^{Matthew 16:14} And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. ¹⁵ He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?¹⁶ And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.¹⁷ And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

Now many preach that this is Jesus confirming that everything Peter has said was true and was revealed to him by God.”  But lets look at exactly what Jesus says both before and after this piece:

Romans 16:¹³ When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?”

He then says in response to Peter  17… “for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”  ²⁰ Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. When Jesus first poses the question he asks “who do people say that I the son of man am?”  He refers to himself as the son of man. Proverbs 8:⁴ Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. Ezekiel 2:2 And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.² And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me.³ And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day.⁴ For they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God.⁵ And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them.⁶ And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.⁷ And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious.⁸ But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee.⁹ And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein;¹⁰ And he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe. Ecclesiastes 1:13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.  When speaking to certain prophets in the old testament of the Bible God would call them Son of man, and give the sons of men different charges, things to say and things to do.  

People Watching a Movie

After that it says  ²⁰ Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.

Flirst is a collage artist who assembles disparate pieces to explore how he can change the harmony of the whole. For my poster, a homage to The Revenant, I assembled pieces to create a vast, sinister, and lonely landscape. The poster features a figure with very few people on his side; this represents the film’s main character, Hugh Glass, who was brutally attacked by a bear and left for dead in the winter wilderness.

I wanted to portray the same witty chaotic vibe in my poster

In his Barcelona series, Mario Corea Aiello forms a grungy collage of newspaper and magazine cutouts and heavy paint strokes. I felt this style would parallel the vicious storm that left Mark Watney for dead on Mars in The Martian. For the color scheme, I deferred to Eric White’s cover art from the original novel by Andy Weir to capture the characteristics of an otherworldly storm.

My inspiration for this poster is one part Roy Lichtenstein and one part Stefan Sagmeister. Spotlight is about journalists uncovering a massive scandal in one of Boston’s oldest institutions, and I found that the perfectly contradictory homophone pray/prey encapsulates the shock and horror felt by the community when this scandal was made public.

To illustrate this, I pixelated an image of a priest, then tore off his head and replaced it with an image of a wolf. I looked to Warhol’s subversive dictator portraits to shape this poster of Immortan Joe.Warhol had a remarkable ability to distract from the meaning of his art. On the surface his work simply looks cool!

This shallow analysis misses the irony behind his cultural representations. Mad Max: Fury Road has the same effect: The stylized nature of the film gets more attention than the meaning behind it.

I chose to feature Immortan Joe because he is a terrible person, but his iconic look makes him instantly recognizable. When I first read the plot summary for Room, I envisioned lonely, sterile characters, who had been institutionalized by their secluded environment.

Of course, when I saw the movie that perception quickly changed; the characters are full of life, love, and joy, and the audience instantly empathizes with them on a raw, human level. KAWS statues play on a similar deceit. Initially they have a sterile, robotic feel, but when you view them in their human-scale sizes and see their playful aesthetic, you experience an unexpected sense of connection.

Welcome to the Oscars, Or as some people like to call it, the white people’s choice awards

The Big Short takes a comedic approach to a dark subject, and I wanted to portray the same witty, chaotic vibe in my poster. Keith Haring was my inspiration because his high-contrast, brightly colored political work, which touches on grim subjects like rape, death, and war, hinges on the same contrast as the film. The poster is based on the film’s alligator-in-an-abandoned-pool scene; the alligator represents the main characters in the movie, who took advantage of the 2008 housing bubble and left the world in desperation when it burst.

Backstage Preparations

I chose to focus on the muddy gray areas and loopholes within Bridge of Spies. The Cold War was fueled by each side’s increasingly dire hypotheticals, causing mass paranoia among citizens and governments alike.

A large part of the film’s narrative focuses on the extent of protection under the law, especially for a Soviet spy. I reimagined Lady Justice, mixing her blindfold with the American and Soviet flags to represent how both countries were tied to their individuals principles of justice even while locked in an unending battle for the upper hand. Set in the eponymous 1950s borough, Brooklyn features then-contemporary imagery that now exemplifies the commodification of Brooklyn as a global brand.

Just as the Pop Art movement utilized mass advertising and irony to re-contextualize commercial art, I drew from today’s vintage, artisanal design trends, which are inspired by that era and setting. In that vein, I applied the animated footage and vector elements to illustrate how the contrasting settings of Brooklyn and Ireland re-contextualized the protagonist’s identity through a fluctuating sense of home.

If hosts were nominated, I wouldn’t be here; instead, you’d have Neil Patrick Harris.

Rock, who addressed the issues with ease and expected humor, added that he did seriously consider quitting after so many people spoke out and pressured him to do so. But the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart, he said, as the crowd erupted in laughter (including Hart himself, who was in the audience).

Arguably, the best part of Rock’s monologue was his blatant dig at Jada Pinkett-Smith and her vocal boycott of the Oscars. Isn’t she on a TV show? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties, he said.