Critical Week: Oscars for everyone

The 90th Oscar ceremony on Sunday night felt unremarkable, running along without incident with a line-up of winners that was never surprising. There were some nice touches along the way, including host Jimmy Kimmel's opening newsreel montage and his dry, sharply pointed opening monolog. Many of the thank you speeches were also topical, touching on key themes of inclusion and diversity. The star moment went to an impassioned Frances McDormand.

Meanwhile, the show was stolen by Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph, who appeared holding their high heels to present a couple of awards. That made as strong a statement as any, and their banter was flat-out hilarious. Clearly the producers worked overtime to compile a diverse list of presenters, with an emphasis on women and ethnicities. Some of the homage sequences were a little odd (looking at war movies through the decades?), and Kimmel's star-packed trip to the cinema next door was clever but rather corny.

Other highlights included powerful performances of all five song nominees and welcome wins for A Fantastic Woman and long-time nominee Roger Deakins. Although the sweep by The Shape of Water felt somewhat excessive. A good film rather than a great one, its message to outsiders was certainly timely. And frankly, if the ceremony was more entertaining, we wouldn't mind if it was longer.

Meanwhile, back in the screening room, Rooney Mara stars in the biblical drama Mary Magdalene, which is a little too reverent to properly spring to life, despite a strong cast that includes Joaquin Phoenix, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tahar Rahim as Jesus, Peter and Judas, respectively. Gringo stars David Oyelowo, Charlize Theron and Joel Edgerton in a lively, funny, entertaining but ultimately pointless action comedy. Peter Rabbit is a fast-paced, genuinely amusing romp mixing photo-real animation with live-action (Domhnall Gleeson and Rose Byrne are adorable) to riff on the classic Beatrix Potter stories. And the documentary Mansfield 66/67 traces the final years of the iconic bombshell, whose notorious friendship with Satanic church leader Anton LaVey sparked rumours of a curse surrounding her death at age 34.

Coming up this week are screenings of Alicia Vikander in the Tomb Raider reboot, Bella Thorne in Midnight Sun, Mathieu Amalric in My Golden Days, the dark drama My Friend Dahmer, the teen drama Screwed and something called Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies.