Tonight we honour Hollywood’s best and whitest. I mean brightest.

Oscar Winners 2015

Neil Patrick Harris: Congratulations to all of the nominees, in particular the eight best-picture nominees. They have all grossed over $600 million. American Sniper alone is responsible for over $300 million of that. To put that in perspective: everyone on this side is the seven other nominees. And, American Sniper is — Oprah. (To Oprah) Because you’re rich.

David Letterman: (To Oprah) Oprah, Uma. (To Uma) Uma, Oprah.

As usual, I didn’t watch. It would take David Letterman hosting again, or someone else guaranteed to be provocative. Which just won’t happen. Entertaining entertainers tend to bland out amid the worldwide broadcast headlights, for fear of causing offence. Respect is due to Neil Patrick Harris however. He merely tripped where Letterman had previously buried himself, but he still got in an Oprah gag. True, Harris’ wasn’t as disarmingly batty as Dave’s but all credit to him for having a go.

Last year my mix of stabs in the dark and sure things yielded 16 out of 24 correct picks. This year I only got 12. Much of that – aside from the shorts categories, where no one has the faintest – came from miscalculating the swing to the Birdman and being left high and dry by Boyhood’s spectacular misses.

Best Picture

Winner: Birdman

I guessed: Boyhood

I got the big three completely wrong, but the most curious thing is how Birdman scored the big one but missed its formerly most likely slam dunk (Best Actor). Following Alfonso Cuaron’s win last year, Alejandro González Iñárritu is to be congratulated for not succumbing to British-style self-glorification and proclaiming, “The Mexicans are coming”.

How will this win look in years to come? I suspect The Grand Budapest Hotel and Boyhood will have greater longevity, but few are going to say a lousy film won, and a good four of the nominees might have had that levelled at them.

Best Director

Winner: Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman)

I guessed: Richard Linklater (Boyhood)

I called Linklater, putting Iñárritu a distant second in likelihood. As with Best Picture, at least someone deserving won out.

Best Actor

Winner: Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)

I guessed: Michael Keaton (Birdman)

And the disability Oscar goes to… everyone! I seriously didn’t think even the Academy would do a double-header for both Actor and Actress, the kind of self-congratulatory heart-bleeding for which Hollywood rightly gets ridiculed. But they did. And Redmayne is just the latest actor to convince undiscerning voters that the best performance is the most obvious one.

Not that Redmayne wasn’t very good, of course. I just doubt he would have been so warmly welcomed by voters if he had gone “full retard”. As for Keaton, it’s really hard luck. I don’t think he was ever really on radar before as a Best Actor contender (Clean and Sober maybe?), and I don’t think he will be again.

Best Actress

Winner: Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

I guessed: Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

And the second disability Oscar goes to… The only one of the Big Four I got right, mainly because everyone got it right. And bless Julianne, she deserves it. The only unfortunate side is that, like Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart or Jessica Lange in Blue Sky, no one is going to remember the movie for which they were rewarded.

Best Supporting Actor

Winner: J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

I guessed: J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

See Julianne above for likelihood.

Best Supporting Actress

Winner: Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

I guessed: Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

See Julianne and J.K. above for likelihood. The consolation prize for Boyhood too, which few would have guessed at the outcome even only a month ago (including me).

Best Original Screenplay

Winner: Birdman

I guessed: The Grand Budapest Hotel

I tipped The Grand Budapest Hotel, with this a runner-up. Some of the discussion (criticism) surrounding Birdman concerns how clever it actually is, and how much of it is down to its director’s ignorance of his expected lack of virtue.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Winner: The Imitation Game

I guessed: The Imitation Game

“Stay weird, stay different”, unlike your tepid screenplay, Graham Moore. The Weinsteins’ Oscar campaigning usually bears some fruit, and this was an easy call, despite being a bit rubbish.

Best Cinematography

Winner: Birdman

I guessed: Birdman

Emmanual Lubezki wins two years on the trot. Virtuoso enough to be the most likely contender, and leaving Birdman with a tidy four gongs.

Best Costume Design

Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

I guessed: The Grand Budapest Hotel

I called all but Screenplay right for Grand Budapest, which made a strong technical showing. Perhaps not so odd; it’s so hugely idiosyncratic it probably left some cold in respect of the main categories. It’s not remotely worthy, either.

Best Film Editing

Winner: Whiplash

I guessed: American Sniper

I have to admit I found Whiplash’s editing leant too much on the obvious. But the Academy likes obvious.

Best Sound Mixing

Winner: Whiplash

I guessed: American Sniper

Deserved, if (as I said in the predictions) an obvious choice. So obvious I chose American Sniper. Which had to make do with…

Best Sound Editing

Winner: American Sniper

I guessed: American Sniper

A glorious triumph.

Best Visual Effects

Winner: Interstellar

I guessed: Guardians of the Galaxy

Can’t say I’m not pleased, but I thought Guardians of the Galaxy would bag it.

Best Makeup

Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

I guessed: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Tilda Swinton looked phenomenally decrepit.

Best Production Design

Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

I guessed: The Grand Budapest Hotel

The best Hotel won.

Best Original Song

Winner: Glory (Selma)

I guessed: Glory (Selma)

It couldn’t not, really.

Best Original Score

Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

I guessed: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Alexandre Desplat’s first win, and well deserved (the only shame is, Interstellar had to lose out).

Best Animated Short

Winner: Feast

I guessed: The Dam Keeper

Disney got it! They didn’t last year, so these things are less certain than they may look.

Best Documentary Short

Winner: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1

I guessed: Joanna

I bet on the Holocaust. I lost.

Best Live Action Short

Winner: The Phone Call

I guessed: Butter Lamp

After The Voorman Problem lost last year I didn’t expert the quirky British short to win. So if there’s one next year, it probably won’t. Unless that’s exactly what they want you to think.

Best Documentary Feature

Winner: Citizenfour

I guessed: Virunga

Harvey Weinstein’s other saving face of the evening. I think it’s safe to predict that Oliver Stone’s dramatisation of Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing won’t be winning any big prizes come its Oscar night.

Best Foreign Language Film

Winner: Ida

I guessed: Leviathan

See, I only went and picked the wrong Holocaust picture to win.

Best Animated Feature

Winner: Big Hero 6

I guessed: Big Hero 6

Disney win again! Smart money was on How to Train Your Dragon 2, which most agree is superior to Big Hero 6. The first Marvel movie to win a Best Picture Oscar.

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

What’s so bad about being small? You’re not going to be small forever.

Innerspace (1987) There’s no doubt that Innerspace is a flawed movie. Joe Dante finds himself pulling in different directions, his instincts for comic subversion tempered by the need to play the romance plot straight. He tacitly acknowledges this on the DVD commentary for the film, where he notes Pauline Kael’s criticism that he was attempting to make a mainstream movie; and he was. But, as ever with Dante, it never quite turns out that way. Whereas his kids’ movies treat their protagonists earnestly, this doesn’t come so naturally with adults. I’m a bona fide devotee of Innerspace , but I can’t help but be conscious of its problems. For the most part Dante papers over the cracks; the movie hits certain keynotes of standard Hollywood prescription scripting. But his sensibility inevitably suffuses it. That, and human cartoon Martin Short (an ideal “leading man” for the director) ensure what is, at first glance just another “ Steven Spielberg Presents ” sci-fi/fantas

This risotto is shmackin’, dude.

Stranger Things Season 4: Part I (SPOILERS) I haven’t had cause, or the urge, to revisit earlier seasons of Stranger Things , but I’m fairly certain my (relatively) positive takes on the first two sequel seasons would adjust down somewhat if I did (a Soviet base under Hawkins? DUMB soft disclosure or not, it’s pretty dumb). In my Season Three review, I called the show “ Netflix’s best-packaged junk food. It knows not to outstay its welcome, doesn’t cause bloat and is disposable in mostly good ways ” I fairly certain the Duffer’s weren’t reading, but it’s as if they decided, as a rebuke, that bloat was the only way to go for Season Four. Hence episodes approaching (or exceeding) twice the standard length. So while the other points – that it wouldn’t stray from its cosy identity and seasons tend to merge in the memory – hold fast, you can feel the ambition of an expansive canvas faltering at the hurdle of Stranger Things ’ essential, curated, nostalgia-appeal inconsequentiality.

Is this supposed to be me? It’s grotesque.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) (SPOILERS) I didn’t hold out much hope for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent being more than moderately tolerable. Not so much because its relatively untested director and his co-writer are mostly known in the TV sphere (and not so much for anything anyone is raving about). Although, it has to be admitted, the finished movie flourishes a degree of digital flatness typical of small-screen productions (it’s fine, but nothing more). Rather, due to the already over-tapped meta-strain of celebs showing they’re good sports about themselves. When Spike Jonze did it with John Malkovich, it was weird and different. By the time we had JCVD , not so much. And both of them are pre-dated by Arnie in Last Action Hero (“ You brought me nothing but pain ” he is told by Jack Slater). Plus, it isn’t as if Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten have much in the way of an angle on Nic; the movie’s basically there to glorify “him”, give or take a few foibles, do

Whacking. I'm hell at whacking.

Witness (1985) (SPOILERS) Witness saw the advent of a relatively brief period – just over half a decade –during which Harrison Ford was willing to use his star power in an attempt to branch out. The results were mixed, and abruptly concluded when his typically too late to go where Daniel Day Lewis, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro had gone before (with at bare minimum Oscar-nominated results) – but not “ full retard ” – ended in derision with Regarding Henry . He retreated to the world of Tom Clancy, and it’s the point where his cachet began to crumble. There had always been a stolid quality beneath even his more colourful characters, but now it came to the fore. You can see something of that as John Book in Witness – despite his sole Oscar nom, it might be one of Ford’s least interesting performances of the 80s – but it scarcely matters, or that the screenplay (which won) is by turns nostalgic, reactionary, wistful and formulaic, as director Peter Weir, in his Hollywood debu

Are you telling me that I should take my daughter to a witch doctor?

The Exorcist (1973) (SPOILERS) Vast swathes have been written on The Exorcist , duly reflective of its cultural impact. In a significant respect, it’s the first blockbuster – forget Jaws – and also the first of a new kind of special-effects movie. It provoked controversy across all levels of the socio-political spectrum, for explicit content and religious content, both hailed and denounced for the same. William Friedkin, director of William Peter Blatty’s screenplay based on Blatty’s 1971 novel, would have us believe The Exorcist is “ a film about the mystery of faith ”, but it’s evidently much more – and less – than that. There’s a strong argument to be made that movies having the kind of seismic shock on the landscape this one did aren’t simply designed to provoke rumination (or exultation); they’re there to profoundly influence society, even if largely by osmosis, and when one looks at this picture’s architects, such an assessment only gains in credibility.

That, my lad, was a dragon.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) (SPOILERS) It’s alarming how quickly Peter Jackson sabotaged all the goodwill he amassed in the wake of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. A guy who started out directing deliciously deranged homemade horror movies ended up taking home the Oscar for a fantasy movie, of all genres. And then he blew it. He went from a filmmaker whose naysayers were the exception to one whose remaining cheerleaders are considered slightly maladjusted. The Desolation of Smaug recovers some of the territory Jackson has lost over the last decade, but he may be too far-gone to ever regain his crown. Perhaps in years to come The Lord of the Rings trilogy will be seen as an aberration in his filmography. There’s a cartoonishness to the gleeful, twisted anarchy on display in his earlierr work that may be more attuned to the less verimilitudinous aspects of King Kong and The Hobbit s. The exceptions are his female-centric character dramas, Heavenly Creat

Gizmo caca!

Gremlins (1984) I didn’t get to see Gremlins at the cinema. I wanted to, as I had worked myself into a state of great anticipation. There was a six-month gap between its (unseasonal) US release and arrival in the UK, so I had plenty of time to devour clips of cute Gizmo on Film ’84 (the only reason ever to catch Barry Norman was a tantalising glimpse of a much awaited movie, rather than his drab, colourless, reviews) and Gremlins trading cards that came with bubble gum attached (or was it the other way round?). But Gremlins ’ immediate fate for many an eager youngster in Britain was sealed when, after much deliberation, the BBFC granted it a 15 certificate. I had just turned 12, and at that time an attempt to sneak in to see it wouldn’t even have crossed my mind. I’d just have to wait for the video. I didn’t realise it then (because I didn’t know who he was as a filmmaker), but Joe Dante’s irrepressible anarchic wit would have a far stronger effect on me than the un

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls… dyin’ time’s here!

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Time was kind to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome . As in, it was such a long time since I’d seen the “final chapter” of the trilogy, it had dwindled in my memory to the status of an “alright but not great” sequel. I’d half-expected to have positive things to say along the lines of it being misunderstood, or being able to see what it was trying for but perhaps failing to quite achieve. Instead, I re-discovered a massive turkey that is really a Mad Max movie in name only (appropriately, since Max was an afterthought). This is the kind of picture fans of beloved series tend to loathe; when a favourite character returns but without the qualities or tone that made them adored in the first place (see Indiana Jones in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , or John McClane in the last two Die Hard s). Thunderdome stinks even more than the methane fuelling Bartertown. I hadn’t been aware of the origins of Thunderdome until recently, mainly because I was

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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