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CHALLENGERS MOVIE REVIEW
Who knew a movie about tennis could be so sexy?! Only genre-jumping Luca Guadagnino could bring a fresh take on a sports movie with Challengers. Zendaya plays tennis prodigy, Tashi, who develops a relationship with two rising stars in the game, Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor), which ultimately becomes a steamy affair between the three in a decades long story. After a tragic accident that leaves Tashi as Art’s new coach, we follow Art’s rise to stardom and Patrick’s fall from grace. As the story moves forward, we witness Art’s current losing streak in the league and Tashi’s strategy to bring him out of his funk. Tashi signs him up for a non-league challengers match where we find down-and-out Patrick which leads to an exhilarating match between former partners. Guadagnino effortlessly uses the framing of the current match between Art and Patrick to dive into their past and how Tashi is intertwined in their past, present, and ultimate future. The film moves at a breakneck pace along with an excellent score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. Listen as Wright, Mike, Frank, and Nathan serve each other a great discussion ranging from the acting, the editing, directing, and the brilliant score of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers.
DIRECTED BY: Luca Guadagnino
STARRING: Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist, Darnell Appling, AJ Lister, Nada Despotovich, Naheem Garcia, Hailey Gates, Jake Jensen
YOUR REVIEWERS
Wright Sulek (Screener Squad, Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, Trash in the Can, Audio Editor)
Wright hails from the northern suburbs of Dallas, Texas. His passion for filmmaking brought him to Austin to study and make movies. Since then he’s had his hand in acting, writing, and directing his own short films with numerous like-minded film geeks he’s met along his journey. His newest interest has brought him into the podcasting world. He co-hosted a few different movie related podcasts such as ‘And Now This’ and ‘The Match Cut’. He currently co-hosts with longtime friend, Eric Samaniego, where they talk shop about the grimiest, trashiest, lost gems of movies on their show, ‘Trash in the Can’. Wright also guests and hosts reviews on Screener Squad and Highly Suspect Reviews as well as co-hosts Digital Noise with Chris Cox.
Michael Riojas (Screener Squad, Highly Suspect Reviews)
The man with the ever-changing nicknames. Born in Austin, Riojas was rocketed to Del Rio, Texas, a literal Smallville. In his youth, he was bitten by a radioactive… okay, look. Mike is not very good at this whole “talking about himself” thing. But he has been so obsessed with comics, video games, and anime since childhood- that if one has to choose between listening to Joe Quesada or Mike over any obscure Spider-Man trivia, they go to him (or, at least Martin Thomas once said so). He is also a big fan of “Ghostbusters” (he even owns his own jumpsuit and two, that’s right, TWO proton packs!), collects toys and video games, and will defend “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” if provoked. He lives in Austin with his beloved Dachshund-Maltese and trusted sidekick, Dean. He can also be heard on RageSelect. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram.
Frank Calvillo (Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad)
Born and raised in South Texas, Frank currently lives in Austin and has been in love with movies ever since his father showed him some Three Stooges shorts when he was five years old. Today he loves all kinds of film, regardless of era, country, budget or genre. He believes every film has an audience and is at least one person’s favorite movie. After writing for Sight & Sound and Slackerwood, he now writes for Cinapse where his increasingly random taste in all flavors of cinema (from Rashomon to Mars Attacks!) continues to thrive. His ultimate goal is to write a script for his boyhood crush, Michelle Pfeiffer.
Nathan Flynn (Screener Squad, Highly Suspect Reviews)
A recent transplant to Austin originally hailing from the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is the Midwest, Nathan Flynn has been a movie super freak since he saw “An American Werewolf in London” way too young and grew up worshipping the James Bond franchise and all things related to Cold War-era spycraft. When he’s not watching movies and being a constant defender of the Tron franchise, he can be found practicing his second biggest love: cooking (having been a chef for 10+ years) and hitting his head up against a desk to write screenplays that nobody reads. He also spearheads his own podcast on the Mission Impossible franchise titled “Mission: Impodible”. He can be found rarely posting on his personal twitter.
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