Pretty much sums up last night's Oscars for me...

The above celebration - recorded in an excitable Iranian household - of the Best Foreign Language Film win for 'A Separation' mirrors my feelings about last night's festivities. I'm pleased Woody Allen won the original screenplay category for 'Midnight in Paris', but would have preferred to see Asghar Farhadi's film triumph there too. Also raising a smile is the Best Supporting Actor win for Christopher Plummer and 'Beginners'.

I didn't stay up to watch last night's telecast, mainly because the prospect of staying up until 4am in the company of Billy Crystal to see 'The Artist' crowned the year's best movie just wasn't doing it for me. I'm not an Oscar hater at all (or even a Billy Crystal hater), for what it's worth. It's just that not being especially enamoured with 'The Artist' and doubting the chances of 'Hugo', 'The Descendants' or 'Moneyball', I fancied it would be a long night riddled with sighs and perhaps featuring a "thank you" to Margaret Thatcher.

That tribute to Thatcher didn't materialise though Streep did win the award as anticipated, whilst 'The Artist' scooped up Best Picture, Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius) and Best Actor (Jean Dujardin) - along with two others. Best Supporting Actress went to 'The Help' star Octavia Spencer. Scorsese's lovely 'Hugo' scored five technical awards. On the positive side, a win for 'The Artist' does contradict those troubling reports last month that the film might suffer a backlash from voters for being non-American, with the campaign told to play down the movie's Frenchness. Happily that doesn't seem to have been the case.

Meanwhile, on a tangentially related note, I fear for Sacha Baron Cohen, who "stole headlines" when he arrived on the red carpet as the character from his upcoming comedy 'The Dictator'...



It's not that I'm bothered on any level by that stunt, but just that Cohen's new character isn't particularly inspired and raises uncomfortable questions about national stereotyping. I thought 'Borat' was really funny because it seemed prejudice was the target of the jokes, with people's willingness to think the character was real being in some way an expose of ignorance. Yet "the dictator" is just a guy with a funny beard and an accent that wouldn't be out of place in those dreadful meerkat adverts. Hope the film proves me wrong.

'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' Berlinale (Out of Competition) review:

Who knew 9/11 could throw up so much potential for whimsy? Adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling novel, 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' is the story of how the tragic events of that day cure a boy's autism. That's really pretty much what happens, as nine year-old protagonist Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) goes on a life-affirming quest to find out why terrorists blew up his super-swell father (Tom Hanks).

Of course this being an Eric Roth ('Forest Gump', 'Benjamin Button') screenplay, Oskar's disarming sincerity and can-do attitude ensure that he heals the gaping emotional wounds in everyone he meets - and he meets everyone with the surname "Black" in the New York City phone book, incidentally fixing marriages and mending souls as he goes. Black is the only word on an envelope in which Oskar finds a mysterious key belonging to his late father - a key he hopes will unlock some powerful nuggets of truth, but which'll most likely be for a back door or bleeding a radiator, or something.

He is buoyed in his quest early on by a friendly old man at a key cutting shop who - in a line recalling Gump's famed box o' chocolates - says that he likes keys because they all unlock something. Yes, I'm afraid that is the acidic taste of sick in your mouth. He is also helped by his walkie talkie wielding Germanic grandmother (Zoe Caldwell) and her mute house guest, with "yes" and "no" tattoos on the palms of his hands - I told you this was whimsical. He's also apparently aided in a clandestine fashion by his mostly absent mother (Sandra Bullock), the reveal for which is so far-fetched it makes the rest of the film seem grounded. Bear in mind that "the rest of the film" in this case includes the making of a 9/11 pop-up book.

I haven't even mentioned Tom Hanks' wacky antics in the frequent backflash scenes, because I don't want to relive them. As "the renter", Max von Sydow (who has received an Oscar nomination) is the film's clear (for "clear" read "only") highlight. It's not without emotionally distressing moments, but those stem more from being reminded of the horror of 9/11 than anything the movie is doing. In fact it's own attempts to wring tears from the tragedy feel crass and exploitative. The only noteworthy thing about 'Extremely Loud' is that Stephen Daldry has made perhaps the worst film in recent memory to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' is released in the UK tomorrow, rated '12A' by the BBFC.

Stray Thoughts: 84th Academy Award Nominations

Don't usually update twice in the same day if I can help it, but the Oscar nominations have come through and I'd like to chat about them a bit. The list of nominees is up everywhere, as are break-downs of who the favourites are and which films have the most nominations, so I'm just going to offer some stray thoughts, in no particular order:

• First up, Stephen Daldry's Tom Hanks starring 9/11 film 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' (which I admittedly haven't yet seen) is perhaps the worst reviewed Best Picture nominee of all-time. Currently it has a 46 on Metacritic and 48 on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm not suggesting review aggregating sites are an infallible guide to the arts, but these are despairingly low numbers for a major, prestige picture.
• 'Bridesmaids' hasn't been nominated for Best Picture despite being overwhelmingly well reviewed and figuring on many major critic's "best of 2011" lists. It's difficult not read this as further proof that Oscar doesn't like comedy. Considering there are 9 Best Picture nominees (including 'Extremely Loud'), this seems like a bit of a joke. By my calculations (and ignoring comedy-dramas like 'Juno' and 'Shakespeare in Love') the last out-and-out comedy to get nominated was 'Tootsie' in 1982.
• It's great to see Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Terence Malick competing for Best Director.
• It's equally great to see 'The Tree of Life' featuring in the Best Picture field, considering it's been overlooked by the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. I'm not the film's biggest fan - I appreciate it more than I like it - but in recent years the big award ceremonies have mostly picked the same nominees and picked the same winners. Oscar gets some serious credibility points here.
• It's really great to see 'Hugo' garnering the most nominations (11), though I suspect it'll be one of those unlucky movies that's nominated in every category and wins nothing. For those keeping score, 'The Artist' (the overwhelming favourite at this stage) is just behind with 10 nods.
• The excellent Rooney Mara being nominated for Best Actress is a nice touch, though Meryl Streep is sure to pip her to the prize for her showy, award-bait impersonation of Margaret Thatcher.
• Despite my earlier bemoaning the lack of attention given to 'Bridesmaids', I find it really odd that Melissa McCarthy has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress. A lot of people felt she stole the show but I personally found her to be the weak link. Rose Byrne or Chris O'Dowd would have been better acting choices for that one, methinks.
• I thought 'My Week With Marilyn' was awful - without redeeming quality. So, though I really like Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh, I think it's a bit of a joke that they're nominated here - particularly Branagh's scenery chewing turn as Olivier.
• Really pleased to see recognition for Christopher Plummer and 'Beginners'. I think he'll win Best Supporting Actor. It's an interesting field though, Branagh aside, with left-field nominations for Nick Nolte in 'Warrior' and newly svelte funnyman John Hill in 'Moneyball'.
• 'Albert Nobbs' currently has no UK release date, at least according to the usually reliable FilmDates.com. Hopefully its two acting nominations - for Glenn Close and Janet McTeer - will change that? I really hate missing Oscar nominated movies.
• Glad that 'A Separation' is nominated for Best Foreign Film - the only category it could realistically have been recognised in. Just noticed it also got a nod for Best Original Screenplay, which is a major boon. Nice work.
• An odd thing I've just noticed looking at the official Academy Awards site: although Best Picture awards are given to producers, Best Animated Feature Oscars are awarded to directors. Why is that exactly?
• Wasn't 'The Ides of March' supposed to be a big Oscar movie? Only one nomination (for Best Adapted Screenplay). That's two less than 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon'.
• I predict the main winners will be: The Artist (Best Picture), Alexander Payne (Best Director, for 'The Descendants'), Brad Pitt (Best Actor, for 'Moneyball'), Streep (Best Streep in a Leading Streep), Plummer (as mentioned above) and Jessica Chastain (ostensibly for 'The Help', but picking up votes for an impressive year's worth of performances, including 'The Tree of Life').
• Finally, I'd like to see the following winners: 'Hugo' (Best Picture), Woody Allen (Best Director, for 'Midnight in Paris'), Gary Oldman (Best Actor, for 'Tinker Tailor Solider Spy'), Rooney Mara (Best Actress, for 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'), Plummer (as above) and Jessica Chastain (ostensibly for 'The Help', but really for 'Take Shelter').

If you want to read the full list, check it out at The Guardian.

'In a Better World' review:

During Danish Oscar winner 'In a Better World', a child decides to put a violent, school yard bully firmly in his place by beating him senseless with a bicycle pump and then holding a knife to his throat. Now that I see that written here in black and white, it sounds more than slightly sick to say I outwardly cheered with delight at this moment. I'm not even a fan of screen violence but, as someone who was bullied at school, I experience a visceral, instinctive hatred of bullying when I see it on a cinema screen.

Now, if this were, say, a Tarantino film or a vigilante movie like 'Kick-Ass' I would probably be encouraged to allow the violence to take on this disturbing therapeutic quality. Yet the journey the bereaved and angry young Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen) subsequently goes on - building pipe bombs in his garage as his response to perceived social injustices becomes increasingly violent - is one that ensures this first act is robbed of any trace of glamour or anti-heroism that it might have otherwise had.



Director Susanne Bier, best known for 2004 drama 'Brothers' (re-made in the US with Natalie Portman), has made a rare and complex film about the nature of conflict and violence, which uses its characters to explore a range of ways people justify violent acts and the way that violence becomes a perpetuated cycle. The link isn't explicitly made but, just as an example, Bier's film is as much about the situation in Palestine (or even that of the recent "rioters" versus the UK government) as it is about individuals and this small cast of characters.

Christian lost his mother to cancer and is filled with rage, accusing his father, Claus (Ulrich Thomsen), of giving up and wanting her to die. He identifies bullies as targets he can actually fight, probably so he doesn't have to keep feeling so helpless. His meek, gentle Swedish friend Elias (Markus Rygaard) goes along for the ride chiefly because he has been included - because he wants to please his new friend and because he now belongs to a small social enclave where previously he was an outcast.



Elias' status as an outsider comes from his being foreign: the son of a Swedish immigrant to Denmark - and it is this that arbitrarily motivates the school bully to pick on him. Here we see an example of violence against those who are different and the way a sort of tribal mentality can take hold (in every case violence is a feeble outward expression of some interior inadequacy). His Swedish father, Anton (Mikael Persbrandt), is a doctor who works in a Sudanese refugee camp. He (literally) turns the other cheek when attacked, advising both children to do likewise, but ultimately his principles are tested when a local war lord comes to the camp asking for treatment.

Somewhere a line is drawn in the sand, the suggestion being that we all have our limits: a personal boundary past which acts of violence and revenge become acceptable. For Anton it is the war lord's shameless gloating about acts of sexualised violence that sends him over the edge, though even then the momentary decision to abandon his most deeply held moral principle - that a doctor should treat those in need regardless of who they are - comes with a certain degree of trauma and regret.



It takes much less for the boys to call Anton's code into question. When an angry mechanic (Kim Bodnia) slaps the doctor for trying to break up a fight involving their sons, the children aren't convinced his pacifist approach is working. Elias later calls his father a "wimp" for walking away from conflict and, when Anton claims the guy lost the argument because he couldn't intimate using violence, Christian responds "I don't think he thought he lost."

Here is an expression of another disquieting yet commonly held truth: that one's own conviction in a moral code is not enough. The children here express a need to win and win unambiguously in public. A need to get the better of one who has wronged them, which is pointless and counter-productive - for society at least, even if the individual might find some satisfaction. 'In a Better World' is a powerful rebuttal to Old Testament "eye for an eye" logic even if it also seems resigned to its inescapable place in our collective psyche.



It's beautifully photographed and the human drama here is compelling and well acted, with the child actors especially strong, but the film is best taken more generally as a polemic. By having the central characters a mix of Danish and Swedish - and by making Anton spend much of the film dealing with similar ethical concerns (admittedly on a much more harrowing scale) in Africa - Bier highlights that this is a universal story. That she tells this larger human story without the sort of self-importance and contrived narrative histrionics common to Guillermo Arriaga films makes it all the more rewarding.

'In a Better World' is out now in the UK and rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'The Iron Lady' trailer:

I recently pondered next year's Oscar race and completely forgot about 'The Iron Lady' - potentially next year's 'The King's Speech'. Another British historical drama with the backing of the Weinstein brothers, this time helmed by Phyllida Lloyd - the director responsible for the huge box office success that was 'Mamma Mia!'. This is probably enough on its own to suggest Oscar nods for the Margaret Thatcher biopic, but then you add the fact that the former Prime Minister is being played by none other than Meryl Streep and you've got to expect the Academy will love this.

I sincerely hope this isn't a celebratory film about "one woman's brave stand in a male dominated world" or some such. But with the great Jim Broadbent cast as husband Dennis, I can't see how life at home with the Thatchers is going to be anything other than sympathetic. I know it won't be critical or satirical of Thatcher (this is a British establishment movie if ever I've smelt one), but let's at least hope it isn't an insufferable whitewash. Chances are however that politics will be sidelined almost completely and it'll be a the story of a strong leader finding her voice in a time of great social upheaval (ring any bells?).

In any case, Streep's performance could be interesting regardless. There is a trailer out today, exclusively at The Guardian, so take a look.

'War Horse' and next year's awards season

The first trailer for Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's award winning novel 'War Horse' (also a hit West End play) made its debut last week. I obviously haven't seen it yet and, to be honest, it looks like sentimental mush (co-written by Richard Curtis), but I fancy it's the year's first serious Oscar contender. Consider the facts: it marks the return of a prestigious (perhaps the most renowned living) director; it looks glossy and replete with period detail; and it's a war film - and don't forget that both of Spielberg's Best Director wins have been for war films ('Schindler's List' and 'Saving Private Ryan').

This logic is certainly reductive and open to criticism. After all, 'Empire of the Sun' didn't even garner the director a nomination. Yet I'm confident, however it turns out, 'War Horse' will at least be nominated for the major prizes next February. Part of the reason is that there is almost nothing else.

Seeing as it's still the summer of 2011 it may seem a little premature to start going on about the Oscars of 2012. Yet it struck me the other day that we've had something of a lightweight year so far in terms of potential Academy Award winners. There have been plenty of good films, but then again something like Golden Bear winning Iranian drama 'A Separation' (released in the UK today) is not likely to contend for Best Picture, being foreign language and having limited commercial appeal.



You know an Oscar film when you see one and we've arguably not had many of them yet in 2011. This might not be a surprise, after all many of the big hitters won't be released until the winter. For instance, this time last year 'The King's Speech' had not yet even played Toronto and 'The Social Network' was still just that "film about Facebook" everyone dismissed out of hand.

Yet this time last year, of the ten Best Picture nominees, 'Winter's Bone' and 'Toy Story 3' had already been released, whilst 'Inception' and 'The Kid's Are All Right' would be out within weeks.

I talked this over with some journalists last week and a few people mentioned 'Source Code' as this year's smart blockbuster breakthrough in the mould of 'District 9' or 'Inception'. But whilst that film was well received and did decent business, it grossed half as much as the former and around an eighth of the latter. Oscar movies have to do outstanding business. In this respect the awards are as much about industry as they are art. What exactly is this summer's huge critically acclaimed blockbuster? There isn't one.

As for the animated vote, Pixar's 'Cars 2' is currently generating middling scores from critics and I can't see the likes of 'Rio', 'Rango' or 'Kung Fu Panda 2' making an impact with voters. Especially as a modified nomination process means that next year's field may be back down to five films, with any other films (up to ten) having to receive 5% of the total votes to be nominated.



So, aside from 'War Horse', what else could be generating awards buzz this winter? Well, Lynn Ramsey's 'We Need to Talk about Kevin' (above) was certainly the talk of Cannes Film Festival. It depends how widely it is distributed, but if the Academy gets wind of it that could garner a nomination at least. Woody Allen is no stranger to Oscar nominations and 'Midnight is Paris' is pretty good and has been one of his best received films of the last decade in the usually indifferent US. Meanwhile, Terrence Malick's Palm d'Or winning 'Tree of Life' is presumably a certainty for a few nominations if not a contender for the top prize. I'd bet against Lars Von Trier and 'Melancholia' being invited at this point.

Right now though, I'd hesitate to bet against Spielberg and his 'War Horse'.

Oscars 2011: 'The King's Speech'? Really?

If you don't already know all the results from Sunday night's Academy Awards show then I'd suggest you check out the full list on Deadline, but I'll summarise it for you here anyway. The night was dominated by the towering mediocrity that is 'The King's Speech', which scooped both of (what should be considered) the major gongs, bagging Best Picture and Best Director (for Tom Hooper). It also snared Colin Firth a well-deserved statuette for his eye-catching performance as the film's titular stammering monarch.

The plucky British film is certainly an amiable enough winner, with endearing lead performances and some deft repartee in its (now Oscar winning) screenplay. It is ridiculously popular too, having just broken the £40 million barrier at the UK box office - which is a huge sum - and earning long standing ovations wherever it has played (including 20-plus minutes in Berlin last month). I personally enjoyed the film too, albeit with reservations about its handling of history and romantic portrayal of the house of Windsor (as reluctant "indentured servants" serving an expectant, fawning public). But aren't award ceremonies supposed to reward "art" and not just pander to commerce? Isn't commerce its own reward?

OK, to clarify: I'm not suggesting 'The King's Speech' isn't "art" or that it only won because it has out-grossed its major rivals - 'The Social Network', 'Black Swan' and 'The Fighter' - and on a smaller budget (reportedly around £8 million). I'm just saying that the film is inoffensive, establishment fluff and that the virtuosity of its making pales in comparison with many of the other nominated movies. Possibly all nine of them. It's like a pleasant TV movie. It's like an HBO film that would quietly win a bunch of Golden Globes before disappearing into obscurity. Except it is apparently now considered the best piece of cinema of the last twelve months... and this makes me sad.

For instance, Darren Aronofsky's 'The Black Swan' is a more deserving candidate: a perfect synthesis of sound and image that cuts deeply into you emotionally and takes you to places you don't necessarily want to go. It's perfectly paced, with not a single unnecessary moment, as it manages to be both beautiful and horrifying in equal measure. Is Darren Aronofsky a better filmmaker than Tom Hooper? Almost certainly. At the very least, his next film will be interesting even if it is a 'Wolverine' sequel. Is there any guarantee that Hooper will ever again scale these heights? No. Yet he also beat David Fincher to the Best Director prize.

'The King's Speech' is a glossy, mum-pleaser of a film about an imagined past - in which Churchill was a staunch supporter of George VI and where Edward VIII pro-Nazi leanings can all be blamed on acceptable, establishment-sanctioned hate figure Wallis Simpson. But Fincher's 'The Social Network' is relevant and looks at the world we live in now. It justly won Best Adapted Screenplay for writer Aaron Sorkin, but it could and should have received so much more for its tightly handled, restrained camera work that turned a 'film about Facebook', mostly concerning nerds arguing with lawyers, into a dark and compelling thriller of Shakespearian proportions. I say with some certainty that filmmakers will still be referring to 'The Social Network' in several years time, whilst 'The King's Speech' will likely be consigned to mentions in dry academic books on heritage cinema.

It all reminds me of when 'Shakespeare in Love' beat 'Saving Private Ryan' to Best Picture in 1998. Spielberg's WWII movie, whatever you may think of it, will stand the test of time even if only for its jarring opening twenty minutes. Whereas nobody watches or talks about or even vaguely remembers the John Madden directed 'Shakespeare in Love' now, let alone in fifty or one hundred years. Incidentally 'Shakespeare in Love' and 'The King's Speech' have one major thing in common which could be said to account for the 'unlikely' success of both: the backing of Harvey Weinstein. A notoriously hard campaigner when it comes to winning Academy Awards with Miramax and now with The Weinstein Company, Harvey and his younger brother Bob have again fought to the last minute to lobby for votes in Hollywood. It is no exaggeration to say that without their backing 'The King's Speech' would not even have been on the radar of many voters.

The Weinsteins know what they are doing and, although they are obsessively keen to promote themselves as producers of 'prestige' films, this Oscar payload will earn them and 'The King's Speech' many more millions. Especially after the heavy-weight producers (no strangers to feuds with the MPAA) agreed to cut some of the film's comedy upper-class swearing in order to facilitate a PG-13 certificate re-release stateside. And so whilst The Daily Mail heralded the film's Oscar success by saying "for once Oscars night belonged to a small budget, independent movie that was a labour of love", 'The King's Speech' is far more powerful and successful than the underdog-favouring British press would like to admit amongst all the self-congratulatory anti-Hollywood vitriol.

This brings me back to my "art vs. commerce" point. 'The King's Speech' is benefiting from sailing in that perfect storm of being inoffensive enough that it was universally liked, whilst also being a commercial success story. The fact that it's about kings and queens is also a bonus, of course. But shouldn't the Academy award films based on artistic merit alone? Well, I guess that's subjective in any case and you could, rightly, point out that the Academy did exactly that. Not everyone has to agree with me that 'The Social Network' and 'Black Swan' were far and away the superior examples of the art form. Yet I feel that is the case and quite strongly, with Sunday's result feeling to me like a depressing one for cinema.

It's also a depressing win for the British film industry as a whole. No it seriously is - or at least should be. 'The King's Speech' is one of the last films to have been backed by the now defunct UK Film Council and so it seems that this oh-so-establishment film is, ironically and quite accidentally, also one in the eye for the budget-cutting Tories. Some have even expressed concern that this might be the high-point before a long period of woe for British film. In any case, I think it's depressing for UK film for another reason entirely: 'The King's Speech' is arguably the single least relevant of the ten Best Picture nominees.

Consider the other nine. 'Winter's Bone' is the kind of 'gritty' social realism, about poverty and strife, that Britain used to be famous for. 'Inception' and 'Toy Story 3' are both examples of state of the art visual effects and exciting story telling on a huge (dare I say 'cinematic') scale. 'The Kids Are All Right' is a thoroughly modern story about something parts of America still has huge problems with, as it follows a homosexual couple raising their two children. '127 Hours', directed by another British Academy Award winner Danny Boyle, is also based on real-life events and yet it is a contemporary story filmed in an (in my opinion excessively) vibrant, high-octane, fast-cutting style.

Boxing biopic 'The Fighter', like 'Winter's Bone', also makes a feature of white American poverty oft-unseen in popular culture, whilst the Coen brother's Western 'True Grit' may be more firmly rooted in the past than 'The King's Speech' in terms of its setting, but its cinematography and production design is among the very best around. I've already made the case for 'Black Swan' and 'The Social Network'.

I bear 'The King's Speech' no ill will whatsoever; not that I fancy my ill will would be of the least concern to the film's makers in any case. It's a perfectly enjoyable Sunday afternoon kind of movie. "Nan is coming round" you may at some point say, "lets stick 'The King's Speech' on." It's 'nice'. It is, as James Franco said, 'safe'. But just don't expect me to believe that it's a peak example of the art form I love and that which the Academy Awards are supposed to celebrate.

'The Fighter' review:

It is easy to dismiss David O. Russell's boxing biopic 'The Fighter' as riddled with sports movie clichés. It's the story of an ageing boxer working towards his last shot after years of wasting his potential. Sounds more than a little like 'Rocky'. In fact, based on the original trailer, it seemed that the film was more than a little similar to Darren Aronofsky's 2008 film 'The Wrestler' too, with a similar grainy, documentary aesthetic and with Amy Adams replacing Marisa Tomei as the sexy "white trash" confidant of the fighter pushing himself to the physical limit. Seeing Aronofsky's name attached to the film as an executive producer did little to allay this fear that 'The Fighter' would be nothing more than a derivative (and probably inferior) version of a story we've all seen a thousand times before.

Happily this prejudice, whilst not completely unfounded, only tells part of the story: 'The Fighter', it turns out, is a terrifically good film. It can't escape the trappings of the genre narratively or formally (as felt keenest in the obligatory training montage), but the acting is of such a high standard that you overlook its minor trespasses and enjoy what is an entirely entertaining yarn. The film follows the true story of welterweight boxer "Irish" Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and we witness the highs and lows of his relationship with his older half-brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), a drug-addicted former pro and Micky's trainer. It is the web of relationships between Micky, his brother, his mother (Melissa Leo) and his girlfriend (Adams) that is the focus of this drama, which spends comparatively little time in the boxing ring.



This is probably a wise decision as it is outside of the ring that the interest lies as we see Ward pulled between the different forces in his life who all project their hopes and aspirations on the meek and sensitive brawler. Wahlberg is superb in the main role, playing a character so painfully reluctant to express himself or fight his own corner, but the more obvious show-stopper is Bale. Christian Bale not only took himself to the physical limit to embody the part, again losing a lot of weight as he had for roles in 'Rescue Dawn' and 'The Machinist', but he completely loses himself in the character. At times he could seem close to going too far, but he never does and the film's most tragic, poignant moments of emotional honesty fall to him - none more effecting than his realisation that he no longer his brother's idol.

Melissa Leo is also impressive as a terrifying matriarch who holds an uncomfortable sway over her nine adult children and who transparently favours her eldest son - the town hero due to his former glory. The film doesn't judge its characters, all of whom are varying degrees of messed up, but if anything it gives Leo's character an easy ride. She assaults her husband in an act of domestic abuse that is played as slightly comic - in a way that would be unthinkable were roles reversed - and there is more than a suggestion that she is willing to put Micky in harms way if she can make money from it (it appears that Micky's bouts pay for his mother's upkeep) though she is never held to account for that, or even shown to be especially apologetic. Yet Leo imbues the role with flashes of vulnerability - or at least self-delusion - to ensure that she is much more than just a monster.



Amy Adams, as Micky's girlfriend, is equally brilliant in the opposite regard. Her character Charlene is for most of the film a positive counterpoint to Micky's possessive family: she helps him to break away from them and act in his own interests. Yet there is more than a hint in Adams' performance - and in the film's screenplay - that she is potentially just as damaging and manipulative a force in his life. The relationship drama at the heart of this movie isn't about good and bad or right and wrong, but about reconciliation between both sides. Micky, in eventually asserting himself, tries to bring everybody together rather than abandon his family for Charlene or go it alone - a more emotionally mature and complex resolution than we are used to seeing, though it may spring more from the fact that the film is based on real life events than the ingenuity of the writers.

The writers do deserve a lot of credit though, as there are some smart and funny lines in the film. Such as when Eklund tries to con a family of Cambodians with a pyramid scheme and is defended against the charge of racism by a friend who says, assures them that "white people do over white people all the time". There is a really nice and subtle exchange between Micky and Charlene too after he picks up on her talking about a former roommate by saying "the army?" before she corrects him with "college" - the idea that someone from his poor neighborhood could go to college being so unexpected. It's a piece of social commentary in a film that makes a feature of America's oft-derided white poor whilst never becoming mawkish or condescending.



'The Fighter' warrants its Oscar nominations, though it justly only stands a chance at winning in the supporting actor categories, where Bale and Leo are surely favourites to win. It is a fairly generic film enlivened by its committed cast, but in some ways that is its principle joy: it is a straightforward, comforting underdog story during which you'll want to punch your fist into the air and cheer on the hero.

'The Fighter' is out now in the UK and has been certified '12A' by the BBFC.

How to win an Oscar: "It's good to be the king!"

As Mel Brooks always says, "it's good to be the king" and so it might prove for Best Actor hopeful Colin Firth at this month's Academy Awards in Los Angeles. Firth was unlucky not to win last year for his understated performance in Tom Ford's 'A Single Man', being beaten to the prize by Jeff Bridges. But though Bridges is again nominated alongside the Englishman this time around, the circumstances surrounding the "race" couldn't be more different. This year it is Firth who has been earning all the major gongs en route, including the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild award (pictured above). Both are reliable Oscar indicators, but the latter is more significant having gone to the eventual Oscar winner on the last six occasions. In fact since its founding year in 1994, the winner of the SAG Best Actor award has gone on to win the equivalent Academy Award on twelve occasions out of sixteen - one of the "mistakes" being when Benicio Del Toro won in 2000 for 'Traffic' and he ended up winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar that year for the same role anyway.

Yet being the winner of the SAG award isn't the only bit of history which suggests Academy Award glory for Colin Firth on February 27th. There is also the matter of what he is nominated for: 'The King's Speech' in which he plays stammering reluctant-monarch George VI. After all, actors portraying British royalty have form when it comes to the Academy Awards. Judi Dench infamously won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1998 for what amounted to an eight minute cameo as Elizabeth I in 'Shakespeare in Love'. Her success in winning that award was attributed by many as a sympathy vote for having been snubbed the previous year for her role as Queen Victoria in 'Mrs. Brown', for which she had been nominated in the Best Actress category. Helen Mirren finally sealed her place among the Academy Award winners in 2006 for her performance as Elizabeth II in 'The Queen', whilst Australian Cate Blanchett was nominated for her breakthrough role as Elizabeth I in the 1998 film 'Elizabeth' and again in 2007 for the film's sequel.



This love affair with the Royals doesn't end there either: Charles Laughton won his Oscar in 1933 for the starring role in 'The Private Life of Henry VIII' and Richard Burton was nominated for playing same monarch in 1969 for 'Anne of the Thousand Days'. One of Peter O'Toole's eight nominations (without a single win) was for playing Henry VII in 1964 film 'Becket' and Kenneth Branagh was nominated for his portrayal of Henry V from his 1989 film of the same name. Indeed Helen Mirren was previously nominated for portraying Queen Charlotte in 1994's 'The Madness of King George', with Nigel Hawthorne also nominated for his role as the titular loon. Don't forget that this year also sees Helena Bonham Carter nominated for her role in 'The King's Speech' playing the late Queen Mother.

Of course, many of those mentioned didn't win the ultimate prize - although I most definitely think Colin Firth will - but they still prove that, if you want to be recognised by the Academy, playing a member of the British royal family has never hurt anybody's chances. I predict that when the inevitable film about Princess Diana is made that role will be one of the most coveted in all of Hollywood for this very reason. So Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Emily Blunt and all the other young British actresses need to start pestering producers and getting their names out there now if they want a golden statuette of their very own - for a feature that is practically guaranteed fourteen Oscar nominations and destined to be the toast of middle-England somewhere in our not-too-distant future.



Why this is is open to debate, but I think it has something to do with the assumption across the Atlantic that clipped Britishness is synonymous with "class" - that is in terms of style and not just social standing - and that British actors are automatically brilliant screen actors due to their inherent stagecraft, brought with them from the birthplace of the Bard. A good example of this curious assumption can be seen in the fact that Laurence Olivier was nominated for nine acting Oscars, winning one, despite the fact that he was as hammy a screen actor as there has ever been. It is the reason why it's OK to nominate Sir Ian McKellen for playing a wizard in 'Lord of the Rings' and Alec Guinness for playing a space-wizard in 'Star Wars' despite the fact the Academy wouldn't traditionally nominate those types of movies in acting categories. "Doesn't he speak beautifully?" Academy voters must say to one another all the time as they cast their votes.

It is ironic then that Colin Firth is nominated for playing an upper-class monarch without the usual eloquence. But don't be fooled by the stammer, Firth's King George has still been afforded a much nicer, cleaner British accent than his arrogant, playboy brother Edward VIII (Guy Pearce) who has a much more gratingly posh (and more realistic) aristocratic accent. It could also be said that the principle joy of 'The King's Speech' is born from the unusual sport of watching a man learning how to speak so pleasingly - and to the great approval of cheering crowds. This pleasure, when married to assumptions of British class and stagecraft and applied to the gravitas of playing royalty (which comes imbued with vaguely Shakespearian overtones by default), in part explains why 'The King's Speech' is not only an Oscar favourite: it is a highly exportable commodity for those in the former colonies basking in an unseemly collective nostalgia.

'Rabbit Hole' review:

'Rabbit Hole', starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as a married couple going through the motions eight months after the tragic death of their four year old son, is a surprising and deeply effecting experience. Kidman has earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance - and deservedly so - but Eckhart should not be overlooked as he is equally superb in a rare relationship drama which mostly manages to avoid being cloying and calculated despite revolving around such an emotive event. The film pulls this off by virtue of the subtlety of the two lead performances, made all the more remarkable by the fact that the dialogue is often not of the same abundant class.

David Lindsay-Abaire's screenplay, adapted from his own award-winning 2006 stage play of the same name, is mostly decent but weighed down by some cliché lines, such as "what do you want from me?" and "I can't do this any more!" Yet Kidman and Eckhart invest each moment with such raw intensity and emotional honesty that the film is never less than captivating, never more so than when the two share screen time. Likewise John Cameron Mitchell's direction is unpretentious and respects the ability of the actors to hold our attention without distracting camera tricks and rapid cutting (take note Danny Boyle). The director and his stars are helped by the fact that 'Rabbit Hole' as a dramatic piece refuses to take the same well-beaten path of other relationship dramas. They are also beneficiaries of a writer who has crafted well-rounded characters, both of whom we are able to empathise with even though they try to overcome grief and maintain their marriage in completely different ways - something which reminded me of 'Blue Valentine' even though that film is about a very different and more commonplace emotional turmoil.



'Rabbit Hole' differs from 'Blue Valentine' however when it comes to the film's resolution, which is as melancholic as one would expect, but far less despairing. There is a light at the end of the tunnel in shared grief, but the suggestion is not that there is any quick fix to the emotional damage we have witnessed. The characters don't do anything silly either; they don't get involved in any irritating misunderstandings - any "baby, it's not what it looks like" moments. The film also differs from a lot of American tales about grief in that it doesn't bend over backwards to placate the religious in the audience. Kidman's character is critical of those in a child death support group who insist that the death of their child is "part of God's plan". She laughs at the suggestion openly and it turns her against taking part. When she has an argument with her mother (Dianne Wiest) about disliking the use of religion as a coping mechanism, her mother comes back with all the familiar platitudes yet she isn't forced to back down and change her mind as the film takes an intriguing turn.

The thing I liked best about 'Rabbit Hole' was the fact that Kidman's character doesn't have to go on a journey to "make peace with God" and find that "faith" is the answer to all life's trials and tribulations. The opposite is instead true: possibly for the first time in any film I've seen, science is mooted as a cause for optimism and as a means of comfort, specifically the quantum physics idea of parallel universes. You could argue that this is just another belief system and one requiring the same leap of faith as religious belief. Yet parallel universes are a widely accepted scientific possibility (based on measurable, testable data) and the fact is that this character pointedly finds hope in science rather than superstition. Eckhart's arc is similarly refreshing and pleasing if for entirely different, trend-bucking reasons. He is a rare mature, emotionally sensitive male character in American cinema who is not governed by his libido - even if his desire for sex is a contributing factor in the worsening of relations with his wife.



The film's one grating, uncomfortable moment falls to Dianne Wiest who has to deliver a monologue to her daughter about her own journey in dealing with the loss of a son. When asked if the hurt ever goes away, Wiest says that it becomes bearable but that it turns into something you "carry around like a brick in your pocket. And you... you even forget it, for a while. But then you reach in for whatever reason and - there it is." This moment is just a little florid and stagy when compared with the rest of the film and it doesn't strike me as being very true to the way people actually talk: does anyone really ever come up with overwrought, bafflingly counterintuitive metaphors like that in real life? Who puts a brick in their pocket anyway? Can you even fit a brick in a pocket? Why can't you just take the brick out of the pocket? It's just a rubbish way of explaining and simplifying grief.

But the script only finds itself lacking in a few isolated moments. Most of the film is solidly crafted and the performances are gripping. I shed more than one tear - and at little moments too, such as when Kidman throws her son's clothes in a charity bin, pausing for a moment afterwards as if to contemplate the fact that she can't get them back out again. The film is at it's most emotional when it isn't trying to hard. In the latter case it can feel manipulative. It is true that the supporting characters are thinly drawn props only there to provide added emotional complication to our leads, such as Kidman's irresponsible younger sister (Tammy Blanchard) who falls pregnant and the couples's best friends who have failed to keep in contact out of awkwardness, but these characters do the job and provide a necessary foil for our protagonists. It's all about Kidman and Eckhart and they elevate an interesting, diverting drama into an outside Oscar hopeful.

'Rabbit Hole' is rated '12A' by the BBFC and is out on Friday the 4th of February.

Oscar nominations in...

The 2011 Academy Award nominees were revealed today, a week after I made my own predictions. I'm happy to say that I was mostly right in my guesses, though not entirely. I got 9/10 Best Picture nominations correct, but was wrong when I said 'Monsters' might be in with a shot. I went so far as to list a number of alternate picks that I thought might be included if one from my list were not. But even among all of those I never saw the nomination for 'Winter's Bone' coming. It shouldn't have been too big a surprise though, as the film was met with overwhelmingly strong reviews and touted as an awards contender when it was released last year. I guess the fact that I didn't personally like it all that much forced it out of my mind.

I fared less well in the other categories. I got 3/5 Best Actor nominees, as I thought Ryan Gosling ('Blue Valentine') and Mark Wahlberg ('The Fighter') were certainties. But rather it was last year's victor Jeff Bridges ('True Grit') and previous winner Javier Bardem ('Biutiful') who got the nod. I got 4/5 Best Actress picks right, with my only mistake being to include Julianne Moore ('The Kids Are All Right') over Nicole Kidman ('Rabbit Hole').



I was close with my predictions for Best Director. Though my pick of 'The Kids Are All Right' director Lisa Cholodenko over Joel and Ethan Coen ('True Grit') was a mistake - though not an unhappy one. In the supporting categories I got 6/10 right - but as I said before, those categories are probably the hardest main awards to call. Anyone can get nominated for almost anything. Case in point, Australian film 'Animal Kingdom' gets its sole major nod in the Best Supporting Actress category with Jacki Weaver listed. The young star of 'True Grit' Hailee Steinfeld was also a surprise inclusion. Best Supporting Actor seemed like it might be less problematic, but I also got two of those names wrong. Michael Douglas didn't get his widely expected nod for 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps', but Jeremy Renner ('The Town') and John Hawkes ('Winter's Bone') were included.

I've posted the main categories below (as stolen from Deadline). I've emboldened those who I think will win on the night:

BEST PICTURE
127 HOURS (Fox Searchlight)
An Hours Production Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
A Protozoa and Phoenix Pictures Production Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
INCEPTION (Warner Bros)
A Warner Bros. UK Services Production Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
A Relativity Media Production David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
An Antidote Films, Mandalay Vision and Gilbert Films Production Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
THE KING'S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co)
A See-Saw Films and Bedlam Production Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
A Columbia Pictures Production Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
TOY STORY 3 (Walt Disney)
A Pixar Production Darla K. Anderson, Producer
TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
A Paramount Pictures Production Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
WINTER'S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
A Winter's Bone Production Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

BEST ACTOR
JEFF BRIDGES - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
JAVIER BARDEM - BIUTIFUL (Roadside Attractions)
JESSE EISENBERG - THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
COLIN FIRTH - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)
JAMES FRANCO - 127 HOURS (Fox Searchlight)

BEST ACTRESS
ANNETTE BENING - THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
NICOLE KIDMAN - RABBIT HOLE (Lionsgate)
JENNIFER LAWRENCE - WINTER’S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
NATALIE PORTMAN - BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
MICHELLE WILLIAMS - BLUE VALENTINE (The Weinstein Co) -though never write off the lobbying power of the Weinstein's!

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
CHRISTIAN BALE - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
JOHN HAWKES - WINTER’S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
JEREMY RENNER - THE TOWN (Warner Bros)
MARK RUFFALO - THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
GEOFFREY RUSH - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
AMY ADAMS - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
HELENA BONHAM CARTER - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)
MELISSA LEO - THE FIGHTER (Paramount) -he's the favourite, but I'm backing Adams at the third attempt
HAILEE STEINFELD - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
JACKI WEAVER - ANIMAL KINGDOM (Sony Pictures Classics)

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (DreamWorks Animation)
TOY STORY 3 (Walt Disney)
THE ILLUSIONIST (Sony Pictures Classics)

BEST DIRECTOR
DARREN ARONOFSKY - BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
DAVID FINCHER - THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
TOM HOOPER - THE KING'S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co.)
JOEL AND ETHAN COEN - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
DAVID O. RUSSELL - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
ANOTHER YEAR, Mike Leigh (Sony Pictures Classics)
THE FIGHTER, Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson, Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson (Paramount)
INCEPTION, Christopher Nolan (Warner Bros)
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg (Focus Features)
THE KING'S SPEECH, David Seidler (The Weinstein Co)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 HOURS, Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy (Fox Searchlight)
TOY STORY 3, Michael Arndt, Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich (Walt Disney)
THE SOCIAL NETWORK, Aaron Sorkin (Sony Pictures)
WINTER'S BONE, Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini (Roadside Attractions)
TRUE GRIT, Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Paramount)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Algeria, Hors la Loi (Outside the Law) (Cohen Media Group) - A Tassili Films Production
Canada, Incendies (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Micro-Scope Production
Denmark, In a Better World (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Zentropa Production
Greece, Dogtooth (Kino International) - A Boo Production - I want this to win!
Mexico, Biutiful (Roadside Attractions) - A Menage Atroz, Mod Producciones and Ikiru Films Production

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) - Matthew Libatique
Inception (Warner Bros.) - Wally Pfister
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) - Danny Cohen
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) - Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit (Paramount) - Roger Deakins

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Exit Through The Gift Shop (Producers Distribution Agency) A Paranoid Pictures Production Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz
Gasland - A Gasland Production Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
Inside Job (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Representational Pictures Production Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
Restrepo (National Geographic Entertainment) - An Outpost Films Production Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
Waste Land (Arthouse Films) - An Almega Projects Production Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

Oscar prediction time 2011...

First things first: regular visitors might have noticed that I was unusually quiet last week. This was down to a mixture of the birth of my new baby brother James, a period of horrible flu-ness and general work at the cinema. I have now completed reviews that I started last week before illness temporarily shelved them and they can now be found below this post or on the "reviews" page. Yesterday I also posted a review of the 'Certified Copy' Blu-ray over on Obsessed with Film. So now that I'm back up and running, I thought I'd comment on the award season as it comes into full swing.

As I'm sure most film fans are aware, from all the Ricky Gervais furore and Colin Firth's mighty, flag-flying Best Actor triumph, the Golden Globes (that's the budget Oscars to you and me) were held yesterday in LA. The full results (at least for the film half of it) can be found on the Splendor Cinema blog so I won't bother to re-post them here. Today also saw the nominations for the BAFTAs announced, which you can read here. What I want to instead is look forward to the real deal: the Academy Awards, which are taking place at the end of next month (February 27th). The nominees are announced a week today (Tuesday 25th), so now seems like as good a time as any for rampant speculation.



Best Picture
For the main prize I'd have to say that obvious favoured candidates, 'Black Swan', 'The Social Network', 'The Fighter' and 'The King's Speech', will be joined by fancied outsiders 'Toy Story 3', 'Inception', 'The Kids Are All Right', as well as the now annual nomination for the Coen Brothers with 'True Grit' a likely contender. The final two films in the field of ten are harder to call. I'd guess that Clint Eastwood's 'Hereafter' could miss out after getting "mixed reviews" and failing to perform at the box office. Instead maybe Danny Boyle's '127 Hours' could sneak in, perhaps alongside Gareth Edwards' roundly-praised 'Monsters' (as this year's 'District 9')?

I'm not hedging my bets. Those previous ten are my picks. But if those aren't the chosen ones, then who knows? Maybe the Tilda Swinton vanity project 'I Am Love' could emerge as the token foreign language contender for the award? Or maybe even Alejandro González Iñárritu's 'Biutiful'? I'd also not discount 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps' as a possibility. Or the brilliant 'Blue Valentine', with the Weinsteins always keen to push their films for awards glory.

As for the winner, it'd be foolish not to expect the triumphant winner of the Golden Globe 'The Social Network' to win. However, the Globe hasn't often predicted the correct Oscar winner in recent years and last year saw 'Avatar' the strong Oscar favourite all the way through award season until a last minute surge for 'The Hurt Locker'. If it doesn't win for some reason, then I'd like to see 'Black Swan' do it instead.



Best Director
David Fincher won the globe and I believe he'll win the Oscar for 'The Social Network'. The director nominations will be drawn from the five most serious contenders for the main prize. In this case that would make the four "losers" Darren Aronofsky ('Black Swan'), David O. Russell ('The Fighter'), Tom Hooper ('The King's Speech') and Lisa Cholodenko ('The Kids Are All Right').



Best Actor
This category will be won by Colin Firth, last year's most popular loser after his performance in 'A Single Man' is generally liked and has been roundly heralded for his performance as a stuttering George VI in 'The King's Speech'. The makeweights in this field will likely be Jesse Eisenberg for 'The Social Network', James Franco for '127 Hours', Mark Wahlberg for 'The Fighter' and Ryan Gosling for 'Blue Valentine'. Personally, I'd like to see the Golden Globe "Best Performance in a Musical or Comedy" winner Paul Giamatti win the Oscar for 'Barney's Version', but that won't happen. He won't even be nominated. Out of the likely nominees, my pick would be James Franco. I disliked '127 Hours' but he was class in it. He is co-hosting the event with Anne Hathway, so it would be fun to see him win.



Best Actress
How long before this award is renamed "Best Female Actor"? I haven't heard the term actress self-applied in years, so it seems like only a matter of time. This is one of the hardest fields to call in the whole competition. It seems certain that Jennifer Lawrence ('Winter's Bone'), Natalie Portman ('Black Swan') and Michelle Williams ('Blue Valentine') will be nominated, with Portman the probable winner (and my personal favourite). However I'm not so confident about the other two names. Halle Berry ('Frankie and Alice') and Nicole Kidman ('Rabbit Hole') are among the favourites having been nominated at the Globes, but I think Julianne Moore and Annette Bening will both be nominated for 'The Kids Are All Right' - recalling Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick who were both nominated last year for 'Up in the Air'.



Best Supporting Actor
Another hard field to call. In fact, the "supporting" categories are always hard to predict because they can throw up literally any name and are especially prone to votes based on nostalgia or sympathy (Heath Ledger last year, or Pete Postlethwaite at this year's BAFTAs). On that basis Michael Douglas seems a likely nomination for 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps' due to his recent battle with throat cancer. Besides, he won an Oscar for the same role in 1987, playing Gordon Gekko in the original 'Wall Street', so it's not that far fetched an honour. Christian Bale will likely win the category for his role in 'The Fighter'. A certainty for at least a nomination is Geoffrey Rush for 'The King's Speech'. The remaining two names could be Andrew Garfield for 'The Social Network' and Mark Ruffalo for 'The Kids Are All Right'. If I had my way Ruffalo would win that one, though I haven't yet seen Bale in 'The Fighter'.



Best Supporting Actress
Golden Globe winner (and a Best Actress nominee last year for 'Frozen River') Melissa Leo will be nominated for her role in 'The Fighter'. As will Amy Adams, who has twice been nominated for this award in the past, for roles in 'Junebug' and 'Doubt'. Mila Kunis seems like a safe bet for 'Black Swan', as does Helena Bonham Carter, who will likely complete a trilogy of acting nominations for 'The King's Speech'. The final nomination is hard to predict. Jacki Weaver was nominated for the Golden Globe for 'Animal Kingdom', whilst the BAFTAs have 'Lesley Manville' up for 'Another Year' and Barbara Hershey for 'Black Swan' (and Miranda Richardson for 'Made in Dagenham', but I'm not going to entertain that as a serious Oscar choice). I'm going to take a stab in the dark here and suggest that Mia Wasikowska could be an outside contender for 'The Kids Are All Right' - a film I've nominated in most of the categories, but which could be left out altogether. Certainly the film's initial Oscar buzz has died down since its release. I think Amy Adams will win the statue itself. Third time lucky.



The Rest
'Toy Story 3' will win the animated film award without too much trouble. 'Inception' will pick up some of the boring effects and technical gongs, whilst 'The King's Speech' will win some sort of costume award for being a stiff, British period drama (then again 'Black Swan' could very well beat them to that one with its ballet costumes). The Best Adapted Screenplay award will go to Aaron Sorkin for 'The Social Network', whilst Best Original Screenplay may go to 'The Kids Are All Right' writers Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg. The Best Score award is a two way battle between Hans Zimmer for 'Inception' and Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross for 'The Social Network'. I have a feeling Zimmer will win this one even though Reznor scooped the Globe. The foreign language winner is impossible to predict on any year. Last time around 'A Prophet' and 'The White Ribbon' picked up every prize en route to the Oscars only for Argentine film 'The Secret in Their Eyes' to come from nowhere and win it. I honestly couldn't even guess. 'Biutiful' maybe? Who cares.

So, those are my picks for the 2011 Academy Award nominations. I'll no doubt write a follow-up to this when the real nominations come in on the 25th.

'A Single Man' Review: Colin Firth shines in Tom Ford's decent debut film...

Having recently seen Pixar’s ‘Up’ for the second time, I was struck by its principle (albeit superficial) similarity to Tom Ford’s debut feature ‘A Single Man’. Both films concern a man struggling to continue living life following the death of a loved one. But whilst Carl Fredricksen decides to tether helium-filled balloons to his house and set off on an adventure, George Falconer (portrayed by Colin Firth in an Oscar-nominated performance) resolves to shoot himself in order to alleviate the pain he feels upon waking each day. Yet, the Disney animation led me to cry into my 3D glasses last year, whereas ‘A Single Man’, though undoubtedly handsome and boasting a terrific central performance from Firth, was never able hit me on the same emotional level.

‘A Single Man’ concerns Colin Firth’s George, an English literature professor at a Californian University in 1962, who eight months prior to the films narrative has lost his long-time partner (Matthew Goode) to a car crash. George’s sexuality becomes a central issue which, although Colin Firth and Tom Ford have both been eager to play this down when promoting the film, plays its part in accounting for the George character having to struggle in relative solitude with his socially inconvenient grief. For instance, it emerges (early on) that George was not permitted to attend his late partner’s funeral, whilst in another scene he lectures his class on the fear of difference. It is also his homosexuality that leads George to comment that he “lives in a glass house”, although it should be noted that George is not conflicted within himself with regards to his homosexuality, a fact which marks a refreshing deviance from the Hollywood norm.

Much has been made of the film’s director, Tom Ford, having made his name in fashion, though I must plead ignorance to his work as creative director of Gucci. But it is not the case that ‘A Single Man’ is all style and no substance. Yes, the male characters George meets do look as though they have stepped out of a glossy Calvin Klein ad (with their tight vests and immaculate hair) but I am happy to see the beauty of these figures as heightened by George’s new found fascination with the world as he experiences (what he believes will be) his last day on Earth.

Whilst the costume design is just as elegant and stylish as you’d expect, the films aesthetic beauty is evident in much more than just its sartorial splendour and it is the young (and relatively unknown) Spanish cinematographer Eduard Grau who must take credit for what is a very attractively lit film. Whilst I found the transitions between washed out grey tones into ultra-bright, glowing colour (and in one scene to black and white) a little distracting and heavy handed as a device, the film never looks anything less than beautiful. It also helps that the production design is excellent at invoking the period (as expected from the crew behind HBO’s ‘Mad Men’).

It is with elements like the changes in the colour palette, the frequent slow-motion and the pretentious cuts to images of George underwater, which severed my connection with the film as an emotional experience. Especially given the clichéd nature of the images that lead George to see the joy in all the world’s things: these include the sunlight, a rose and a child playing - often with the saturated colour and slow-motion combining to highlight their intense beauty and profundity.

It is also rather distracting that a game of geographical musical chairs appears to be going on amongst the films cast, with two British supporting players (Nicholas Hoult and Matthew Goode) employing ill-advised American accents, whilst Julianne Moore is cast as a British ex-pat. It must be said that Moore does a much better job than her co-stars of convincing after this switch, but it hardly seems to have been necessary to do this in the first place. Not only are there many talented British actresses who could have played Moore’s part, but there are a great many American actors who could easily have filled the other two roles better. That said Julianne Moore gives a really good performance as George’s friend Charley, arguably sharing the best and most intense scene with Colin Firth late in the film.



Colin Firth, as has been recognised in the form of an Academy Award nomination, really excels as George Falconer and holds the entire film together. Finally it seems there is a vehicle for him which finds a way to add a degree of warmth to his rather restrained, but usually cold, manner. In his many roles as a Mr. Darcy figure (literally in the BBC’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and later in ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’) Colin Firth has had the thankless task of playing the same dashing, but woefully dull, aristocrat. Here he demonstrates that he is rather more talented than all that, and where ‘A Single Man’ works, it is Colin Firth who comes away looking the best for it. I haven’t yet seen Jeff Bridges in ‘Crazy Heart’, but on the evidence of ‘A Single Man’ Bridges performance must be pretty spectacular if it beats Colin Firth to the Oscar this March, as expected.

Ultimately, I enjoyed a lot of aspects of the film; with the excellent cinematography and production design being two key examples. Tom Ford is certainly a better director than many predicted when the film was announced and his debut film is handsomely made to the extreme. But when ‘A Single Man’ should sit still and draw you into its gripping central performance and wholly relatable emotional story (we will all lose somebody important in our lives), Ford insists on employing some unfortunate visual gimmicks and slightly pretentious imagery. It is a pity, as this film could have been just as effective a rumination on life, love and loss as Pixar’s ‘Up’, but unlike that film, it is never really allowed to take off.


'A Single Man' is currently playing to packed crowds at Brighton's Duke of York's Picturehouse and is rated '12A' by the BBFC.

It's alive! The most splendid Splendor podcast yet is here!

It’s finally here! After a technical hitch that involved the host thinking he’d accidentally deleted the entire recording, the latest Splendor Cinema/Duke of York’s podcast is up. Of course you already know that if you subscribed to it on iTunes. For everyone else, what’s keeping you?

This time around Jon and I talk about the Oscar nominations and discuss who should win and who will win the coveted awards in March. It’s pod gold. Sadly, it may also be the last podcast for a few weeks as Jon is off to Berlin to catch the festival, the lucky devil. On the bright side he will be back with news of the latest films from Scorsese and Polanski, as well as insights on a whole host of other interesting movies and events. So watch this space for that report.

'Precious' Review: A 'Precious' thing?

'Precious’, or ‘Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire’, to use its full US title, is a big Oscar contender and a new film from Lee Daniels, best known as the producer of ‘Monster’s Ball’. Set in Harlem in 1987, ‘Precious’ tells the story of a sixteen year-old African American girl who suffers horrendous domestic abuse (of both a violent and sexual nature) at the hands of her parents. Claireece Precious Jones, played by Oscar nominated newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, is illiterate, obese and has twice been made pregnant by her father. Her mother, excellently portrayed by a terrifying Mo’Nique (pictured above), has not only allowed her daughter to be repeatedly raped, but also regularly subjects her to the most appalling physical and mental abuse. She force feeds her daughter and then torments her about her weight. She knocks Precious unconscious by throwing frying pans at the back of her head, all the time sitting watching television game shows and misleading well-meaning social workers in order to collect her welfare cheques.

Mo’Nique (a famous comedienne stateside) really makes this role her own and it is no surprise that she is the odds-on favourite to take home the Best Supporting Actress award at the Oscars in March, having already been honoured by Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild – she would certainly be a worthy recipient. Not only is she a truly frightening presence, but she also manages to round her character out, avoiding making her a two dimensional villain. Mo’Nique imbues her character with enough insecurity and disappointment at how her own life has turned out that when she does irredeemably cruel things they are rooted in her own history of abuse and neglect. In this way the film avoids taking a complicated social problem and attributing one individual with the blame.

Gabourey Sidibe is equally good in what is essentially a thankless role as the young Precious. She is reduced to brooding silence or painful inarticulacy for most of the film – and to vapid smiles during the relief fantasy sequences. Her character is, by necessity, unable to really express herself due to her reluctance to confront the reality of her life. But she convinces and instils Precious with her own aura of violent menace, whilst crucially maintaining an air of vulnerability. Among the supporting performers is a decent turn from Lenny Kravitz (in a minor role as a male nurse) and a really brilliant performance from Mariah Carey (pictured) as the social worker looking over Precious’s case. A lot has been made of Carey doing without make-up and being prepared to be unglamorous, but to focus on that aspect ignores a very solid performance. She absolutely nails her role with an air of authority and keeps the emotional distance required in that sort of profession, without seeming cold. She is stern and authoritative and at the films climax she brushes away a budding tear with quiet dignity in a wonderful moment. Helen Mirren, who was originally cast in the role, could not have done better. In fact in many ways she may have felt less authentic.

The film has some interesting racial politics as Precious mistakenly calls Mariah Carey’s Ms. Weiss “Mrs. White” and later questions her about her ambiguous ethnicity. In an earlier scene, Precious sees herself in a mirror as a thin, white girl. It is also constantly repeated during the films monologues that Precious desires a “light-skinned boyfriend”. This could be seen as supportive of some statements made by US critics that the film paints a negative picture of African American life, with Precious wishing to escape being black as if it would end her problems. But I think the many times we see smiling white people on television taking part in aspirational television shows we are being shown an alien world quite different to the one that Precious experiences in Harlem. If anything this aspect of the film links its social issues to poverty and highlights how, in America, the urban poor are often ghettoised ethnic minorities.

The one exception to the overall excellence in the cast is Paula Patton in the clichéd role of the inspirational teacher. The ludicrously named Ms. Blu Rain delivers the film’s most cumbersome and sentimental lines (“I love you precious...” adding with a whisper “your baby loves you.”) Her role is admittedly overwritten and heavy handed, but Patton fails to bring anything to it, let alone carry it off with the same effortless hard edge as her co-stars. It feels a little as if she has strolled in from a different, more obvious, movie.

Another criticism I could direct at the film is at the contrived level of misery befalling its protagonist: Precious is sexually abused by her father and physically assaulted by her mother; she is illiterate; she is obese; one of her two children has Down’s Syndrome; she lives in poverty and off welfare. As if these difficulties were not hard going enough the final act sees Precious again dealt another horrible blow by fate, which I won’t go into here so as not to spoil the film. It feels a little like it’s actively courting Oscar attention. I would also agree with many critics who have taken issue with the fantasy sequences. Although I understand (and admire) their intended purpose to relieve the viewer of too much distress (such as during a rape scene) and also to give us a glimpse at how Precious copes with her situation, I found the sequences themselves to be poorly shot and cheap looking compared to the rest of the film. They don’t fit stylistically with the rest of the piece, which is a problem.

Despite these flaws, ‘Precious’ is a film worthy of attention, especially for the performances. The films last scene is flawlessly executed and many of the scenes between Precious and her mother are tense and suspenseful. I wouldn’t award it Best Picture, in March, but then neither will the academy. However, it is an interesting film worthy of consideration.

For a preview of Mo'Nique's inevitable Oscar win, watch her excruciating Golden Globe acceptance speech below:


'Precious' is certified 15 by the BBFC and is playing until Thursday 11th of February at the Duke of York's Picturehouse in Brighton.