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I don’t know the filmmaker’s intentions but taken on its own the film is an indictment of American journalism. It’s all in the last shot. The last shot is a journalist smiling happily arm-in-arm with soldiers who have just murdered a man in cold blood, a man who was pleading “please don’t let them kill me.” The message of the final shot is clear: to pretend to be impartial is to enable monsters.

I think the iPhone footage references the fact that although they are running away to a fantasy land, like you said reality is still hot on their heels. Despite Disneyland being this magical world of wonder... The iPhone footage shows it for what it is, janky, ordinary, shes not safe. Its a fantastic depiction of a dissociative mental disorder, its like a dream sequence where we can see the limits of that dream...reality encroaching on the dream

You’re the first person I feel gave an accurate review of the show. Thank you

literally watched this, Brooklyn Prince a main standout. Magic is the main thing I associate with lol, tbf I've never visited The States. Hi from England, nice review.

One of the very few films I say multiple times in the theater...

Good job with the thumbnail 😂 But yeah this movie was absolutely incredible

nah pickleball is dope lol

I’m an English teacher, we taught this film to a year 10 class in a comparative study with Rime of the ancient Mariner. It was a fantastic program.

This movie was funny at times but the message is insufferable, like someone saying haha am I the only one who would rather go to McDonalds than a fancy restaurant. Like wow she's eating a cheesburger that's so me!! Rich people are so weird and literally evil! It so blatantly caters to that kind of audience it's disappointing how one note it was. And then the cliche humble sex worker of the people lol

Don't say THE HMS Surprise - it is simply HMS Surprise.

the scene in hereditary where mom is clinging to the wall over Peter's bed made me laugh so much i had to keep replaying the cut. but i couldnt even finish beau is afraid and i tried twice!

This review was fucking excellent.

Post vaccination? Doesn't that rub in 2024?

37:41 it took me this long to remember that hannah ever had anything to do with this story

because govt isn't parasitic riiiiiiiiight

The movie tries so hard to be apolitical when it’s a movie about a fucking civil war in the U.S

Challengers is just a shonen battle anime final arc.

Unpopular opinion: Mike is my favorite character.

I enjoyed the movie and loved the camera work and symbolism. I did think that some of the motivations and behaviors were unrealistic and in fact silly by the end. I think the affair itself is the one part I can buy, and they do a great job setting up the situation and exploring the character arcs for Ben and Mrs. Robinson. I do think they key to understanding the movie is the conversation they have at the hotel - exploring the whole “art” thing and Ben assuming that she thinks her daughter is too good for Ben. I think that Mrs Robinson wanted Ben for herself and was jealous of her daughter being young and having opportunities in a new era.

Personally, I’ve enjoyed every subsequent season more than the last. I had only watched everything one time previously, although sometime after season four I decided to rewatch the entire show with my critic brain firmly turned on. Season two definitely feels like a retread of season one, and when I first watched it I already realized that anyways, but I had actually enjoyed season two more than season one. Even with that bizarre 8th episode. And season 3 ended with that incredibly hard hitting emotional gut punch that actually got me to sob, I pretty much instantly realized hopper wasn’t dead, it didn’t make the letter any less emotionally resonant because his words are incredibly powerful to anyone that has struggled with mental health, and feeling purposeless “Remember the Hurt, the Hurt… is good, it means you’re out of that cave” will resonate with me until the day I die. Each season has consistently kept me on the edge of my seat eagerly awaiting to see what happens next. Despite the fact that they were obviously formulaic I never once felt like they “lost the magic“ because everything is so confidently shot, executed and edited. And then S4 comes around and it’s another entertaining thrill ride just like the rest of them with even more emotional resonance than ever before with max’s running up that hill scene, another bit that resonated incredibly strongly with me, along with the rest of the season just constantly in full swing with stranger things usual strong cinematography, thoughtful composition and editing and storytelling that I just always love more and more than the last time. I’m not someone who gets really angry at criticism or people voicing opinions I don’t agree with, infact I love this type of stuff. I love analyzing media and picking apart what it does well and what it doesn’t do well. Each season of the show has its strengths and weaknesses, season four doesn’t focus on the core cast and instead focuses on other characters, and I’ve seen a lot of people bringing that up as an issue with it but I don’t really see why? The main cast was developed plenty over the course of the first three seasons, sometimes the character is feeling a bit static but I don’t necessarily think that hurts the story overall. I would agree that Mike and Will are weak points of season four, but even then some of Wills scenes strike an emotional chord with me. I don’t relate to his immediate struggle, but I know what it’s like to feel unseen, and how much that can hurt. I just, I don’t really understand why each time a new season of the show comes out there’s a wealth of video essays coming out and pointing out criticisms I would agree with for the most part- but I just don’t feel the same sense of “this show has lost its touch” sentiment that most people seem to want to spread. The storytelling always just feels so incredibly immersive to me and it’s something they seem to be able to consistently pull off which I find to be highly impressive. If the show isn’t hitting the same for you, that’s totally fair and I wouldn’t tell you that you’re wrong for feeling that way. But I honestly just don’t agree. I think it’s consistently solid and hits the mark far more than it misses despite some of its misteps, like hoppers erratic character arc in S3, and Will and Mike feeling highly under utilized and stagnant in S4, and S2 being a retread of S1 (which, I personally still found to be really good but that might just be me)

My main problem with the series is that The Duffer Brothers are too afraid to kill anyone in the main cast and that takes away almost all the tension from the series. They rely too much on their fans for their writing. There's too many characters and I'd rather have seen Steve die than Eddie. Eddie would have been a great replacement for Steve, who could try his best to follow in Steve's footsteps and learn to be a real man. Instead the Duffer brothers chicken out and kill him off to cater to Steve's popularity as a character and now they're pushing him in to be with Nancy while turning Jonathan into a drug addict for zero apparent reason.

I watched this film ONLY knowing about Jessie Plemons having a show stopping scene (no context or anything) - along with the fact that it wouldn't touch on the politics, because my friend was very upset about that fact. Didn't see the trailer or watch any reviews... With all that being said, I was so fucking dissapointed with how much was squandered with its story, opting to settle for a forced and redundant "character journey." What a fucking waste. Plemons wasn't even meant to be in the damn film and he's the best part and touches on something I wish the rest of the film would have explained.

this movie was dumb and pointless. there I said it

Its hard to paint both sides as bad when both sides want so desperately for you to prove that their side is the just side, and the other one is wrong. The good from that is that it ends up alienating the radicals from both sides. The Common Man went to go see this movie, not the Boogaloo Boys or the Portland Maoists. They rejected it as Communist and Fascist propaganda respectively because it didnt paint their views as the correct ones.

I’m sorry Eddie is trash and is no role model he was a coward plain and simple he sat by and watched folks die till he finally mustered up the nutsack to be a man and do what he needed to like Jesus people champion cowards now n days

To play defence for Banshees as an Irish person, the story depicts the arbitrary lines during the Irish Civil war pretty dead on.

That idea of photographers not having an opinion annoys me a lot. I study journalism and the first and most important thing I was taught is that journalists cannot be neutral. That what you focus on and decide is of importance is inherently political.

2:55 there was a pedophile dad? I think I have to rewatch the movie, this fact was erased entirely from my mind.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen. Worse then The Room

i laughed at a couple punchlines love it, thank you!

So, I loved it, but I can see why people are chafing about it since it was marketed as a big topical blockbuster. In reality, it's just Nightcrawler for conflict photography. I liked it because I love conflict photography. I don't think it has much to say, but it's beautifully shot, has delicious sound design, and critiques spectacle while showing us spectacle. I'm grateful that Alex Garland sticks to his visions.

Just saw this movie yesterday and thought it was a letdown myself, and I went in with zero expectations. Really well made though.

Terrible show

I feel changing Bryce to try and make him more sympathetic so people care more about his death is a cop out because instead they could just keep him the same character he was in the first two seasons and explore the moral question of Wether what happened to him is justifiable based on the terrible person he was and the things he had done? Rather than trying to force sympathy for him just make the season an ethics question in which multiple characters fall on different sides on.

It could never be as good as season one. But if you can get over that, it was still very good.

Even taking out the political aspects in this film, the characters are simply bland and there are no stakes. Cliched ending with some awkward performances took me out. If you avoid any political leaning, you HAVE to say something to make up for that. In this case there isnt enough substance there and I felt very empty by the end. Not for the reason most here claim to defend. Plemons' scene was great acting wise but imagine if we knew just a bit of lore? His ambiguous allegiance would've made it MUCH scarier

What were your thoughts upon hearing of the 'Antifa Massacre'?

"To me this movie is more exploitative than war-exploitation movies, because at least those are honest about being driven by profit"

This video feels like you being disappointed that he didn’t make the specific movie that YOU wanted. I can’t agree that it would have been better to imbue the major stakeholders with specific politics. The smug tone is very off putting as well. Whatever Garland did or didn’t do right, his characters were believable and I don’t think you give him enough credit for how well observed they are. Though some of that could be attributed to the amazing actors who seem to appreciate his writing and very much want to work with him.

The way you talk about the film i feel undermines the fact that the script was written first and then guadagnino saw the script and liked it, and the writer thought that he really understood what he was trying to communicate in the script. I'm not trying to downplay the director's involvement, but i feel like you make it sound like he came up with the story in this film

9:37 like Victor creel hearing that "angelic voice" which turns out to be music he was overhearing from the radio, same with Max, it gives them a sense back/into reality. You really need to pay attention to every story line coz as Robin and Nancy are leaving the Creel prison scene is when they discuss this

sometimes I watch a movie just to watch your video on it, they are just that good; I think I’ll do that before subscribing to your patreon

Good job

I think you and a lot of other people completely missed the point of the movie which was clearly stated by garlands many interviews. This isn’t a movie about THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, which was fought by two opposing sides with a clear good guy, but about modern civil wars, which are often fought by many opposing groups fighting against tyrany or a failing state. The ideologies of these groups are completely irrelevant, as the point is that furthering authoritarianism in this country will inevitably lead to a horrifically messy battle fought by extremists. Authoritarianism may be considered fundamentally right-wing, but groups like the Sandinistas and even the French Revolution prove that the revolutions they inspire will canibalize the old governments and become just as brutal if not more so. There are no good guys in these types of battles because everyone has blood on their hands. In addition, I think the actual civil war being fought in the background IS INTENTIONAL, as it’s not so much an anti-war movie as it is a PRO JOURNALISM MOVIE, WHICH IS ABUNDANTLY CLEAR WHEN YOU CONSIDER WHO TF THE LEADS ARE. The struggle being fought in this movie is the battle between journalists humanity and their integrity, and the sacrifices they make while covering conflict. Both Lee and Sammy die while listening to their humanity and trying to intervene, whereas Joe and Jessie both lose their humanity as the story progresses for the sake of the story or shot. In the end, it doesn’t really amount to much BECAUSE it’s entirely up to their audience (and by extension, us) to interpret their work. Lees entire existential crisis is based around this issue and is clearly stated 20 minutes in. Her death CEMENTS the fact that covering these stories IS IMPORTANT given the power of journalism as she literally dies saving the next generation. Even if it seems like it doesn’t amount to much in the end, pursuing a story is still important BECAUSE it can change the hearts and minds of the audience, namely US. The reason why all the shots taken throughout the film cut from these battles because Garland is trying to impact the audience with the brutality shown on seen, the same way journalists do. Photos like the napalm girl or the ones from Kent State may have seen inconsequential at the time, but they linger in our collective consciousness BECAUSE of the power of journalism. The movie ends with a shot of the dead president being surrounded by smiling soldiers BECAUSE of how disturbing that picture would be when applied to the real world. The movie is impactful because journalism is impactful and this type of war isn’t really addressed in most war films. Vietnam, Iraq and the real Civil War have clear good guys and bad guys, whereas civil wars like the ones fought in Liberia have no heroes, only villains. I feel like you literally went into this movie with bad faith and completely ignored the obvious points it’s making just to make this smarmy ass review. I usually fuck with your content but goddamn you really didn’t try with this one at all and it really makes me question your takes and media literacy. Going in expecting a “MAGA BAD TRUMP NO GOOD MOVIE” is beyond juvenile. I don’t understand how you can be so confidently wrong while assessing this movie but it sure is impressive. I hope you’ll put on ur big boy pants for your next review and have an actual honest conversation about what you’re covering. Comparing this film to Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket just proves how off base you are and is beyond disappointing. In short, you just posted cringe my guy take this shit down and try again.

here's the transcript (5/5): So as the story refrains from moving any faster than we'd like it to, the ballistic camera itself embodies that force of unexpended sexual energy driving our characters. The other, possibly more important factor, is that there are no actual sex scenes. Characters edge each other; a would-be sex scene is disrupted by Tashi and Patrick fighting. Characters describe sexual experiences, and Art and Patrick even develop shorthand within the structure of a tennis serve to communicate a specific sexual act. But the film relies on the world around these characters to externalize the act of sex, and it packs that world to the brim with innuendo, spanning a vast range of registers from tongue in cheek as Art throats Patrick's churro to epic and grandiose as a windstorm wreaks havoc on Tashi and Patrick, reigniting their impassioned infidelity. So the film as a whole sort of edges the audience in this way, if you will. The central tennis match itself is basically one elongated sex scene, which is where the film becomes the latest entry in a genre I'm calling "everything is about sex except sex." Except the sex that everything else is about is also about sex, like the literary psych proverb suggests: everything is about sex, and sex is about power to an extent, especially in Tashi's case. But there's an additional full-circle quality where it's also celebrating sex itself. Art struggles with a sort of general impotence regarding every facet of his life, lethargic in his marriage, sleepwalking on the court, but he's also literally not having sex. So Tashi's psychosexual ploy ends up being partly about rectifying and erecting all these pieces of his life, using sex to fuel the power dynamic of the sport as he metaphorically gets it up. But then the sport swings back around into this extended metaphor about sex. Honestly, it's not even an extended metaphor at that point. Through its many layers of obfuscation and roleplay, the match really becomes a literal sex act. While the movie largely plays like a more conventional heteronormative battle between two men over a woman who's the mutual object of their desire, we're shown quite explicitly the homoerotic backbone between Art and Patrick's relationship. In fact, I don't think it's possible to overstate how deeply this is baked into every prop, every conversational double meaning, the body language and their every interaction. Narratively, this goes all the way down to their most formative sexual experience: learning to masturbate, in which Patrick's antagonism is effectively seared into Art's very conception of sexual gratification. Tashi quite literally emulates Indiana Joneses herself out for each of them to the other, job and Tony, wonders them, Lady Gaga, and the golden rules them. Really, it's a tale as old as time, but after this first incredibly direct instance of the old switcheroo, this is the game she continues to play with them on broader, subtler, and more conceptual levels throughout the rest of their career. As they each think they're only after Tashi, a certain other Lonely Island bar permeates throughout their encounters with her. You know what? Maybe Andy Samberg actually ghostwrote this entire movie. But in maintaining ostensible heterosexual plausible deniability, closing us out with a fraternal hug rather than laying pipe directly on the court, this sexual anguish remains at once dormant and also released. Art takes back control over his life, his career, his marriage, his image, his relationship with Patrick, and the missing cog in the sexual clockwork. So it embodies friendship and power and jealousy and greed and lust and betrayal and fatigue and family values and mortality. But it also circles back around to sex for sex's sake. Art and Patrick need each other; they need Tashi to bring them together, and she needs them to live vicariously through. It's an odd but perfect harmony that they all seem to recognize at the exact same moment. And I think, in that sense, Guadagnino's gambit proved sound. And this ending, with its undeniable sexual release within the restrictions it sets up for itself, proves worthy of Hitchcock sending his train through a tunnel. Frankly, this is the best new release I've seen in a long time, by a significant margin above anything I watched last year. It just makes you feel alive and reinvigorates your sense of worth and determination and, invariably, your sex drive. Through purely cinematic language, it makes you want to go back and watch all the movies it's in conversation with. But it also makes you excited for the future of cinema. And above all else, it pumps you with pure adrenaline and makes you want to go out there and hit something with a racket. And no, not a pickleball racket. I'm talking full-bodied, curvaceous tennis. And for that alone, my hats off to Guadagnino and his team. That's it from me on "Challengers."

here's the transcript (4/5): But it still works because it's clear these characters share a bond over one common interest, one common language, and it just so happens that that language is about tennis and sex. Considering tennis's forced etiquette in terms of Guadagnino versus Hitchcock, one can't help but think of the parallel between these puritanical rules and the Hays Code, which Hitchcock himself rebelled against with such brazen images as the "North by Northwest" closer. In many ways, it's a fool's errand to try and outdo Hitchcock in terms of sheer repressed sexual energy; nearly every motif of his boils down to some sort of sexual punchline. "Rope's" leading men are oozing sexual tension that the Hollywood system would not legally allow to come to fruition, and thus it became even sexier. The irony of "Challengers" is that the key back-to-tradition talking point people have celebrated is, in fact, a return to a tradition of more sex, more eroticism. We're living in the least puritanical times in modern history. Just last year, we found explicit sex comedy at the heart of one of the most lauded films of the year, as well as sexual deviancy driving the year's most popular piece of garbage. Because actual societal taboos are dwindling at a rapid rate, there's nothing like the Hays Code to rebel against, and therefore less room for the kind of explosive sexual repression Hitchcock was tapping into. With effectively too much leniency to do whatever they want, filmmakers need to figure out new ways to restrain themselves in order to evoke the same sense of libidinal dam bursting. Adding to a more sexually liberal status quo is the increasingly liberating filmmaking technology that's developed in the past 70 years. In a world where a cop car can leap over a drone flying 60 MPH, there are no restrictions placed on the physical capabilities of the camera. Even shooting on lush 35mm, Guadagnino takes full advantage of this mobility with his most hyperactive camera yet. There's a shot where the CGI tennis ball seems to be served through the lens and looking at the audience at my screening, you would have thought a train was arriving at the station in 1890s Paris or that Carmen Cortez was reaching through the theater screen in 2003, two milestones of equal import. We briefly take on a perspective from under the ground looking up, court lines chocked over our eyes, and at one point, we literally embody the POV of the tennis ball. If the film is so visually bombastic all the time, how could there possibly be room for restraint and repression? That's the magic trick of "Challengers." For one, the pace is actually deceptively glacial. The film's nonlinear approach is confounding at first and seemingly all over the place. We hop from present day to flashback a week before to way earlier flashback, back to present, back to earlier flashback, and it takes a good 30 minutes for the triple timeline to really click. Once it does, though, not only does it retroactively justify that acclamation period, but its cross-cutting is like Dunkirk. It's this insanely high energy, and even though it doesn't have the principled timeline rigidity of Christopher Nolan, even at its most controlled, even attempting to formally mimic the back and forth of a tennis match, it's a little all over the place. You get the sense that we're receiving information at the times most crucial to our understanding of the present and also at the times that crank up tension at the most intuitive rate. This means a 10-second interaction between Art and Patrick on the court will take minutes, slowed down almost past the point of motion. The slow-mo only becomes more extreme the deeper we get into the film, and by the last 15 minutes or so, we're practically screaming for things to pick up because the anticipation is so agonizing. +

here's the transcript (3/5): And this is where the conceit of "Challengers" really opens up. It's a simple question: what if two were, instead (and stay with me here), three? That's right, a dramaturgical triad. The odd number is incompatible with tennis, which deals in pairs every which way. Hitchcock gets around this by erasing Guy's physical tennis opponent and replacing him mentally with Bruno, preserving that binary relationship. But "Challengers" calls the bluff. It says no, there is a person on the other side of the court, and he is an essential part of the dynamic here. Note that Art and Patrick are coded with white and black wardrobe, respectively, calling to mind the color dichotomy between good and evil at the heart of classic westerns, and one of the old tricks in the book. But as "Challengers" unfolds and we learn more about the relationship, we see that coding Patrick as the villain is really a misdirect, and everyone's morals are murkier than we were initially led to believe. This is not just a series of esoteric filmmaking devices; the incompatibility of three is the backbone of the film's social context as well. Just as it boggles the nature of the one-on-one or 2v2 game, it also defies heteronormative monogamous society. It's no coincidence that the movie revolves around the only popular sport in which bad etiquette has a material impact on the game score. Unlike the unwritten rules of baseball, which has long since dropped any gentlemanly affectations, an obscenity can dock you a point in tennis. And through the film's taffy-like stretching and retracting of puritanism, Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzky have weaponized the sport as a microcosm of the broader societal scrutiny. It's directly at odds with, in which any expression of rage or resentment against the status quo of the game is strictly punished. So repression builds and workarounds are formulated. On a practical mathematical level, the way this works out is that as only two people can be on the court at the same time or the same team in doubles, so too can only two people be in a relationship at the same time. Tashi, who understands the psychology of the sport better than Art or Patrick, spells this out for them in their first encounter, refusing to be with both of them at the same time and laying the foundation for everything that's to come. This is the same tension that's at the heart of every love triangle, in which power dynamics and favoritism are inevitable. But rather than tracking their demise, which would essentially affirm mononormativity, the movie sees them perform a sort of calculus throughout the match that allows them to retain their unity in a delicate balance. I would feel ostentatious talking about the movie in such lofty terms if the film itself weren't so quick to make these same sociological observations. In fact, I'd say my biggest gripe with the movie is just how explicitly Kuritzky communicates the idea of tennis as a relationship, as the characters constantly wax poetic about it. To an extent, these relationships are implicit to tennis and need no explaining, especially when the visual language is so committed to blatantly conveying this on a sensory level, emphasizing each sweat-beading pore on Feist and O'Connor's faces. +

here's the transcript (2/5): And I think it's the mark of a director at the height of his craft fostering an environment for his collaborators to also bring their game. To be honest, I haven't been all that sold on Zena as an actor, but I think Guadagnino is the first director that's properly brought out her greatest strengths, and you can feel the collaborative energy lifting everyone up mutually, resulting in a relentlessly euphoric two hours. The movie follows tennis players Tshi Duncan, Art Donaldson, and Patrick Viig, played by Zenda, Mike Feist, and Josh O'Conor respectively, as a 13-year saga unfurls in nonlinear fashion throughout the course of a single tennis match. We experience the trials and tribulations of a god-honest thruple trying to make it in a world of extreme exposure and scrutiny, channeling their sexual frustrations and desires back into the game. As Art and Patrick face off, we grow to increasingly understand the wrinkles and kinks in their relationship with each other and with Tashi, just how much the physical intricacies of tennis and this match specifically influence it, and how much Tashi herself is pulling the strings, motivating the two with psychosexual carrot and stick to make up for her own physical inability to play tennis, thus finding a new 3D chess means of playing the game. "Strangers on a Train" is most famously responsible for the cinematic shorthand of two opposing sets of feet moving towards each other, polarized but destined to intertwine. This establishes a dramaturgical diad which is enforced repeatedly throughout the film and, more importantly for our purposes, imbued into the nature of tennis. In one scene, as all-star Guy Haynes faces off against an unimportant opponent on the court, antagonist Bruno's presence dominates his mind, and we understand that the real match is between these two, not whoever's on the other side of the net. This renders tennis one of the most primal and psychologically direct distillations of man versus man that we have accessible to us in the world of image-making. In the past 70 years of cinema, since then, we have been mining all the different possibilities of tennis as dramatic shorthand, be it in using doubles tennis to telegraph alliances in an imminent family rift or providing a concentrated adversarial environment for the characters to study each other's decision-making and expressions. "Challengers," however, heads straight for the source straight out the gate, recreating "Strangers on a Train's" face in the crowd shot as the character with all the emotional power in the scene rebelliously keeps their heads still among the spectators' heads volleying left and right, keeping up with the match. In doing so, Guadagnino announces the game he's playing and with whom he's sharing the court. +

here's the transcript (1/5): There is precisely one reactionary belief I hold with pride. It's that pickleball is the harbinger of societal collapse, and we have an obligation to cling to tennis as the supreme racket sport lest we lose everything we hold dear. That's why I was excited to watch the new Luca Guadagnino film, which strives to not only breathe new life into tennis but also the erotic thriller, the mid-budget studio picture, and a series of foundational film theory concepts. These have been the go-to talking points online, as anyone who's acclimated to the white noise of scene discourse well knows. But I think the beauty of "Challengers" is not just that apparent return to form and "movies are back" sensation, but how it revitalizes those concepts with a modern sensibility. Guadagnino, of course, is a filmmaker who's anything but reactionary. His work largely revolves around younger generations' incompatibility with the archaic moral systems they're brought up in. And his most popular movie weaponizes nostalgia as a tool of malice to romantically gloss over the trauma the main characters unknowingly experience. So it only makes logical sense that he would take the stuffiest sport that still has some relevance in the US, dwindling as it may be, and use it as a vehicle for sweaty threesome cuckold sexual reward and punishment. If nothing else, his proclivity for remaking classics is proof enough that he believes the past is not a sacred institution but rather a series of active dialogues that we should dust off, update, and keep in circulation. "The Swimming Pool," "Suspiria" - unimpeachable texts that, against all odds, he successfully resurrected and examined through different eyes with his inquisitive camera, creating something entirely new out of the old. And while not a remake in and of itself, "Challengers" is in such direct conversation with "Strangers on a Train" that one can't help but imagine Guadagnino, upon considering the possibility of entering the tennis movie canon, leaping at the notion of taking on Hitchcock as his chosen artistic interlocutor. This time around, I think this is far and away his best work, especially after what I found to be a completely impotent previous film, "Bones and All." +

Showed this to my students on the first day of class and two immediately dropped because they found it misogynistic. The ones that remained weren't much more enthusiastic. Welcome to 2024.