Oscars post-mortem, plus Veronica: Your Week In Film (March 5-11)

Actually, Sally, The Shape Of Water won four Oscars...

Due to post-Oscars fatigue and the fact I have deadlines looming elsewhere, it's a shorter column this time. Things should return to normal next week with a bit of luck...

The 90th Academy Awards – your esteemed winners...
Best Picture: The Shape Of Water
Best Director: Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water)
Best Actress: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Best Actor: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)
Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Best Original Screenplay: Jordan Peele (Get Out)
Best Adapted Screenplay: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)
Best Score: Alexandre Desplat (The Shape Of Water)
Best Song: "Remember Me" (Coco)
Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049)
Best Visual Effects: Blade Runner 2049
Best Editing: Dunkirk
Best Animated Film: Coco
Best Documentary: Icarus
Best Foreign-Language Film: A Fantastic Woman
Best Production Design: The Shape Of Water
Best Sound Mixing: Dunkirk
Best Sound Editing: Dunkirk
Best Costume Design: Phantom Thread
Best Make-up And Hair: Darkest Hour
Best Documentary Short: Heaven Is A Traffic Jam On The 405
Best Live Action Short: The Silent Child
Best Animated Short: Dear Basketball

And 11 takeaways...

1. In the end, it was all rather predictable. No shocks, no surprises. For once, it looks like the tipsters and pundits called it right.
2. Despite my antipathy for Three Billboards, ultimately I was rather glad Frances McDormand won Best Actress. Her acceptance speech was extraordinary – "I'm hyperventilating a little bit, so if I fall over, pick me up, because I've got some things to say."
3. The Shape Of Water isn't Guillermo Del Toro's best film and it really isn't in the same league as fellow Best Picture nominee Get Out. But its simple, hopeful message of inclusion clearly chimed with the Academy in these troubled times. It's also the first sci-fi film to take home the top prize.

4. On the subject of Del Toro, he becomes the fourth Mexican to win the Best Director award in five years, following Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity) and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (Birdman and The Revenant).
5. British cinematographer Roger Deakins finally won his first Oscar after 13 previous nominations (for Blade Runner 2049). Some of the movies he didn't win for? The Shawshank Redemption, No Country For Old Men, and Skyfall.
6. Quote of the night? Get Out's Jordan Peele, after triumphing in the Original Screenplay category (the first black person ever to do so), tweeted: "I just won an Oscar. WTF?!?"
7. It seemed rather appropriate that Netflix's Icarus – a film about doping in sport – should win in the Best Documentary category on the very same night Team Sky and Sir Bradley Wiggins were hauled over the coals for "unethical behaviour" in a new report.

8. Two former members of the Hollyoaks cast are now Oscar winners. Yes, really. The Silent Child – which won for Best Live-Action Short – was written by and starred Rachel Shenton (Mitzeee Minniver in the Channel 4 soap) and was directed by Chris Overton (Hollyoaks' cage-fighter Liam McAllister). 9. That's three nominations in the Visual Effects category for the Planet Of The Apes prequel movies now, complete with Andy Serkis's stop-motion acting magic... and not a single win.
10. Despite all the talk of "inclusion" and "diversity", CNN's Gene Seymour attempted to inject a little reality into the back-slapping. In an article entitled, "Oscar's More Woke – But Winners Still So White", he wrote: "To be clear: things haven't changed THAT dramatically yet. We're still waiting for the first African-American best director – and, for that matter, the second woman best director. The fact is, most of the award winners remained white."
11. I wonder if Harvey Weinstein watched the ceremony?

Just the one review this week...

The first thing to say about Veronica (Netflix) WWW is that, contrary to certain reports last week, it really isn't the scariest film ever made. However, this Spanish horror – written and directed by Paco Plaza, who gave us the [Rec] trilogy – is definitely a creepy cut above most modern chillers.

The story is simple enough. Set in Madrid during the early 1990s, it sees the 15-year-old titular character (Sandra Escacena) holding a séance with a couple of school friends, hoping to contact her late father. Unfortunately, as per usual, meddling with supernatural forces turns out to be a very bad idea, and it isn't long before a sinister creature from the "other side" is menacing Veronica and her cute brood of young siblings.

A good deal of the film's success is down to its setting – a cramped, narrow apartment with plenty of nooks, crannies and small rooms that are ideal for all manner of jump-scares and fake-outs. These are just decoration, though, and what Plaza is more interested in is building tension and unease, something he does quite masterfully. There's a palpable claustrophobia to many of the spookiest scenes here, like everything is happening right next to you and all around you. He's got a good eye for a visual flourish too and his film is peppered with them, one scene involving something as seemingly innocuous as some mattresses actually gave me goose-bumps.

Mirrors and other reflective surfaces are a long-standing horror-movie staple but Plaza makes excellent use of them too, dropping hints as to his creature's true nature and, in one superbly delivered moment during a manic climax, dropkicking your heart right into your mouth with a single, spine-tingling image. He even finds room for a bit of fun – the blind nun nicknamed "Sister Death" is so gloriously over the top she could have stepped right out of The Omen, and I loved the fact Veronica gets all her information about the arcane not from some cursed, ancient Necronomicon, but from a few tatty issues of an occult part-works collection. Only the over-familiarity of its premise – teen summons monster, monster comes after her – prevents Veronica getting top marks.

Running scared: Veronica has summoned something very nasty indeed

Also out this week

• Luca Guadagnino's Best Picture nominee Call Me By Your Name (DVD, Blu-ray and VOD) WW is a gorgeous-looking love story, starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet. I appreciated the sumptuous visuals, and James Ivory's Oscar-winning screenplay certainly has its moments, but I struggled to care for either of the main characters.

• The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (DVD, Blu-ray and VOD) WW convinced me co-writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos peaked with Dogtooth and the first half of The Lobster. Discomfiting and original at times, profoundly silly and irritating at others.

• For reasons I will never understand The Florida Project (VOD) WWWW failed to pick up a Best Picture nod, despite being a substantially better film than almost everything else nominated. Sean Baker's hilarious, heart-breaking tale of a struggling young mother and her precocious daughter is a must-see.

• On Body And Soul WWWW may not have won the Foreign-Language Oscar for which it was nominated, but is well worth checking out nonetheless. To celebrate its nomination, Mubi UK have added Ildikó Enyedi's offbeat romance to their catalogue for the next month. You can read my longer take on the film here.
  

What I will be watching this week: Due to last week's snow madness, I still haven't got round to Red Sparrow.

This week's Top 10 UK DVDs and Blu-rays (movies only)
1. Thor: Ragnarok*
2. Jigsaw
3. The Death Of Stalin*
4. Goodbye Christopher Robin
5. Geostorm
6. Blade Runner 2049*
7. Kingsman: The Golden Circle
8. Victoria And Abdul
9. Thor/Thor: The Dark World/Thor: Ragnarok
10. Breathe
* = Recommended

Spotlight, Brooklyn and Cannibal Holocaust: Your week in film (Feb 29-Mar 6)

Spotlight: Tom McCarthy's drama was a shock winner at the Oscars 

TV, Radio, DVD, Blu-ray, VOD and cinema picks for the next seven days...

But first a word or two about the Oscars

I enjoyed The Revenant but was glad it didn't win the Best Picture Oscar. Yes, it's a beautiful-looking film with a couple of superb dramatic set-pieces but, ultimately, is really just another half-decent Western revenge tale. Or, to be less kind, what it all boils to is two men with silly accents (Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy) wrestling in the snow. Alejandro Iñárritu's film deserved its award for cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki's third Oscar win in a row) but that's about it. 

Eventual Best Picture champion Spotlight is The Revenant's polar opposite – a low-key film with no directorial flashiness, action set-pieces or melodrama. The film's plot – journalists investigating the cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Boston – is front and centre at all times. Even the excellent ensemble cast in Tom McCarthy's movie (including Supporting Actor nominees Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams) are granted little external life outside of their quest to chase down witnesses and pour over information sources. It's a fascinating film and one happy to take its time in showing the Boston Globe writers methodically and forensically building their jigsaw of evidence. However, despite its many qualities, Spotlight still seems like an odd favourite. Simply put, the film's problem is that it isn't very 'cinematic', reminding me more of a quality TV drama than an Oscar-winning movie. In fact, it might just be the most understated Best Picture winner ever.

Now, if you're thinking all these sour grapes are just my way of saying "Mad Max: Fury Road was robbed", then you'd be right. I'm delighted director George Miller and his team won six technical Oscars though. But that was the least the film deserved...

On with this week's picks...

Monday February 29th: Saoirse Ronan is fantastic in Brooklyn (DVD, Blu-ray and VOD), director John Crowley's beautifully written (by Nick Hornby) and acted adaptation of Colm Tóibín's 1950s-set novel. As Ellis, Ronan is a young immigrant relocating from her quiet Irish village to the hustle and bustle of the titular New York borough. There, she meets and falls for an easygoing Italian plumber but is soon recalled on urgent family business. Back on home soil, Ellis's new life, priorities and future are all suddenly thrown up into the air, especially when a potential new suitor makes himself known. She faces a huge choice – which way will she leap? The plot is simplicity itself but the themes and emotions are big. Elsewhere, Takashi Miike's notorious J-horror Audition (BR and Dual Format Steelbook) gets the swanky reissue treatment.

Brooklyn is beautifully written and acted (trailer)

Tuesday March 1st: Despite being nearly 40 years old, Cannibal Holocaust (Mubi) still bites great big bloody lumps out of recent cannibal-flavoured offerings such as Bone Tomahawk and The Green Inferno. It might be sleazy, nasty, gratuitous, and thoroughly reprehensible (the killing of several animals in the film is real), but Ruggero Deodato's infamous 1980 film is cleverer and, in many ways, far less reactionary than its clumsy imitators. Of course, it also pretty much invented the 'found footage' storytelling technique now widely seen in dodgy horror flicks the world over. But please don't hold that against it. Film 2016 (23:45, BBC1) ends its latest seven-episode run tonight with Claudia Winkleman, Danny Leigh and guest Tim Robey casting their critical gaze over the week's new releases. The show – which must cost peanuts to produce – is treated pretty shabbily by the Beeb; moved around the schedules willy-nilly and only broadcast for a few weeks at a time either side of the new year. More positively, Peter Sellars is Inspector Clouseau in the very funny The Return of the Pink Panther (Netflix). Swine bird!

Cannibal Holocaust: Sleazy, nasty, gratuitous (trailer)

Wednesday March 2nd: Dallas Buyers Club (Amazon Prime) is one of those rare 'Oscar bait' movies that is actually pretty good. Set in the 1980s and based on a true story, Matthew McConaughey plays AIDS patient Ron Woodroof who, frustrated at the lack of effective medication available to him and fellow sufferers in the US, takes matters into his own hands. A powerful drama. David Cronenberg's bravura body horror remake The Fly (22:00, Syfy), released in 1986, has frequently been described as an AIDS allegory and it's easy to see why. Scientist Jeff Goldblum conducts an experiment into matter transportation that goes horribly wrong, commencing a process that slowly but surely ravages both his mind and body. Inside Llewyn Davis (21:00, Film4) stars Oscar Isaac as the struggling musician of the title in one of my favourite Coen Brothers films. Abject failure is rarely this entertaining. 

Dallas Buyers Club is superior Oscar bait (trailer)

Thursday March 3rd: Presenter Antonia Quirke talks 1950s communism with Joel and Ethan Coen on The Film Programme (BBC Radio 4, 16:00). The brothers' latest comedy – Hail, Caesar! – is the highlight of this week's cinema releases and is out tomorrow. Olympus Has Fallen (21:00, Channel 5) sees secret service agent Gerard Butler battling North Korean terrorists who have taken over the White House. A sequel – London Has Fallen – is also in cinemas from tomorrow. Your best bet movie-wise today, though, is Michael Mann's classy adaptation of The Last Of The Mohicans (21:00, Spike), starring Daniel Day Lewis as Hawkeye (not that one). 

The Coens are back with Hail, Caesar! (trailer)

Friday March 4th: Apart from the aforementioned Hail, Caesar! and London Has Fallen, this week's cinema releases include a couple of horrors, one intriguing (Goodnight Mommy), one rather less so (The Other Side Of The Door), an interesting-looking documentary (Hitchcock/Truffaut), and Cate Blanchett/Robert Redford drama Truth that, like Spotlight, puts journalists at the centre of proceedings. James Vanderbilt's film tells the true story of 'Rathergate' during the lead up to the 2004 US presidential election. Veteran CBS newsreader Dan Rather (Redford) and the channel's head of news Mary Mapes (Blanchett) ran a story exposing how then-president George W Bush had used his father's connections to avoid being drafted in the Vietnam war. The tsunami of controversy that followed the broadcast saw them both lose their jobs. I shall look out for it when it appears on DVD in a few months time because its chances of reaching my local Odeon are zero.

The Truth is out there for Cate Blanchett (trailer)

Saturday March 5th: Lots of movies on terrestrial TV tonight but nothing you'd take home to meet your mum. Seven Psychopaths (23:40, Channel 4) is another black comedy from Martin McDonagh, the writer/director who gave us the splendidly profane In Bruges. Despite a fine cast, including Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell, it isn't a patch on the earlier film. Even less fun is The Bourne Legacy (21:00, Channel 4), which sees Jeremy Renner supplant Matt Damon as the secret agent series' focus with little success. His character isn't even named Bourne, for god's sake. Never Say Never Again (23:20, ITV) is the remake of Thunderball which marked Sean Connery's return as James Bond after 12 years away. Suffice to say, the 1965 version – which also starred Connery – is substantially better. Al Pacino and Colin Farrell star in CIA thriller The Recruit (23:50, BBC1), a film so unmemorable I'd completely forgotten it even existed until now.

Sean Connery returns as James Bond (trailer)

Sunday March 6th: American Hustle (21:00, Channel 4) isn't David O'Russell's best film (I still reckon 1999's Three Kings holds that title) but it is enormous fun. The '70s crime caper sees con-man Christian Bale and partner Amy Adams forced to work for the FBI by loose-cannon agent Bradley Cooper. O'Russell merges drama and comedy to good effect and revels in the period setting. But Jennifer Lawrence steals the show. Obviously. Set in 1960, The German Doctor (21:00, BBC4) tells the true story of an Argentine family's encounter with fugitive Nazi Dr Joseph Mengele, the Auschwitz 'Angel of Death'. Without realising his true identity they entrust the care of their sick daughter, Lilith, to the man. It's every bit as chilling and discomfiting as you'd expect. 

Jennifer Lawrence lights up American Hustle (trailer)

The last five films I've seen, from best to worst...
1. Taxi Tehran: Jafar Panahi is banned from making movies by the Iranian authorities but finds increasingly clever ways around that limitation. This time he drives a cab around Tehran and films the passengers he encounters. Some of it is clearly staged, but that doesn't detract from what is a fascinating, funny and eye-opening experience.
2. Chronic: Tim Roth's best performance in years lights up this odd and disturbing tale of a palliative care nurse who gets too close to his patients.
3. Trumbo: Solid biopic of 1950s Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Roman Holiday, Spartacus), who was blacklisted and jailed for being a communist. Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston is on fine form.
4. Nina Forever: Bizarre British horror about a man whose girlfriend returns from the dead every time he has sex with his new lover. Underneath the blood and craziness, there's a rather clever meditation on grief.
5.Triple 9: Overcooked heist thriller which boasts a great cast (Kate Winslet, Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor) but suffers from an overabundance of plot twists. 

UK box office top 10
1. Deadpool R
2. Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Road Chip
3. How To Be Single
4. Goosebumps R
5. Dad's Army
6. Triple 9
7. Zoolander 2
8. The Revenant R
9. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
10. Spotlight R

R = Recommended

Stop Getting Bond Wrong! Your week in film (Feb 22-28)

Daniel Craig is back as Bond... perhaps for the final time

TV, Radio, DVD, Blu-ray, VOD and cinema picks for the next seven days...

MONDAY 22nd: If Spectre (Blu-ray, DVD and VOD) turns out to be Daniel Craig's last film as James Bond, it will be a shame, because this 24th installment of the 007 franchise is more Quantum Of Solace than Skyfall. As you'd expect, there are a couple of spectacular action scenes (the opening sequence in Mexico is a cracker), while bad-guy Christoph Waltz and love interest Léa Seydoux bring a genuine touch of class to proceedings. But Monica Bellucci is wasted and some scenes either fall flat or make no sense whatsoever. Still, even below-par Bond is always worth a look. Despite its huge debt to When Harry Met Sally, I really enjoyed edgy(ish) rom-com Sleeping With Other People (DVD and VOD), mainly because the script is sharp and Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis are such likeable leads. TV-wise, there's Pacino and De Niro in limp cop thriller Righteous Kill (22:55, Channel 5), classic Steve Martin comedy The Jerk (01:05, ITV4), and intense Xavier Dolan drama I Killed My Mother (01:45, Film4).

Spectre has its moments but is no Skyfall (trailer)

Nobody Does it better: Alan Partridge re-enacts the
intro to The Spy Who Loved Me 

TUESDAY 23rd: It's been 20 years since Trainspotting (22:45, Film4) opened in British cinemas, so kudos to Film4 for marking that anniversary with a showing of the Danny Boyle-directed movie on the exact same day as its original release. Two decades on, the adaptation of Irvine Welsh's cult novel about a gang of heroin addicts in Edinburgh holds up well with a parade of iconic scenes and memorable characters, many of the cast (Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller) turning in performances they've since struggled to top. With a sequel on its way from Boyle, and Welsh returning to the Trainspotting well more and more (Skagboys, The Blade Artist), I suspect we'll be seeing the likes of Begbie, Sick Boy and Renton on the big screen for a long time yet.

Trainspotting is 20 years old this week (trailer)

WEDNESDAY 24th: A holidaying family are terrorised and tortured by two intruders in Michael Haneke's psychological thriller Funny Games (Sky Arts, 22:00). This isn't some run-of-the-mill 'yuppies in peril' movie, though, as the Austrian director cleverly turns the brutality he depicts back on his audience to explore their/our own attraction to and fascination with screen violence. From 1997, this is the original version rather than the inferior US remake, which Haneke also directed. Guardian movie critic Peter Bradshaw joins Claudia Winkleman and Danny Leigh to review the week's new releases on Film 2016 (23:15, BBC1), including Secret In Their Eyes starring Julia Roberts, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Nicole Kidman (presumably on a break from playing a meerkat's girlfriend in those disturbing TV ads).

Funny Games cleverly tackles our fascination
with screen violence (trailer)

THURSDAY 25th: Guillermo Del Toro's Hellboy (22:40, Film4) is a thoroughly enjoyable adaptation of the graphic novel series with Ron Perlman perfectly cast as the titular demon-turned-hero. If you were compiling a list of the best vampire movies of all time you'd probably stick Tomas Alfredson's Let The Right One In (01:00, Film4) somewhere near the top of it. The Swedish film - an adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's original novel - has all the horror and violence you'd expect but is also a surprisingly soulful and tender tale of first love and lost innocence. Terrific.

Let The Right One In: Tender, soulful, brutal (trailer)

FRIDAY 26th: Mad Max: Fury Road (15:30 and 20:00, Sky Movies Premiere) might just be the finest action film ever made, although you have to feel a bit sorry for Tom Hardy. His debut as road warrior Max Rockatansky is solid enough but this movie belongs to one-armed warrior woman Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and the sheer avalanche of crazy ideas and outrageous stunts that director George Miller and his co-conspirators bring to the party. Relentlessly imaginative, thrill-a-minute stuff. Ethan and Joel Coen talk about their new movie, Hail, Caesar!, on Kermode and Mayo's Film Review (14:00, Radio 5 Live). Cinema-wise, it's a profoundly underwhelming week. If I can muster the energy, I'll see Sacha Baron Cohen's new comedy Grimsby, although its chances of being anywhere near as good as Borat or Bruno are slim.

Mad Max: Fury Road - an avalanche of crazy ideas
and outrageous stunts (trailer)

SATURDAY 27th: Amy (More4, 21:00) is Asif Kapadia's documentary chronicling the short life and tragic death at 27 of British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse. The Senna director uses archive footage and the voices of friends, family and collaborators to really get under the skin of his subject, an addict who cut a thoroughly forlorn figure towards the end of her life. This is not only a powerful reminder of Winehouse's enormous talent but a film that does a sterling job of redeeming her public image too. 

Amy provides a reminder of the late singer's
enormous talent (trailer)

SUNDAY 28th: Chris Rock is your host for the 88th Academy Awards (01:30, Sky Movies Oscars). I've deliberately avoided mentioning the Oscars on here this year as the entire enterprise grows ever sillier and more sordid. There might be some great films and actors nominated but, let's face it, the whole thing is so cosy, unimaginative and conservative that truly transgressive, challenging and left-field pictures rarely get a look in. And that's before you even get to the scandalous row over diversity. Elsewhere, there's Star Wars: The Force Awakens' very own John Boyega in Attack The Block (23:35, Film4), while Darren Aronofsky's ambitious but bonkers Noah hits Netflix.

Host Seth Macfarlane oozes class at the Oscars in 2013.

The last five films I've seen, from best to worst...

1. Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) The New Wave maestro at the top of his game: provocative, outrageous and bloody funny.

2. The Survivalist (Stephen Fingleton, 2015) Bleak but gripping British post-apocalypse drama that works wonders on a low budget. 

3. Goosebumps (Rob Letterman, 2015) Monsters from the famous children's books go on the rampage in an all-action adventure that might have benefited from a bit more Gremlins-style anarchy.

4. Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz, 2009) Solondz's 'spiritual sequel' to 1998's Happiness never hits the hilariously transgressive heights of the original film.

5. The Green Inferno (Eli Roth, 2013) Being devoured by cannibals would probably be more fun than sitting through this again.  

The Survivalist is in cinemas and on-demand now (trailer)

UK box office top 10
1. Deadpool R
2. Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Road Chip
3. Zoolander 2
4. Dad's Army
5. Goosebumps R
6. The Revenant R
7. Dirty Grandpa
8. Spotlight R
9. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
10. Pride And Prejudice And Zombies

R = Recommended