2025 Sounds Like a Fake Year
Oscars noms are out! Severance is back! Some good stuff is happening!
Today: A roundup of pop culture happenings in the new year. Coming up: I’ve been catching up on Oscars hopefuls and will slowly release reviews over the next several weeks, like a 24-hour pseudoephedrine or a Taylor Swift Easter egg.
Happy New Year! Severance is back! Movies are back! TikTok is back(?)(!)(?)!
Two events loom in my psyche:
Oscars nominations were announced this morning!
The Super Bowl is nearly here! (February 9th)
I would submit that the Oscars are the pop culture world’s Super Bowl, and the Super Bowl is the sports world’s Super Bowl. Meaning, both of my Super Bowls are imminent!
The upshot of these two events coinciding, as they always do, is that I am frantically watching Oscar hopefuls between football games, like Joey eating Rachel’s Thanksgiving trifle. Custard! Meat! Jam! Adrien Brody! Touchdown!
Last weekend alone, I watched The Brutalist, Babygirl, and Nosferatu alongside four [4!] NFL playoff games. Let’s just say I did not have “Get heartbroken by the Detroit Lions and Adrien Brody in the same night” on my 2025 bingo card.
In the spirit of my 2025 bingo card, my question for you this week: What are your New Year’s Resolutions? Take that as seriously or unseriously as you wish. Mine are:
To do a back walkover. [The last time I did one, I was at the jelly-boned age of nine, so I’m sure this will go well.]
To finally learn all the lyrics to the Fresh Prince theme song. [Because you’ll never feel less cool than when the whole wedding is singing along, and you’re just bobbing your head and mouthing syllables.]
A scheduling note
You may have noticed that this newsletter has become a bit less “Hannah’s Weekly” and a bit more “Hannah’s Weekly-ish.” [I would say “Hannah’s Monthly,” but it’s more frequent than that — and also, Hannah’s monthly is a different thing entirely and due any second now….]
Get ready for some vulnerability, a thing I really love for other people: With my full-time job — which I love so much and feel so joyful to be part of and want to spend so much of my creative brain on — this Substack became my weekend project. But weekends are also the time to catch up with friends and look Ben in the eyes. I’m sure most of you Type As know the feeling that you’re sort of letting everyone in your personal life down a little bit?
Anyways, just full transparency that the schedule for this Substack is officially: Whenever the spirit leads!1 Thank you for being here for whatever the tides bring in!
Today, we’re catching up on various and sundry pop culture things:
Blake Lively’s no-good, very bad week — and other news
Succession Season 2 premiere — and other TV to watch
The Oscar nominations and biggest surprises and snubs!
In the News
Blake Lively v. Justin Baldoni: The suit! The countersuit! I can’t keep up anymore! Blake sued Baldoni, as we have discussed [two links], for sexual harassment, an unsafe workplace, and paying for a smear campaign against her. Then he sued both the New York Times and, in a separate suit, Blake and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for extortion, defamation, and general career ruination!
There was probably some hacking involved on her side to get access to text messages, and it’s all an absolute mess. I’m paying less attention now because it’s spiraled into a thicket of darkness that I do not wish to admit into my energy field. But these are my non-legal takeaways from the latest lawsuit.
Turns out Blake is THAT person who sends Herman-Melville-length text messages. Just paragraphs and paragraphs of texts like a conspiracy theorist great-aunt who joined a Messianic cult!
In an email to Justin Baldoni, Blake referred to herself as “Khaleesi” and said Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift [YES! TAYLOR! SWIFT!) were her DRAGONS. Blake Lively: Popular girl who watched one nerdy thing once and won’t shut up about it? It’s giving very: “Here’s some money, go see a Star War.”
I keep thinking about how amazing Justin Baldoni must’ve felt in 2021 when TikTok blew up the sales of this book he had bought the rights to, and then they landed superstar Blake Lively as his co-star. What a *seeming* stroke of luck! What apparent providence! The moment we all dream of, actually happening!
For me, a person who is constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, it’s haunting to think about that with 20/20 hindsight that these lawsuits may lead to his professional and financial ruin. [Though we hope no one is ruined?]
As I am wont to say: RIP Shakespeare; your nasty ass would’ve loved this shit.
Timothée Chalamet will be the host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live this weekend! Eat your heart out, haters!2
Speaking of Oscars, it leaked that “The Brutalist” [for which Adrien Brody won a Golden Globe, and which I will review soon] used AI, and nobody can agree if that’s OK or not. The backlash was considerable, though.
The Facts as we know them: According to the director, they used AI with the consent of the actors to help improve Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’ Hungarian accents. They also used it to help recreate architectural sketches from a scene at the very end. Seems … odd? But … reasonable, maybe??
Was it the Chalamet ding-dongs or the “Wicked” Industrial Complex behind this leak??? Trying to get their own Oscars, Traitors-style??
What I’m watching on TV this week
Movie reviews coming, but here’s what I’m watching on TV.
Severance Season 2 is FINALLY HERE!!!! Who’s watching!? Ben and I revisited Season 1 in preparation and it was even better the second time through. Scroll to the end of this for my SPOILER-FILLED speculations.
Laid on Peacock. I am laughing my ass off with this show. It feels very targeted to someone exactly my age down to like 30 years old. The cast is great fun: helmed by Stephanie Hsu [my favorite part of Everything Everywhere All at Once] and Zosia Mamet.
The concept: Everyone that Hsu’s character ever had sex with starts dying, gruesomely, in the order in which she slept with them.
The result: Acerbic, wacky, raunchy, absurd, fun!! Mamet elevates almost everything she’s in, and Hsu is an Oscar-nominated actress. Period.
It’s good silly, not-serious fun. With a lot of sex.
The Traitors. This “gameshow” is less “game” and more “show,” and as someone who hates board games but loves charades, sign me up!
The contestants this year include Selling Sunset’s Chrishell, Bob the Drag Queen, Zac Efron’s brother, several Housewives, Britney Spears’ ex-husband, and more. Fantastic.
There’s nothing I love more than watching Scottish queen Alan Cumming deliver the dumbest lines you’ve ever heard as if they are an Oscar-winning screenplay. That is the energy we all should be bringing to the world.
Saturday Night Live is back! The 50th season continues its winter semester, and the 50th Anniversary spectacular is on February 16. As I keep saying: SNL is back in its Good Era! It’s so fun!
The 2025 Oscars Nominees! (in top categories)
I know you can Google this, but look at me delivering it to your inbox like a sexy young milkman!!
But first, here were the biggest shocks, headlines, or snubs to me:
Wicked cleaned up and we love that for the movie event of the year!
Challengers was COMPLETELY shut out! Not even a nomination for the score!? Insane; this movie was a real original. [My review.]
Nicole Kidman didn’t get nominated for Babygirl, which was a shock to everyone except for me. Sorry, but that movie was so overhyped.
Sing Sing didn’t get nominated for Best Picture, which is a huge miss in my book, though Colman Domingo did get deservedly nominated for his performance. Clarence Maclin, the former inmate who wrote and starred in the movie, got snubbed, though, which I’ve complained about before!
Nickel Boys got nominated for Best Picture (YES!) but not Best Director (boo). I watched it and have written up a review, coming soon.
Yet again, Denis Villeneuve got snubbed for Best Director for Dune: Part Two.
Denzel didn’t get nominated for Gladiator II, which just means we won’t get as much fun content at the Oscars.
Again, I must say: Justice (and an Oscar!) for Danielle Deadwyler!! Snubbed.
The Oscars are on March 2nd on ABC and Hulu, and Conan O’Brien hosts for the first time!
Best Picture Noms
“Anora”
“The Brutalist”
Made me feel empty in ways I didn’t know possible. I think I mean that as a compliment? Review coming soon.
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
My review.
“Dune: Part Two”
My review where I call it the “movie event of the year” because I forgot Wicked was gestating.
“Emilia Pérez”
“I’m Still Here”
“Nickel Boys”
Knocked me off my feet so hard I immediately bought the book. Review coming soon.
“The Substance”
Ben doesn’t want to watch this because he is a “Why would I watch something that is a huge bummer” kind of person, so I am waiting for a night to myself to get grossed out alone.
“Wicked”
My review.
Best Director Noms
Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”
Sean Baker, “Anora”
Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”
James Mangold, “A Complete Unknown”
Best Actress Noms
Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked”
Karla Sofía Gascón, “Emilia Pérez”
Mikey Madison, “Anora”
Demi Moore, “The Substance”
Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here”
Best Supporting Actress Noms
Monica Barbaro, “A Complete Unknown”
Ariana Grande, “Wicked”
Felicity Jones, “The Brutalist”
Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave”
Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez”
Best Actor Noms
Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
Timothée Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown”
Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”
Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave”
Sebastian Stan, “The Apprentice”
Best Supporting Actor Noms
Yura Borisov, “Anora”
Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
He should be in the Best Actor category for this but whatever.
Edward Norton, “A Complete Unknown”
Guy Pearce, “The Brutalist”
Jeremy Strong, “The Apprentice”
****SPOILERS: Severance Season 2 Speculations
Surely the Helly who comes out of the elevator is actually Outie Helly? As a spy?
The child secretary is like … definitely his wife being reconstructed from DNA or clone or whatever … right??? If I’m wrong about this one, I will be guilty of thinking every Asian person on the show is the same person, and I ask you to summarily cancel me.
Lumon is trying to resurrect Kier Eagan.
OK BYEEEEE!!!! Thank you so much for reading. If you made it this far, WOW, you deserve your own Oscar! I’d love to hear all your thoughts on ALL of this and I’ll see you … when I see you!
I’m sure this is a classic: Nobody cares about this but you, Hannah.
My friend Natalie called me a Chalamet Ding Dong recently, and I am really living up to it right now.
Tell Ben that The Substance has a lot of female nudity. That will get him to watch 😂
Your Severance speculations!! 😱😱😱