I wish that I could stop feeling that I want to be an Irish girl in Ireland.

Brooklyn
(2015)

(SPOILERS) Sweet, well-observed little picture that dun well, as Saiorse Ronan emigrates from Ireland (take a wild stab where) in the early ‘50s, discovers a whole new world, then rediscovers a whole old world, entailing conflicting emotions over the romantic entanglements each brings.

Ronan entirely deserved her Best Actress Oscar nomination, assuredly navigating potentially tricky trajectory for Eilis Lacy such that, in the third act, her errant behaviour is never less than understandable. This is, after all, a picture all about the lustre of familiar shores, in which a rather wonderfully cast Jim Broadbent comforts Eilis early on in her US sojourn, that “Homesickness is like most sicknesses. It’ll make you feel wretched, and then it’ll move on to somebody else”. Albeit, it sounds better when he says it.

I was half expecting the usual yarn of the naïve woman giving herself to a seemingly besotted, perfect guy who then promptly loses interest (mostly because Emory Cohen makes Tony Fiorello so perfectly sincere, amiable and likeable, it was obviously too good to be true; it helps too that the chemistry between Cohen and Ronan is palpable). So, when they get rapidly hitched and she subsequently surfs back to Ireland solo, and then finds herself awash with conflicting feelings, Brooklyn revealed itself as a refreshing change from the norm.

John Crowley’s sensitive direction ensures that, for all that Ellis is a good and proper girl, and her new husband is a loving and devoted fellow, the trance she falls into as the old life overcomes her is relatable; everyone around her blithely assumes she will just resume her previous place, and she even encounters an impossibly decent suitor in Domhnall Gleeson’s Jim Farrell.

It wouldn’t really be accurate to call this a love triangle. It’s more a love location-slip, as Eilis perceives two different lives and is unsure which dream is real, at least until the spell is broken by external machinations. Ronan is radiant, and some day that Oscar shall no doubt be hers. The evocation of another era, meanwhile, is indescribably perfect, as if every place, no matter how squalid in reality, was pristine during that decade. That’s a quibble, though. This is, after all, a romantic melodrama, rather than some hard-hitting expose of indelicate socio-economic truths.

As involving as Eilis’ personal predicaments are, perhaps the sheerest pleasure of the picture comes from the evening dinners at her boarding house, presided over by Julie Walters in inimitable manner as landlady Madge Kehoe. If it isn’t the duo of superior, scoffing man-hunters dissolving into peals of laughter, it’s Madge’s delirious put-downs of the same; this kind of quick-fire repartee is immensely pleasurable, naturally very funny and entirely unforced. How much of that is from Colm Toibin’s novel or Nick Hornby’s screenplay, I don’t know, but Hornby at least deserves credit for transposing it so effectively.

Obviously, I’m not alone in such an endorsement, as the Beeb is apparently set to produce the return of Mrs Keogh and her passers-through. Whether that’s a good idea or not is questionable, since making a side order the main dish can often highlight that it was its position as an appetiser that made it so effective. Of course, Brooklyn will only further underline the export appeal of the nostalgia-driven heritage-fixated Britain film industry, but when such backward fascination produces a picture so charming and well-observed, it becomes difficult to begrudge it.

That was the unseen straggler of 2015 Best Picture Oscar nominees , so here’s my rundown ranking:

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. Room

3. Spotlight

4. The Big Short

5. Bridge of Spies

6. Brooklyn

7. The Martian

8. The Revenant

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

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.

Do you know that the leading cause of death for beavers is falling trees?

The Interpreter (2005) Sydney Pollack’s final film returns to the conspiracy genre that served him well in both the 1970s ( Three Days of the Condor ) and the 1990s ( The Firm ). It also marks a return to Africa, but in a decidedly less romantic fashion than his 1985 Oscar winner. Unfortunately the result is a tepid, clichéd affair in which only the technical flourishes of its director have any merit. The film’s main claim to fame is that Universal received permission to film inside the United Nations headquarters. Accordingly, Pollack is predictably unquestioning in its admiration and respect for the organisation. It is no doubt also the reason that liberal crusader Sean Penn attached himself to what is otherwise a highly generic and non-Penn type of role. When it comes down to it, the argument rehearsed here of diplomacy over violent resolution is as banal as they come. That the UN is infallible moral arbiter of this process is never in any doubt. The cynicism

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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