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West Side Story (2021)   Spielberg’s West Side Story remake isn’t merely redundant; it’s a lifeless, mechanical VR machine version of the original, the kind of soulless facsimile you’d expect to find discarded in some corner of his other recent, empty attempt at recapturing youthful brio, Ready Player One. The director previously dipped a toe in musical waters with the dance-hall tumble of 1941 and the opening number from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; both set pieces tantalised the prospect of his tackling an entire movie with such energy and aplomb. But they were forty-odd years ago, and he’s no longer the same eager geek.

The Quiet Man (1952)   The John Wayne & John Ford film for those who don’t like John Wayne & John Ford films? The Quiet Man takes its cues from Ford’s earlier How Green Was My Valley in terms of, well, less Anglophile than Hibernophile and Cambrophile nostalgia respectively for past times, climes and heritage, as Wayne’s pugilist returns to his family seat and stirs up a hot bed of emotions, not least with Maureen O’Hara’s red-headed hothead. The result is a very likeable movie, for all its inculcated Oirishness and studied eccentricity. Michaeleen: Saints preserve us, what do they feed you Irishmen on in

Minari (2020)   Minari is one of this year’s better Best Picture Oscar nominees. Which is rather damning it with faint praise, but there you go. A tale of noble immigrants (are there any other kind?) facing a hard time of it in rural Arkansas, Lee Isaac Chung’s film boasts the commendable virtue of modesty. It avoids leading the way with any announcement of its own importance, and in its own low-key way, it offers a degree of authenticity the other contenders largely lack. It doesn’t hurt matters either that it’s so perceptively performed. Perhaps the closest fellow nominee in terms

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)   Several movies in contention for this year’s Oscars concern individuals or groups of individuals targeted by the intolerant or outright diabolical State. It’s an area guaranteed to stir passions and engender indignation – the Woke Oscars have to do their globalist bit – which makes it all the stranger how lacking in urgency these offerings are. The Trial of the Chicago 7, for all its sugar-coated Aaron Sorkin gloss, knows how to push the necessary buttons, but both The United States vs. Billie Holiday and Judas and the Black Messiah are left stranded, dramatic beached whales oblivious to

Doctor Dolittle (1967)   If there’s an obvious and immediate contender for the crown of least-justified Best Picture Oscar nominee, it’s surely Doctor Dolittle. Infamous for the campaigning this box-office bomb received, leading to nine nominations and two wins, the ignominy is understandable and deserved, even if it’s simply a worst-case and highest-profile example of the kind of behaviour that’s par for the course in the Oscar business. As for the film itself? It isn’t terrible, but it’s so sedate as to be almost inert, a killer for a two-and-a-half-hour family musical. There are all sorts of problems in that regard.

1917 (2019)   When I first heard the premise of Sam Mendes’ Oscar-bait World War I movie – co-produced by Amblin Partners, as Spielberg just loves his sentimental war carnage – my first response was that it sounded highly contrived, and that I’d like to know how, precisely, the story Mendes’ granddad told him would bear any relation to the events he’d be depicting. And just why he felt it would be appropriate to honour his relative’s memory via a one-shot gimmick. None of that has gone away on seeing the film. 1917’s a technical marvel, and Roger Deakins’ cinematography

The Irishman aka I Heard You Paint Houses (2019)   Perhaps, if Martin Scorsese hadn’t been so opposed to the idea of Marvel movies constituting cinema, The Irishman would have been a better film. It’s a decent film, assuredly. A respectable film, definitely. But it’s very far from being classic. And a significant part of that is down to the usually assured director fumbling the execution. Or rather, the realisation. I don’t know what kind of crazy pills the ranks of revered critics have been taking so as to recite as one the mantra that you quickly get used to the de-aging effects so intrinsic to

Capote (2005)   Another (relatively) recent Best Picture Oscar nominee I missed first time round, and then subsequently didn’t really feel very compelled to chase up. Perhaps it was the vying Truman Capote pics (I’ve also yet to see Infamous) putting me off, or possibly just being underwhelmed by everything Oscar that year (which hasn’t changed). I can certainly see why the late Philip Seymour Hoffman received the Best Actor award for Capote, though, since the eccentrically mannered title character is precisely the kind of studied, showy performance the Academy laps up. Hoffman duly holds the attention, as does Catherine Keener, contrastingly

The Blind Side (2009)   I’ve found my way to seeing most Best Picture Oscar nominees of the last four decades or so, but failing to get round to The Blind Side never seemed like a particularly glaring blind spot. Nominated during the first year of the Academy’s (re-)expanded slate, this aspirational sports drama was commonly seen as filler to make up numbers for the ten slots (and commonly cited a couple of years later as a reason ten was thenpegged as a maximum rather than a quota). If I say it’s a John Lee Hancock film, that should tell you all

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (1967)   The Best Picture Oscar nominee of 1967 dealing with racial tensions and starring Sidney Poitier that didn’twin, but had enough impact on the cultural lexicon that its title has taken on meaning beyond the film itself (and indeed, informed the recent Get Out). Most conversations regarding Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? are compelled to address that it hasn’t aged all that well, which in many respects it hasn’t, but it’s debatable that it appeared especially boundary pushing at the time; compared to fellow nominees Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate, it seems like the product of a different era. The same

And the Oscar Should Have Gone to… The 1999 Contenders Ranked   For a year commonly cited – in my view, seemingly at random – as the best year ever for movies, it’s notable that 72nd Academy Awards’ vanguard Best Picture Oscar nominees have either fallen from grace (American Beauty, The Green Mile, even The Sixth Sense is less feted after two decades of M Night Shyamalan repeatedly using the same template) or been forgotten (The Cider House Rules, The Insider). I’d argue that rather reflects a not-quite-vintage year generally. Still, there’s only one picture there that had absolutely no business even being within

The Insider (1999)   The Insider was the 1999 Best Picture Oscar nominee that didn’t. Do any business, that is. Which is, more often than not, a major mark against it getting the big prize. It can happen (2009, and there was a string of them from 2014-2016), but aside from brief, self-congratulatory “we care about art first” vibes, it generally does nothing for the ceremony’s profile, or the confidence of the industry that is its bread and butter. The Insider lacked the easy accessibility of the other nominees – supernatural affairs, wafer-thin melodramas or middle-class suburbanite satires. It didn’t even brandish a truly headlines-shattering

The Sixth Sense (1999)   It has usually been a shrewd move for the Academy to ensure there’s at least one big hit among its Best Picture Oscar nominees. At least, until the era of ever-plummeting ratings; not only do the studios get to congratulate themselves for their own profligacy (often, but not always, the big hits are also the costliest productions), but the audience also has something to identify with and possibly root for. Plus, it evidences that the ceremony isn’t just about populism-shunning snobbery. The Sixth Sense provided Oscar’s supernatural bookend to a decade – albeit, The Green Mile also has a

Phantom Thread (2017)   Perhaps surprisingly not the lowest grossing of last year’s Best Picture Oscar nominees (that was Call Me by Your Name) but certainly the one with the least buzz as a genuine contender, subjected as Phantom Thread was to a range of views from masterpiece (the critics) to drudge (a fair selection of general viewers). The mixed reaction wasn’t so very far from Paul Thomas Anderson’s earlier The Master, and one suspects the nomination was more to do with the golden glow of Daniel Day-Lewis in his first role in half a decade (and last ever, if he’s to be believed) than mass

Brooklyn  (2015)   Sweet, well-observed little picture that dun well, as Saiorse Ronan emigrates from Ireland (take a wild stab where) in the early ’50s, discovers a whole new world, then rediscovers a whole old world, entailing conflicting emotions over the romantic entanglements each brings. Ronan entirely deserved her Best Actress Oscar nomination, assuredly navigating potentially tricky trajectory for Eilis Lacy such that, in the third act, her errant behaviour is never less than understandable. This is, after all, a picture all about the lustre of familiar shores, in which a rather wonderfully cast Jim Broadbent comforts Eilis early on

Room (2015)   Perhaps predictably, the least of the Best Picture Oscar nominees in terms of box-office take turns out to be one the best. It would be spurious to get into a debate over the chalk-and-cheese merits of Room versus Mad Max: Fury Road, as both exhibit an exemplary standard of filmmaking craft. Room has been rightly recognised for Brie Larson’s invested, dedicated performance (as affecting, if not more so, than her turn in Short Term 12), but equally laudable are young Jacob Tremblay (how he didn’t earn a supporting actor nomination is beyond me) and director Lenny Abrahamson. About the only thing Room has in common

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)   I might not be the best person to judge the fullest merits of Martin McDonagh’s latest. The Banshees of Inisherin is every bit as well observed and mordantly funny as his best two earlier pictures – In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – but its lingering emphasis on dismemberment and its aftereffects elicits a queasily visceral response in me that tends to distract from an entirely fair and balanced appraisal. Perhaps that will change on another viewing, when I’m not inwardly – and outwardly – squirming every time Brendan Gleeson’s progressively more

The Awful Truth (1937)   Leo McCarey’s screwball comedy is celebrated as one of the definitive entries in the genre, although it’s biggest claim to fame is cementing the comic Cary Grant persona that would truly identify him as a star (albeit, Topper came out first, the same year, and was also a hit, one that spawned several sequels). The premise, of a couple seeking a divorce only to reunite when they realise they can’t live without each other, is essentially Hayes Code proof, which may explain the levels of innuendo that went uncensored. It’s also a much-used idea; even

The Full Monty (1997)   There are certainly much less respectable examples of the modern British dramedy, but that doesn’t mean The Full Monty had any business being Best Picture Oscar nominated. It certainly isn’t in the same class – ahem – as earlier awards darling Four Weddings and a Funeral, even if it made even greater waves at the box office. And that’s what this is about, really: showing the Oscar doesn’t stuffily need to be oozing respect and refinement from every pore. Besides, if you want to pick a movie that really had no business being in contention that year, look no further

Goodfellas (1990)   Scorsese’s gangsters-at-street-level masterpiece is near the top of most lists for “It wuz robbed” when looking back at Best Picture Oscar winners. Kev’s Dances with Wolves is a decent-enough movie and a decent-ish revisionist western, put together with care, craft and what appears to be genuine feeling on its maker’s part; there are certainly far worse Best Picture winners out there. But co-contender Goodfellas is in a class all its own. It also reminds the viewer that, in the first rank of filmmakers as Scorsese is, it’s become relatively rare for him to tackle material with which he visibly (and palpably)

The Father (2020)   I was in no great rush to see The Father, expecting it to be it to be something of an ordeal in the manner of that lavishly overpraised euthanasia-fest Amour. As with the previous Oscars, though, the Best Picture nominee I saw last turned out to be the best of the bunch. In that case, Parasite, its very title beckoning the psychic global warfare sprouting shoots all around it, would win the top prize. The Father, in a year of disappointing nominees, had to settle for Best Actor. Ant’s good, naturally, but I was most impressed with the unpandering manner in

Dodsworth (1936)   Prestige Samuel Goldwyn production – signifiers being attaching a reputable director, often William Wyler, to then-popular plays or classical literature, see also Dead End, Wuthering Heights, The Little Foxes, The Best Years of Our Lives, and earning a Best Picture nomination as a matter of course – that manages to be both engrossing and irritating. Which is to say that, in terms of characterisation, Dodsworth rather shows its years, expecting a level of engagement in the relationship between Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) and his wayward, fun-loving wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton) at odds with their unsympathetic behaviour. Fran: I’m fighting for my life! You can’t

Dead End (1937)   In case you doubted it, there was never a monopoly on Denzel making all the painfully stagey movie adaptations of plays. Less still their getting rafts of Oscar nominations. It’s impossible to watch a certain kind of movie – or play, at any rate – without the Coen Brothers’ classic Barton Fink coming to mind, and its title character waxing “lyrical” about a tenement building on the Lower East Side, and the smell of fish, amid copious earnest moralising and an overwhelming air of self-importance. Which is Dead End all over. Like Barton Fink’s fish, it stinks. Drina: I know that house

The Color Purple (1985)   In which the ’berg attempts to prove he’s a grownup. In a sense, this is the equivalent of the fourteen-year-old taking up smoking cigarettes and drinking beer to impress the older kids. The New Republic reports the view expressed by Salamishah Tillet in In Search of The Color Purple that the protests and criticisms of the film furthering “an image of Black men as violent and sexually aggressive” ultimately scuppered its chances at the Oscars, where it received eleven nominations but won not a single statuette. That may well have been a factor, the Academy being nothing if not

Cleopatra (1963)   Bloated, ungainly and rambling, but not without compensations. Perhaps the most sobering aspect to Cleopatra’s preposterous profligacy is that, just occasionally, it advances an engagingly louche performance or rash of sparkling dialogue, offering a glimpse of what might have been had all its ducks been in a row. Such moments in no way makes up for the four hours the movie takes up, but they ensure it’s a less arid journey than, say, The Ten Commandments. One might have reasonably assumed Cleo’s disastrous excess put the kibosh on epics for a while, given their propensity for budgets spiralling way beyond

Love Story (1970)   There are some movies you studiously avoid but sense that, in the fulness of time, you owe it to yourself to see, just to confirm the uninformed opinion you already have on them. Mamma Mia’s one, and someday, perhaps when the world has awoken anew as a transhumanist paradise, I may brave those infernal waters. Love Story’s another, a movie that has become the very cliché of the woefully clichéd chick flick. It’s everything I expected and less, but it has the undeniable redeeming quality of being mercifully short. That may be because there’s miniscule plot to speak

Promising Young Woman (2020)   I’ve been having little luck finding commendable Oscar-nominated fare this season, and Promising Young Woman is no exception. Heralded as a satire, Emerald Fennell’s movie would be better labelled a polemic, one with all the subtlety of the pillow used to smother protagonist Cassie halfway through the third act. Attracting adjectives in the “brave” and “audacious” range, the picture comes armed with the loaded dice of a soft target – rapists deserve retribution – no one is likely to disagree with, such that it’s consequent suggestion – all men are potential rapists or at very least complicit

Sound of Metal (2020)   Trial, tribulation and trauma movies are the awards season’s bread-and-butter. Triumphs over adversity – or occasionally not, if you’re Hillary Swank – are a guarantee to attract attention and even honours. They rely on empathy, often cheaply obtained, and offer an actor the chance to show just how versatile they can be, while the audience may, if they’re lucky – or not, if Hillary Swank is starring – be put through the emotional mill, only to emerge with a comfortingly cathartic residue. In truth, this is much of a muchness, whether you’re pulling your manoeuvres

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)   When I say the appeal of Fiddler on the Roof is all about Topol’s performance, that’s not to suggest I might not have similarly rated Zero Mostel, had I first seen him as Tevye (although I’m guessing that’s unlikely). And it’s not a slight on Joseph Stein’s adaptation of his stage play, or the clutch of great songs peppering the picture, or Norman Jewison’s unobtrusive direction and Oswald Morris’ fine earthy cinematography. But Topol makes the film, in the same way F Murray Abraham is the pulse of Amadeus. I guess I mention Abraham because both are

Bugsy (1991)   Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project – aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface? – to the extent of his playing a title character a decade-and-a-half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow the impact of star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its merits (including a screenplay from James Toback chock full of incident), never really quite feels focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if

Places in the Heart (1984)   The one that’s more famous for Sally Field’s Oscar acceptance speech than the film itself. Which is to say, despite its Best Picture Oscar nomination, I suspect few really loved Places in the Heart, they didn’t really love Places in the Heart. It’s a slight, pleasant American period (Great Depression era) picture that contrives to put forward an “It’ll be alright” homespun, righteous quality, despite the horrors going on at its fringes. Which can be affecting when done well (The Shawshank Redemption), but here, it tends to wither in the face of a lack of real

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)   Was Joe Eszterhas a big fan of Witness for the Prosecution? He was surely a big fan of any courtroom drama turning on a “Did the accused actually do it?” only for it to turn out they did, since he repeatedly used it as a template. Interviewed about his Agatha Christie adaptation (of the 1925 play), writer-director Billy Wilder said of the author that “She constructs like an angel, but her language is flat; no dialogue, no people”. It isn’t an uncommon charge, one her devotees may take issue with, that her characters are mere pieces

Le Mans ’66 aka Ford v Ferrari (2019)   I didn’t have any great expectations for this one, partly because motor-sport-related movies tend to be merely serviceable, by dint of marrying the grinding metal to elementary melodrama (to frequent audience apathy). Partly because James Mangold has never truly risen above the status of a competent journeyman. Yes, I know he gets all those raves for Logan, but Wolverine’s last round struck me as both overly derivative and in need of a couple more rewrites. Or maybe a couple less. Le Mans ’66 might be his most satisfying movie, however, which isn’t to say

Lilies of the Field (1963)   Watching a string of Best Picture nominees in succession, the proportion of sweetly good-natured films, ones designed to appeal to the Academy’s sentimental and nostalgic side – even if not necessarily nostalgic for a prior time period, but rather for an impossible-to-realise state of being – can be striking. While you couldn’t exactly accuse Lilies of the Field of being custom fitted for such a purpose, since director Ralph Nelson was forced to put up his house as collateral to get it made, taken on face value, it would be easy to assume otherwise. Lilies of

Vice (2018)   It doesn’t bode well when you have to preface your movie with an admission that you know fuck all about your subject matter, even going as far as using the f-word jokingly as a means of saying you’re hip to this problem but you’re going to struggle on manfully anyway, as you’re telling an important piece of political history in a populist and accessible manner. You think. Underlined by repeating it at the end (“If you leave knowing Cheney no better than when you arrived, you’ll know how we feel”). Which only serves to emphasise that being

The Green Mile (1999)   There’s something very satisfying about the unhurried confidence of the storytelling in Frank Darabont’s two prison-set Stephen King adaptations (I’m less beholden to supermarket sweep The Mist). It’s sure, measured and precise, certain the journey you’re being taken on justifies the (indulgent) time spent, without the need for flashy visuals or ornate twists (the twists there are feel entirely germane – with a notable exception – as if they could only be that way). But. The Green Mile has reasonably come under scrutiny for its reliance on – or to be more precise, building its foundation on –

The Cider House Rules (1999)   Miramax’s big Oscar contender of 1999 made its finalist appearance largely by default, after hopes for The Talented Mr Ripley bottomed out. The studio had gone great guns during the previous few years, taking both The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love to the top prize and even securing Roberto Benigni Best Actor. But suddenly, things didn’t look so bright, and the result was this: a film that put a whole new spin on the – to all intents and purposes – inconsequential nominee vying for the main award. The studio would repeat the trick to almost exactly the same

Suspicion (1941)   Suspicion found Alfred Hitchcock basking in the warm glow of Rebecca’s Best Picture Oscar victory the previous year (for which, he received his first of five Best Director nominations, famously winning none of them). Not only that, another of his films, Foreign Correspondent, had jostled with Rebecca for attention. Suspicion was duly nominated itself, something that seems less unlikely now we’ve returned to as many as ten award nominees annually (numbers wouldn’t be reduced to five until 1945). And still more plausible, in and of itself, than his later and final Best Picture nod, Spellbound. Suspicion has a number of claims to eminent status, not least the

And the Oscar Should Have Gone to… The 1994 Contenders Ranked   It isn’t every year you can say the Oscars at least had an interesting selection of nominees, but 1994 managed not only that, but it also included two unassailable classics among the five Best Picture contenders. Also unlike most years, there isn’t an enormously misjudged dud in the ranks, and at least three of the pictures represented something different to the usual Academy fare. Four Weddings and a Funeral Four Weddings’ success represented one of those periodic resurgences for British cinema (usually followed by a precipitous plummet), not that Merchant Ivory

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)   I’m doubtful Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid could have been made in the form it was a few years earlier, but you won’t find it identified with the “New Hollywood” that was percolating at the time of its release (it merits a mere three mentions in Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders and Raging Bulls). Elements – trendy, “cool” nihilism – were, if not informed, then fanned by the likes of Bonnie and Clyde, but this was very much a big Hollywood production, with a then bank-busting sum commanded by William Goldman’s screenplay and the studio martialling

Jaws (1975)   I decided to revisit Jaws, principally because I was intent on tackling the mostly maligned sequels, and it didn’t seem right to omit the genuine article. And also, because it’s never a chore to watch one of Spielberg’s very best movies, made before he began second-guessing himself and imposing peer-review conditions on form and content. The way I see it, there’s the ’berg before E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the ’berg after E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and I’d opt for the former over the latter any day. Untold reams have been written about Jaws, and will continue to be, a movie that changed the

Hidden Figures (2016)   The second biggest hit (worldwide) out of this year’s Oscar nominees, Hidden Figures seems to have stuck around in theatres the longest, perhaps because of its “educational” content. This tale of NASA’s black female mathematicians is the kind of movie minds instantly go to when looking for an example of palatable Oscar fluff (see also A Beautiful Mind): socially progressive but entirely without a spine. The kind of movie you come away from thinking all is good with the world, as we’re all heading in the right direction. It’s banal, aspirational and inoffensive (unless you find its very inoffensiveness

Lion (2016)   A picture of two halves. The first being compelling, powerful and moving. The second featuring Dev Patel. No, that’s unfair. Patel’s BAFTA-winning performance in Lion is perfectly respectable, and it’s easy to see why he has also garnered an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Hair and Beard Ensemble, but he’s nevertheless far subordinate to his character’s junior version, played by Sunny Pawar, who might be the most winningly wide-eyed whippersnapper to grace the screen since Salvatore Cascio in Cinema Paradiso. That’s not a bad comparison, actually, as everyone remembers Cinema Paradiso for the establishing scenes with Phillipe Noiret; the rest of the

Missing (1982)   After seeing The Verdict a couple of months ago, and musing that it might be my personal choice for the Best Picture Oscar out of the 1982 nominees, I thought it might be interesting to revisit the lot. One of which, Missing, I hadn’t seen before. I was aware of the regard in which it was held, of course, as a feature of genuine political content that even elicited angry denials from the US State Department over its allegations of US involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup that saw General Pinochet topple the (democratically-elected, but socialist, so fair game) President

Selma (2014)   Selma feels like it has garnered more attention for omissions of recognition than its actual content, such that the big the Oscar conversation was how it got Best Picture nominated (and original Song, which it won) but no attention elsewhere, in particular for director Ava DuVernay. As these things go, it’s fairly easy to understand why, as for the most part Selma is sturdy but unexceptional biopic fare. Less so in the context of a ceremony that makes a habit of awarding average or inferior biographical pictures as some kind of badge of pride (see fellow nominees The Imitation Game and The Theory

The Theory of Everything (2014)   The latest awards-bait biopic is considerably more involving than the tepid The Intimidation Game, although it shares with it an apparent determination not to depict genius at work. The Theory of Everything is rigorous in its desire to present an upbeat story (just listen to that – actually very good, but still, it’s far from subtle – score). It’s as unpolished in its plotting as it is lustrous in its cinematography. Mostly, though, this is an okay “triumph over adversity’ film, fairly typical of its type, but anchored by outstanding performances from Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones. I didn’t

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)   Dallas Buyers Club is almost, very nearly but not quite, your classic Oscar bait fare. Based on a true story (although loosely appears to be the more than operative word), it depicts a lone crusader struggling against an oppressive establishment. Even better, said crusader is required to suffer a debilitating illness (actor transformation=Oscar nomination) and a bona fide arc all the way from bigotry to compassion. What more could the Academy wish for? Maybe a little less masturbation (never a vote winner)? Otherwise, compelling as the telling of Dallas Buyers Club is, it bears all the hallmarks of

Philomena (2013)   The Oscars’ current dose of Anglophilia can likely be traced back to success of Chariots of Fire and the posture of celebrating English (British) Heritage, but with a twist. The ingredients of Empire may be reclaimed just so long as there’s a fleeting acknowledgment of past lapses. Sumptuous period trappings present older, better eras to hearken back to, but with a twinge of implicit criticism that the mores and values of the day may not have been all that snazzy. Conscience is relived sufficiently to permit the viewer a good wallow in past hues while tutting sagely at the

Her (2013)   Her is one of this year’s little Oscar winners that didn’t. There’s usually at least one (more is more likely now there are more nominees) in the Best Picture line up that isn’t embraced by the public to any significant degree. Nebraska might only have caught on if Jack Nicholson had been curmudgeoning it up in monochrome, but there’s a sense that Her crept under the radar. The online community tended to lap it up, as it speaks to a core dilemma du jour of our increasingly techno-fied human condition, one close to their hearts. Critics generally appreciated it (as you can

American Hustle (2013)   Where once David O Russell came across as a dependably unsprung director, he now appears to have settled into a sort of indie-populist middle ground making medium budget movies with off-key or distinctive subject matter but hitting all the necessary notes for mass audience consumption. American Hustle confirms that trend. It’s a highly enjoyable picture yet it never feels more than a rehearsal of its story, swathed in ‘70s regalia but lacking a really strong subtext or meaning. If it were a wholly Sleuth-esque exercise in twist and counter-twist, that might be sufficient to claim greatness but it doesn’t quite have

Nebraska (2013)   There’s a feeling of structural familiarity pervading Alexander Payne’s latest film. As a storyteller, he appears to favour the road trip as a means of exploring character, understandably so as the linear narrative does all the heavy lifting. Even though his films are laced with irony (often at the expense of the lead), his protagonist(s) is usually on some kind of emotional journey. It is here that Nebraska doesn’t quite follow the expected course. Bruce Dern’s Woody Grant experiences no great realisations or dramatic catharsis. For all the broadness of the events and people encountered on the old man’s