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Mar 08, 2025 By Steve King

Well, by now you’ve had time to talk to your co-workers about last Sunday’s Oscar Awards ceremony. We can talk about all of the snubs and wins, the red carpet, and speeches. Let’s dispense with that first before getting to my real point.

Let me preface this by saying I’m a movie freak who has always loved the Oscars. If I had any talent for fiction, I would have never needed to write about politics or fuckass Donald Trump. The first thing that got me into writing was a bad review of The Matrix that ended up being published in my high school paper. I got the bug, and have never lost it.

Some Academy voters privately admitted that they didn’t watch Dune Part 2, because, let’s be honest, life is too short. Demi Moore, who has been piping hot for decades, lost to newcomer Mikey Madison. Boo. I used to get the worst vibe from Madison. Like, why are people always shooting you and setting you on fire? What did you do? But I was dead wrong. I appreciate Mikey for being in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Scream 5. I’m sure Anora, a modern day Pretty Woman about a working girl who catches feelings, is good, but all I’ve seen about it has been her making her ass clap on clips from X (formerly Twitter). I don’t think I’ve seen more than a handful of Best Picture nominees since I used to work in the theater business. More on that later. This year, I will make more of an effort to see more.

Adrien Brody beat out Timothee Chalamet, and my favorite, Colman Domingo, for Best Actor. He managed not to assault anyone this time, as long as you don’t count his never-ending Russian novel (Trumpian) speech. And he won for playing another tragic Jew. We appreciate the storytelling (obviously,lol), but like Drake, he’s #notlikeus. Colman Domingo has been working for a very long time and was owed that award. That’s a hill I will happily die on.

Kieran Culkin basically told the world that he’s been rawdogging every night trying to grow his family. Good for him. Zendaya was not in attendance but the proceedings were beneath her anyway. My Oscar expectations have been pretty low for quite a while, but lately they have been downright subterranean. Apparently, some Academy voters didn’t want to vote for Ralph Fiennes because they thought he had already won Best Actor, and didn’t believe that Adrien Brody had. Like politics, it seems the Academy has its own dumbass Mandela Effect.

I have been so supremely disappointed by the red carpet in recent years. Since the height of COVID, stars have basically been showing up in pajamas and fluffy trash bags. No one is trying anymore. Joan Rivers would be ashamed! Ashamed, dahling!

Anyway, now that I’ve proven my catty Hollywood sassy/savage bonafides, let’s transition to the real conversation we need to have. The best film of last year that wasn’t nominated for a goddamn thing: Alex Garland’s Civil War.

Was releasing a movie called and about a second American Civil war in an election year, when one former and future president was threatening one, possibly a little more than irresponsible? Yeah, no question. But that is the sweet spot for tension and suspense. And, honey, Civil War has it in oodles. Last year, it was edgy. This year? It’s like a training manual.

Let’s start with the cast. Kirsten Dunst (hereby known as “Kiki”) turns in a Best Actress performance by playing seasoned and jaded conflict photographer Lee Smith. Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla, The Craft: Legacy) is a ballsy and hungry young fan girl photographer, Jessie. Wagner Moura (the Sad Pablo from Narcos meme) plays a well-meaning but also kind of too thirsty by half Reuters reporter, Joel, who is trying to get the last interview with President Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) before DC falls to the “Florida Alliance” or “Western Forces.” There are multiple factions vying for power in the war. Stephen McKinley Henderson plays “Sammy,” an older New York Times reporter with a cane trying to get to the front lines of “Charlottesville.” Subtle, right? Jesse Plemons even shows up for about five minutes as a scary militia member who only seems to communicate in ominous interrogatory questions. Plemons’ portrayal, short as it is, is truly terrifying as he asks the journalists what kinds of Americans they are as he casually doles out executions in the street. His performance is nothing short of Sir Anthony Hopkins/Dr. Hannibal Lector-style malevolence, dialing up the sociopathic evil with minimal screen time.

I honestly count Civil War as a damn near horror movie. It’s shocking, frightening, and cruel. There are references to a famous “Antifa Massacre.” The dictatorial president is in an unconstitutional third term and has authorized airstrikes domestically after he has disbanded the FBI. Sound familiar? Hits a little different in 2025, doesn’t it? There’s even a suicide bomber hoisting an American flag as she runs to her fiery death. Uncontrolled wildfires blanket the scorched countryside. Snipers on the road to DC take potshots at each other, never really knowing which side they’re on, further enforcing our shared American narrative that half of the country just wants to murder the other.

Looters are hung by their wrists and tortured. As the action reaches the Capital, the Lincoln Memorial gets wasted by a Black Hawk helicopter. The White House East Room and Cabinet rooms are trashed. A White House staffer trying to negotiate the surrender of the president is executed in the Press Room. It’s pretty bleak, y’all! There are burnt out helicopters sitting in the parking lots of rundown malls that look like the Southeast side of already dystopian Baltimore.

In a seemingly idyllic mid-20th century oasis town on the way to DC, citizens try to act like the country isn’t engulfed in a vicious Civil War, as snipers overlook it all, keeping what passes for peace by intimidation. When insurgents execute their prisoners, De La Soul plays over the bloody proceedings. For a film with nearly no score, Garland, in his infinite good taste in music, has always leaned hard into minimalist scores with heavy and beautiful source music.

Long story short: as the journalists traverse the dangerous and ultra-violent route to DC in their Press truck, a late/early/only model Ford Excursion, the ever-decreasing mile count to the Capital acts as a macabre countdown to what we all know will be a tragedy. And all the while, the film offers the hopeful and now even more necessary value of objective journalism and truth-telling. This film is equal parts bitterly sour and earnestly sweet.

As the resistance forces pound the White House barricades, followed by the intrepid journalists, the audience feels at once exhilarated and a maudlin kind of numb. You are there with them, and you’re not entirely sure who to root for.

The ending is heart-breaking, tragic, baroque, and encouraging all at once. But this is an A24 joint, so that’s kind of a given. Buy the ticket, take the ride, motherfuckers!

It’s almost as if this year’s Oscars were run by Vice President J.D. Vance, in his infinitely hollow view of the world. Not a soul who worked on this film was nominated for an Oscar. Not one actor. Not the director. Nothing for the cinematography or sound design. Nothing. Movies like The Social Network and Barbie were given nominations but were shot down in the Academy ceremony. Michael Keaton and Angela Bassett were nominated only to be shunted aside for us to watch their souls leave their bodies on live TV. Civil War was the best film of 2024 and it has been relegated to the likes of Nope, The Founder, and Late Night with the Devil. Voting members know the Academy can do better. They want to do better. And hopefully, they eventually will.

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