Ray Wu

*The Social Reckoning* wants desperately to inherit the moral urgency and aesthetic electricity of *The Social Network*, but the magic is gone. Sorkin replaces complexity with didacticism, interiority with shorthand, and journalistic tension with contrived dynamics. The result is a hollow sequel to a story reality has already made stranger and uglier.

2025 marks the fourth year of what has now become an annual tradition: agonizing over the list, caught between performativity and pure dopamine. A few things are different this time. The industry, ever more so, is tasked with answering the existential questions regarding the ethical use of generative videos, mergers, box-office numbers, and perhaps most importantly of all, the role of advocacy cinema in the current zeitgeist, where paranoia and distrust for the government and each other...

The 82nd Venice Film Festival took place from August 27th to September 6th, 2025. Ray Wu reflects on his experience attending the festival. This piece mixes travel notes, festival tips, and personal impressions with brief film reviews.

The Brutalist (2024), directed by Brady Corbet, is an ambitious VistaVision epic spanning architecture, immigration, class struggle,...

Megalopolis managed to force its way through my cinema firewall mere minutes after its premiere at Cannes earlier this year. Videos of...