Critical Week: The winner takes it all

Staying up all night in London to watch the Oscars is a tradition for film fans, who are recognisable the next day by their dazed expressions. The show offered several highlights, including that opening number featuring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo offering soaring renditions of Wizard of Oz, The Wiz and Wicked belters. The night was a terrific celebration of independent filmmaking, with big love for Anora, for which Sean Baker won a record 4 Academy Awards for a single movie. Other memorable elements included Morgan Freeman's beautiful eulogy for Gene Hackman, Isabella Rossellini honouring David Lynch by wearing a blue velvet dress and bringing Laura Dern as her date, and the powerful appearance of the No Other Land filmmakers as they accepted Best Documentary.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Day of the Fight • Mickey 17
Ernest Cole: Lost & Found
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I also watched some movies this week, including Robert Pattinson in Bong Joon Ho's Mickey 17, a comical sci-fi adventure that's actually remarkably warm. John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush are on fine form in creeky Kiwi horror The Rule of Jenny Pen; Bruce LaBruce is back with The Visitor, yet another provocative, nutty and remarkably inventive satire; the hyperactive animated adventure Giants of La Mancha is enjoyably silly. There were two documentaries: Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is a riveting, urgent portrait of the South African photographer, while the artful Riefenstahl tells the story of the controversial German filmmaker. I also saw Wayne McGregor's Deepstaria at Sadler's Wells.

This coming week I'll be watching Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in Black Bag, Ayo Edebiri in Opus, Brian Cox in The Parenting, the comedy She's the He, Chinese thriller Brief History of a Family and Peacock at the opening of WatchAut, the Austrian Film Festival. There are also two stage shows: Dear Martin at the Arcola Theatre and Drum Tao: The Dream at the Peacock Theatre.