Joseph Holmes is a New York–based culture critic and co-host of the podcast The Overthinkers.
Posts by Joseph Holmes
December 19, 2024
It’s getting harder and harder to have a movie that isn’t caught up in the culture wars. Franchises like the MCU,
Lord of the Rings,
Star Wars sagas, and Disney’s Pixar animations, which once united a broad spectrum of viewers, now get yelled at by both sides, either for not being progressive enough on the one hand or being too “woke” on the other.
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November 14, 2024
It’s commonly noted that the Western world is showing signs of decline. With historically high rates of depression and anxiety, low trust in institutions, and rapid population decline, many fear the consequences if nothing changes.
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October 24, 2024
The intersection of religion and politics has always fascinated Hollywood filmmakers, from
Becket and
A Man for All Seasons to
The West Wing. And no wonder. Both religion and politics are two of the biggest commanders of loyalty in their followers, and therefore they wield an enormous amount of power.
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September 25, 2024
Hollywood’s new wave of movies satirizing the wealthy and powerful are garnering plenty of money and critical acclaim. But they’re also perpetuating destructive myths about wealth and inequality that will harm the very marginalized class the industry claims to be defending.
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August 27, 2024
Dark political comedy is an underrated genre, as it enables us to see both the horror and the humor in a given political situation. Politicians often behave in ridiculous ways, but because of their incredible power, their actions have serious real-world consequences.
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July 02, 2024
Kevin Costner returns to the genre that won him his Best Director and Best Picture Oscars (1991
, Dances with Wolves) with an insanely ambitious passion project in which he directs, produces, and stars—and into which he poured $50 million of his own money.
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April 30, 2024
Based on the 1975 novel of the same name (adapted before in 1980),
Shogun is a 10-episode miniseries set in 1600s Japan and follows multiple characters from multiple points of view as they vie for power and pursue their personal agendas.
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April 18, 2024
The new film
Civil War may want to be edgy, timely, even thoughtful, but it has nothing to offer beyond surface-level thrills, which makes its grisly portrayal of war feel more like a romanticization of the worst in humans than a warning against it.
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March 06, 2024
Those who went to
Dune: Part Two expecting a happy ending must have left the theater rather confused. For those unfamiliar with Frank Herbert’s groundbreaking sci-fi novels, the story of a young prince whose father is killed by a rival family and who must rally a bunch of oppressed rebels to stand against tyrants so as to claim his rightful kingship must have signaled to them that they were getting a rousing hero story such as found in
Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and
Harry Potter.
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February 20, 2024
I remember looking at all the social media reactions of critics and friends who had seen
Oppenheimer, now up for a Best Picture Oscar. So many of them described walking out of the movie “devastated” and “depressed.”
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