I'm going with Penn not because he's the bigger performance, but because I think that big performances sometimes get a bad rap in modern acting (del Toro is certainly subtle), but you need them when you're playing a big character like he is, and he totally inhabits a unique type of weak toxicity that's rarely seen represented in the movies (but oftentimes on cable news).

Supporting Actress

1. Amy Madigan (Weapons)

2. Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)

3. Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value)

4. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)

5. Inga Ibsdotter Lileaas (Sentimental Value)

The Lowdown: Madigan gives one of the most unhinged supporting performances in recent years, channeling in many ways actors like Kathy Bates in Misery or Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby to give us something truly terrifying (and speaking of Trump, if you think the red-haired clown terrorizing a group of children isn't an allegory for the guy that has plagued the Epstein list, watch again).  Taylor would be a really worthy winner too, and I love the imprint she made on this movie with only time in the first 40 minutes or so, but this is Madigan by the widest margin of the acting races.

Adapted Screenplay

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. Train Dreams

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: One Battle is not done with its wins yet, and takes another one for PTA.  One Battle is honestly one of the rare one of Anderson's films that is more of a director's achievement than a writing or acting one, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have the oomph to best Hamnet, which is also a wonderful and deceptively strong screenplay (the way that it folds ideas of Shakespeare into the film, while also feeling vaguely universal).  The rest of this category I'd probably upend, and will when we get to the My Ballot.

Original Screenplay

1. Sinners

2. Sentimental Value

3. Blue Moon

4. It Was Just an Accident

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: I'll be honest, the writing categories are where a relatively decent Best Picture lineup (like I said, 2025 is one of the best years for movies so far this decade) shows some chinks in the armor, as you have films like Marty Supreme & Bugonia where I actively disliked the endings and felt they took down chunks of the movie.  There is a touch of that with Sinners, so I will note that it is just barely beating out Sentimental Value (which nails its ending), but the inventive plotting and the way that it unfolds a closed door horror so well means I'm going to slightly favor the vampires over the Swedish introspection.

Animated Feature Film

1. Elio

2. Little Amelie, or the Character of Rain

3. Zootopia 2

4. Arco

5. KPop Demon Hunters

The Lowdown: In what was otherwise a strong year for cinema, I'll own that animation was terrible.  It's not even a case where we have a bunch of better films sitting around-KPop is good when the music is playing and Zootopia is good if you don't constantly compare it to the original and Arco is good if you pretend the melancholy ending was at all earned by the rest of the picture...but overall this is not an impressive list.  If I have to pick a winner, it'd be Elio, a somewhat forgettable Pixar movie that nonetheless has gorgeous animation, beautiful music, and some really strong emotional plotting, but would stand out more if Pixar hadn't been using the same plot for every non-Toy Story film since Cars 3).

International Feature Film

1. The Secret Agent (Brazil)

2. Sentimental Value (Norway)

3. It Was Just an Accident (France)

4. Sirat (Spain)

5. The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)

The Lowdown: The movies of this category used to, on very rare occasion, get nominations in other fields, but this year we have four of them nominated elsewhere and two nominated for Best Picture.  Even with this category, the Academy is becoming entirely focused on the Best Picture field.  Thankfully that's where this should be, as those are the two best movies of the bunch, with weirdly similar plots (both movies are essentially about how you can never know your parents).  I prefer The Secret Agent, a subtler movie with a more sprawling historical look behind it (and the better central performance), but honestly either one here is a winner.

Score

1. Hamnet

2. One Battle After Another

3. Sinners

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: I am a total sucker for Max Richter, whose soft melodies and gorgeous, romantic use of strings and swelling orchestras is a callback to the man I frequently confuse him with (Max Steiner).  Hamnet earned him his first Academy Award nomination, and I struggle to find a reason not to give him this (the OVP is in a vacuum, as a reminder, so I'm not trying to make up for lost time-just noting that Richter has gotten multiple My Ballot nods at this point, and will get another one in 2025 from me when we get there later this month).  One Battle After Another, by another favorite of mine (Jonny Greenwood) is really aces as well, even if it isn't quite as distinctive as we're used to from Greenwood's collaborations with Paul Thomas Anderson.

Original Song

1. "I Lied to You," Sinners

2. "Golden," KPop Demon Hunters

3. "Sweet Dreams of Joy," Viva Verdi!

4. "Train Dreams," Train Dreams

5. "Dear Me," Diane Warren: Relentless

The Lowdown: I sometimes struggle with how to grade this category, because I do feel that it should not just be about the quality of the song, but also about how it is incorporated into the movie.  "Golden" is an ear worm that I have not stopped listening to since it came out (there's a reason this became a genuine pop hit), but the "I Lied to You" sequence in Sinners is easily one of the best scenes of the year, and in my opinion deserves this statue even if "Golden" might be a better piece of music outside the realm of the movie.  Of the three also-rans (i.e. the songs you don't know), "Sweet Dreams of Joy" is much better than you'd expect, and sadly "Dear Me" is exactly what you'd expect (we really should've just given Diane Warren that Oscar for Burlesque and none of this would've happened).

Sound

1. F1

2. Sinners

3. One Battle After Another

4. Sirat

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: After watching Sirat, I realized why this was nominated (the sound work is on full-display throughout, and honestly is a supporting actor in how prominent it is), though unlike The Zone of Interest, I wasn't as impressed, and felt it bordered the line between best and most that sometimes tech categories can't distinguish.  I was far more impressed with F1 and Sinners, the former a sea of zooming cars & "you're practically there" race scenes, the latter a wonderfully constructed semi-musical.  I'm going to go with F1, a movie I think did both mixing & effects well (I'm old-school), but either would make a good winner.

Casting

1. Hamnet

2. Sinners

3. One Battle After Another

4. The Secret Agent

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: The first year of this category, I also kind of need to set my own parameters of how I'm going to grade this, as (like editing) you don't entirely know what was left in the cutting process.  For me, I think it comes down to how well the cast works together, how ingenious/inventive the casting process is (particularly if an actor isn't an obvious choice), and whether there are any clear standout good/bad casting decisions that elevate/demote it.  For me, I have Hamnet over the next two-I don't think there's a bad choice in the casts here, which is saying something as there usually is, but Hamnet had the stunt casting of two actual brothers to underline one character and the character he inspired, and that on top of Mescal & Buckley being perfect for their parts puts it in the lead.

Cinematography

1. Train Dreams

2. One Battle After Another

3. Sinners

4. Marty Supreme

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: Sinners has, for my money, some of the best cinematography of the year.  The Golden Hour shots are honestly breathtaking, but the night scenes suffer (by my personal tastes), with them trying to patch over some of the gaps in the visual effects (I liked the makeup, but the visual effects were more hit-or-miss for me), by making the screen too dark to see properly make it hard to judge overall as a success.  As a result, I am all in on the beautiful Train Dreams, a gorgeous Lubezki-esque take on the passage of time with a camera.  In a year where, in general, Cinematography was lacking (this is somehow going to be the weakest of my My Ballot lists in a few weeks), this is the one film that really embraced looking like a movie you'll remember forever.

Costume Design

1. Sinners

2. Hamnet

3. Marty Supreme

4. Avatar: Fire & Ash

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: It's possible I totally upend this entire list (looking like the only category I'll do that with), but for me it's all about the outfits specifically worn by Michael B. Jordan & Michael B. Jordan in the film.  Part of Sinners ability to inspire is that you kind of need to be horny for the dual MBJ's (this is a very sexy movie, with an early sex scene and Jack O'Connell clearly meant to be both figuratively and literally carnal), and the gorgeous teal-and-red combo that Ruth E. Carter brings here is better than the peasant period fare in Hamnet or the out-of-this-world third spin on Avatar (the craziest nomination of 2025).  I will note that the Mia Goth peacock outfit in this photo is so good it makes me forget that I was largely uninspired by the rest of Frankenstein.

Film Editing

1. One Battle After Another

2. Sinners

3. F1

4. Sentimental Value

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: I mean, sometimes this category gets something a bit out-of-the-box (F1 was probably further along here than in the Best Picture race), but there are days I think "Oscar didn't try to think beyond his five favorite movies in the editing branch...should I even bother?"  I will note that One Battle After Another's win here comes from the way it unfolds tension-the bank robbery scenes, the harrowing conversation late in the film between Sean Penn & Chase Infiniti...it's something to behold.  Sinners might have had a better shot if it had had more consistent cinematography lighting, as well as had the good sense to cut that post-credits ending which feels nonsensical and totally unnecessary (but the building tension there is something else).

Makeup & Hairstyling

1. Kokuho

2. Sinners

3. Frankenstein

4. The Smashing Machine

5. The Ugly Stepsister

The Lowdown: Oscar has historically struggled with horror in his category even though it is very much the bread-and-butter of the genre, so it's weird to see a lineup where the majority of the nominees come from that world.  I am not so apathetic (I nominate horror more regularly for the My Ballot), and while I was impressed with the violent deformity of Sinners and the albino care of Frankenstein, my heart belongs to the remarkable beauty and elegant aging of Kokuho, giving us a first-hand at the look of kabuki theater.

Production Design

1. Sinners

2. Marty Supreme

3. One Battle After Another

4. Hamnet

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: We're going to give Sinners its final trophy here (genuinely curious how this compares to its count with Oscar-it ended up taking three statues from me), with the sets in this feeling so authentically barren.  There's so much personality and touches in the dancehalls and railway stations in Coogler's work, and yet they feel appropriately isolated-there's nowhere to run.  I'll note that most of this lineup is good, and this is Marty Supreme's worthiest nomination (I love the on-a-budget redesign of New York City that never feels like it's on a budget at all), but Sinners feels like it lives in the set the most, and adds the most to the story.

Visual Effects

1. Avatar: Fire & Ash

2. F1

3. Jurassic World Rebirth

4. Sinners

5. The Lost Bus

The Lowdown: Putting Avatar in a lineup of Visual Effects always feels like you're playing on cheat mode.  The latest round doesn't have the "how the hell did they do that?" impact that its predecessors had, but in an era where visual effects are increasingly sloppy, overdone, and clearly glossed over by darkened cinematography (looking at you, The Lost Bus), it has beauty and looks fantastic, and even against something as impressive as the technical virtuosity of F1, it's unbeatable.

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1972, 1981, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

Graham Platner Tests My "Vote Blue No Matter What" Limits

Graham Platner (D-ME)

When I was in college, I was involved pretty heavily with College Democrats, even serving as my school's College Dems president at one point (people frequently ask if I'll ever run for office-being President of College Dems and on Student Congress are the closest you'll ever see me do that as I don't want that kind of pressure).  Being president of a liberal university's College Dems chapter means that you are oftentimes being asked to throw campaign events, for free & usually little time, as politicians stop by in hopes of drumming up support before a major election.  There is usually at least some press involved, and it's a lot of work-you have to convince frequently apathetic people to come, listen to a politician (or pretend to listen so the press sees a crowd and runs with that as the photo op), and work with the campaigns to give them a good experience.  After all, we are essentially on the same team-we want to ensure that this candidate wins.

One of those events I remember distinctly.  It was right before election day, and the politician was stopping by with little notice.  It was an important race (trying to be vague here so as not to totally out who I was working for), enough so that I knew that there would be press, including probably television crews, and so it was important to get people there.  It was 8 PM when I found out, and they'd be there at 7 AM.  I knocked on every door, begged people through every dorm, not doing my homework that night even though I should've been, and got him a very big crowd, enough to fill the law school lobby where he'd be doing the event.  I showed up, exhausted but proud that we had gotten him an important sendoff to his big day...and he treated me like garbage.  He totally made a joke when meeting me off-stage that made the entire endeavor feel terrible.  Some of the other politicians (they usually travel in packs) were kind, but the guy I'd been organizing it for had been pretty much a jerk...

...but I still voted for him.  Politics is occasionally about being a grownup, and I knew that (jerk or not) he was going to be better for my state than the other candidate.  And my misgivings about what he was like as a person were less important than the greater good.  I have done that a number of times through the years.  With the exception of Lori Swanson in 2006, I've never voted for the eventual nominee in a competitive statewide DFL Primary in Minnesota.  You have your moment to vote for whom you wanted in the primary, and then you suck it up in the general if you lose, even if you're apprehensive about the nominee.  That's what I am guessing I'll be doing later this year with Peggy Flanagan, whose campaign I've been unimpressed (and oftentimes turned off) by compared to Angie Craig.  Flanagan is in the lead, and seems likely to win, and while I'll vote for Craig in the primary, I'll cast an unenthusiastic (but very real) vote for Flanagan in the general, and will encourage everyone I know to do the same.  I'm a "Vote Blue No Matter What" voter.

Or at least I thought I was, until Graham Platner came along.  The behavior from the Platner campaign has been shocking & disturbing to me, particularly his tacit endorsement of Nazism.  It is not entirely clear to me whether or not Platner is a Nazi, but his behavior is of someone who is not disturbed by being associated with Nazism.  Platner has a tattoo of the Totenkopf, which is a Nazi military symbol, one that he said he got while in the Marines in Croatia in 2007, but wasn't aware until the media during his campaign that it had Nazi associations.  I will be honest, I find this impossible to believe.  For starters, other people have stated that Platner knew of this.  An acquaintance of Platner's claimed that in 2012 he heard Platner say that this was "his little Totenkopf" and Genevieve McDonald, a respected state legislator involved with the campaign before she resigned, said the campaign knew of the tattoo prior to the media reaching out.  You also cannot make me believe that in 18 years Platner had never once encountered someone who pointed out that he had a very visible symbol of the Nazi regime on his chest, or that Platner, who has been described as a "military history buff" didn't come across it on his own.  That strains credulity, and that he kept the tattoo makes me assume he didn't care.

It would be one thing if you could just put this in the bucket of "strange political behavior" which occasionally you have to deal with from politicians to get to the point of "Vote Blue No Matter What."  But that's not really where this ends.  Platner recently retweeted avowed Neo-Nazi Stew Peters on Twitter.  Peters tweet, admittedly, did not have any inherent Nazi connotations (it was about the Iran War), but it also was very clearly from a white nationalist account.  Platner sat down for a lengthy podcast with Nate Cornacchia, a former Green Beret who has promoted numerous antisemitic beliefs on his podcast, a podcast which Platner has said of which he is a "longtime fan."  At some point, it seems very clear that Platner is either very, very, very stupid, to the point where he is dangerously persuadable and would make a truly terrible candidate for a long-run political race (and being in one of the most powerful offices on earth), or he's clearly comfortable with antisemitism.  Combine with some of the racist stories that Platner has shared on Reddit in the past, as well as comments about rape that are abhorrent, and that Platner is bizarrely comfortable lying in public (he recently made a video claiming that Susan Collins voted to send him to Iraq, which is not even a little bit true-Collins did back the Iraq War in 2002, but Platner voluntarily joined the Marines in 2003, which means he chose to go to war...also, he has publicly stated that he voted for her in 2008 & 2014 after this so it's clear he didn't have a problem with it until he needed to prove a political point), and you get maybe the worst candidate for a major party office I've ever seen from the Democrats if he gets the nomination.  Honestly-Platner voters are proof that there are Democrats who would've voted for Donald Trump in 2016 had he run on the left instead of the right, even with a thousand blaring red flags.

Platner's opponent is regularly demonized by his supporters, but honestly the only real issues with Mills are that she's older than any candidate we want to be running right now and that Democrats really hate that Chuck Schumer got her into the race because the base hates Chuck Schumer right now.  But that's it-Mills is a proven vote-getter, the only statewide Dem to win since 2006 (she'd beat Collins in the current environment, I can pretty much guarantee it), and she's a left-of-middle Democrat who has stated she'd only serve one term so the left can get a better candidate in 2032 if that's really important-it's not a long wait, particularly given Angus King will also retire in 2030.  She'd basically just be a Maria Cantwell or a Richard Blumenthal-a reliable Democratic vote, one who is pretty comfortable standing up to Trump (she literally said to his face, in the White House, she wouldn't back down on transgender rights, and she won).  She would not be exciting, but she's a good person, would win the race, and flip the seat blue after us trying to do so for decades.

No amount of Senate endorsements (from Ruben Gallego, Martin Heinrich, Bernie Sanders, and for all intents and purposes Chris Murphy given how often he defends him) for Platner will make me feel better about this.  I have heard Democrats criticizing Brandon Herrera the past few days since he'll be the GOP nominee in TX-23 (and they should), but it's a truly awful look that we are going to be calling this guy (correctly) a Neo-Nazi in Texas but the party is going to have to rally around the guy with the Nazi tattoo in Maine?  Come on now...this is a step too far.  I am actively hoping, praying, and contributing money to Mills at this point, as it's too late for another candidate, so it's going to be one of the two of them at the end of the day.  But I am also thankful I don't live in Maine, because while I could never vote for Susan Collins, I'm going to be honest-Graham Platner might be my limit...I don't think I could vote for him either.

OVP: Thunderball (1965)

Film: Thunderball (1965)

Stars: Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi, Luciana Paluzzi, Rik van Nutter

Director: Terence Young

Oscar History: 1 nod/1 win (Best Visual Effects*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Sean Connery: click here to learn more about Mr. Connery (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Our shift from Errol Flynn to Sean Connery in part also shifts us into the modern definition of an action star, and in some ways we should've gone with our next two month's stars (who are far more focused on the 1970's, but wouldn't have much legacy as action stars in the blockbuster sense beyond that), except that if we're going chronologically Connery became famous first.  He also just managed to live long enough as an action star to become a leading man alongside the heyday of the genre in the 1980's & 90's.

But we are shifting into Connery because he defined action in the 1960's, and he did so as the quintessential movie hero: James Bond.  While Bond was originally a book character, in a highly-popular spy series by Ian Fleming (which would eventually have every single novel be brought to the big-screen), Connery's inhabitation of it would make it an essentially cinema-derived product to the minds of billions.  Connery got the role of Bond pretty early in his career.  He was a leading man at that point, having appeared in Darby O'Gill and the Little People (a live-action Disney movie), but he had not had a traditional breakthrough, which would change with the colossal success of Dr. No.  The film would make Connery a household name, but as we'll find in the coming weeks, it was more Bond that would be the household name than Connery himself.

(Spoilers Ahead) Connery would make seven Bond films in his career, and I had before this just seen two (Dr. No and Goldfinger).  We're only going to do one Bond film this month (there's a lot to Connery's career that I want to cover so we won't have time for more), and I didn't want it to be one of his post-1960's pictures, so I kind of just drew a name out of a hat and went with Thunderball (both because of its Oscar win and because I love that Tom Jones theme song).  This film won Bond his first (and to date only) Visual Effects Oscar, and is a story about Bond once again taking on SPECTRE, this time with their #2 leader Emilio Largo (Celi), who is planning on destroying a major US or UK city unless their governments pay him 100 million pounds.  Connery eventually starts to infiltrate the spy's den, all the while bedding a half dozen women, including those closest to Largo, before eventually defeating him with the help of the curvaceous & stylish (seriously, that black-and-white bikini could make a comeback so fast on Instagram if someone wanted to bring it back) Domino, played by Auger.

The movie is not one of Bond's most-celebrated outings, and many clock this as the first weak link in the Connery era of films, generally considered the best until Daniel Craig, and they're right.  Connery is still there, charming and brutishly sexy as ever (the film's now heavily-criticized sexual politics have a cringe moment early on when Connery toes the line with Molly Peters' physiotherapist, eventually having sex with her despite protestations earlier in a steam room), but there's not enough to do.  The biggest problem is that there are too many women in this (I know that's opening up for ridicule as a gay man saying it, but it's true)-they feel frequently interchangeable and none of them stand out.  This film would be remade in 1983 in Connery's final Bond film (Never Say Never Again), and Domino would be played by future Oscar winner Kim Basinger, so I'm curious when I eventually get to that (not for this series, but in terms of Bond completionism) if it'll be better.

I do want to talk about the visual effects before we go, since this is a big Oscar blog, and I'd be remiss if I ignored them.  I think the effects are impressive-the opening sequence with Connery using a jet pack is crazy (it actually worked), and the underwater fights and the explosions later in the picture are top-notch.  I have to assume it was the underwater photography that got it the win though, given how revolutionary it looks.  I've seen a film like Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, which was a CinemaScope spectacle 12 years earlier starring Robert Wagner & Terry Moore, and it was considered revolutionary at the time (it even got nominated for Best Cinematography at the Oscars) in the way that it shot underwater so well in color, but 12 years later, Thunderball is on another level.  This looks like it was shot with green screens it's that impressive, and is a real step up compared to anything you'd see of this nature, likely inspiring everything in the future from Jaws to Titanic.

Steve Daines Dangerous Move in Montana

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT)

A few months ago, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez got into serious hot water for calling out Rep. Chuy Garcia for essentially eliminating a primary away from his constituents, retiring at the last second so that his Chief of Staff Patty Garcia (no relation) would be able to take his place without having to go through a primary.  Many Democrats at the time criticized Perez, saying that it was not fair to attack Garcia and claiming that Garcia being a "strong progressive Latino leader" meant that he was impervious to criticism from Perez (a moderate).  You will note at the time that I didn't approve of this (and wrote so here), agreeing wholeheartedly with Perez.  I said this was wrong, and no public figure is impervious to criticism, and Garcia had essentially stolen a seat away from the people, depriving them of a real choice.  This was wrong...but I also knew that Republicans were going to take the Democrats insane hypocrisy on the matter and use it to their advantage, which is what they did this week in an escalated version of what Garcia did in the state of Montana.

For those who haven't heard, in the Montana US Senate race, Republican Sen. Steve Daines (soon to finish up his second term), became the 10th US Senator this cycle to call it quits.  However, Daines did so in as unceremonious way as possible.  While people like Dick Durbin or Thom Tillis garnered major headlines and conversations about their careers when they retired, Daines didn't have that moment, and instead retired at the literal last second, on the final day of filing for major party ballot access, and did so in conjunction with both the Trump White House and his now-likely successor, US Attorney Kurt Alme.

This is bad for a variety of reasons, and so I'm going to illustrate them all right now.  For starters, Garcia and Daines now doing this sets up a super dangerous precedent, because it now feels like it will be duplicated since it was successful twice and no part of the party is really going to be above it (and so I suspect this happens more so until there are rules to prevent it, which will be hard to enforce).  It is unlikely that the voters in these constituencies punish Patty Garcia or Alme, as they are of the party that was likely to win these seats anyway, so in safely blue or red seats, there's little incentive to care that this has happened.  It's not the only time they've done this (Dan Lipinski famously had the same thing happen years ago with his father), and though Lipinski did eventually succumb to a primary challenger, it was years after the switch, and more had to do with his view on abortion than the swap.  As a general rule, if you don't make a politician in the US pay a political price for doing something bad, they'll keep doing it.  So this continues to upend the primary process (and why Democrats had no business letting this slide when Chuy Garcia did it).

But Montana is worse for a couple of reasons, none of which have to do with the party label.  For starters, this is for a six-year term (unlike Garcia's with two), and for a significantly more powerful role.  Being a US Senator makes you one of the most powerful people in America, and by proxy, in the world.  Alme has never held elected office in Montana, and was literally hand-selected by a backroom committee process involving President Trump and Sen. Daines.  Partially, this was done not just to let Daines pick his successor, but also to ensure that there was no MAGA extremist in the primary.  Had this been an open party, considering the rightward shift of the GOP in the Rocky Mountain states in recent years, it's unlikely that someone of Alme's relatively mild MAGA brand would've won-we would've been looking for someone like a Lauren Boebert instead.

The worst part of this, though, is that (and Daines has said this publicly now), this was done to prevent the Democrats from running a better candidate.  The Democrats are currently in a terrible situation in Montana.  They have a moderate independent running with Sen. Jon Tester's endorsement (Seth Bodnar), but also a Democratic Primary with candidates, the frontrunner being State Rep. Reilly Neill, and there's no way you can win with both in the race.  This didn't really matter in a situation where they were running against Daines.  Both would've lost to him, even in a blue year, so the fact that they're running and splitting the vote becomes a big "who cares?" when Daines is going to clear 50% anyway.  But in an open seat situation, the blue wave calculus here gets different-the possibility of a situation like Texas (where a MAGA extremist might open up the race) would've made this contest different.

So as Daines said, the real target here wasn't just to get Alme the seat, but also to keep three Democrats (former Sen. Jon Tester, as well as former Govs. Steve Bullock & Brian Schweitzer) out of the race.  Tester quickly rebutted this saying "I don't believe that, as none of us were running.  He fucked his own party."  But given Chuck Schumer's near perfect record this cycle of recruiting the candidates he wanted, it's hard not to believe one of them would've been heavily courted by Schumer and brought into the race.  All three men lost high-profile races the last time they ran for the US Senate, and similar to Sherrod Brown, Janet Mills, & Roy Cooper, despite their age, they might've been talked into one last race to solidify their legacies and go out a congressional winner.  The blue wave would've made that possible, and while they were nowhere near a guarantee to win, against them, Bodnar surely wouldn't have run and Neill would've dropped out because she would've lost the primary.  This race would've moved into the same echelon that Alaska, Texas, & Iowa sit right now-theoretically competitive, even if the Republicans are still favored.  And so Daines' decision was essentially to rob both parties of a chance at this seat, a truly heinous and undemocratic act, that thanks to the bulk of the Democratic Party's tacit endorsement of Chuy Garcia, they have little leg to stand upon and criticize.

5 Thoughts on Last Night's Primaries

Tuesday we had the first major primaries of the year, and while I know I'm a day late in getting this out, we're going to continue our "morning after" series anyway with my five thoughts on the elections in Texas & North Carolina

1. James Talarico Wins in Texas

The biggest story last night was the Senate race, which ended with the Democrats getting their man, and the Republicans getting a runoff.  Let's focus first on the Democrats.  A race that going into the night I genuinely had no idea how it'd turn out emerged with the Democrats getting State Rep. James Talarico as their nominee.  I don't entirely know whom this is a win for in terms of establishment vs. outsider politics (I feel like, like most things in politics, those lines are more complicated than they seem), but Talarico is the candidate whom most pundits (including me) thought would have a better shot in the general election, and so from that perspective this feels like the Democrats playing with their A-Game come November.  Talarico will have a lot of work to do to ensure he wins back Black voters in November, though, as Rep. Jasmine Crockett overperformed with this group and he'll need overwhelming support from them if he has any hope of winning.  Complicating that matter is that there was clear chicanery in Dallas County, where it appears that there was confusion over where voters were to cast ballots, and that (despite a court order), Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX) is trying to invalidate ballots that were cast as a result of extended voting hours.  Given that Crockett's base-of-support is Dallas County, it's likely she would've done better had there not been voter discrepancies, though probably not enough to win.

I will note that this puts Crockett, who has been a rising star for the past few years, into an inevitable position: out of work.  It was clear that the general election was such a stretch it didn't make sense to get into this race (she would need hundreds of thousands of Trump voters in her corner to win, and she was not going to do that), so this shouldn't be a surprise, but it does make me question what she does next given the primary should've been an easier victory given her fame & popularity with the base.  I would imagine she becomes a talking head on cable news (and very much to her credit, even with the Dallas County issues, she endorsed Talarico immediately), but likely her salary will be less than it would've been had she won, and will honestly be even less if Talarico wins in November.  I also think it's worth noting that former Vice President Kamala Harris made a calculated risk in endorsing Crockett at the last minute, and given she's trying to run for president in 2028, and her biggest liability is voters worried she can't win, endorsing a candidate who loses a tight race is not a great look for her.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)

2. Cornyn Gets Second Chance in a Runoff

While Talarico is for sure on the ballot now in November, the Republicans are still debating.  Going into last night, incumbent-Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) was viewed as an underdog, to the point that some assumed he might not even make the Top 2 in a runoff.  Instead, it looks increasingly likely that Cornyn will come out of the primary with the lead, or very close to it.  This is still relatively pathetic for an incumbent senator, but given that people were writing Cornyn's political obituary a few days ago, this is good news for him, and the NRSC which is heartily endorsing him.

The question now is around President Trump.  It appears likely that Trump will endorse (he said as much yesterday), and pretty much everyone's belief is that he'll back Cornyn.  This would be a godsend to Cornyn, and honestly a huge slap in the face to his opponent Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has been about as loyal of a MAGA supporter as you can get (proof, once again, that Trump's only loyalty is to himself).  I assume that Trump's endorsement will carry more weight than MAGA's clear antipathy of Cornyn, and Cornyn would make it through (in which case he'd be the frontrunner, but not the total one given his lack of popularity), but I wouldn't totally discount Paxton given that Trump's endorsement has less juice than it used to, and while MAGA isn't willing to rebuff him directly, they are seemingly more inclined than they used to be to ignore him when it comes to a primary.  A big question is what happens to the votes of Rep. Wesley Hunt, who got third-are they going to back Trump's endorsed candidate or Paxton...given they just voted against an incumbent US Senator by casting their support for Hunt, that's a harder question than it seems.

Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX)

3. Colin Allred Positioned for a Comeback

If there's a silver lining for Jasmine Crockett, it might be that she now has a very strong ally that looks to be winning back a seat in the US House.  In Dallas County, former Rep. Colin Allred came out in the lead, but not by enough to avoid a runoff, against the woman who replaced him in the House, Rep. Julie Johnson.  This was in part a result of a redraw, and in part because Allred, after losing a Senate race in 2024 and initially running for the Senate in 2026, went scorched earth in the primary, trying to tank the campaign of James Talarico by implying that he was racist.  Allred's gambit didn't help Crockett (if anything, it may well have hurt her), but in a bluer constituency, it does appear he's in the driver's seat in a bid to win back his seat.  Similar to the Republican primary, part of Johnson's uphill (I'd say she's very much an underdog now despite being the incumbent) climb is going to be trying to pick up the votes of third place challenger Carlos Quintanilla, but given the issues in Dallas County (and his strong support in her primary), I would assume that Jasmine Crockett will want to get a victory and will also make Allred's victory a top priority.  If Johnson doesn't become the first incumbent House Democrat to lose a primary this year, I would be surprised.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX)

4. Crenshaw Falls While Foushee Goes to a Recount

She won't be the first incumbent member of the House to go down in a primary, though, as that distinction this cycle goes to Rep. Dan Crenshaw.  Crenshaw's loss to State Rep. Steve Toth was not a surprise (I figured this was coming), but it does mean that Toth, who first ran for Congress in 2016, is finally headed to the chamber.  Toth is one of the most conservative members of the Texas legislature (let that sink in for a second), and ran in large part on Crenshaw's vote to certify the 2020 election for Joe Biden, the incumbent not buying into the Trump-led conspiracy that the election was stolen.  This is a reverse of some of the age-focused politics we've seen in the Democratic Party in recent years (Toth is 24 years Crenshaw's senior), and also the end of a career that started really impressively for Crenshaw, with him having a (I'll admit it) quite funny Weekend Update sketch with Pete Davidson after Davidson had mocked his eyepatch the previous week.  It's also proof that MAGA politics can take down some of the Republican Party's most impressive bench candidates, hardly a good plan in a state that is looking to at least be flirting with purple status this year.

On the flip side, the one notable race in North Carolina will likely end with Rep. Valerie Foushee winning another term.  In a very blue seat (the primary is tantamount to a victory), Foushee has a slight (it'll go to a recount) win margin, but not enough for a recount to realistically make much of a difference.  Democrat Nida Allam, a Durham County Commissioner, was backed by a number of progressive groups (including David Hogg's Leaders We Deserve PAC), and Foushee had a lot of last minute help from a number of organizations, including AIPAC and some PAC's that support AI (not meant to be confusing word play-those are two separate things).  While an incumbent losing by this much is not a great look, this was one of the best options on the map for Hogg's movement (which is trying to oust aging Democrats out of office-Foushee is 69 and Allam is 32), and they weren't able to win.

Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX)

5. Is Age a Number in Texas-18?

Arguably the best option to beat an incumbent member of the House with a younger member is with an incumbent member of the House.  In Texas's 18th district, the question of whether that will happen extended into a runoff.  Just a few weeks after winning his seat, Rep. Christian Menefee appears to be on top in his race against Rep. Al Green, but it's close enough that (unlike Allred/Johnson) I can't tell who will ultimately be the nominee.  Green is 78-years-old while Menefee is just 37-years-old, and this was seen as a chance for Democrats to support a younger candidate, even though Green was far more established & has stronger roots in the district.

The big question here, like with the other two runoffs, is what happens with the third-place candidate (Amanda Edwards).  Edwards has been struggling to get to Congress for years.  She ran for the US Senate in 2020, and the US House in 2024 & in 2026; in all three races a candidate billed as a rising star couldn't make it out of the primary, and she had actually withdrawn from this race even though her name was still on the ballot.  I'm curious to see what she does here-Edwards, by pretty much every estimation, has too many losses at this point to ever make it to Congress and her career as a serious candidate is done.  So does she go with the guy who is clearly the future (Menefee), or does she hang onto the idea that she has a future in electoral politics and back Green, in hopes that he retires in 2028 and she can run another campaign?  The answer may decide the sole member vs. member primary this year for the Democrats.

Saturdays with the Stars: Sean Connery

Each month of 2026 we are looking at an actor or actress who found their fame in action films, fighting bad guys & saving the day.  Last month, we talked about Errol Flynn, perhaps the quintessential Golden Age action star, something that really didn't exist in the 1940's & 1950's in the way we think of it now.  This month, we'll head into New Hollywood, and talk about the man who really invented the concept of the modern action movie star, so much so that he would not just dominate the 1960's, but would still be making action films regularly into the 1990's, when his decades of cool would still have him being name-checked as one of the "Sexiest Men Alive" well past the age that men typically got such accolades.  This month's star is Sean Connery.

Born in Edinburgh to a truck-driver and a cleaning woman in 1930, Thomas Sean Connery was hardly what you'd think of as a man who would someday become a household name at the cinema.  He had a stereotypically blue-collar, hyper-masculine childhood (he would claim that he lost his virginity to an older woman when he was 14), would join up in the navy at the age of 16, and briefly had a run as a Mr. Universe contestant in the early 1950's (sources vary on the exact date).  In his early twenties, fresh out of the Navy, Connery joined an acting troupe as a way to make money, spending much of his early years alternating between theatrical runs (including appearing with Michael Caine in a production of South Pacific) and a smattering of extra work, including Lilacs of the Spring with last month's star Errol Flynn.

Connery's early work as a leading man including turns opposite Lana Turner (during production he famously drew the ire of the mob by punching out Turner's abusive boyfriend Johnny Stomponato) and even playing the lead in a Disney film (Darby O'Gill and the Little People).  But it was in 1962 that Sean Connery became a legend.  That was the year that Dr. No came out, and James Bond was born as the textbook, greatest cinematic action hero.  In March, we're going to tackle one of the remaining Bond films that I have never seen of Connery's (he made 7 in total), as well as talk about Connery's struggles with getting out of the shadow of Bond (a legacy he would long struggle with), playing more serious roles in the 1970's and 1980's, and getting to see not just one of the only Oscar-winning performances I've never seen, but also talk about how Connery paved the way for future generations of action stars to stay relevant far after their explosive heydays.

The Sun Also Rises (1957)

Film: The Sun Also Rises (1957)

Stars: Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Errol Flynn, Eddie Albert, Juliette Greco

Director: Henry King

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Errol Flynn: click here to learn more about Mr. Flynn (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Errol Flynn, one of the most consistently strong performers at the box office for Warner Brothers for nearly 18 years, ended his career with the studio in 1953.  At that point Flynn was in his mid-40's, and while his handsomeness was still there, years of drinking & health problems made it unlikely that he could achieve some of the stunt acrobatics that were a huge calling card in his early fame.  After going broke trying to self-finance The Story of William Tell (a film that never was actually released), he started to make bad decisions with his career, making B-movies, choosing poor projects like Istanbul & The Big Boodle, and only really had one important film left in him, where he would have to endure the indignity of being fourth-billed, here against a guy who for much of the 1930's & early 40's, one could argue Flynn was a more important action star than, Tyrone Power.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Sun Also Rises is a glossy Fox film that tackles Ernest Hemingway's famed novel.  This is where I'm going to confess something that doesn't often come up on this blog: I don't particularly care for Ernest Hemingway's writing, and in some ways that translates to the screen.  A lot of the novel's strength comes from discussions about Jake's (Power) impotence, both as a man who has moved on from a war (and a nation that has stolen his virility without much thanks), and that comes across in the movie...to a degree.  The Hays Code was getting hit a little bit at the time (if you look at posters for this film, they say very clearly "Not Suitable for Children" and that's because they use the actual word "impotence" in the film), but that lack of sexual stamina is lost in the movie because they can't really discuss it as the Code still drove a lot of scripting decisions.  It doesn't help that Power is at least ten years too old for this part (it's hard not to wonder how different this might've been in the hands of an actor like Marlon Brando, who was closer to the age Jake is in the novel), and that they aren't really able to point out how Ava Gardner's Lady Brett absolutely loves sex, and while she takes on some "lovers" in the film they aren't really hinted at in an oblique way.  It all feels dry and neutered (pun truly unintended...only caught the double entendre while editing this article).

Flynn's character is essentially a cad, one who can satisfy Brett (which Jake can't, even though they're in love with each other), but isn't honorable and is a giant walking fuck boy.  This isn't a new part for Flynn, but I will say that, even robbed of much of his charisma (and a decent script), Flynn is the best part of this movie because there's an unrest in his performance that I found really melancholy.  He plays his Mike as a man who knows he's a failure and likely to die unsatisfied...but also can't stop himself.  Flynn would die of a heart attack, exacerbated by cirrhosis & fatty degeneration of the liver, just over two years later at the age of only 50.

That is not where Flynn's story ends though, and in many ways it was only beginning.  In terms of Classical Hollywood stars, only Marilyn Monroe can rival Flynn for things we found out about him after his death.  For starters, there are allegations that Flynn had a sexual affair late in his life with 15-year-old actress Beverly Aadland, whom he would make his last movie Cuban Rebel Girls with (during which time Flynn spent much of production becoming pals with Fidel Castro).  There have also been a lot of debates about his politics, with some accusing Flynn of being a fascist, specifically the highly-publicized biography by Charles Higham which also alleged that Flynn was bisexual and was a Nazi spy.  There is no evidence of him being bisexual or a spy (he was investigated by the FBI, and they didn't find evidence of this), but it is a case where he was friends with Herrmann Erben, who was a Nazi intelligence officer during World War II, and whom Flynn was friends with until at least 1940 (after meeting on an expedition to Spain in the 1930's), and possibly throughout World War II.

This was not the only friendship that Flynn had that caused headlines after his death.  A correspondence with Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was uncovered in Penthouse magazine in 1982 by Hubbard's son Ronald, and the two would engage in sexual & drug-induced debauchery together.  It's worth noting we haven't heard from Flynn's son Sean, a photojournalist, about him because he would disappear in 1970, likely being killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (we talk about this more in one of our Unsolved Hollywood mysteries articles here).  All-in-all, Flynn's life is remarkably complicated by the many things he was never asked about as they came to light after his death, making his star persona one of the most challenging to tackle beyond the big screen.