“The Brutalist”: Architectural Gothic

"The Brutalist" poster, with Adrien Brody lit by a furnace and surrounded by metalworking sparks below the logo and fine print.

A.I. art prompt: “Adrien Brody attacked by the internet, symbolized as flying glowworms”.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony. The rules are simple and the points don’t matter to anyone but me.

Critics had already been raving about The Brutalist weeks before a big night at the Golden Globes gave it some light mainstream recognition. Based on the buzz, I saw it two days before its Oscar nominations were announced so I could cross it off my checklist in advance. AMPAS voters traditionally love sweeping epics at the intersection of personal ambition and world history, regardless of runtime or controversies. Director/co-writer Brady Corbet (Vox Lux) and co-writer Mona Fastvold (Apple’s The Crowded Room) figured the time was right for a resonant, fictional, occasionally ugly tale of underestimated immigrants, family rent asunder, talent discovery, teamwork, overreach, exploitation, and how the symbiosis between artist and patron can drift from reign to rot.

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“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”: the Non-Spoiler Entry

Rogue One!

“Hello, I am K-2SO. I am fluent in over eight million forms of telling you where you can stick your commands.”

Still hiding out from rampant internet spoilers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story?

Never fear! We here at Midlife Crisis Crossover know your fears. I didn’t give in to them, but I know them. In fact, unlike my approach to The Force Awakens, I refused to go on internet sabbatical and instead stuck to my usual browsing routines. I decided I would leave myself at the mercy of the living, breathing organism that is the Internet community-at-large and let them decide how much of the movie would be spoiled for me in advance. To their credit, only three major and three minor reveals occurred before I finally had the chance to catch the movie Sunday afternoon. I had holidays, family, and adulting that needed to be tended to before I could indulge.

Now that I have, that doesn’t mean I have to ruin it for anyone else. Thus I’ve split my thoughts into two entries. First up: the light summary of impressions from my first showing, written in a manner that hopefully doesn’t compromise your own first screening.

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“The Theory of Everything” and Thoughts on Star-Crossed Lovers

Theory of Everything!

Before Eddie Redmayne bewildered audiences as a space Cenobite with laryngitis in Jupiter Ascending, he was promoted to Academy Award Nominee Eddie Redmayne thanks to his performance as physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, the closest thing to a British costume drama in this year’s Oscar race. Unlike his turn as the rebel Marius in Les Miserables, his rendition of the increasingly immobile Hawking had no show-stopping musical numbers and ended up forfeiting the Best Original Song category, even though there are plenty of words that rhyme with “black hole”.

(Special note: if you’d prefer to be surprised by historical records, beware light spoilers ahead.)

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