Tom Salinsky

Mysteriously not nominated for a single Oscar, despite its star walking home with a clutch of awards all over town, Hard Truths finds Mike Leigh back in Naked territory, giving us a portrait of a thoroughly unlikeable motormouth anti-hero and daring us not to fall in love. Marianne Jean-Baptiste does incredible work as Pansy, whose brittle Karen-ish behaviour to everyone around her barely conceals an inner core of deep pain and loneliness. This drives her husband and son into a near-silent fugue state of incomprehending stoicism, and contrasts strongly with her two nieces who won’t let a little thing like Sam Spiro being loathesomely patronising put a spoke in the wheels of their plans for a Mother’s Day brunch. Sitting in the middle is Pansy’s sister Chantelle, where Michele Austin is much less showy than Jean-Baptiste but who navigates a tricky path between optimism and despair.

As usual, Mike Leigh’s improvisatory and exploratory script-writing delivers complex and truthful characters and wonderful performances, but as sometimes happens doesn’t provide us with a neat structure or much in the way of climactic catharsis. That Mother’s Day brunch looks to be the scene where all the narrative threads come together, but it passes and leads to a faintly irrelevant coda, centring David Webber’s Curtley almost as much as Pansy, and sidelining Chantelle. For the first four-fifths, however, this is epic, often hilarious, frequently heartbreaking stuff and I can only hope it does better at the BAFTAs than it did in Hollywood.

Of rather less interest is Robert Zemeckis’s slickly experimental single-camera-angle movie Here, based on the graphic novel by Richard McGuire, and which reunited the director with his Forrest Gump team of screenwriter Eric Roth and lead actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. At least I think it’s them. For most of the running time they’re concealed behind a smear of de-aging (or up-aging) pixels, and it’s deeply to their credit that something resembling a performance manages to emerge from underneath all the digital shenanigans. This is especially true given that Roth hasn’t thought of anything remotely novel, insightful or even interesting for them or any of the other characters to say, so they just mouth Hallmark platitudes about how time flies or the future is coming as the narrative hyperactively pings from decade-to-decade seemingly at random. A couple of times, the juxtaposition of events from different periods in history brushes past something like wit, such as when a leaky roof is overlaid with a woman’s waters breaking, but these moments are the exceptions rather than the norm.

To facilitate the artifice of both the permanently locked-off camera and the huge time jumps, the whole thing was shot at Pinewood, hence the slightly disconcerting presence of so many familiar British TV faces from Michelle Dockery to Nikki Amuka-Bird to Kelly Reilly to Angus Wright to Ophelia Lovibond. All do decent accents (except possibly for Paul Bettany who seems permanently constipated) but it’s yet more artifice for a film that wants to be telling a sweet simple story about family, but which hasn’t figured out what the story is, or why we should care, or why it’s better to shoot it this way.

Nickel Boys is the first drama film from experimental documentarian RaMell Ross and it takes a grim story (from the novel by Colson Whitehead) and presents it in a very striking way which doesn’t always help. This is a very choppy, piecemeal film, in which short scenes end with hard cuts and material from other sources (and sometimes timeframes) is cut in unexpectedly. This I could have coped with, although some of the metaphors from the Apollo 8 mission and the Martin Luther King marches was a bit heavy-handed for my taste.

What I had a harder time with was the decision to shoot almost everything first person. Ross is smart enough not to be wedded to this technique, but he doesn’t stray from it often, and the idea presumably is to place us directly in the shoes of the main protagonist Elwood. We look out through his eyes and see the world that he sees. But drama is watching one person changed by another, and if we can’t see our protagonist’s face, we have to guess how he might be reacting. Near the middle of the film, Elwood’s friend Turner is also given the power of the point-of-view shot which means we can finally cut between two people having a conversation – but these conversations tend not to be the crucial ones, so we’re still stuck with only half the story.

In a second strand, taking place years after the boys’ incarceration, adult Elwood is shot over his own shoulder, so again we can’t see his face but now it’s harder to frame shots so that we can see who he’s talking to. A bit life Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, this struck me as an interesting formal experiment, but ultimately one which didn’t have the effect of immersing me more fully in the story – in fact just the opposite, it held me at a distance. That’s a shame as there’s much to appreciate here. This isn’t a true story, but it was inspired by ghastly places like the Dozier School which deserve to be exposed, and the Jim Crow era is a horrendous stain on American history, which some Americans seem only too happy to forget about.

I do have a nasty suspicion that the camerawork is designed at least in part to facilitate a final rug-pull which struck me as confusing and unlikely. Other people have found more thematic resonance in this, and maybe if I watched it again, knowing what was coming, I’d see that too, but I was too busy trying to work out the crossword puzzle which the film had set me to be truly moved or to appreciate the themes. There’s great work here from Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson and especially Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, but I didn’t get as much out of this as I expected or wanted to. I seem to be in the minority, though, so the failing may well be mine.

Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s account of the final ninety minutes before the first episode of “NBC’s Saturday Night” went on the air is a work of obvious artifice, but it’s greatly to Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan’s credit that most of the backstory about events taking place outside of this very narrow window goes down very easily. There’s even a nice visual metaphor in one of the aspects of the show which I’d be prepared to bet never happened. This succeeds very nicely in making a somewhat trivial event seem of momentous importance, and the cast is having an absolute ball, anchored by Gabrielle LaBelle as the earnest, almost unflappable Lorne Michaels – but shout outs too to Tommy Dewey as Michael O’Donoghue, Matthew Rhys unrecognisable as George Carlin, Nicholas Braun in a remarkable dual role and most deliciously of all JK Simmons as a revoltingly vulgar evocation of Milton Berle. Good fun and buoyed by an appropriately demented score from Jon Batiste.

There’s a lot to enjoy in Conclave – no, not enjoy: savour. It looks magnificent and Edward Berger continues his productively discordant partnership with composer Volker Bertelmann whose strident foghorning helped make All Quiet on the Western Front so evocative. We have some of this generation’s finest Old Men of Acting giving it everything they’ve got. And who wouldn’t want to peek behind the curtain of decision making at the Vatican? Decision making is one of the keystones of storytelling, whether it’s Chaplin being forced to eat his own shoe, Michael realising only he can take out McClusky or Han Solo coming back to save Luke Skywalker.

But this time, Berger isn’t adapting a classic German novel born out of the pain of a generation-defining conflict. This time, his source text is a Robert Harris page-turner – maybe not quite an airport thriller, but definitely aiming to build suspense and pass the time rather than leaving the reader pondering great questions about the nature of humanity and goodness. And if the characters in Conclave spend any time at all pondering such questions, they do it off-screen, as when they’re in front of the camera, they’re scheming and plotting in a way much more befitting Francis Urquhart or Malcolm Tucker. We know Ralph Fiennes’s earnest and studious Cardinal Lawrence is experiencing a mild crisis of faith because he tells us so – not because it’s dramatised in any particularly interesting way.

Yes, the plot did keep me guessing, but this is also sometimes to the film’s detriment, as the rules of the thriller to which it’s so wedded mean that the clearly-telegraphed penultimate twist must needs be topped by a final somewhat ludicrous twist. To be clear, this is partly the fun of what is a very entertaining and engaging film. It’s endlessly charming and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny to see these pompous clerics in their ornate robes sneaking a crafty ciggie, fiddling with an iPhone or hacking into someone else’s email. But the actual storytelling couldn’t be less interested in the philosophical debates about the future of the Catholic church, and is only just interested enough in the personalities of the main players to make the plot work.

That leaves us with the actors, and here Isabella Rossellini is effortlessly commanding, Fiennes and Tucci elevate the thin material they’re given and Lucian Msamati – whose Cardinal Adeyemi actually is given a little bit of depth and nuance – is very impressive. What baffles me slightly is why John Lithgow took the gig. I’m certain he doesn’t need the work and his character exists solely to wax his moustache and cackle evilly. A missed opportunity.

In terms of character depth, A Complete Unknown is sort of the opposite. Monica Barbaro manages to mine the flimsy screenplay and comes up with a complete character with a rich interior life seemingly from nowhere. Everyone else seems satisfied with doing impersonations and moving through the relevant Wikipedia entries until 140 minutes is up. Maybe that’s because Elle Fanning looks so completely lost – because her character is the only one that’s invented.

I came to this knowing nothing much at all about Bob Dylan, which meant on the one hand that I wouldn’t be huffing and fuming and nit picking as the inevitable artistic licenses were taken. On the other hand, that means things need to be explained to me to make the story work, and various things seemed to happen which were given profound significance without paying off in any meaningful way. Dylan’s first album is all covers. Why? Did they sell? How did he persuade the record company to let him record originals? Who are these two different round men who smoke cigars both of whom seem to be something to do with his management but neither of whom is ever introduced or seen to be making decisions which impact his life or career. Who’s this guy bullying his way into the recording session and ending up playing the organ? What, to be blunt, is the point of any of this, other than to check off events in the life of a famous asshole?

But I could have stood a bit of confusion about the finer points of the music industry if the character work had been stronger. Timothee Chalamet is a fine talent and has clearly worked incredibly hard to summon up Dylan’s manner and musical abilities. But if we aren’t given any insight into who he was and what he wanted, then the entire exercise seems futile. Early on, I appreciated the measured pace and there were some nice moments between Chalamet’s puppy-dog 20-year-old Dylan and Edward Norton’s avuncular Pete Seeger. But after the first half hour, this turns into Folk Hard: The Bobby Dylan Story with a dedication that seems almost demented.

Eight down, two to go.

And they’re off. The starter’s gun has been fired for this year’s Oscars race, and while it wasn’t hard to predict most of the films appearing in most of the categories, there were still some surprises. Chief of these is that the most nominated film is Jacques Audiard’s bonkers transgender Spanish language gangster musical redemption fantasy Emilia Pérez which can count thirteen mentions. This is to a certain extent artificial, but even if you discount Best International Feature and ignore one of its two Best Original Song mentions, it would still top the list with eleven, just ahead of The Brutalist and Wicked, both with ten.

Together with strong showings in the directing and editing categories, that suggests that the contest for Best Picture is between those three, but I think Emilia Pérez will struggle to convert a lot of its chances and I also wouldn’t rule out Conclave, which might not have as many pluses as some of its rivals (and only garnered eight nominations, tying it with A Complete Unknown), but it doesn’t have any negatives – it isn’t weird, it isn’t a musical, it isn’t TikTok friendly and none of its characters were revoiced by AI.

Let’s rundown the Best Picture nominees and I’ll give you some further thoughts.

Anora was a delightful surprise when I took myself off to see it earlier this year. Sean Baker is a very fine filmmaker indeed and the promise he showed with The Florida Project is fully flowering here (I didn’t see Red Rocket but I’ve heard good things). I don’t think this has much of a chance of winning Best Picture, but it’s the kind of movie which could pick up a screenplay award as a sort of consolation prize.

The Brutalist is about as compelling as a 200-minute movie about architecture could possibly hope to be. Adrien Brody is amazing and the guest cast almost uniformly strong. I wasn’t always convinced by Felicity Jones, AI or no AI, but this is a huge and very Oscar-friendly achievement, and currently the bookies’ favourite. I just wonder whether it’s a bit too weighty to have lots of people putting it at the top of their ballots. Full review here.

A Complete Unknown looks great, provided it can avoid enough Dewey Cox clichés, and Timothée Chalamet can usually be relied upon to elevate weaker material. I’ll try and see it very soon.

Conclave likewise has passed me by and looks like hand-milled Oscar bait, but I think that voters who want serious and meaningful will prefer The Brutalist and those who want something with a bit more flair and dash will go for Emilia Pérez – but then maybe Conclave will come through the middle? Against that, Edward Berger hasn’t been nominated as Best Director, which must hurt the film’s chances.

Dune: Part Two feels like it’s here to make up the numbers. I don’t have any particular fondness for the Duniverse, but I went to see both movies on the big screen and I had a good time. I don’t entirely know if the effort required to create them is appropriate to the entertainment value I derived from them, but I don’t have any real complaints about either. The chances of a science-fiction sequel winning Best Picture however are slim to say the least.

And you might think that a similar calculation applies to Emilia Pérez but with nominations for two of its cast, its director, its screenplay and its editing, it must be in with a shout. The bookies have it just behind The Brutalist which sounds right to me – and there’s quite a jump in price, so you could clean up if you got it right.

Of I’m Still Here and Nickel Boys I know almost nothing, but I will – as usual – attempt to see them on a big screen before the first Sunday in March. The Substance I’m delighted to find on the list, as it is already one of my favourite films of the year, and I found it utterly compelling. Full review here.

Lastly, we have Jon M Chu’s Wicked (shorn of its “Part One” suffix) which I thought was one of the best stage-to-screen musical adaptations I’ve seen recently (not quite as good as Matilda though). And yes, a lot of the set-ups will have to be paid off next year which isn’t ideal, but as vastly elongated first acts of musicals go, this is exemplary. Review here.

In other categories, Best Actor looks like a straight fight between Adrien Brody and Timothée Chalamet, Best Actress looks nailed on for Demi Moore, likewise Kieran Culkin is getting a lot of attention for A Real Pain, and Zoe Saldaña will surely win for Emilia Pérez even if that film is shut out elsewhere. Likewise, Conclave must have a good chance at winning Best Adapted Screenplay even if it is not given much love in other categories.

And speaking of films not given much love, it’s a double Guadagnino shut-out with no nominations at all for either Challengers or Queer, and it looks like Nicole Kidman humped all those rugs for nothing as Babygirl has been completely overlooked. Some Academy watchers also expected to see mentions for Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas, and Denzil Washington for Gladiator II, which only gets a nod for its costume design. There was also a lot of enthusiasm for Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl, but not from the Academy.

Right, time for me to book some movie tickets. See you back here soon.

The Brutalist is a long movie, and that tends to please Oscar voters. Shot on VistaVision (35mm film passing through the camera sideways), with heavyweight themes, a powerhouse cast, a rumbling score, an interval and an overture, it is seemingly hand-milled, weapons-grade Oscar bait. This would be far more frustrating if it was a less interesting film. In fact, my chief complaint after 200 minutes of screentime is that it ends abruptly.

It does teeter on the brink of wilful obscurity towards the end, as the actions of powerful tycoon Harrison van Buren (Guy Pearce, seemingly cos-playing as Brad Pitt) make less and less sense and the respective fates of László Tóth and his family are barely sketched in during the coda. But for much of the running time, this is engrossing powerful stuff with a great sense of place and character, and a detailed and sensitive portrayal of loss and ego from Adrien Brody.

The choice of VistaVision is interesting too. On a big screen, this doesn’t gleam. The oppressive Philadelphia weather combines with the grainy film stock to create an image which glimmers and glooms, but that only adds to the constant eerie threat of potential danger, as this once-feted architect tries to claw his way up from the bottom of the heap in which he finds himself. Adding to the disquiet is the use of sound, with odd phrases, noises and rumblings often drifting in from the edges of the screen, adding to the feeling that we aren’t being shown something, we’re peering in on it.

Felicity Jones doesn’t get much to do alas – third billed but she only really appears in the second half, and there are disquieting rumours about AI being used to autotune her accent and Brody’s, but what shocks me most is that someone let sitcom actor Brady Corbet loose with $10m to make this epic. Don’t get me wrong, on the whole I’m very glad they did, I just can’t understand what the pitch would have been like.

And I could say similar things about Emilia Perez, Jacques Audiard’s film about which I’m going to be circumspect as I knew very little about it going in and I’d love you to be as surprised as I am. It’s a startling combination of some incredibly fresh and original material, wrapped in some equally incredibly clichéd plot twists. Zoe Saldaña is absolutely electric as under-appreciated lawyer Rita Mora Castro, whose dealings with the mysterious Emilia Pérez gradually lead her to become embroiled in Mexican cartels, politics, corruption and eventually violence.

Selina Gomez shows a little more range here than she typically does on Only Murders in the Building, but this is Saldaña’s show, especially during the musical numbers. Look out for her rendition of “El Mal” at all the awards shows. The last half hour is by far the least interesting, as the plot can only be resolved by means of overfamiliar gangster and action movie tropes, but the journey that got us there is a real shot of cinematic adrenaline.

Also filling up a big screen and making terrific use of sound is the third screen version of Nosferatu, originally shot by Murnau in the silent era as a way of ripping off Dracula without having to pay any royalties. I hadn’t seen this or the Klaus Kinski version, so I felt a little as if I hadn’t done my homework. Following a little subsequent research, it seems as if writer-director Robert Eggers’s chief concern was to shore up plot holes in the existing iterations. This leads to a very handsomely mounted production, full of committed performances (Bill Skarsgard, Nicholas Hoult, Lily Rose-Depp, Willem Dafoe and especially Emma Corrin) but it ended up not feeling very much. Rather as if I’d played through a really atmospheric and well-done computer game rather than been told a deeply personal story. Extra points for Simon McBurney as Herr Knock who knows that this part has no top for him to go over and goes absolutely for broke.

Megalopolis need not detain us for very long. The story behind the story is vastly more interesting than what is on the screen. Genius filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, who once had a clear vision for how to turn Mario Puzo’s pulpy best-seller into a towering work of cinematic iconography, who had already bankrupted himself once trying to reimaging how Hollywood worked in the 1980s, now liquidates a small fortune in order to make his dream project which has been gestating for decades. Sadly, the money men who refused to finance this one were dead right, as it isn’t so much a story as an incredibly lengthy music video, in which random images are juxtaposed in the hope that something of meaning will emerge, but sadly it never does. Busily acting in at least five different films are Adam Driver (fine), Aubrey Plaza (dazzling), Shia LaBeouf (I mean, you know), Nathalie Emmanuel (vacant), Chloe Fineman (huh?) and Dustin Hoffman – who is not so much wasted as carelessly discarded. Avoid.

Of far more interest is The Substance which gives us Demi Moore (able to play a stunning-looking 50-year-old at the age of 60, which is quite remarkable in itself) as fired TV aerobics star and one-time movie actor Elisabeth Sparkle. Desperate to cling on to youth, beauty and all the opportunities those allow, she experiments with The Substance, and with a suitably flagrant disregard for such trivialities as the conservation of mass, she splits open along her spine to reveal a younger, hotter, more Margaret Qualley-ish her. However, The Substance has rules, chiefly that Elisabeth’s consciousness must switch from body-to-body every seven days – no exceptions. But Qualley has far more fun than Moore, so this isn’t easy to sustain.

It’s vital to understand what writer/director Coralie Fargeat cares about and what she doesn’t to appreciate this film. Qualley reinvents herself as “Sue” and strolls back into her old job, which Dennis Quaid’s revolting producer is only too happy to give her. Consider that she has no references, no agent, no bank account, no social security number, not even a last name. Even given that we swallow the magical powers of The Substance (and Elisabeth’s ease with following the very skimpy instructions), what follows is completely impossible. But who could give two shits about any of that when we have the gleeful fun of watching the older Elisabeth’s body progressively falling to pieces as the younger version saps more and more of her life essence away – to say nothing of that completely preposterous grand guignol ending?

What Fargeat does care about is tactility. Everything in this movie, from clothing to medical equipment to flesh to food – especially food – squishes and oozes and rustles and scrapes. From the opening shots, her camera comes right into pore level on the actors’ faces, and the early scene of Quaid slurping down shrimp does something to prepare the ground for the body horror that’s to come – although nothing can really prepare you for the onslaught of the film’s final act.

Moore and Qualley are tremendous, but amongst all of this bravura splatter-gore, it’s two quieter moments that stick with me. The opening overhead shot is a masterpiece of visual storytelling, and the extended sequence of Moore being unable to leave her apartment for her date with an old school friend is utterly devastating. Although both this and Megalopolis look like films of which you could say similar things – crazy, bonkers, you’ve never seen anything like it, etc. – the difference is that Coppola’s film feels like wild horses rode through the screenplay destroying everything in their path, whereas for all its batshit excesses, Fargeat’s film always knows exactly what it wants to be and exactly what it’s doing.

My only criticism is shouldn’t “Elisa-sue” have been “Eli-sue-beth” instead?

Nostalgia sells, whether it’s Michael Keaton reprising his role as Batman in The Flash, Harrison Ford reprising his role as Indiana Jones in The Dial of Destiny, Michael Keaton reprising his role as Batman in Batgirl, Harrison Ford reprising his role as Deckard in Blade Runner 2049 or now Michael Keaton reprising his role as Beetlejuice in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Who cares that you first played the role when you were mid-thirties and now you’re early-seventies? There’s nothing the public likes more than a legacy sequel. Despite the fact that of the movies mentioned above one was shelved, three lost money and only one – the one under discussion – looks like the studios’ familiar-IP, target-the-boomers, stay-safe strategy has actually worked.

How amazing then, that it’s the film I liked the least out of the ones listed above?

Blade Runner 2049 is a bit ponderous, but it’s a decent stab at a follow on to an all-time classic that didn’t need it. Dial of Destiny flails about a bit but includes some impressive sequences. The Flash is a mess but has a certain amount of charm. Obviously, I haven’t seen Batgirl. But this? The long-awaited follow-up to the 1988 film which solidified the star status of Winona Ryder, Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, which made stars of Michael Keaton, Tim Burton and Danny Elfman? The beloved cult favourite which spawned an animated spin-off, multiple video games and a Broadway musical? This is a trainwreck.

The original’s storytelling is both brilliantly original and elegantly streamlined. Happy couple Adam and Barbara die in a freak accident and end up with their dream house haunted by the living. To drive out the new arrivals, they enlist the help of a demon but that help comes with strings attached. It makes only as much sense as it needs to (the vagaries of how life after death works are conveniently hidden behind a hilariously hard-to-parse handbook), the performances are top-notch, and Burton hasn’t yet fallen victim to the leaden paced staging which sank the almost-wonderful Mars Attacks (and often plagues both his Batman films).

This is beset with problems, right from the off. The opening sally with Monica Bellucci staple-gunning herself back together is deliciously macabre, even if we’ve seen the visual before in countless other Burton joints (she’s a blend of Edward Scissorhands, Emily the Corpse Bride and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, probably others). But rather than presenting a problem for anyone we care about, her character listlessly orbits the main plot of the film, endlessly repeating her signature packing cube death-for-the-dead routine, before turning up at the finale in time to be very easily despatched.

And you can say the same about all the various plot strands, of which there are far too many, none of them intersecting in interesting ways, so the overall effect is like switching channels between about five different (or rather indifferent) unrelated Beetlejuice sequels. Did you prefer the pitch about how Lydia is getting married to a douche who doesn’t believe she can see ghosts? How about Lydia’s daughter Astrid having the hots for a dishy demon in a tree house? Can you bring yourself to give a shit about Lydia’s daughter’s dead dad, who was killed at sea? Or would you rather we spent time with Delia, trying to reunite with her husband who was killed… (checks notes) also at sea, it seems. Tell you what, how about we have an actor who used to play a cop on TV who now runs the underworld police? No? What if we could get Willem Dafoe? Honestly, it feels like the studio got half-a-dozen different pitches and just said yes to all of them.

Only Keaton, Ryder and O’Hara return for this go-around. Glenn Shadix died in 2010, and recasting Otho seemingly wasn’t considered. Davis and Baldwin were presumably too expensive and/or old (and Baldwin has his own misfortunes to contend with) – but the Maitlands are discarded with about the lamest line of barely-even-exposition I’ve ever heard – “they found a loophole and moved on,” which felt like a real “fuck you” to a loyal audience and a pair of terrific actors who were at the centre of the original. And obviously, we can’t be giving Jeffrey Jones any work, so – very wisely – almost the first thing the film does is to write-out Charles Deetz…

…and then depicts the character’s last moments with a Claymation puppet of Jeffrey Jones…

…and then has pictures of Jeffrey Jones on various bits of props and set dressing…

…and then makes Charles Deetz’s funeral a significant setting and plot point…

…and has another actor in a revolting half-eaten costume run around the underworld sets while someone impersonates Jeffrey Jones’s voice…

Excuse me? This is how you make sure that nobody watching this film has cause to remember what Jeffrey Jones was arrested for in 2002. And 2004. And 2010. What the actual fuck?

And for a film presumably made for fans of the original (surely no-one else would sit still for the hour or so it takes for this slovenly movie to finally generate any kind of forward plot momentum) it’s remarkably bad at sticking to the few rules established in the first one, and sometimes the writers seem to mis-remember what happened to Lydia vs what happened to Barbara. Lydia knows that “home home home” will get her out of Beetlejuice’s world (which only Adam and Barbara would know) but doesn’t know that when you’ve let Beetlejuice out, you have to put him back (which surely would have been one of the things Barbara told her at the same time as she told her about “home home home”).

And the one thing we surely all know about how being dead works in Beetlejuice films is that upon dying, you are translated back to the place you will be haunting with only an unreadable handbook for explication. Yet, everyone who dies in the sequel (Charles Deetz, Delia, and seemingly Richard, Astrid’s dad) is taken straight to the afterlife waiting room instead. And as more details pile up about exactly how the afterlife works, it starts to become banal and ordinary, instead of the fascinating and inexplicable glimpses which were all we were afforded last time. Nothing exemplifies this more than a bored looking Michael Keaton re-enacting a particularly dull episode of The Office with a small army of shrunken head underlings. This is what I wanted from the long-awaited return of The Ghost with Most – a bonkers subplot about new HR processes.

Among the slurry there are a few bright spots. Justin Theroux is having fun as Lydia’s sleazy boyfriend (although a little of him goes a long way). Burn Gorman is rather a treat as the pragmatic Father Damien. Beetlejuice himself isn’t overused, and although he isn’t always used effectively, when he is, the film does come to life – such as in the very funny couples counselling scene. And although we do get a rendition of Day-O, by and large the musical palate has shifted to soul and disco, which is a great way to freshen up a familiar idea. Although the lack of tension when Astrid is being taken away on the Soul Train is extraordinary (and Jenna Ortega is never given anything interesting to do). Finally, the end of the second film is essentially identical to the end of the first one – only not set up as well.

This is barely a film at all. It’s a dozen different ideas for things that could happen in a Beetlejuice sequel slopped into a cauldron and ladled out in an arbitrary order. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that, of all directors, Tim Burton isn’t really in command of the storytelling here, but he’s hardly stretching himself as a visual stylist either. This was a film I was really looking forward to, but sad to say, it’s not only dead on arrival, rigor mortis has firmly set in.

This could have been a very good film. In fact, it almost touches on greatness, and the difference is largely down to the powerhouse performances of Oliva Colman and Jessie Buckley, who lead a very strong cast. Jonny Sweet’s well-constructed script re-tells a largely true story which rocked the peaceful town of Littlehampton in 1920. Spinsterish pillar of the community Edith Swan (Colman) begins receiving profanity-laced poison pen letters and immediately suspects her freewheeling neighbour (Buckley). Only “Woman Police Office” Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) suspects that the culprit might not be so obvious.

Littered with a wealth of comedy acting talent from newer faces like Vasan or Lolly Adefope (or Matilda herself, Alisha Weir) to stalwart campaigners like Eileen Atkins and Gemma Jones, this is a constant delight and you’re never far from another wonderful bit of business, sharp one-liner or marvellous moment. But there’s an extra bit of ballast which comes from the incredibly layered and detailed playing of the two leads, given extra weight by a truly sinister turn from a terrifying Timothy Spall, embodying the patriarchy as Edith’s horrendous father.

Director Thea Sharrock marshals these competing forces expertly, and while this has no aspirations to be much more than a delightful 100 minutes at the cinema, that is no small feat, and when it can touch on something a bit deeper or more profound, it does so without capsizing the whole enterprise. If you loved See How They Run, then you’ll enjoy this just as much. It isn’t quite as intricately constructed, but it’s arguably got more to say.

Cord Jefferson’s satire on the publishing business through a Black lens is many things. One thing it isn’t is the riproaring, one-liner stuffed, broad comedy which the trailer sells it as. By taking the ten best jokes and stitching them together, the marketeers have badly misrepresented this smart, painful, incisive, thoughtful – and yes, sometimes very funny – film. Ironically, despite the frustrations that this might cause, it seems appropriate for a story in which things are not what they seem, commercial imperatives trump artistic integrity and even vaunted literary prizes are hotbeds of pandering and intellectual shortcuts.

The cast is unimpeachable. Jeffrey Wright has never been better and is given a strong family unit comprising sister Tracee Ellis Ross, mother Leslie Uggams and brother Sterling K Brown. The early part of the story dismantles this strong family, forcing Wright’s hand much in the way that the St Valentine’s day massacre forces Joe and Jerry’s hand in Some Like it Hot. Only the incredibly convenient arrival of the perfect suitor for their live-in-maid strains credulity a little.

Based on what sounds like an unadaptable novel, the film’s unwillingness to settle for a single ending (or a single clear message) is probably the best way of taking the book’s style and finding a cinematic analogue, and Jefferson is careful to pave the way for this development in the way he structures and shoots some earlier moments (which include a lovely cameo from Keith David). He’s also careful to smudge the outline of what could have been too strident a moral, shading Issa Rae’s initially comical character with more depth and unafraid to make out hero seem like something of an asshole from time-to-time.

Possibly the best joke in the whole film, and one the trailer couldn’t spoil (so I will), is the conclusion of the literary judging process in which the three white jurors overrule the two Black ones on the basis that “It’s time to listen to Black voices.” Sharply satirical, but also oddly warm and even moving, this definitely isn’t what was sold to me, but is arguably better.

Have just discovered this languishing in my drafts folder. Apologies for the inconvenience.

The Oscar nominations are out and once again, we have ten Best Picture nominees. I have already seen a triumphant eight of these, and will be trying to mop up some of the International and Documentary features in the next few weeks. Here are the runners and riders.

American Fiction is one of the two I haven’t seen, but the trailer is very appealing (although you’d be forgiven for overlooking Sterling K Brown who is glimpsed only briefly, but who notches up a Best Supporting Actor nomination). Full review to follow.

Anatomy of a Fall. Terrific slab of Euro-intrigue which remakes the courtroom drama in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible, blessed with a remarkable tri-lingual script and a tremendous central performance from Sandra Hüller. Full review here.

Barbie. Thrillingly bonkers Mattel tie-in, which subverts the very play logic which it shockingly embraces to deliver a simplistic but deeply heartfelt feminism-for-beginners message. I briefly wondered if it might gather enough momentum to be a real contender for Best Picture, but with only eight nominations and nothing for Greta Gerwig as director or Margot Robbie as leading actress, I think we can write it off from this contest at least.

The Holdovers. Very Oscar-friendly, but probably not extraordinary enough to win. Full review here.

Killers of the Flower Moon. Scorsese demonstrates that he hasn’t lost his touch, blending the intimate with the epic, but I would have preferred a more focused two-hour version or a more exploratory six-hour mini-series which would have given more of a voice to the Osage people. Full review here.

Maestro. Despite all of the effort poured in by Bradley Cooper and the wealth of talent he has surrounded himself with, I kept waiting for the story to kick in. This feels like it’s run out of gas already.

Oppenheimer. Clear front-runner, with the most important story to tell, the biggest cultural footprint (possibly with the exception of Barbie) and it made a ton of money to boot.

Past Lives. Beautifully observed, painstakingly assembled, and far more original than its premise would suggest. Doesn’t have much of a chance at the big prize.

Poor Things. Lanthimos’s horny fairy tale horror has the potential to pull off a major upset, and I wouldn’t be mad at it for doing so, despite my reservations about the film. Full review here.

The Zone of Interest. The other one I haven’t seen but advance word is very strong.

In other categories, Best Director looks nailed on for Nolan, regardless of who wins Best Picture. The omission of Greta Gerwig is appalling but somehow not surprising. Nice to see Justine Triet there though. Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor also look set to go Oppenheimer‘s way. Best Actress is a straight fight between Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone. Best Supporting Actress looks more open with probably Emily Blunt the least likely to succeed, but a case could be made for any of the others. Original Screenplay looks like a two horse race between Anatomy of a Fall and The Holdovers. Adapted Screenplay is Nolan’s to lose.