This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Netflix’s &#8220;Train Dreams&#8221; received four Oscar nominations this year, including Best Picture, and it walked away empty-handed from every one of them. Ironically, that might be the most fitting outcome for a film that does nothing to demand your attention but simply invites you to consider the mundane beauty that permeates even the most ordinary of lives.
In a dopamine-addicted world, where our senses are blitzed by ever-louder and ever-shorter demands for our attention, &#8220;Train Dreams&#8221; functions like an antidote for what ails us. It is an ode to the slow work of beauty and its power to transform the human heart. 
There is a scene early in the film where the protagonist, Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), and his wife, Gladys (Felicity Jones), walk to the edge of the Moyie River and begin laying stones in the dirt. Not a foundation — not yet. Just markers. Here is where the walls will go. Here is where the bed will be. Here, where the window faces east, is where the morning light will find them. Two people with nothing but timber and a river and each other, mapping out with rocks a future home that only exists in their shared dreams of a life together.
As the viewer, you’re invited to sit there with them in that moment and consider your own little slice of ordinary life. There is no Avengers-level threat to the multiverse. No high-octane pulsing synth or heart-pounding drums in the soundtrack. Not an ounce of the heavy-handed political preachiness we’ve become far too accustomed to either. Just the story of a simple day laborer in the early 20th-century Pacific Northwest as he makes his way through the joys and sorrows of an ordinary life in a world that is both beautiful and broken.
Edgerton’s character loses his wife, his daughter, his cabin, and his sense of place in a world accelerating past him, and yet this immense Job-like tragedy is juxtaposed against frame after frame of flawless natural beauty. Viewers could pause at any moment in the film and gaze at each frame as a distinct work of art.
That might even be an experiment worth trying because this is exactly the kind of spiritual exercise that &#8220;Train Dreams&#8221; invites us to do. Slow down, pay attention to the moment, and receive life, even with its troubles, as the gift that it is. Nick Cave — who wrote the film&#8217;s Oscar-nominated song — <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DSDHK3GkUET/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again">described the world</a> that director Clint Bentley brought to life out of a Denis Johnson novella as a &#8220;world exploding all around with strange and beautiful and wonderful things.” 
 
That&#8217;s the paradox the film holds without flinching. Robert’s life is small by every metric the modern world and most Hollywood films use to measure significance. He doesn&#8217;t build an empire. He doesn&#8217;t lead a revolution. He doesn&#8217;t even leave Bonners Ferry, Idaho. But his life is full — achingly, almost unbearably full — of the kind of meaning that seems increasingly difficult to find today. 
While the amenities of our modern world have made most features of our lives far easier than Grainier’s life in the early 20th century, our attention has been captured by our screens in ways that make seeing the true meaning of life more difficult. The constant digital noise obscures the “vertical” dimension of life — the transcendent awe, beauty, and wonder — that is quietly nestled within the “horizontal” dimension of life with our families, our work, and our daily bread.
You feel it every time you pick up your phone for a two-second dopamine hit. You feel it in the endless scroll, the algorithmic feed designed not to nourish you but to keep you clicking. Our attention, perhaps our most precious commodity, is relentlessly in demand. We&#8217;ve been unconsciously conditioned to consume what is on our screens the way we consume fast food: quickly, passively, and in portions intentionally engineered to leave us hungry for more.
&#8220;Train Dreams&#8221; refuses to play that game. It is aggressively, almost defiantly slow. Clint Bentley shoots the northwest wilderness like a man who believes the natural world is sacred. The camera lingers on firelight, on river water, on the lines carved into Joel Edgerton&#8217;s weathered face. There are stretches of this film where nothing &#8220;happens&#8221; in the way we&#8217;ve been trained to expect things to happen. No twist. No reveal. No dopamine spike.
And yet something does happen, something deeper than what will make for a viral TikTok moment. What &#8220;Train Dreams&#8221; offers is an invitation to a mode of attention that has atrophied in many of us. You don&#8217;t watch &#8220;Train Dreams&#8221; so much as you submit to it. You let it wash over you. And if you&#8217;re patient — if you can resist the itch to check your phone, the reflexive hunger for the next stimulus — something starts to shift in your chest. A loosening. A remembering of what’s missing. A slow reforming of what you believe is worthy of your attention. You look at your spouse, your children, your family, and even the odd but slightly endearing coworker a little differently.
The realization hits you, “This is all a gift.”
This is what beauty does. Not the pseudo-beauty of Instagram filters or AI “companions” of lust-driven fantasies. I&#8217;m talking about the older and deeper kind. The kind that the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was pointing to when he wrote that &#8220;the world is charged with the grandeur of God.&#8221; The kind that doesn&#8217;t perform for you but simply is. It’s not anxious to steal your attention. It knows that when you come around to your senses and behold it, you’ll begin to remember what truly matters.
It&#8217;s not that the big box office spectacle is bad, but the best spectacles — the ones that actually stay with you, the ones that shape your soul rather than just stimulate your nervous system — are grounded in something real, something human. The box office spectacle should serve the soul. When it doesn&#8217;t, when the spectacle is the point, you get content. You get two hours of sensory input that evaporates the moment the credits roll.
&#8220;Train Dreams&#8221; has no interest in being content in a world where content is unlimited. Instead, it dares to remind you that art and story, and even the world of your own ordinary existence, can be a kind of sacrament that unites the “vertical” and the “horizontal” dimensions of life together.
This is the kind of movie our culture is starving for. Not more deconstruction. Not another jaded anti-hero smirking at the camera. Not another cynical Marxist or postmodern take on the world, which strips away every ounce of the “vertical” dimension of life and reduces the whole world to being about nothing more than an endless conflict between oppressor and oppressed. Real beauty shows how impotent all of that stuff is.
So here&#8217;s to the slow work of beauty. It&#8217;s the only kind that lasts.
***
Paul Anleitner is a cultural theologian whose work focuses on the role of culture and story in our quest for meaning. He is the author of &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Based-True-Story-Deconstruction-Meaning/dp/1400256585/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BV8UXHDPEC1C&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.yccpxYizt16XUGtvvBwuWsp5a9oLNXZg9tU9cVTW9v50Wa9ax9PyiRfxVAUEfadJ.FVBmUUp17NYWhh1xf5EbucOM2DqultqEfbl5vda8MZk&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=Based+on+a+True+Story%3A+Vibe+Shifts%2C+the+End+of+Deconstruction%2C+and+the+Reboot+of+Meaning&amp;nsdOptOutParam=true&amp;qid=1773945125&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=based+on+a+true+story+vibe+shifts%2C+the+end+of+deconstruction%2C+and+the+reboot+of+meaning%2Cstripbooks%2C87&amp;sr=1-1">Based on a True Story: Vibe Shifts, the End of Deconstruction, and the Reboot of Meaning</a>.&#8221;
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Screenshot

Hollywood Ignored A Film That Quietly Challenges How You Live

Movies

Netflix

Upstream

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mks-ep-1935-sub?elementPosition=7&amp;row=6&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
Val Kilmer is dead. Hollywood now wants to put him in another movie anyway.
Not through footage he had already completed. Not through a role he finished before his death. Through artificial intelligence.
We are told this is a tribute. It is not a tribute. It is necromancy.
Yes, necromancy. And no, that is not just a melodramatic way of saying I dislike the technology. Taking a dead actor, reconstructing his face and voice with AI, and then putting words in his mouth is not ordinary filmmaking. It is an attempt to conjure a human presence from beyond the grave. Not the man himself, of course, but his image, his shade, his likeness. That is exactly what makes it so grotesque.
I know the objection. No, it’s not. Necromancy would mean literally bringing someone back from the dead. This is just technology. This is just creating an image that looks and sounds like him.
No. That is not really what necromancy has ever meant in practice. 
When people go to a psychic and try to conjure the dead, they are not expecting a flesh-and-blood man to walk back into the room. They expect a voice, a shadow, a movement, a shape, an apparition. They expect an image that gives the illusion of presence. That is what they are after. And that is exactly what this technology offers: not resurrection, but simulation. Not life, but a convincing imitation of it.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mks-ep-1935-sub?elementPosition=7&amp;row=6&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-1054531 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
That is why the distinction does not save it. It condemns it.
A human being is not merely a face, or a voice, or a recognizable pattern of speech. A man is not reducible to a catalog of gestures and expressions that can be fed into a machine and reproduced on command. A man is body and soul. A body without a soul is a corpse. A soul without a body is a spirit. A digital imitation is neither. It is not the man. It is not Val Kilmer.
Val Kilmer lived, and then he died. That is the truth. And when you start creating AI performances that ask audiences to forget that truth, you are doing more than making a movie. You are teaching people to deny death.
That is one of the deepest temptations of modern life. So much of liberal modernity is about denying mortality, denying limits, denying the fixed realities of the human condition. It is about gathering to ourselves powers that do not belong to us. It is about pretending we can master time, history, memory, identity, even death itself. It is about maximizing human autonomy until man no longer receives the world as a creature under God, but tries to re-engineer it as his own private project.
<div id="attachment_1062869" style="width: 893px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1062869" class="size-large wp-image-1062869" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-607408752-883x576.jpg" alt="American actors Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise on the set of Top Gun, directed by Tony Scott. (Photo by Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)" width="883" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-607408752-883x576.jpg 883w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-607408752-300x196.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-607408752-768x501.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-607408752.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 883px) 100vw, 883px" />Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images</div>
That is what makes this more than a Hollywood gimmick. This is not just another strange special effect or another morally neutral technological advance. It is part of a much larger effort to flatten reality and replace it with manipulation. It invites us to believe that the dead are not really gone, that personhood is just data, that memory can be commercialized into presence, and that all boundaries exist to be crossed so long as the software is good enough.
And it will get good enough. That is part of the problem. If the technology improves, people will look at that screen and think, on some level, that they are really seeing Val Kilmer. Maybe not literally. Maybe they will know, abstractly, that it is AI. But emotionally, imaginatively, culturally, the effect will be the same. The dead man will appear to live again. And when that happens over and over, decade after decade, it will change the way we think about death itself.
It will teach us that death is not a real rupture, merely a technical inconvenience. It will teach us that the dead remain available for reuse. It will teach us that a person can be broken down into commercially exploitable fragments and then reassembled whenever a studio wants one more performance. That is dehumanizing enough when done to the living. Done to the dead, it becomes something darker.
We should not do this.
There are living actors — plenty of living actors. If you want a performance, go find a living man to give one. If you want to honor the dead, then honor them as dead. Remember them. Pray for them. Be grateful for the work they already gave the world. But do not digitally ventriloquize them and call it art.
And this applies beyond Hollywood. The same impulse that says we should build AI versions of dead actors is the impulse that refuses to accept mortality at all. It is the same impulse that wants to summon, recreate, simulate, and control what ought to be received with humility. It is the refusal to let the dead remain dead, and the refusal to let the living remain creatures rather than aspiring gods.
So no, I do not think this is harmless. I do not think it is merely clever. And I do not think Christians, or anyone with a sane understanding of human dignity, should shrug and accept it as inevitable.
Don’t talk to your dead father as though he were still here. Pray for him. Don’t ask a machine to conjure the likeness of the dead so that you can pretend mortality has no claim on us. Speak to the living. Love the living. Live among the living.
Leave the dead in peace.

“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” Photocall at the 58th Cannes Film Festival

Why Bringing Val Kilmer Back With AI Crosses A Moral Line

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Artificial Intelligence

Death

Film

Hollywood

Michael Knowles

Opinion

Unknown Man Watching Streaming Service on Smartphone at Home

I Looked Into Why Streaming Became Slop. This is How to Fix it.

Amazon Prime

Hulu

Matt Walsh

Movie Theaters

Oscars

An AI-generated version of actor Val Kilmer will appear in the film “As Deep as the Grave” following the death of the celebrity from throat cancer last year.
Film director Coerte Voorhees explained to <a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/val-kilmer-ai-film-as-deep-as-the-grave-1236691042/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Variety</a> that his heart was set on Kilmer being in the indie project, but the “Top Gun” star became too ill to come to set, even for one day.
“He was the actor I wanted to play this role,” Voorhees told the outlet. “It was very much designed around him. It drew on his Native American heritage and his ties to and love of the Southwest. I was looking at a call sheet the other day, and we had him ready to shoot. He was just going through a really, really tough time medically, and he couldn’t do it.”
The director said Kilmer’s estate, including his son and daughter, were on board with resurrecting an AI version of their famous dad to star in the project.
“His family kept saying how important they thought the movie was and that Val really wanted to be a part of this,” Voorhees went on. “He really thought it was [an] important story that he wanted his name on. It was that support that gave me the confidence to say, &#8216;Okay let’s do this.&#8217; Despite the fact some people might call it controversial, this is what Val wanted.”
“We really figured out that this is a major missing element,” the director insisted. “Normally we would just recast an actor. I’m all about working with our actors, and we have brilliant performances all throughout this movie. But we can’t roll camera again. We don’t have the budget. We’re not a big studio film. So we had to think of innovative ways to do it. And we realized the technology is there for us.”
The AI version of Kilmer was created using film, photos, and voice recordings from various points in his life. 
“The character in the film also suffers from tuberculosis,” John Voorhees, the film’s producer and Coerte’s brother, explained to Variety. “Again, this historical character mirrored Val’s actual condition when he was suffering from throat cancer. And so when it comes to the voice this is a really unique opportunity for the character to reflect the condition that the actor was actually suffering from, thus creating a kind of a bridge.”
“As Deep as the Grave” was originally titled “Canyon of the Dead,” the outlet noted. It’s based on the true story of archaeologists Ann and Earl Morris as they performed excavations in Arizona to uncover the history of the Navajo people. Kilmer’s likeness will play Father Fintan, a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist.
Kilmer’s daughter Mercedes said in a statement that her late father “always looked at emerging technologies with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling.” 
“This spirit is something that we are all honoring within this specific film, of which he was an integral part,” Mercedes added.
While still alive, Kilmer worked with Sonantic to create an AI version of his voice, which was used for his role as “Iceman” in “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022).
“As human beings, the ability to communicate is the core of our existence and the side effects from throat cancer have made it difficult for others to understand me,” he said at the time. “The chance to narrate my story, in a voice that feels authentic and familiar, is an incredibly special gift.”

Val Kilmer

A Year Since His Death, An AI Version Of Val Kilmer Will Star In New Film

Celebrities

The Oscars were televised last night.
I’d bet you didn’t watch the awards ceremony. Nobody watched it.
The Oscars have been in a state of precipitous decline for decades. In part, that’s because nobody has seen the movies that are competing for the Academy Awards. But it&#8217;s also because the ceremony has become a left-wing agitprop fest.
Last night was no exception. The big winner was &#8220;One Battle After Another,&#8221; a truly egregious and terrible film about the virtues of domestic terrorism against a white supremacist infrastructure.
The other big winner was &#8220;Sinners,&#8221; a Critical Race Theory remake of &#8220;From Dusk Till Dawn,&#8221; the Quentin Tarantino vampire movie.
Conan O&#8217;Brien, formerly a funny human, told a bunch of stale jokes about how much Republicans suck, saying, “I should warn you, tonight could get political. Okay. And if that makes you uncomfortable, there&#8217;s an alternate Oscars being hosted by Kid Rock. It&#8217;s at the Dave &amp; Busters down the street. A lot of tickets for that.”
Hollywood loves Hollywood: All those people who don&#8217;t agree with their politics? The only thing they&#8217;ve got is Kid Rock and Dave &amp; Busters and all the rest.
There&#8217;s a reason their ratings are in precipitous decline.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2388-did-the-cia-spy-on-tucker-carlson?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
All in all, it was a totally forgettable evening, but at least most of the Oscar winners stayed out of politics, to the disappointment of at least one author in the New York Times, Daniel Kehlmann. Kehlmann is the author of a book called &#8220;The Director,&#8221; a really, really good book, but also the author of a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/opinion/oscar-winners-political-speeches.html">pretty terrible column</a> on the necessity for actors to say things.
Kehlmann wrote before the ceremony, “Hollywood’s great actors and directors are not merely well known; they are famous figures everywhere, even in dictatorships now closed to the world, such as Russia and North Korea. On Oscar night not only will the eyes of the American public be fixed on them; so will the ears of the entire planet, listening for the answer to the question: Your country is being turned into a dictatorship, people are being arrested and shot in the streets, your mad king is trampling your venerable Constitution underfoot — what do you have to say about it?”
Yes, according to Daniel Kehlmann, we need to hear from our greatest artists (actors!) about their geopolitical analysis. His book is about a director named G.W. Pabst, who was a little-known director from the 1920s and 30s who returned to Nazi Germany from the United States in order to be allowed artistic resources by the regime. The book is about art&#8217;s surrender to tyranny. In the book, Pabst is fully complicit with a genocidal Nazi regime. He even takes advantage of concentration camp victims as extras.
To equate America in 2026 with Nazi Germany is, of course, an act of extreme moral blindness. Unfortunately, that seems par for the course in much of the artistic community.
That&#8217;s why actress Charithra Chandran, whom I&#8217;d never heard of, wore a pin for the anti-Israel ceasefire in Gaza, where Hamas is currently murdering opponents in the streets, but not a single actor or actress anywhere on the Oscar red carpet said anything about the slaughter of 32,000 Iranians by the regime.
The only truly overtly political moment from any winner came from Paul Thomas Anderson, who said, “I wrote this movie for my kids to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we’re handing off to them, but also with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.”
Paul Thomas Anderson was not saying sorry to his kids. He was saying, “Look at my virtue signaling while I earn millions of dollars for films that lose $100 million at the box office.”
But at least he’ll sleep better at night with his gold statuette and $10,000 swag bag from the Academy.

TOPSHOT-US-ENTERTAINMENT-FILM-AWARD-OSCARS-SHOW

The Oscars Nobody Watched: Hollywood Congratulates Itself Again

Academy Awards

Acting

Ben Shapiro

Entertainment

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
At the 98th Academy Awards on Sunday, some of America’s richest and most beautiful people decided to inform their <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-oscars-audience-today-reveals-something-about-americas-divide">shrinking audience</a> that they are exceedingly oppressed. They’re oppressed because the United States never recognizes Korean cinema, they’re oppressed because no one can ever speak their mind in this fascistic Trump regime, and they’re oppressed because every day, we draw closer to a dictatorship like that of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Right.
Kicking off the delusional evening, the co-director for the award-winning short film &#8220;Two People Exchanging Saliva” thanked the Academy &#8220;for supporting a film that is weird and that is queer and that is made by a majority of women!&#8221; This makes sense because Hollywood famously hates things that are weird and “queer” and involve women.
When “KPop Demon Hunters” rightly won multiple awards, including one for best animated feature — yes, I said rightly, go check it out on Netflix! — creator Maggie Kang used her acceptance speech to apologize “to Koreans everywhere.” Never mind that the Korean film “Parasite” won best picture in 2020 and that K-pop artists such as BTS and BLACKPINK have rabid followings here in America.
Kang must be stuck in 2015, when the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag was trending. Now, we have Academy-mandated <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/oscars-announce-new-inclusion-standards-for-best-picture-revolving-around-underrepresented-groups">diversity quotas</a>. But that didn&#8217;t stop Kang from shooting her shot at the oppression Olympics. “I am so sorry that it took so long to see us in a movie like this, but it is here. And that means that the next generations don’t have to go longing,” she said.
For her role in “Hamnet,” Jessie Buckley just became the first Irish woman to win Best Actress, and she didn’t say a thing.
Not to be outdone, Jimmy Kimmel, who was only at the Oscars to present awards for documentaries, decided to make the night about him. This can be hard to do as a straight white male in the current climate, but he found a way. 
“We hear a lot about courage at shows like this, but telling a story that could get you killed for telling it is real courage,” he said. “As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which. Let’s just leave it at North Korea and CBS.”
Kimmel is still upset that he claimed on air that Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a deranged right-winger, and the world noticed his lie. His jab at CBS appears to be a shot at the Left’s new favorite punching bag, Bari Weiss. CBS wasn’t biased before, of course, but now that it’s run by a conservative-adjacent figure, it is rife with scandal! In North Korea, “antistate” agitators <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/north-korea">face</a> imprisonment and extrajudicial killings. In the U.S., they face the praise of liberal media. See if you can spot the difference. 
None of this can top the grandstanding by some guy named David Borenstein, a documentary filmmaker who apparently has spent a lot of time in China and recently set his sights on the Russian regime with &#8220;Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” which won best documentary feature. During his acceptance speech, Borenstein said the film is about &#8220;how you lose your country.&#8221; This happens &#8220;when we act complicit when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities, when we don&#8217;t say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we produce it and consume it,&#8221; he said.
Not exactly a subtle reference to current left-leaning talking points about the United States. Incredibly, as Kyle Smith <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/free-expression/trump-was-everywhere-on-oscar-night-60c1d536?mod=author_content_page_1_pos_1">pointed out</a> in the Wall Street Journal, Borenstein’s talking points got even worse after the show.
“One interesting thing about working with a team of Russians throughout this process has been my desire, as an American, to constantly compare the situation in America to Russia … a lot of my Russian colleagues and friends always said, ‘No, it’s not the same situation. It’s actually happening quicker in America than it’s been happening in Russia. Trump was moving a lot quicker than Putin in his early years,’” he said. “So that’s kind of all I have to say to that.”
In the oppressive landscape of 21st-century America — that is, the part of the century that does not include the Clinton, Obama, or Biden years — our entertainment industry wants us to know how brave it is. While sporting glittering designer gowns, barely-there ceasefire pins, and more botox than a human face should be able to hold, celebrities would have us believe that their resistance is akin to those fighting against dictatorships in North Korea and Russia. They’re stuck in a world where non-white actors are discriminated against rather than given job opportunities through heavy-handed quotas.
In reality, the rest of us just like to watch their movies — and even that often isn’t true anymore. Perhaps worse than the lectures about ending wars and resisting the president is the implication that the celebrities who were celebrated on Hollywood’s biggest night have somehow been discriminated against. Spare us your sob story, please, and invest that energy into making better movies.
***
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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Hollywood’s Richest Stars Spent Oscars Night Claiming They’re Oppressed

98th Oscars Governors Ball Preview

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This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
I have a confession to make: Even as a certified conservative, I miss loving the Oscars. I miss the anticipation of those Sunday nights. I miss the domestic clatter of it — the clanging of dishes in the kitchen, the gathering of popcorn, the descent into the basement to park myself before the glow of the television. I miss the shared post-mortem with my mother, dissecting hemlines and styling choices, simply admiring the objective beauty of the spectacle.
Mostly, I miss loving what it celebrated: actors working at the top of their craft, called into a vocation with a unique sway over the human heart. Men and women tasked with reminding us of the dignity of the human experience — making us, especially as children, yearn for experiences we’d not yet had, feelings we’d had no occasion to feel. Actors reminding us that beauty exists, pointing us to its source, and ultimately helping people make meaning of their own stories within the ultimate one.
The Hollywood class still believes the Oscars matter to the public in this way. They are sadly mistaken. The country stopped tuning in years ago.
In 1998, when the ceremony was still a shared national ritual and &#8220;Titanic&#8221; swept the board, 57 million of us watched. Through the early 2000s, broadcasts often drew over 40 million viewers; even into the 2010s, over 30 million was common. By 2021, however, the ceremony had hit an all-time low of 10.4 million. Despite a modest rebound lately to roughly 19-20 million, the audience remains a ghost of its former self. Hollywood’s “national event” now resonates almost exclusively within Hollywood.
The box office tells the same story. Many of this year’s nominees barely register as movies you’d actually go see on a Saturday night. Among the 2026 Best Picture contenders, a few grossed modestly well: &#8220;F1,&#8221; &#8220;Sinners,&#8221; and &#8220;One Battle After Another.&#8221; Most others were tiny in comparison: &#8220;Bugonia&#8221; has grossed around $40 million and &#8220;Sentimental Value&#8221; $22 million worldwide. Several played only at festivals or in limited art-house runs. These movies, praised in niche circles, were largely invisible to the rest of the country.
Even when the ceremony pulls 20 million viewers, it is not America in the round. The audience skews older, wealthier, and disproportionately coastal; Los Angeles, New York, and other urban markets register above the national average. Many younger Americans aren’t interested at all. This is a cluster of affluent, urban viewers watching a show that reflects their own tastes and values — a clear marker of the gulf between Middle America and the coasts. The Great Divide in black tie.
Why? Why have the Oscars become so siloed, watched mostly by an older, affluent, coastal audience while the rest of the country looks outward, upward, anywhere else? I believe it comes down to what we choose to celebrate. I’m not talking about the applause when winners wade up the stairs in heels and floor-length gowns. I mean everything else: the movies themselves, and the values embedded in them.
The divide runs deeper than taste. It’s a question of what art is for. The late philosopher Roger Scruton wrote often of beauty as the form through which the sacred manifests itself to us. He warned that art fails when it abandons beauty for provocation alone.
He was onto something. Too many Oscar favorites today have stopped prizing cinematic beauty or harmony of form. Instead, they prize &#8220;perceived importance&#8221; — trauma-laden narratives, abrasive aesthetics, and a certain grim moral instruction. The numbers tell the story of a public that feels lectured rather than lifted. According to a recent Rasmussen <a href="https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/april_2024/movies_aren_t_getting_better_most_americans_say?">report</a>, 54% of Americans believe movies have gotten worse over the past two decades, while only 27% say they’ve improved. Hollywood is delivering lectures instead of entertainment and wondering why half the country has stopped watching.
“Assumed liberalism,” a term I leaned heavily on in theater school, runs through host monologues, speeches, and acceptance remarks alike. Americans with differing worldviews — the majority of the country, it turns out — must sift through leftist jargon just to figure out who won Best Picture. As Ross Douthat <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/opinion/oscars-irrelevant-decline-ratings.html">puts it</a>, the Oscars have become a “boutique affair for American liberals,” a ceremony prioritizing social commentary and niche arthouse films over popular, mainstream cinema. It is also, in his words, a “venue for liberal soapboxing,” where ideology is celebrated as artistry, and the rest of the country is largely left out.
Of course, there are other culprits. Short-form media has fractured our attention; the pandemic bruised the theater-going habit; streaming platforms have made us all shut-ins. But those are the mechanics of the decline, not the heart of it. The heart of the problem is what the Oscars now define as worthy of our attention. The result is a cultural echo chamber — a narrow slice of Americans celebrating messages that resonate little beyond their own zip codes.
Some conservatives are happy about this; vindictive, even. I don’t count myself among them. The country needs these silly, glittering nights more than we like to admit — moments when we can look at the stars and see something of ourselves in them: our dignity, our aspirations, and our common story.
***
Grace Salvatore is senior editor of media, arts, and culture for Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Restoring the West and a contributor to Independent Women’s Voice.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

US-ENTERTAINMENT-FILM-OSCARS-AWARD-PREPARATIONS

The Oscars Audience Today Reveals Something About America’s Divide

Hollywod

Actress Rachel Zegler is still whining about how her leading role in a Disney live-action adaptation was a massive flop, and predictably, is blaming all the supposed racists out there for her failure.
The 24-year-old actress <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/a70479146/rachel-zegler/">told</a> Harper’s Bazaar about the backlash she received in 2021 after it was announced that she would play the lead “Snow White,” calling the whole ordeal “really confusing.”
 “I was told I wasn’t enough of one thing for ‘West Side Story’ and too much of another for ‘Snow White,’” Zegler told the outlet, referencing pushback she received for being cast as Maria in “West Side Story” because her father is white.
“I grew up proud of being Colombian,” she went on. “Eating the food, wearing the dresses, drinking the coffee, doing all the things that were so intrinsic to who I was as a kid and who I am as an adult — but I do think there’s an argument to be made that, in the public eye at least, when you’re two things, you’re simultaneously nothing. But I refuse to assimilate for anybody else’s comfort.”
Social media users pointed out how the main complaint with Zegler wasn’t about her ethnicity, but her attitude. The actress went viral for saying she hated the source material for “Snow White” and also for posting divisive political opinions online.
Zegler made several inflammatory statements, including saying she hoped Trump supporters “never know peace.” 
The actress also took heat for <a href="https://x.com/rachelzegler/status/1823146134769893534?lang=en">posting</a> on X in 2024, “and always remember, free palestine.”
Beyond posting political commentary, she also mocked the source material for the movie she was starring in, calling Prince Charming a “stalker” and saying the new version of “Snow White” wouldn’t resemble the original.
“We have a different approach to, what I’m sure a lot of people will assume is a love story,” Zegler said in part. “[Snow White is] not going to be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love,” she continued. “She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave and true.”
Zegler told Harper’s Bazaar that the consequences of her actions were “a complete study in intent versus impact.”
“I’ve said what I feel, and that will always be a testament to my core beliefs as a human. That’s where I stand,” she told the outlet. “You live and you learn, and there’s a caution that comes with that. There’s an understanding that the temptation to speak doesn’t always mean that it must be done, and that there are a lot of opportunities to make more meaningful change than a tweet.”
“Snow White” made just over $206 million worldwide, meaning it did not recoup its massive production budget. It has a 39% critics’ score and 69% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 
The film is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disneys-snow-white-nominated-for-6-razzies-including-worst-of-2026">nominated for</a> six Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies), a film competition that awards the worst of the worst. We will soon find out if it takes home Worst Picture on March 14.

Rachel Zegler

Rachel Zegler Is Still Whining About ‘Snow White’ Backlash

Rachel Zegler Still Whining About Backlash To 'Snow White' Casting Announcement 5 Years Ago

Snow White

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Rising movie star Timothée Chalamet sparked an online firestorm thanks to a recent CNN/Variety town hall with Matthew McConaughey. “We gotta keep movie theaters alive,” he said, before adding, “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera,” dismissing the performing arts as things being “kept alive” despite the fact that “no one cares about this anymore.”
Tone aside, Chalamet’s remarks raise an important question: How relevant are the performing arts today? Certainly, the best boxes at the Metropolitan Opera are no longer coveted with the same pitiless tenacity by our leading culturati as in HBO’s &#8220;The Gilded Age,&#8221; and new contemporary operas now premiere before niche audiences — or, in my case, those roped into them by inflexible season subscriptions — before being discussed in the skimmed pages of the New Yorker. But this is both expected and normal. As culture ebbs and flows, so too do its dominant art forms. Jazz trios and rock-and-roll bands, each of which enjoyed its own period of hegemony in the 20th century, are hardly at the bleeding edge of culture today. That does not make them any less important.
Movies and cinema, like ballet and opera, are ultimately mediums for storytelling. That Chalamet — whose <a href="https://x.com/TheCinesthetic/status/2030227167645508043">grandmother, mother, and sister all danced with New York City Ballet</a> — should so casually dismiss their relevance is a symptom of youth and the tendency to mistake provocation for insight. Some of the greatest and most enduring stories in Western culture can be traced through the librettos and scenarios of opera and ballet.
Long before we were inundated with sprawling franchises like Marvel’s MCU, Chalamet’s own &#8220;Dune,&#8221; &#8220;The Lord of the Rings,&#8221; or even &#8220;Star Wars,&#8221; Richard Wagner had already pioneered the blueprint for the interconnected multi-part epic in his &#8220;Ring Cycle (Der Ring des Nibelungen).&#8221; He helped codify the modern fantasy trope of the magical artifact (the one ring) and its corrupting power, along with the mythic hero’s journey destined to save the world.
Tchaikovsky’s &#8220;Swan Lake,&#8221; meanwhile, with its dark and brooding dramatic tensions, anticipates the now-familiar psychological thriller, complete with the fractured self and the haunting interplay between innocence and corruption. And what modern romantic comedy or social satire can truly stand up to Mozart’s farcical triumph &#8220;The Marriage of Figaro&#8221;? In it, a clever valet must outwit his own master, a plotting count intent on seducing the valet’s fiancée. It is a brilliant societal romp whose DNA, replete with class-defying wit, romantic intrigue, and strategic social maneuvering, is still visible in later Hollywood classics such as Billy Wilder’s &#8220;The Apartment.&#8221;
The Gothic romance, too, can trace some of its roots through ballet. In &#8220;Giselle&#8221; (1841), with its eerie second act and the “Dance of the Willis,” the vengeful spirits of betrayed women force faithless men to dance until they die. The contours of both classic and current horror are also palpable, from the supernatural to the erotic, the punitive, and the dead returning to settle old scores.
And few works can claim a more far-reaching cultural influence than Igor Stravinsky’s &#8220;The Rite of Spring&#8221; (1913). The Russian composer’s revolutionary use of jagged, primitive rhythms — stabbing, percussive chords that feel like a heartbeat or pulsate like a predatory hunt — laid the groundwork for modern suspense music. Its echoes can be heard in countless film scores, including the work of John Williams, from &#8220;Jaws&#8221; (1975) to &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; (1977).
And if you are still unconvinced of opera and ballet’s enduring relevance, you need only open your favorite streaming service and search for “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from &#8220;The Nutcracker&#8221; (or better yet, try getting last-minute &#8220;Nutcracker&#8221; tickets around Christmastime), Rossini’s overture to &#8220;The Barber of Seville,&#8221; “Libiamo, ne’ lieti calici” from Verdi’s &#8220;La Traviata,&#8221; the Habanera from Bizet’s &#8220;Carmen,&#8221; “La donna è mobile” from &#8220;Rigoletto,&#8221; or Puccini’s “Nessun dorma.” Even for those who do not recognize the operas or ballets from which they come, or know anything of their plots, these pieces remain ubiquitous cultural fixtures. They have appeared in countless films, cartoons, commercials, and public spectacles. They are etched into our collective memory whether we realize it or not.
It is also a misconception that today’s concert halls and opera houses are populated exclusively by wheelchair-bound octogenarians. Anecdotally, as someone who attends these performances regularly, that caricature is plainly false. In the past two years, I have seen sold-out performances of Tchaikovsky’s &#8220;Eugene Onegin,&#8221; Puccini’s &#8220;Madama Butterfly,&#8221; and Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, to name just a few, all met with rousing standing ovations and audiences that included not only elderly patrons, but plenty of younger faces as well. A<a href="https://www.rpo.co.uk/news-and-press/80-news/652-young-people-more-likely-to-listen-to-orchestral-music-as-part-of-their-daily-lives-than-their-parents-2"> recent study from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra</a> reached a similar conclusion about the listening habits of young adults. Suffice it to say, classical music still has an audience, and a living one at that.
Chalamet is right to worry that movie theaters should remain vital parts of our shared culture. But culture is not a static snapshot of whatever happens to be fashionable at a given moment. It is a long, evolving exposition that bridges past and present and melds tradition and innovation. It would indeed be a sign of stagnation if the only works we had left to discuss were revivals of 19th- and 20th-century masterpieces; culture must continue to produce new forms, new stories, and new art. But if we sever our connection to the past, we also sever ourselves from the traditions that taught us how to tell stories in the first place. And that loss would not only impoverish opera and ballet. It would impoverish cinema too.
***
Harry Khachatrian (<a href="https://x.com/Harry1T6">@Harry1T6</a>) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a software engineer, holds a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at BetweenBottles.com.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

‘Marty Supreme’ Beijing Premiere

Hollywood Arrogance Meets Centuries Of Western Art

Timothee Chalamet

In order to understand why opera and ballet fans are so mad at actor Timothée Chalamet, you’ll need to go back to a February 24 town hall interview he did with Matthew McConaughey for Variety and CNN.
At the time, the 30-year-old “Marty Supreme” star disparaged the two art forms, claiming they were outdated and irrelevant.
&#8220;I admire people, and I&#8217;ve done it myself, who go on a talk show and go, &#8216;Hey, we gotta keep movie theaters alive. You know, we gotta keep this genre alive,'&#8221; Chalamet said at the time. &#8220;And another part of me feels like, if people want to see it, like &#8216;Barbie,&#8217; like &#8216;Oppenheimer,&#8217; they&#8217;re going to go see it and go out of their way to be loud and proud about it.&#8221;
&#8220;I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore,’&#8221; the actor went on. &#8220;All respect to the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost fourteen cents in viewership. I just took shots for no reason.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Timothée Chalamet &amp; Matthew McConaughey | Variety &amp; CNN Town Hall - Full Conversation" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/424w9fJRgYk?start=2998&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This led to Chalamet being slammed by the opera and ballet community. There are even debates over whether the actor reduced his likelihood of winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in less than a week, with betting markets reducing Chalamet’s odds for taking home a golden statue after predicting him as a likely winner for months.
Many have pointed out that it’s only his reputation that risks being ruined, because the Oscars ballots were submitted long before the clip went public.
Chalamet’s comments went viral on social media and got some big reactions. The Metropolitan Opera posted a video showing all the work that goes into productions and added the caption, &#8220;All respect to the opera (and ballet) people out there…This one’s for you, @tchalamet.&#8221;
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LA Opera posted an update to say they were considering giving the actor free tickets, but decided not to because “it’s selling out.&#8221; The caption added, “There are a few seats left to purchase if you hurry.” The U.K.’s Royal Ballet and Opera also <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DVi9Gf5DLKq/">stressed</a> how popular their shows were and invited Chalamet to come check out the “sheer magic” of a live performance.
Seattle Opera offered 14% off tickets to “Carmen” for patrons using the promo code TIMOTHEE. &#8220;Timmy, you&#8217;re welcome to use it too,&#8221; they said.
And it wasn’t just ballet companies getting in on the mockery. On a recent episode of “Jeopardy!” a category featuring ballet and opera was <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DVrf5Pcj2ER/?hl=en">shared</a> in Instagram reels alongside the caption, &#8220;NOBODY @ HIM 👀 #timotheechalamet.”
The ladies of “The View” also weren’t happy with Chalamet. Panelist Sunny Hostin said she was “offended” and “disappointed” by his comments, while moderator Whoopi Goldberg had a rant of her own.
“You come from a dance family. And so, when you crap on somebody else’s art form, it doesn’t feel good,” Goldberg <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X2royZId0A">said</a>. “It doesn’t feel good to see, and you probably didn’t realize that until you said, ‘Oh, I’m in trouble.’ But then you compounded it, and said &#8217;14 cents.&#8217; No, when people get mad, it’ll be a lot more than 14 cents. So be careful. I’m just saying, be careful, boy.”
“And really, don’t apologize when you’ve insulted, because it doesn’t sound right. You can’t say, ‘Oh, this is dumb and no disrespect for’ — that’s absolute disrespect!” she went on.
Chalamet missed becoming the youngest ever Best Actor winner at last year’s Oscars for his role in “A Complete Unknown.” He took home his first ever Golden Globe earlier this year for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his role in &#8220;Marty Supreme.&#8221;

Timothée Chalamet Still Getting Slammed For Saying Ballet And Opera Are Dead

U.S.

Just before Pixar celebrated their first big win of the year at the box office with “Hoppers,” Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter explained why the company decided to cut the gay storyline in the original film “Elio” last year.
“Hoppers” is being lauded because it doesn’t push any inkling of LGBT themes that have become quite common in animated films recently. “Elio,” meanwhile, flirted with the idea, and it was widely considered to be a box office flop.
The original narrative included tidbits about former director Adrian Molina’s experience growing up gay, as <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/pixar-disney-franchises-pete-docter-80c57f9d">reported by</a> The Wall Street Journal. But Docter said the studio opted to change it up because parents weren’t necessarily ready to have those discussions with their young children watching the film.
“We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy,” the Pixar exec said. “As time’s gone on, I realized my job is to make sure the films appeal to everybody.”
The film tells the tale of an 11-year-old boy, Elio, who bonds with aliens. The outlet noted that the original storyline showed Elio raising a child in the future with a same sex partner.
Upon its release, The Hollywood Reporter <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/elio-pixar-america-ferrera-director-queer-2-1236301860/">described</a> Elio as a “queer-coded character” whose “characterization gradually faded away throughout the production process.”
LGBT activists who worked on the film blamed these edits for its poor performance. “Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and Elio just becomes about totally nothing,” one former Pixar artist told THR. “The Elio that is in theaters right now is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original.” Another said the final character version was “generic.”
Meanwhile, there was speculation that “Elio” never took off because those “queer coded” themes were leaked to the media and parents were avoiding it.
After being understood as a hitmaker for years with beloved projects such as the “Toy Story” franchise beginning in 1995, “Monsters Inc” (2001), “Finding Nemo” (2003), “The Incredibles” (2004), “Up” (2009), “Inside Out,” (2015), and a slew of others, Pixar, which was acquired by Disney in 2006, seemed to lose its way by going too niche. It produced sequels to some of its most popular titles, but also came up with out-of-the-box concepts like the controversial “Turning Red” (2022), a movie about puberty.
Then there was that whole “Lightyear” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gay-kiss-included-woke-toy-story-spinoff-lightyear-struggles-at-box-office">same sex kiss fiasco</a> in 2022, which proved that even Pixar films based on treasured IP weren’t guaranteed to hit, especially if they included topics parents didn’t want their kids to see.

Elio

Pixar Exec Explains Why Studio Killed Gay Storyline In Animated Children’s Film

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