A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #90: And the Oscar goes to…

This Sunday, the 97th instalment of the Academy Awards, more commonly known as the Oscars, will be awarded in Hollywood. In keeping with the times, it has been an uncommonly heated lead-up to this year’s awards, and not everyone is a big fan of the line-up – but it is undeniably a very varied Oscars year, and the big nominees range from the controversial (Emilia Pérez) via the outlandish (body horror favourite The Substance) to the monumental (The Brutalist with its run time of over 3½ hours). Will 2025 be the kind of year where one film sweeps most of the awards, or will the Tinseltown love be spread out across musicals, biopics, dramedies, ecclesiastic thrillers and sci-fi sequels? Join Matt, Julie and Sam as they talk predictions and favourites – and make sure to tell them how wrong they were come Monday!

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That was the year that was: 2024

Ever since the pandemic, time feels like it’s been broken. Looking back at the films and TV series I’ve watched this year, the games I’ve played, and whatever else I did over the last 12 months, my most frequent reaction is “That happened this year?!” The temporal shape of things has been out of whack for a while, and it sometimes feels like this is getting worse – like we’re all stuck in one of the trippier episodes of Star Trek. Though I think it’s time to be honest about this: in part that’s also because I am approaching the big Five-Oh (and no, I’m not talking about Hawaii). This is my last New Year’s post before finishing my half-century, and that is a pretty freaky thought.

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