Oscars
Will I be sidelined by AI?
I’ve been head down for the past few weeks, preparing for my one-man show. The title is catchy – Nigel…
Smart, taut and stunning: Conclave reviewed
Conclave is a papal thriller based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris and it stars a magnificent Ralph Fiennes.…
Diary
Oscar week is intense – and it’s been a while since it’s been as intense. The red carpet is full…
Safe and sound
This year the Oscar for best film went to the drama Coda– ‘Child of Deaf Adults’ – but the ceremony…
How to save the Oscars
This Sunday’s Academy Awards will be a litmus test of whether Hollywood can uncouple itself from the political agenda of…
To Di for
Jasper Rees talks to the Chilean director Pablo Larrain about his new film, Spencer, which makes The Crown look like royalist propaganda
Where is my mind?
The Father is an immensely powerful film about dementia starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, who was asleep in his bed in…
A grief observed
Nomadland won multiple Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, and if there’d been an award for Best…
No wonder viewers are boycotting the Oscars
The Oscars are in trouble. People are switching off in their millions. A paltry 9.85m Americans tuned in to the…
It’s time to scrap the Best Actress Oscar award
If you tune in to the Oscars during the early hours of Monday morning, you’ll note – along with sickly…
‘Collective’ shines a light on Romania’s deadly corruption problem
A gripping Romanian documentary has made history as the country’s first film ever to be nominated for an Oscar in…
Life after deaf
The multi-Oscar-nominated Sound of Metalstars Riz Ahmed as a heavy-metal drummer whose life is in freefall after losing his hearing.…
The Oscars
Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland,predicted to win big at this year’s Oscars, is not a terrible film. It’s a slight, sentimental Grapes…
Who dares wins
‘Art is dead,’ declared Mark Steyn recently. He was referring to the new rules — copied from the Baftas —…
French fancies
The selection of a film for family viewing is a precise and delicate art, particularly with us all now confined…
Hollywood Notebook
Recovering from a bad cold and bored to tears by the fare on television, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu (it’s shocking…
Even the Oscars parties have lost their shine
Reading about the Oscars this week, I couldn’t help thinking back to a time when they actually meant something. When…
Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscars speech was beyond a joke
The 2020 Oscars will go down in history for two things: Bong Joon-ho’s brilliant film Parasite becoming the first foreign-language…
Oscar-winning ‘Parasite’ reviewed
Bong Joon-ho's award-winning film is satire, thriller, comedy, allegory and horror all rolled into one
Space invaders
Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite won the Bafta for best foreign film and is up for six Oscars and it is an…
‘If I get an adrenaline rush, something’s gone wrong’: An interview with Free Solo’s Alex Honnold
My husband, usually a cool customer, watched Free Solo from behind his fingers, sometimes jumping up from the sofa and…
Rivetingly moving: Can You Ever Forgive Me? reviewed
Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a true story based on the 2008 memoir of Lee Israel, the writer who…
Bleak, unflinching, oppressive, violent – and magical: Dogman reviewed
Matteo Garrone’s Dogman, which is Italy’s entry for the foreign language Oscar next year, is bleak, unflinching, oppressive, masculine (very),…
The subtly savage world of filmmaker Ruben Ostlund
There is a culty YouTube video shot three years ago on the laptop camera of Ruben Ostlund. It shows the…
I liked Shape of Water well enough but Lady Bird is where it’s at
Lady Bird is a semi-autobiographical film written and directed by Greta Gerwig with a plot synopsis that need not detain…
