Steve Pond
 
	Steve Pond
Steve Pond’s inside look at the artistry and insanity of the awards race, drawn from more than three decades of obsessively chronicling the Oscars and the entertainment industry.
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								‘Highest 2 Lowest’ Review: Denzel Washington and ASAP Rocky Are Foes to Remember in Spike Lee’s Slick DramaCannes 2025: Lee’s update on Akira Kurosawa’s film is an urban thriller that feels different than the work that has defined him 
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								‘Eagles of the Republic’ Review: Movies and Politics Don’t Mix, Says This Movie About PoliticsCannes 2025: Tarik Saleh’s drama is less interested in the process of filmmaking than in its use in propaganda 
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								Cannes’ Message So Far: The World’s Going to Hell, but We Love Movies!Cannes 2025: The overall tone of this year’s offerings is dark, just as it would be if festival-goers left the theaters, went back to their rooms and switched on the TV news 
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								‘Peak Everything’ Review: Offbeat Canadian Rom-Com Finds Love in the Face of the ApocalypseCannes 2025: Director Anne Émond takes the anxieties that underlie any romantic comedy and blows them up to global proportions 
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								‘My Father’s Shadow’ Review: Cannes’ First Nigerian Movie Mixes Autobiography and MysteryCannes 2025: Akinola Davies Jr.’s drama is a rhapsody of sorts, but a rough one that ends in political turmoil and unanswered questions 
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								‘The Secret Agent’ Review: ’70s Brazilian Romp Includes Wagner Moura and a Rampaging Severed LegCannes 2025: Cohesiveness or coherence are not high on the list of the attributes of Klebel Mendonça Filho’s film, but its messiness is part of its charm 
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								‘Orwell: 2+2=5’ Review: Angry Documentary Is as Much About Us (and Donald Trump) as About George OrwellCannes 2025: Raoul Peck’s film is an artful balancing act that dips in and out of Orwell’s life and work and swings from history to art to the most current of events 
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								‘Renoir’ Review: Quiet Japanese Drama Looks at Death Through a Young Girl’s EyesCannes 2025: You could call Chie Hayakawa’s understated second feature a coming-of-age film, except that its lead character doesn’t really learn anything 
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								‘Bono: Stories of Surrender’ Review: U2 Frontman’s Life Story Is Grand and Bombastic, the Way We Like ItCannes 2025: The singer and his director, Andrew Dominik, use startling visuals and reimagined songs to make this glorious mashup of life and music 
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								‘Amrum’ Review: Can This Poignant Drama Make You Ache for a Member of the Hitler Youth?Cannes 2025: Director Fatih Akin does a wonderfully understated job of setting the innocence and the cruelty of childhood against the fall of fascism 
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								‘Sirât’ Review: Techno-Fueled Road Movie Is ‘Mad Max’ Without the Stunts or the FunCannes 2025: Oliver Laxe has made one of a growing number of Cannes films that suggest that we live in dark, dangerous and troubled times 
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								‘Two Prosecutors’ Review: Film About Russian Corruption Is Set in 1937, But You Know It’s TimelyCannes 2025: Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa’s drama is a quietly horrifying descent into a Kafkaesque nightmare where doing the right thing might be the riskiest choice of all 
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								‘Leave One Day’ Review: Slight Musical Is the Most Forgettable Thing About Cannes Film Festival’s Opening NightCannes 2025: The food-themed film is a little appetizer, not a main course 
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								New Oscars Rule: If You Don’t See All the Nominated Films, You Can’t VoteThe Academy also released a statement on AI, saying it “neither helps nor harms” a film’s chances of being nominated 
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								Cannes Film Festival Lineup Includes New Films by Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, Scarlett JohanssonOther directors heading to France are Spike Lee, Ari Aster, Kelly Reichardt, Julia Ducournau and the Dardenne brothers 














