Latest screening: Seven Pounds

Now here's an odd one. A film essentially as bland as the poster advertising it (see left) and yet oddly kind of involving! I have to say i neither particularly liked nor disliked Seven Pounds. Some people will rail against it's vaguely self-involved messianic central character, others will embrace it whole-heartedly i suspect. It left me with a kind of "meh!" feeling.

Will Smith at first appears kind of an ass in the movie but it's Will Smith so you know this is leading somewhere more feel-good. Even so when i got to the end of the movie his character seemed somewhat selfish and self-absorbed.

No-one makes a particular impression on the acting front. Smith is fine doing his Pursuit Of Happyness thing, Barry Pepper has little to do but look anguished and Woody Harrelson has even less. Only Rosario Dawson gets decent screen time apart from Smith and while she does well with what she has her character is under-developed and is kind of at loggerheads with the gradually revealing back-story of Smith's character as to make you question the motivation used for the story. There does seem to be a fairly simple and less complex solution that would have made the film more likeable and accessible even if not actually better, but never mind.

Generally it passes the time but this is not one to charge out and see and a good many people i know will actively hate it. Personally i'm sticking with my indifference!

Awards chances: Meh!

Latest Screening: Australia

One of the things you have to admire about Baz Luhrmann is he takes risks. On all three of his previous movies i went in expecting to hate them: a ballroom-dancing comedy? a modernised Romeo & Juliet with guns? a pop-song musical? But damn it if i didn't love all three. Australia is an equal risk and i admire Luhrmann once again for making a film no one would, hell probably could make. Unfortunately this time it didn't work.

Australia's biggest problem is tone. It is daft. Tonally it fits with Strictly Ballroom or Moulin Rouge! but that tone doesn't work for this subject. It is often intentionally funny in the first half but the humour comes from a high-camp angle. The lingering soaped-up shot of Jackman; the almost moustache-twirling villainy of David Wenham; the blatant process-shot FX; the CG settings; the outrage and outrageousness are all deliberately silly but the film is going to get serious and at its heart is a frankly rather beautiful story element about the stolen generation of aboriginal children that is done a massive dis-service by this early and lingering tone.

The film doesn't recover. When the second world war comes along the film would love to be, as judging by the marketing Fox would like you to think too, Gone With The Wind; but Gone With The Wind didn't spend its first half being His Girl Friday! - both great films, but hardly a good tonal match.

The film's saving grace is the fantastic performance by Brandon Walters as Nullah, the aboriginal child Kidman comes to mother, and that Jackman and Kidman do there best. But here, ultimately, Luhrmann has doomed the whole enterprise with a style and approach that really seems at odds with his story. Had he gone the full Gone With The Wind old-fashioned epic i suspect this may have worked. Shame.

Awards chances: not a chance!

Latest screening: Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Finally! It's been a long time coming and i wasn't sure it would happen but we finally have a big, brash, epic, wonderful Hollywood movie in the awards season.

So far it's been all big performances in little-feel movies and character pieces, but Benjamin Button is glorious. It shares a distrinctly Tim Burton-Jean Pierre Jeunet feeling with its odd-people populated world and its quirkiness, but has the feel-good elements of writer Eric Roth's Forrest Gump. "Aargh!" I hear you cry. Don't worry, because this is David Fincher, not Robert Zemeckis, and you can rest assured the saccharine has no place in Fincher's world.

Benjamin Button is a superbly realised film on every level. The performances are spot on, especially a truly memorable turn from Taraji P Henson as Benjamin's adoptive mother; the visual effects are excellent; the score is complementary and beautiful; the photography is luxurious. I really can't find significant fault with Benjamin Button and it is unlike the rest of this year's pack on so many levels it will be a hard one to call once the nominations start flying.

Rest assured though Fincher has to be a front runner because here he has brought together a collective of faultless element into a seemless and damn entertaining film, while making something wholly different from anything he's done before.

Awards chances: Pitt and Blanchett are good (as usual) but work within the film's world rather than stand out from it - good for the film but unlikely to gain them the necessary attention for awards. The film though is a shoe-in in both major (Picture, Director, Screenplay) and technical categories. And i'm planting my flag in Fincher for Best Director right now.

Animation review: Bolt

Since when i did my analysis of the animation contenders i hadn't seen Bolt (which doesn't qualify for BAFTA but does for the Oscars) it seems only fair now i have to give it a mention.

I have to admit Bolt was a pleasant surprise. Between cutesy trailering, a DreamWorks-esque placing of star names on the poster and documented issues with the film, such as the style and design being changed significantly half way through, i had kind of written this off. But lo! Here we have a genuinely funny family film. It has no pretensions of Pixar's grace and beauty, this is intended purely to entertain kids and the adults. Nothing wrong with that and it completely works at that.

The sidekick character of Rhino (a hamster in a running ball) is inspired and really helps the film avoid a center-stage lag. There's nothing stunningly original here - in fact fans of Inspector Gadget may find the TV show within the film strikingly familiar - and the voice cast, with the excpetion of Rhino (Mark Walton), don't particularly stand out. But at the same time they all work. I saw the film in 3D, which i continue to love, but here, as with 2006's Monster House the film is actually worth seeing regardless of 3D, which has been rare so far with the relaunch of the technology (yes Polar Express, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Beowulf, i'm looking at you!).

Awards chances: It isn't going to threaten the triumvirate of WALL-E, Kung Fu Panda and Waltz With Bashir for the three nominations but it's better than most of the others i've seen and kids will love it.

Latest screening: Dean Spanley

A pleasant Sunday afternoon diversion type film, this is one to see with no knowledge of what it's about and watch on a screener.

I'm not going to go into what it's about because i knew nothing going in and that helped. The first half of the film if slow and starts to seem a bit ludicrous and i was thinking this is going to be shit, but found myself won over by the whimsy of it all by the end. Of course if you don't like whimsy then this isn't for you. It is completely mad.

The performances, production design are all fine but nothing stands out and it seems to me the only reason for even bothering with awards season screenings is to try and get O'Toole another shot at the elusive prize! He won't get it here though. He is good, though this again comes through in the second half. For the first half he seems to be just classic cantankerous O'Toole, enjoyable but not remarkable. Like the film he gets better but this is too instantial overall.

Awards chances: O'Toole is a long shot nomination but given he's been nominated 8 times before i suppose it's possible. I'd rule out anything else though. If they send screeners though it is a pleasant diversion.

Latest screening: Slumdog Millionaire

Now here's an interesting one. A film that truly has everything. It is funny and disturbing. It is emotionally charged and an easy watch. It has great performances but is never overwhelmed by any. It is, to say the least, memorable.

The winds seem to be suggesting Slumdog Millionaire could be a best picture contender this year and i have to agree. It is not that it is necessarily a film you watch thinking, "this is great, i must vote for it", nor just it entirely avoid cliche and predictability but it is a satisifying, well made watch and in this particular year that may be enough.

Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy and everyone involved has crafted an elegant, hard to dislike film. Can you find fault in it? Sure. But it lingers in the mind and scenes come back to disturb you, to make you laugh, to lift your spirit.

Where it stands such a good chance it that the film is one of the few this year where the film as 'package' is strong as opposed to one aspect. Most of the film's currently clamouring for awards voters' attentions (Doubt and Frost/Nixon - and i hear Milk - being prime examples) are cases where the performances are strong but not necessarily the film. Films that in most years would not see picture noms, just acting ones, are suddenly in contention. Slumdog Millionaire stands out because while Dev Patel and all the actors here are excellent it is not the performances that stand out, it is the film itself. It is uplifting but it gets (perhaps slightly eyebrow-raisingly melodramatically) there through a rollercoaster of shocks, laughs, violence and joy.

Added to this the fact that Fox Searchlight, the true masters of securing the "smaller indie slot" best picture nomination (Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine being just two recent examples) have the domestic rights.

Awards chances: A very good film that may not have been a best picture contender in many year's but may have found itself in the right place at the right time this year, where the overall 'package' really stands out. Expect Best Picture, maybe Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography nominations.

Latest screening: Doubt

I have no doubt that Doubt will feature heavily come the awards nominations. While the film itself may be a long shot - it is another of this year's seemingly unending set of solid films with incredible performances - the four leads are uniformly excellent.

The film manages to avoid the trappings of its stage origins well, a particular surprise given that director John Patrick Shanley is both writer of the screenplay and of the original play, and hasn't directed a film since the painful Joe Versus the Volcano (the Hanks/Ryan collaboration most people conveniently forget!) This may largely be due to typically stunning cinematography by Roger Deakins (presumably the film that prevented his working with the Coens on Burn After Reading). It is an intimate film as necessitated by the play construct though and that is perhaps why the film does not resonate like the performances do.

Much will, and already has, been made of Meryl Streep's performance and rightly so but Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and, in a single but memorable split-scene Viola Davis, all bring their A-game and match her. There is a feeling in Hollywood right now that Streep will take best actress and it would be no bad thing were she to, but i suspect not. Streep, like Hoffman, is typically excellent here but there are other performances this year as good (see my first predictions later today) and this feels like a nomination not a win. Personally for my the performance that really resonated was Adams.

Awards chances: Expect to see Streep and Adams get nominations with possible spots for Hoffman (although with best actor so strongly contested this year i suspect not) and maybe Davis who, despite very limited screen time, makes an impression and supporting actresses worth nominating currently seem few and far between. The screenplay if also likely in the adapted category and Deakins may well find himself short-listed once again. The film is more in doubt, though it is not a strong year so it could do. Director i'd be very surprised.

Latest screenings (UK wkd openers): W., Pride & Glory, Easy Virtue

Three new films in the UK this week, all passing by the executioner's chopping block.

Best of the week: W.
Oliver Stone has returned to form with W. - his best film since Nixon. Stone attempts to fairly even handed in his treatment of Dub-ya, which has annoyed many critics who were out for blood, but he can't avoid a few swipes that are the film's biggest problem. Making Bush look stupid by using this own sayings is fine and accurate, but two or three moments, including the use of the song Robin Hood are overdone and smack of the film the left-wing hoped he'd make and the right-wing thought he'd make. He can't have it both ways and they feel out of place in this film. As does Thandie Newton's sketch-show gurning as Condoleeza Rice. She is hilarious but it's too much really.

Brolin though is excellent. You feel sorry for his W. while at the same time seeing the figure of ridicule we love to mock. Brolin has been gaining more and more momentum in the past few years and this is a stunning turn. No matter how good or bad those acting around him (and most are very good for one reason or another) Brolin is so good that by the second half you just feel like you're watching footage of the 43rd president. It's spooky.

Awards chances: Brolin should get a nomination and it'll be interesting to see if should he get a supporting nod for Milk whether this will happen. He should, but the Milk nod may be seen as a good excuse to avoid the hot potato that W. will no doubt be in awards season. A Bafta nom for him seems more certain. The film may be too soon for much Oscar attention beyong Brolin but Stone is a two time Best Director winner and this is the best film he's made in a decade and it comes in a poor year (so far) for Best Picture certainties so i wouldn't rule it out. Personally i suspect come Jan 22 we won't be seeing key noms for this one outside of Brolin.

He'll never win for this, but if he is nommed for W. as Best Actor and Supporting Actor for Milk then expect to see Brolin walk away with the supporting trophy - especially only a year after he was the central glue to, but most ignored part of come awards season, of last year's Best Picture winner No Country For Old Men. I'm seeing Milk next week and confirm my thoughts on this then.

Pride & Glory - Much better than it has any right to be, this cop thriller is as predictable as it looks and offers little new to the genre, but it is efficiently made by director Gavin O'Connor and his team and raises its game with uniformly strong supporting performances.

It is odd that of all the performances the weak link is Edward Norton, not because he's bad (is he even capable of being so) but because he's sleep-walking through his performance. But Farrell tries valiantly to inject a depth to his character that the script has not provided, Noah Emmerich and Jennifer Ehle shine throughout and Jon Voight shows just how good he can be. A scene with Voight drunk at a family dinner is a masterclass in how to play drunk realistically - if you were told be sank a few shooters ahead of the take you'd believe it.

Awards chances: Not a chance. The film is solid entertainment but unremarkable and has no awards traction at all. Still, it's leagues better than the excrable Righteous Kill!

Easy Virtue - A funny and entertaining adaptation of the more serious Noel Coward play, but it suffers from pendulum swings in tone. Kristin Scott Thomas does her cold and calculating best, Colin Firth is fine if unremarkable and Jessica Biel shows a lightness and skill she hasn't previously displayed. Biel should certainly continue to show people what she is capable of in choices like this and The Illusionist, things we could never have guessed from watching the likes of Blade Trinity and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But Ben Barnes is terrible. Yet another in a long line of good looking wooden young British actors, much like Orlando Bloom or Keira Knightley - not that it hurt their careers.

The script can't balance the humour with the more serious elements retained from the play and it struggles to not fall into a peaks and troughs pattern of enjoyment and boredom.

Awards chances: As always with this type of film costume and production design and related technicals are possible - especially with the period film friendly BAFTA. But there is nothing here in script, film or acting of particular note. Scott Thomas is the best here but she's just playing the cold and witty role she always does and shouldn't get attention here which could distract from her assured (for BAFTA at least) Best Actress nom turn in I've Loved You So Long. I'm surprised awards screenings are going on, but like i said BAFTA is period film friendly so that might explain it.

It you want to see how UK audiences voted with their wallets on opeing weekend:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2008/nov/10/2

Latest screening: Changeling

It's very possible that Clint Eastwood is the best director currently working. Consider the recent work: Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags Of Our Fathers (which works better on repeat viewings), the superb Letters From Iwo Jima. The man has defined the western with films like Outlaw Josey Wales and Unforgiven, and flips genres with ease. And his next one, Gran Torino, looks great:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/grantorino/large.html

This brings us to Changeling - hailed at Cannes but meeting mixed reception in the US. A.O. Scott in the New York Times for instance said of Jolie, "It insists on being redarded as a great performance and may, indeed, be mistaken for one."

I have to disagree with this statement. I think you can apply that to Jolie's (failed) Oscar-bait performance in A Mighty Heart or Halle Berry's cynical turn in Things We Lost In The Fire, but here i found Jolie much more restrained than i had expected. There are scenes when she seems so small, so lost, so frail - Lara Croft! For me this was her best work since Girl Interrupted, once again showing what has so easily been forgotten in the Brangelina, world-adopting image of her in recent times.

Eastwood's economy of filmmaking is again present and while it is true that applied to period settings his style can sometimes appear a little straight-forward and idealised this is after all a film, not a documentary. He and his collaborators create an effective 1920s world, that takes you there rather than feeling like a backlot (the only really grating thing being the use of a period Universal logo at the head of film which is now becoming overdone). It is not Eastwood's best film but it is an admirable one and as usual from Eastwood he has drawn the very best out of both every cast member and the crew.

Awards chances: Excellent. Jolie seems certain for a nomination and must be a good shot at the gold, although Kate Winslet may have something to say about that and Kristin Scott Thomas should figure prominently. Still with a French-language performance winning last year and Winslet potentially having two roles that could both be up and cancel each other out Jolie has a very good chance, and Eastwood has been a dab hand recently at bringing home gold for his actors. Technicals like production design, costume, hair & make-up are all assured at least at nomination level. The film probably wouldn't be in a highly competitive year but no clear winner has emerged from those i've seen so far this year and i suspect Changeling may well feature alongside Revolutionary Road in the five nominees this year.

Bringing the axe down: Quantum Of Solace

The new Bond may have scored the biggest UK 3-day weekend ever but that's surely only thanks to how great Casino Royale was.

Quantum Of Solace is such a drag. It is fine to be more serious, to throw out the silliness of Moore or the desperation of Brosnan adventures but to have zero sense of humour, to be so unrelentingly bleak - this is not Bond.

I found the new Bond completely forgettable. I enjoyed some of the set pieces while they were happening but to be honest two days on i can't really remember what it was all about, what the villain was up to, what the locales were, etc.

Craig was fine but didn't build at all on his fantastic turn in Casino Royale. Olga Kurylenko was suitably sexy. Gemme Arterton clearly thought she was filming a Roger Moore episode - awful. The saving graces here, who were both memorable and provided the rare wry smile the film could muster were the incomparable Judi Dench and the always reliable Jeffrey Wright (if only they'd give him more to do - maybe next time).

Forster brings some style and it is interesting to see what at times becomes the art-house Bond, but it is strange he's been saddled with a plot with zero character development. It's just one set piece after another and none are "wow" enough to make an impact.

Really disappointed in this one.

Awards chances: Strictly technical, sound mixing, sound effects and such maybe - although it won't even win these which surely only WALL-E and Dark Knight are really contesting (perhaps Iron Man). Craig may have been the first Bond to get a Bafta nom with Casino Royale but he won't see a repeat this time around.

Latest screening: The Wrestler

Another week, another great film. And the best actor race is getting impossible. Frank Langella, Josh Brolin now Mickey Rourke.

I have already posed the question in an election between George W Bush and Richard M Nixon just who exactly would you vote for? The answer could well be Randy "The Ram" Robinson.

A film which really took me back to the 80s with great 80s tunes, the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (which i still have and occasionally use like the character in this film) and a wrestling plot seeing a big blonde American hero vs the Ayatollah (Hulk Hogan vs Colonel Mustafa and Sgt Slaughter if ever i saw an inspiraction). Gotta love that nostalgia.

But The Wrestler is so much more than that, chiefly a superb performance by an agonising Mickey Rourke. Got to have an excellent Oscar shot. Bafta? Maybe less so because British old school voters might shy away from the wrestling theme, which would be a shame.

On a side note - apparently Leo DiCaprio is "a guarantee", really? For what? Certainly not for the dull, over-cooked Body Of Lies (more on this soon) and i question Revolutionary Road. Great movie but he is the least impressive of the performances here. Thanks to his reputation he may score a nom but in a year with a lot of very strong actor performances i suspect he may not make the cut.

Awards chances: Rourke has a great chance here, especially if all the other noms go to the politically themed films (Frost/Nixon, W., Milk, Che) and help Rourke's down-on-his-luck wrestler stand out from the pack. The film is solid but less likely, this is Rourke's show, like Hurricane or Monster the performance is the film. In a slow year Rachel Evan Wood is good enough to stand a chance at a supporting nom but it's a small part so competition could be too high - after all no matter how good Christina Ricci was in Monster no one noticed because she was so overshadowed by Theron, that Charlize's performance was all you remembered.