December 5, 2014December 5, 2014 by hutchwp

Frankenstein Created Woman (Terence Fisher, 1967)

Terence Fisher’s 1967 Hammer Horror film Frankenstein Created Woman was screened as the opening film of the Mayhem Presents The Created Woman weekender at Broadway in Nottingham. It was a perfect way to kick off the festival.

Fisher had spent his career making a name for himself as a director of great Hammer Horror titles, including The Mummy, Dracula and The Hound of the Baskervilles. This film came towards the end of his career (he was 63 at the time), by which point he was clearly a very accomplished and well-established director. Despite this, there is nothing stale about this picture.

He relied again on Peter Cushing to take the role of Baron Frankenstein, a tried and tested appointment. Yet it isn’t Cushing that takes centre-stage. Playboy centrefold Susan Denberg is absolutely brilliant as the shy and physically scarred Christina, whose body is the subject of Frankenstein’s latest experiment. Fusing her body with the soul of her deceased lover Hans (Robert Morris), she becomes a schizophrenic femme fatale, with a personal vendetta to murder those responsible for his death. Her role has two sides and both are played perfectly, though she is obviously more at ease with the second more sexually-confident character.

The film has a few loose points. It is responsible for one of the worst court scenes in cinematic history, in which Hans is sentenced to death for a crime with no evidence and no witnesses, even though the judge knows he is innocent, essentially because his father was a murderer. It’s in there for necessity and Fisher tries to see it through as quickly as possible. Elsewhere, three men essentially allow themselves to be killed, in reality because if they’d tried to struggle they would have easily overcome their attacker. Apparently it’s much easier to just lie still in shock and take the inevitable.

It’s probably not the best Frankenstein-based story ever told, but with a great performance from Denberg it is one that is worthy of the franchise and I recommend checking it out if you’re a big fan of the series, or indeed of Hammer Horror in general.

Frankenstein Created Woman is available on Blu-ray now.

October 31, 2014November 13, 2014 by hutchwp

The Toxic Avenger (Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, 1984)

What a terrible disappointment. The Toxic Avenger was a film I watched when I was probably far too young to see such graphic violence. Sometimes, when you revisit films like this, you’re pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, despite my anticipation, this wasn’t the case with The Toxic Avenger.

Set in Tromaville, the film stars Mark Torgl as Melvin Ferd, the janitor at a local fitness centre. Melvin is portrayed as a complete moron, with his low self-esteem trumped only by his lower intelligence. He is openly despised by everyone in the whole town for this, but in particular by two steroid-addicted gym-goers Bozo and Slug, who it is established early on are also murderers, of course. There’s a bit of a bit of light-hearted bullying where Melvin accidentally kisses a sheep whilst wearing a tutu, and he runs out of a window on the first floor, falling head-first into an inconveniently-positioned toxic waste lorry. From then on the story becomes really ridiculous. To cut a long story short, Melvin becomes a mutated unflinching powerhouse of a monster, and goes on a vigilante rampage across the town, killing anyone he deems to be immoral. They’re quite easy to spot, because they’re usually laughing sinisterly, holding a gun or a knife, doing Class A drugs, deliberately driving into children on bikes, or are doing all of these things and are called Bozo or Slug.

By the time he started dating Sara, who must be one of the worst-acted and most offensively-portrayed blind people in the history of cinema, I was contemplating turning it off. I just don’t know what the message was. Blind people can have a relationship too, as long as the person they are seeing has been hideously disfigured in a contrived toxic waste accident? People with bizarre deformities and burns scars could get lucky as long as the person they love is blind and doesn’t know what they look like? Either way, it’s a poor message.

The story is unfathomably far-fetched, which I guess is the point, but it’s so poorly acted that it never looks anything more than a homemade film where someone with a camera has assembled a bunch of friends to act out his flimsy story. Everything is hammed up beyond comprehension, and the characters are so black and white you wonder whether directors Kaufman and Herz think everyone watching needs every detail to be spelled out as obviously as possible. Perhaps its enduring success as a B-Movie horror classic is down to the fact it is so mind-numbing, and that’s what the people who keep watching it are looking for.

The one saving grace for it is the special effects, which are clearly a cut above everything else on offer here. The transformation scene was pretty gruesome and realistic, and the scene where Bozo and Slug drive a poor child off his bike to his horrific death was startling and effective. It’s a shame that this is juxtaposed with such dreadful acting and some ridiculously chosen music, which is either camp 80s pop rock, or classical music. Nothing in between.

It’s also interesting comparing the then-horrific violence to what is regularly on television today. In the preceding years, things like crushed skulls, burst eyeballs and dismembered bodies has gone from something that would potentially see a film banned to standard fair for the likes of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Clearly at the time a film like The Toxic Avenger would sell itself on the depicted violence, whereas now it is becoming a quirk of cinematic history as we become desensitised to what we deem shocking.

One good reason to buy is the plethora of bonus features on offer on this 88 Films release, including trailers, interviews, worthwhile commentary from the director, two lengthy introductions, and a whole different Japanese cut of the film. If you are a huge fan of the film then these would make it a worthy repurchase. There’s also the intro credits for the Toxic Crusader cartoon series, which I vividly remember from my childhood. Like the film, though, I ended up underwhelmed by my memory not living up to the reality.

I’m sure there’s something for someone in this, but I’m not that someone. I applaud 88 Films for releasing a home-video transfer worthy of the fans, but I can’t endorse the film because it’s just so bad. I really can’t believe that this film holds a rating more than 10% higher than, say, Home Alone on Rotten Tomatoes (65% to 54%). This is proof enough that you can’t account for taste. Or lack of.

The Toxic Avenger is available now on 88 Films Blu-ray.

October 27, 2014November 13, 2014 by hutchwp

The Walking Dead – Series 05, Episodes 01-03 (Spoiler Alert)

When we left Rick Grimes and Co., they had been forced into a giant shipping container against their will at the hands of a seemingly untrustworthy man called Gareth. I don’t know why they agreed to go in there, but it was a great way to leave us on a cliff-hanger for about six months. If there’s one thing that The Walking Dead does well, it’s cliff-hangers. Oh and gore. Lots and lots of gore.

When we re-join them, things are looking just as bleak. We don’t know exactly how long they’ve been in there, but we’re guessing quite a while. They’re all a bit grumpier and hairier, plus they’ve had enough time to fashion some rudimentary tools to ambush their captors when they next pay them a visit. Unfortunately for them, things don’t quite go as planned and we wind up with four of our main characters – Rick, Bob, Glenn and Daryll – along with four throwaway extras, all lined up and ready to be put to the slaughter. Literally. Yes, we all guessed right, these guys are cannibals and our favourite zombie killers are going to become someone’s dinner. Unless something happens to divert their attention, which it inevitably does.

As opening sequences to series go, this is probably one of the best I’ve ever seen. Indeed the only one I remember being as good in recent years was the first episode after last year’s mid-season break of The Walking Dead, when we found out what happened to the Governor and the people of Woodbury. Both were equally intense and I was on the edge of my seat hoping no harm came to them. What a way to welcome us back to the series.

As the next couple of episodes pan out, we’re reminded that nobody is safe from harm and can be dropped at any point, and the particulars of this are absolutely horrific (especially for Bob). We’re also treated to some extremely fast pacing, especially considering the bad guys move so slowly. But that’s the critical point, the reason they’ve kept us interested for so long. Over four seasons, they’ve evolved the main threat from being the easy to recognise zombies to the not-so-easy to spot untrustworthy survivors. By now, all of our team are more than capable of fending for themselves and they could just head off to Washington D.C. in their mini bus. But that wouldn’t make for an interesting story. We’re constantly looking around the corner for the next threat, but I can’t remember the last time they were genuinely under threat from zombies.

I wonder how we’d feel if we joined our main survivors now, without prior knowledge of how they got there. I think we’d be far less if we didn’t know that Rick used to be a good person, a sheriff no less, and that his wife died in childbirth, or that she was giving birth to the baby that came as a result of an affair she was having with Rick’s former partner in crime-fighting Shane, or that Rick is now looking after this child. In reality all we’re coming across are other clones of our characters, all of whom probably lived perfectly normal lives before the zombie apocalypse, and who have had to make a series of insanely difficult decisions to survive. The only difference is that we don’t know their back story and we have been on a long journey with Rick Grimes and Co. Yet we cheer along as they murder potentially innocent people without a trial, because that’s what our people need to do to survive. In many ways it brings up questions for the way we live our own lives, making decisions often to maintain the status quo, fearing change and the unknown. I predict over the coming series these questions will keep coming back to us as more groups are encountered, which is pretty hefty work for a series ostensibly about bludgeoning zombies.

There were a couple of occasions where I thought the show let itself down. Main characters are losing the ability to make rational choices with seemingly the only purpose being that the writers need an interesting plot twist. The biggest example of this was when Glenn and Maggie decided to ditch all their friends and join some people they barely know and go on a road trip to Washington D.C. Clearly the only reason to do this was to keep the viewers interested when they flick to the scenes with this half of the group, but it was completely unbelievable that they would ever make that decision on three levels: Abraham would never push the group into making a stupid or hasty decision that is clearly detrimental to the group as a whole; Rick would never back down so quickly when he risks losing their only means of transport and two critical group members; and Maggie would never leave with the group when the reason to stay is to find out the whereabouts of three of their fellow survivors, of which one is her sister Beth. It is this final point that really is the killer for me. It is a blatant way to twist the plots up and make the season interesting but it’s a shame it had to be via such a blatant loss of integrity to three strong characters.

That said, there are plenty of open ends at the moment (Where is Beth? Do we trust Father Gabriel?) and with a character-driven plot, plenty of blood and gore to keep us shocked and enough deviations from the comic book to keep everyone guessing, I predict I’ll still be on the edge of my seat in five months when this season comes to an end.

The Walking Dead screens in the UK on Monday nights on Fox and Fox HD at 9pm. All three episodes covered in this review are available on demand, with the first one expiring on 9th November 2014.

October 8, 2014November 13, 2014 by hutchwp

L’Homme Que L’On Aimait Trop (Andre Téchiné, 2014)

Andre Téchiné’s latest film L’Homme Que L’On Aimait Trop (literally The Man That You Loved Too, though also known as In The Name of My Daughter but advertised here as the comparatively uninspiring French Riviera) was the opening film of the 2014 BFI London Film Festival. It didn’t kick the fortnight off with fireworks – that was saved for the red carpeted The Imitation Game a couple of hours later – but it was a film that was overall a missed opportunity despite almost being salvaged by a few great performances.

The plot centres around Renée Le Roux (played by Catherine Deneuve), the owner of The Palais, a casino in the French Riviera. We pick the story up in 1970s Nice, as her daughter Agnès (Adèle Haenel) arrives home from a long absence. She is met at the airport by Maurice (Guillaume Canet), a man who is part family lawyer and part personal assistant to Renée. The primary reason for her returning appears to be to give her mother’s opinions more backing on the executive board of the casino, but the situation quickly gets complicated when Agnès begins a largely unrequited infatuation with Maurice. Both Agnès and Maurice slowly reveal that they are driven by their own personal agendas and this makes for an interesting triangle of power, greed, love and suspicion.

Unfortunately, there is a tendency for the plot to focus on things that aren’t central to the plot, whilst critical points are overlooked. A key aspect of the plot is a power struggle between members of an executive board of a high-class casino, on which there are some suspicious mafia members pulling the strings. This is a potentially fruitful area that is largely unexploited.

Equally, the period immediately after Agnès eventually betrays her mother is almost completely skipped over and we are left to work out where exactly we are on the time line. Again, later in the film when Agnès disappears we pick the story up with Maurice a couple of months down the line. This is something that is explained about 40 minutes later in the film, but it doesn’t exactly make it easy to follow.

Indeed, the method of storytelling chosen at this point is a montage of newspaper headlines, which is frankly quite lazy. Adèle Haenel’s performance as Agnès heads towards a mental breakdown isn’t very convincing and I never really believed she was in turmoil, perhaps because too little time was spent on this period.

The overall impression is that of a lack of focus and that Andre Téchiné couldn’t decide what the most relevant parts of the story were. Perhaps it was a stylistic choice to underline the fact this mysterious story is still yet to be unravelled and so much is still unknown, but I would sooner have had a story better told.

The final act of the film is set in a courtroom many years down the line. The make-up on Maurice is extraordinary. Unfortunately, they age him by about forty years and Renée only looks about ten years older, despite the fact we are told she has spent the intervening years (22 to be precise) ploughing all her time and money into searching for her daughter. He has allegedly been enjoying his early retirement in Panama. Surely someone on the set realised there was a mismatch here?

I left the cinema feeling like this was a missed opportunity to tell a really interesting story whilst shedding some light on a real-life mystery that is yet to be unravelled. It’s not a disaster, just not quite what it could have been.

L’Homme Que L’On Aimait Trop is released in UK cinemas in 2015.

October 2, 2014November 13, 2014 by hutchwp

Magic in the Moonlight (Woody Allen, 2014)

Interesting fact – Woody Allen has directed and written a new feature film every year since 1982’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy. And that break – that one year break – was well deserved. Between 1972 and 1980 he managed eight feature films in a purple patch of creativity that included Manhatten, Bananas, Annie Hall, Sleeper and Love and Death. This industrious approach to churning out films from the Woody Allen cinema factory of course means that some releases are better received than others. Going to see his latest film doesn’t seem to guarantee you’ll see a great film.

In recent years, though, he has had a critical and commercial renaissance, which started with 2008’s Vicky Christina Barcelona, and he has been introduced to a whole generation of cinema-goers. Indeed, watching his recent films they all seem to be of the same universe. The fonts and designs used for the title sequences are always identical (though admittedly he has used the same Windsor font for around forty years now). The music is of a similar style, albeit usually stylised to the area in which the film is set. The locations have tended towards beautiful, luxurious areas of famous European cities with histories rich in romance, barring 2009’s Whatever Works and last year’s hugely successful Blue Jasmine. It’s almost like Woody Allen is using his films to enjoy these beauty hotspots.

So, whilst seeing Woody Allen’s latest might not guarantee you’ll see a great film, it will guarantee you’ll see a quintessentially Allenesque film, one you will immediately recognise as belonging to this most unique of directors.

And so it is with his latest.

Magic In The Moonlight stars British heavyweight Colin Firth and relative newcomer Emma Stone, both of whom are highly gifted and currently very sought-after actors. The story centres around Firth’s Stanley Crawford, a world-renowned magician whom we join as he journeys to the French Riviera to witness and debunk Stone’s Sophie Baker, a self-professed spiritual medium who Stanley is sure is as fake as the rest of her peers.

Firth plays the stubborn Stanley perfectly. The character is a dislikeable person, one we see slowly fall for a girl many years his minor but refusing to admit it, doubly bad as he has a fiancé-in-waiting back home. Even when Sophie starts to show feelings for him, he rebukes her in the most insulting of manners. Firth is an inherently likeable person so that he pulls this is off so well is to be admired. Emma Stone, too, is brilliant in playing a seemingly innocent girl with an extraordinary gift. The play between these two highly talented actors is something to behold. Throw into the mix a fantastic support cast including Eileen Atkins and Simon McBurney, some beautiful scenery and a well-crafted script and you have another excellent entry into the Allen catalogue.

In many ways, I do wonder what the enduring fascination with Allen is. Especially in the UK where, in light of Operation Yewtree and a seemingly never ending chain of accusations and court cases against the stars of yesteryear, any kind of indecent relationship will be dragged through the press. It seems decidedly odd that Woody Allen’s popularity remains completely intact. There doesn’t seem to be any resolution on the horizon for his ongoing feud with Dylan Farrow, his adoptive daughter, who claims she was the victim of sexual abuse as a child. It seems bizarre that so many renowned actors would flock to be involved with his work with this hanging over his legacy. Yes, I understand that we should treat people as innocent until proven guilty, but that is frankly not the society we live in, where often trial by media is the preferred route. I don’t truly believe that these films are so good they overpower his potential loss of reputation if these allegations were true. Perhaps it’s just that his reputation as an excellent director precedes him and people are desperate to work with him as he sits in the twilight of his career. Who could turn down the opportunity to work with a bonafide legend of cinema?

So, is Magic in the Moonlight as good as Midnight in Paris or Blue Jasmine? Probably not. But it is a uniquely Allenesque picture and one that certainly won’t go down in the future as a flop; yet another water tight story told brilliant by one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema.

Magic in the Moonlight is on release at selected cinemas in the UK now.

September 20, 2014November 13, 2014 by hutchwp

Wakolda (Lucia Puenzo, 2014)

Lucia Puenzo’s controversial new film is a thriller of sorts that really failed to thrill me in any way. Based partly on fact, it centres around a family living in Patagonia in the 1960s who are unexpectedly befriended by a German doctor. This doctor, it turns out, is actually Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele in hiding. He takes an unhealthy interest in their daughter Lilith and in the father’s hobby of making steampunk dolls with creepy beating hearts.

I’m not up on my post-second-world-war Nazi manhunt history, so I can’t comment on the factual accuracy of it all, but what I can say is that the finer details seemed a little far-fetched. The fact he was in Latin America in this period has been proved in many historical documents. However, I can’t relate in any way to a family that would allow their youngest daughter to be experimented on by a complete stranger who is quite obviously in hiding, especially when that man is German and it is known that Nazi war criminals are in hiding in South America. And you’re in South America. And he’s a creep that wants to experiment with drugs on your daughter.

The acting also left a lot to be desired. The normally animated Brendemuhl (Mengele) pitches his character as too wooden and fails to elicit the correct level of hatred that is required. Indeed, for large periods of the film it feels like we are being encouraged to feel empathy for him, which in my eyes is quite divisive. Perhaps the director should be praised for being brave and allowing the actor to portray him as something other than a cinema-standard psychopath. For me, the result is just a little bit directionless.

Wakolda has won awards at festivals all around the world and perhaps the global appeal is down to the fact it is a story that involves the history of so many people’s countries. On the pure level of looking at it as a convincing and effective story in its own right, I think it falls short. It certainly wasn’t a roller-coaster ride and I didn’t really feel much for the characters, so when the story reached its climax I just didn’t feel overly engaged.

Wakolda is out now in selected cinemas across the UK.

September 17, 2014November 13, 2014 by hutchwp

Too Late Blues (John Cassavetes, 1961)

I’m growing tired of the Masters of Cinema releases. Time after time they release excellent transfers of classic forgotten cinema, more often than not films I’ve never heard of before, put a lovely package together and release it for about the same price as going to the cinema. It’s sickening. Unfair almost.

Elaborating on my first point – my wife and wallet are growing sick of the Masters of Cinema releases. I personally can’t get enough of them.

Too Late Blues has largely been considered a failure, not least by director John Cassavetes. His major studio debut, released following the hugely successful Shadows in 1959, the film is infamous for its compromises, which cover everything from the music to the script and even the main cast. Watching it now it is hard to see what the controversy is about.

I was particularly taken aback by Bobby Darin’s performance. I’m of a generation that knows him almost exclusively for his huge signature tune “Beyond The Sea”, and less so for “Splish Splash”, which is now unfortunately associated with the “falling in the garden pool” segments on You’ve Been Framed.

Bobby Darin finally takes time to play his piano between baths

Bobby Darin as Ghost in Too Late Blues

Playing Ghost, the leader of a struggling jazz band, Darin toys with the frailty of a damaged ego whilst putting on a front for his love interest and fellow aspiring musician Jess (played by Stella Stevens). He plays it with charm and integrity and it’s a fantastic performance in one of his early film roles.

Cassavetes ensures his stamp is made on the film by carefully throwing in one-liners that subtly defend his fear he’d be viewed as selling out by fans of his debut. At one point, a line is delivered that points to the “mixin’ up of the races” as one of the sins of jazz musicians. The fact this is delivered by an idiotic ruffian is a clear indicator that Cassavetes did not agree with the statement and was using the line as a critique of the copious Hollywood films about the thriving mixture of inspirations and culture that was the 1950s jazz scene, but which all centred on exclusively white musicians (Young Man With A Horn and Pete Kelly’s Blues are good examples of this). Indeed, the very subject matter of Too Late Blues is a man struggling with artistic integrity and what he sees as selling out. It’s an intelligent compromise and the fact it made it past the studios sort of proves his point.

Stealing the show above everyone else though is Everett Chambers, who plays the artists’ agent Benny Flowers. Reminiscent of Joe Pesci at his most evil, he perfectly plays a man riddled with jealousy. His efforts to sabotage his acts’ careers in order to keep them in his control are trumped only by the efforts he puts into ensure Ghost and Jess never become a couple, so desperate he is to end up with the girl himself. This reaches breaking point in a highly memorable bar-room brawl, which he orchestrates to perfection whilst seemingly never getting involved. It is a shame that this would prove to be one of the few roles that Chambers completed before transferring to a very successful career in television production, as he shows every pointer of being an excellent actor.

The promise shown in the opening act of the film are never really delivered on, and this is probably because of pressures from the studio upon seeing the progress as it was made. That said. it is a worthy addition to the continually excellent Masters of Cinema collection and well worth the monetary and emotional investment.

Too Late Blues is out now in the UK on Blu-ray and DVD dual format release, courtesy of the Masters of Cinema collection.

September 13, 2014September 13, 2014 by hutchwp

Lilting (Hong Khaou, 2014)

Hong Khaou’s Lilting is a film of understated power. Watching it is a deeply moving experience.

The plot deals with the unexpected death of a young man played by Kai, and the toll this takes on his lover Richard (played by Ben Whishaw) and his mother Junn (played by Cheng Pep-pei). The snag in the situation is that the mother is unaware that her son is homosexual, and the situation is made more complex by the fact that Richard intends to respect his lover’s wish to keep this secret whilst at the same time ensuring Junn is looked after, which raises issues that are extenuated by the fact they have no common language. Or rather, they don’t until Ben hires a translator, though this gives rise to as many issues as it resolves.

This is a complicated storyline to see through and could easily fall flat with poor performances. Junn is brilliantly stubborn and cold, though we can see a heartbroken woman underneath the façade. Whishaw’s turn is an absolute revelation and every quirk adds to the belief that he is completely ripped apart by the situation.

A large amount of praise also needs to be heaped on the unwillingness to shy away from the fact we are seeing a homosexual relationship. So many times in films we see same-sex relationships implied but rarely do we see the playful intimacies and passion of such a relationship. This isn’t to say that there are any gratuitous sex-scenes, but the story called for the young men to be very much in love and the closeness is not shirked. Hopefully this is something we will see more of in the future.

Lilting is one of the best films I’ve seen this year. It’s a stunning study of the emotions people go through when someone they are close to dies with a secret, and the difficult resolutions they find to deal with the loss. If you get a chance to see it, then grasp it with both hands.

Lilting is out now in selected cinemas across the UK, and will be released in the USA on 26th September 2014.

September 11, 2014November 13, 2014 by hutchwp

Deux Jours, Une Nuit (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, 2014)

The latest film from the Dardenne brothers, Two Days, One Night, stars Marion Cotillard in what on the face of it seems quite an unlikely situation: a woman is voted out of her job by her colleagues as a result of a vote between her colleagues who choose between keeping her in employment or receiving their annual bonus. Whilst it felt far-fetched when I read the synopsis, the way it is delivered makes it not just believable but heart-breaking.

Whilst the whole story centres around Sandra’s struggles as she reacts to the news of the decision, we are treated to an expert display of serial short story writing. Sandra (Cotillard) has from 5pm on Friday night until 9am on Monday morning to visit, in person, each of her 16 work colleagues and convince them to vote in her favour when the ballot is repeated on Monday morning. Given the minimal screen time they have to offer their reasoning (the whole film is just 95 minutes in length) each character is wonderfully deep. This ensures that this one-woman tour-de-force doesn’t begin and end with the main star.

The shooting technique adds to the realism. Most scenes are completed in a single shot, which gives the effect of feeling like you’re a bystander allowed to eavesdrop on the most personal and revealing of conversations. We see extreme stubbornness, tears of guilt and logical reasoning as each character paints the picture of how they came to their decision and – more importantly – whether or not they will change it.

It is a film that sets itself up to spark debate amongst the viewer. It’s certainly not a crowd-pleaser. It is too heavily laden with working-class socio-realism for that. But does it achieve what it sets out to do? Probably, yes.

Two Days, One Night is out now at selected cinemas.

March 2, 2014March 2, 2014 by hutchwp

Oscars 2014 – What missed out

With the Oscars taking place later tonight, I look at the films that have been overlooked by the Academy.

Monsters University

Okay, it wasn’t the best picture Pixar has come up with over the years. It wasn’t even the best Monsters film they’ve produced. That said, they did find space for The Croods in the nomination pool, which was fine but could you really say it was better than MU? If Pixar had released The Croods, there would have been mass derision. Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises is a hot tip to take the prize this year, but I can’t comment until it gets a UK release.

Rush

I feel like this film has suffered because it wasn’t released in the typical awards season. It didn’t play by the book. It came out back in September 2013 and performed well at the box office without an Academy recommendation. Bruhl and Hemsley were both outstanding, not just as eerily accurate take-offs but as flawless acting performances in their own right. The recreation of the classic races was spot on from Howard and the story was as exhilarating as the action. In my eyes, it could have easily come in as the 10th film on the best film list. To not even get an appreciative nod for best makeup (Bruhl’s scarring was critical and spot on) or visual effects (though admittedly this was a strong category this year) is surprising.

Inside Llewyn Davis
It’s the Coen brothers latest release and they usually get nominated, right? Not this year. Whilst it’s a strong year for nominations in the Best Picture category, it should have received a nod for best song. In fact, whole soundtrack could have been considered. It received one for best sound mixing, which is a bit of a throwaway category overall. At least it was appreciated on some level.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Okay, I don’t agree that this film should have been nominated for best film or best acting or anything else. However, the song “Atlas” by Coldplay is easily one of the best original songs in what was admittedly a poor year for soundtracks. It’s a shame they had a song on the list that was later disqualified, especially one as awful as “Alone, Yet Not Alone” by Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel. There was also space for the bland “Ordinary Love” by U2. Neither of these should have made it and they would have made room for “Atlas” and, well, anything from Inside Llewyn Davis or Her.

Saving Mr Banks

One of the biggest and most talked about shocks was the lack of a nomination for Emma Thompson in Saving Mr Banks. It’s frustrating to see Meryl Streep nominated for the 18th time for a role that she will never win the top prize for when Thompson could have been a front runner for.

Nymph()maniac

I would have loved it if the Academy could have found it in themselves to nominate Uma Thurman’s fantastic supporting performance in Lars Von Trier’s latest film. It blew me away and really stood out in what was otherwise a pretty bland film. That said, it may not have qualified this year so we may have to wait another year before we see if this – and indeed Christian Slater’s excellent performance – was overlooked.

Elsewhere
Tom Hanks missed out twice for Saving Mr Banks and Captain Phillips, the latter being the biggest shock as it is probably his best performance for over a decade. Whoever thought the cinematography in 12 Years A Slave wasn’t worth noting must have been on drugs. Nothing for Robert Redford’s performance in All Is Lost was also a big surprise, though I’m not convinced Redford lost any sleep over it. The Butler was a massive omission but maybe a little too much like a typical Oscar nominee.

Cinema, etc.

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