Critical Week: Oscar night 2016

The Oscars were handed out on Sunday night in a brisk Hollywood ceremony hosted by Chris Rock, who gave the event an #OscarsSoWhite theme. That felt a bit much at times, because the important point was made so forcefully right at the top of the show. There was far too focus on specifically black issues, which sidelined the inequality in other ethnicities, plus gender and sexuality. The LGBT audience was insulted when Anohi wasn't invited to perform her nominated song. Even worse was the sexist parade of scantily clad women as The Weeknd performed his song. So while racism was positively addressed, there's still a long way to go before Hollywood properly confronts diversity.

At least that theme gave the ceremony its only jaw-dropping moment, when Stacey Dash appeared to wish everyone a "happy Black History Month". Mainly the show played it very, very safe, only livened up by anarchic comics like Sarah Silverman and Louis CK. And of course Sacha Baron Cohen seriously going for broke as he introduced a Best Picture nominee in character as the ridiculous Ali G. Honestly, it seems like Oscar's ratings problem is that the ceremony is completely lacking in these kind of entertainingly bonkers moments. (Why do pundits always call awkward moments the "worst" bits of the show? They're always the only thing you remember!) And the truth is that its the fast-paced parade of no-nonsense awards presenting in minor categories that makes viewers tune out. Next year, bring back Rob Lowe and Snow White.

Awards-wise there were a few surprises, with a handful of upsets including Sam Smith's win for his Spectre theme and Ex Machina's visual effects triumph. Two other deserving surprises caused me to shout out loud: Mark Rylance for Supporting Actor and Spotlight for Best Picture. My other big cheer came when the gorgeous Stutterer won for Live-Action Short. Director Ben Cleary and producer Serena Armitage came along to two events I hosted as chair of the London Critics' Circle Film Awards: our nominations announcement event in December and our ceremony in January, where they won the Short Film prize.

I watched the Academy Awards at the official Oscar London event, a live all-night telecast in a cinema with a crowd of industry people cheering on their friends. It was almost like being at the ceremony itself, even if we were watching the show from 1.30 to 5am! As always on Oscar night, I went to bed as the sun was coming up.

As for films I watched over the past week, the screening line-up included the gorgeous Foreign-Language Oscar winner Son of Saul, Sacha Baron Cohen's mixed gross-out action comedy Grimsby, the devastating Ibsen-based Aussie drama The Daughter, the oddly mannered relationship-collapse drama Like You Mean It, and the wonderful film-fan-catnip documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut.

This coming week's screenings include Gerard Butler's sequel London Has Fallen, the drone thriller Eye in the Sky, Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams in I Saw the Light, the animated sequel Kung Fu Panda 3, the period drama Marguerite and the short film collection Mexican Men.

Out on a limb: Oscar picks & predictions

Here we go again: my annual list of hopes and fears about Sunday night's 88th Academy Awards ceremony. I'll be watching the show live in central London all night (it starts at 1.30am London time and finishes as the sun comes up) with the smartly dressed Oscar crowd! As always, I will be hoping for upsets, political statements and surprises. If Iñárritu's The Revenant wins everything this year, as Iñárritu's Birdman did last year, it will just be boring. Here's how I think it'll go, and what I want to happen. Obviously, this is just guesswork...

Best Picture
Will win: The Revenant
Should win: Spotlight
Dark horse: Mad Max: Fury Road

Foreign Language Film
Will / should win: Son of Saul (Hungary)
Could win: Mustang (France)
Dark horse: Theeb (Jordan)

Animated Feature
Will win: Inside Out
Should win: Anomalisa

Documentary Feature
Will win: Amy
Should win: The Look of Silence

Director
Will win: Alejandro G Iñárritu, The Revenant
Should win: Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Deserving upset: George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road

Actress
Will win: Brie Larson, Room
Should win: Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Dark horse: Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Actor
Will win: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Should win: Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Dark horse: Bryan Cranston, Trumbo

Supporting Actress
Will win: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Should win: Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
Could win: Rooney Mara, Carol
Dark horse: Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight

Supporting Actor
Will win: Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Should win: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies

Adapted Screenplay
Will win: The Big Short, Charles Randolph and Adam McKay
Should win: Carol, Phyllis Nagy
Could win: Brooklyn, Nick Hornby

Original Screenplay
Will / should win: Spotlight, Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy

Cinematography
Will win: The Revenant, Emmanuel Lubezki
Should win: Carol, Edward Lachman
Dark horse: Sicario, Roger Deakins

Original Score
Will win: The Hateful Eight, Ennio Morricone
Should win: Sicario, Jóhann Jóhannsson

Original Song
Will win: Til It Happens to You, The Hunting Ground
Should win: Manta Ray, Racing Extinction

Film Editing
Will win: The Revenant, Stephen Mirrione
Should win: Mad Max: Fury Road, Margaret Sixel

Production Design
Will / should win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Could win: The Revenant

Costume Design
Will win: Carol, Sandy Powell
Should win: Mad Max: Fury Road, Jenny Beaven

Makeup & Hairstyling
Will / should win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Sound Editing
Will win: The Revenant
Should win: Sicario
Could win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Sound Mixing
Will win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Should win: The Martian
Could win: The Revenant

Visual Effects
Will win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Should win: Ex Machina

35th Shadows Awards: Happy New Year!

There were two films this year that got deep under my skin, and ultimately it was Charlie Kaufman's extraordinary Anomalisa that demanded the top spot on my best of the year list, with Andrew Haigh's 45 Years in close second. (Note that Anomalisa doesn't come out in the UK until March, so won't feature in British awards until next year.) Here are my top picks in the main categories, and as usual there are full top 10s and a lot more on the site...

BEST FILMS

1. Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman)
2. 45 Years (Andrew Haigh)
3. Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
4. Tangerine (Sean Baker)
5. Carol (Todd Haynes)
6. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
7. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (JJ Abrams)
8. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour)
9. The Salt of the Earth (Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado)
10. The Tribe (Miroslav Slaboshpitsky)

DIRECTOR 
Andrew Haigh (45 Years)

WRITER 
Aaron Sorkin (Steve Jobs)

ACTRESS
Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)

ACTOR
Alfredo Castro (From Afar, The Club)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Elizabeth Banks (Love & Mercy, Pitch Perfect 2, Magic Mike XXL, Mockingjay Part 2)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

WORST FILMS

1. Absolutely Anything (Terry Jones)
2. Unfinished Business (Ken Scott)
3. Pixels (Chris Columbus)
4. The Gallows (Travis Cluff, Chris Lofing)
5. Accidental Love (Stephen Greene)
6. The Cobbler (Tom McCarthy)
7. Ratter (Branden Kramer)
8. The Visit (M Night Shyamalan)
9. The Scorch Trials (Wes Ball)
10. Buttercup Bill (Emilie Richard-Froozan, Remy Bennett)

Critical Week: One last shot

Yes, UK critics saw another of the year's most anticipated films this week, the final instalment in the franchise: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. The A-list cast and Suzanne Collins' terrific source material continue to make this a superior series, with a epic-sized conclusion that's packed with strongly emotional moments in between the action mayhem. Jennifer Lawrence's usual costar Bradley Cooper leads the cast of the super-chef drama Burnt, which never quite sells either the story or the too-fancy food, but it's watchable enough.

Also this past week, we had a look at two prestige films going for awards-season attention: Tom McCarthy's Spotlight is a superb investigative drama about a news team (led byMark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton) looking into Boston's abusive priest scandal; Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies is a stately period thriller starring Tom Hanks as a negotiator navigating the tricky waters of Cold War Berlin.

At the other end of the spectrum, the nonsensical South African action movie Momentum stars a plucky Olga Kurylenko being chased by a scene-chomping James Purefoy. Somewhere in the middle, The Queen of Ireland is a fabulous, inspiring doc about Rory O'Neill and his iconic drag alter ego Panti Bliss; and the earthy, honest Mexican drama Velociraptor centres on two teens exploring their sexuality as the world is about to end.

I'll be in America over the next two weeks, so hope to catch up with several things that are out there but haven't screened here, including The Peanuts Movie, The 33, By the Sea, Love the Coopers and Secret in Their Eyes. We'll see how that goes! Watch this space...