Oscars 2019 - Best Picture

I liked the pick for Best Picture at last year's Oscars. Awards lists are always contentious, and largely I think the Academy made good decisions, although I didn't think Darkest Hour should have been in contention.

This year, the slate of proposed films is a little less to my taste.

Black Panther. Not the best Marvel Studios film, in my book, some would argue that it wasn't even the best Marvel Studios film from last year (assuming we're not including the animated Spider-Man film, they're wrong), but it's scored points for its political talking points (both those in the story and those involved in the production).

It was also a lot of fun, well-made (about five minutes of the whole film was a little dull on a repeat watch, so that's a pretty good ratio), a crowd pleaser, and exactly the sort of film that should be getting nominated for best picture.

So I'm happy with that choice.

Next up is BlacKkKlansman. A joint by Spike Lee, that works to keep the dialogue going about race relations in the USA in a way that entertains rather than polemicises, keeping it fairly light considering the subject matter - until the last five minutes of the film, which left the whole audience in stunned silence as the credits rolled.

Not sure if the rest of the film would justify it, but the ending probably scrapes this one past the finish line for me.

Bohemian Rhapsody. Fun, well-mounted, songs by Queen, what's not to like? Except it's not a best picture contender by a long-shot.

There have been plenty of films that have entertained me a lot more this year - Ready Player One I managed to see seven times, so on an entertainment scale, with one viewing and no desire to see it again, Bohemian Rhapsody falls well short. And for anything deeper, look elsewhere.

The Favourite. As an absurdist black comedy, The Favourite provides an entertaining couple of hours viewing. The performances from the three female leads are superb, there are nice frocks, and some nice period backdrops (courtesy of Hatfield House and Hampton Court). But that doesn't feel enough to qualify it as best picture. The acting nominations are well-deserved, but anything else doesn't feel earned.

Roma. Lush black and white photography; a small, personal, heart-breaking story, set against a wide backdrop. Roma is the type of film you want to live inside. The only strike against it, is that it's also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, so it seems a bit greedy.

Green Book. Basically Driving Miss Daisy for the 21st century. It's another tale of a white person realising that people of a different colour are not bad people after all. It's a well-mounted production, with decent performances, but it's a fairly standard (b)rom com plot. I wouldn't have put this one forward.

A Star is Born. At one time lauded as the most likely winner, I think a bit of time has possible taken some of the sheen off of this one. It's well-directed, convincingly-acted, some great songs - it definitely creates the sense of being out on stage. I found the relationship dynamics troubling, which I think I was supposed to, but the way they were left at the end of the film left me feeling slightly uneasy. It's a better contender than some of the others on the list - and a far better music picture than Bohemian Rhapsody - but I wouldn't want it to win.

Vice. Brilliant make-up effects (should win the Oscar for that), and an entertainingly told told tale about a horrifying man, but it's too disjointed. The Big Short, writer-director Adam McKay's previous film was far better.

Shouldn't have been a contender.

So that's one I completely agree on, three maybes and four nos.

Here's what I would replace the definite nos with:

If Beale Street Could Talk. Much better at talking about race than Green Book, and an absolutely beautiful production. Nominated for a few other awards, but stupidly not selected for Best Picture.

Leave No Trace. Criminally overlooked by the Oscars, Globes and BAFTAs. One of the best reviewed films of the year, and an absolutely wonderful piece of filmmaking.

First Man. Worth it for the claustrophobic Moon Landing scenes alone.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. If a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film can make it into the Best Picture shortlist, then so can a nominee for Best Animated Feature Film.

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

There are two things that amaze me about Mary Poppins Returns.

The first is how the filmmakers managed to make so many good decisions while making the film. Everything from the subtle storytelling, the casting, the songs, the cinematography, the animation creates a film that doesn't stray too far from the formula of the first film, but also manages to feel fresh enough that it isn't a dull retread.

The second is that there are people out there who disagree with this assessment.

Not all of the songs hit first time - I initially found opening number of (Underneath the) Lovely London Sky to be okay, but not instantly catchy, but given a bit of time it earwormed itself into my mind - however for the most part, the songs stuck first time.

Emily Blunt on the other hand sticks the first time she appears in the movie. Trying to take over from Julie Andrews may have seemed like a poisoned chalice, but I found that instead of suffering in the shadow of Andrews' Poppins, the legacy instead worked in Blunt's favour. By not attempting to mimic Andrews, and instead delivering a pricklier, more vain Mary Poppins, Blunt creates sufficient distinction to make the role her own, while benefiting from the audience's familiarity with the character.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's turn as Jack the Lamplighter is a reasonable replacement for Bert the Chimney Sweep/Screever/One-Man Band. His accent isn't in the same league as Dick Van Dyke's, but with a fairly stagy (yet sufficiently charming) delivery, he's unlikely to be mistaken for a genuine cockney.

The animated scenes also compare well with the original film. Using hand-drawn animation for the Royal Dalton Ball sequence make the film feel contiguous to Mary Poppins' chalk drawing sequence, although interestingly it uses the opportunity to up the peril factor with a nightmarish chase sequence that felt akin to something out of Disney's Pinocchio or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

This twisting of the story beats is something the film does quite frequently. It lends to the familiarity as there seems to be a companion piece for all of the the original's main sequences, but it uses those familiar beats to tell a tale that felt to me to be more focused than the plot of the original film.

There's talk of a sequel to Mary Poppins Returns. If they manage to maintain the quality, then I'm looking forward to it.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

When I first heard about Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, my expectations for it were so low the might as well have been the Mariana Trench.

We'd recently been given a live action Spider-Man film, where Sony had made the wise decision to collaborate with Marvel Studios. Now we were going to get what I expected to be a cheaply animated CGI cartoon that should probably have gone direct to video.

But then in the months leading up to the film's release, my opinion began to shift. First was the news that Lord and Miller, the responsible parties for The Lego Movie were going to be involved. Then came the trailers, which indicated that not only was the film going to be gifted with reasonable-looking animation, but it looked like it could be properly funny.

However, trailers all too often lie, so the chances were that my expectations, once low, were now too high. There was no way that the film could meet my expectations.

Except it met them, shook their hands, and then waved goodbye to them as it far exceeded anything I had thought the film capable of delivering.

I've now seen Spider-Verse four times (I only stopped because my local cinema took it off to make room for something like Welcome to Marwen). I've bought the soundtrack, the score, the entire run of comic books on which it was based. Out of the 97 films I saw last year, it's in my top two (don't ask me to pick between them).

I have one issue with the film, which was more of a problem the first time I saw it, and less of one with subsequent viewings. At times the animation in its quest to look edgy and comic book like uses techniques that make the picture look as if you've forgotten to put on your 3D glasses (I was watching in 2D - I have no idea of how confusing this might at a 3D screening).

Aside from that quibble, there's little else I can complain about. The storytelling is superb - there's not a single scene that bored me by the fourth time I was watching. The city environments have a genuine sense of place to them - it feels like a world the characters inhabit rather than only being a background to the real action. The dialogue is clever, sharp, funny. The characters are compelling - both the principle and the supporting parts. There's a sense of experimentation to the film with its clashing animation styles that hasn't been seen in mainstream western animation for a long time - certainly not to this extent.

The film's already won a Golden Globe. If it doesn't win an Oscar, I'll be suspecting foul play. It's the best animated film of the year, the best animated superhero film of all time, and it certainly ranks among the best comic book films committed to film.