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SMALL ACTS, BIG REWARDS (A FRIEND OF DOROTHY)

  A FRIEND OF DOROTHY Right from the moment Stephen Fry appears onscreen, you can see why Academy voters were swayed enough to nominate the English 21 minute comedy 'A Friend of Dorothy' for Best Live Action Short. A sweet natured tale of an unlikely friendship between Miriam Margolyes' pensioner Dorothy and Alistair Nwachukwu's Afro-Caribbean teen JJ, Lee Knight's short has a cheeky title for a start. It has two British national treasures as well in the shape of Margolyes and Fry. But there's also a delightful English eccentricity to it. In Knight's short, Margolyes' Dorothy Woodley first encounters JJ after he kicks a football into her back garden and knocks on her door to retrieve it. Inviting him inside her house to retrieve the ball on condition that he also opens a can of prunes for her, they quickly bond as he waits for her to retrieve her keys and marvels at her collection of plays in her bookcase. Noticing his interest, Dorothy elicits from JJ t...
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LOSING IT (THE SMASHING MACHINE)

THE SMASHING MACHINE At the start of awards season, it seemed like there was a clear path for Benny Safdie's 'The Smashing Machine to be a real Oscars contender. It's easy to see why. Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson underwent a physical transformation for his role in the biopic of MMA fighter Mark Kerr and really tested his acting prowess. Emily Blunt also waded into new territory as well as Kerr's girlfriend. But despite securing Golden Globe nominations for both stars, Safdie's film never quite built momentum during awards season to land nominations at the key ceremonies. As a result, the film landed justbone solitary Academy Awards nomination for Best Make Up and Hairstyling and deservedly so. Should Safdie's movie, however, have landed more? 'The Smashing Machine' charts the downfall of Kerr, a two time MMA heavyweight champion. Sporting a wig, Johnson plays the Ohio MMA fighter whose reliance on painkillers tore him down from the heights in his sp...
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RAISING THE BAR (THE SINGERS)

THE SINGERS As anyone who has ever dropped into an impromptu musical session in a bar can tell you, sometimes the most memorable renditions of a song can come from the most unlikely of people. That's the basic premise of Sam A Davis' Netflix acquired Best Live Action Short Oscar nominee, 'The Sinners'. Based on a short story from the 19th Century Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, Davis' beautifully filmed tale transposes the story to a sad looking, isolated blue collar bar in the dead of winter. As the regulars prop up the counter, one patron, Will Harrington's construction worker badgers the others for money to buy drink. Irritated by his behaviour, Mike Yung's bartender cuts a deal with him and Chris Smither's frail customer. Whoever sings the best will win a $100 note he has stashed away in a cluster of  dollar bills decorating the bar. And so after a few feeble starts, a game of musical one upmanship emerges with the ailing man impressively belting out ...
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BLOODY HELL (JANE AUSTEN'S PERIOD DRAMA)

JANE AUSTEN'S PERIOD DRAMA In 1995, Scottish actor Peter Capaldi shared the Oscar for the Best Live Action Short with another competitor Peggy Rajski for his 23 minute comedy ' Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life '. With its tongue in cheek title, the film starring Richard E Grant and Ken Stott was an amusing tale about Kafka's struggle to write his daring 1915 novella ' Metamorphosis '. Its tie with Rajski's ' Trevor ' showed an eye catching title could go a long way with Oscar voters who 12 years later awarded a statuette to Ari Sandel's musical comedy 'West Bank Story' about the rivalry between Palestinian and Israeli falafel restaurants. Now Julia Aks and Steve Pinder are hoping to do the same with their mischievously titled 'Jane Austen's Period Drama'. A spoof of ' Pride and Prejudice ,' ' Sense and Sensibility ' and other English costume dramas, it stars Aks as the heroine, Miss Estrogenia Talbo...
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THE ENEMY WITHIN (WEAPONS)

  WEAPONS What would it be like if Paul Thomas Anderson made a horror movie? It's an intriguing notion that sits in the back of your head while watching Zach Cregger's supernatural mystery horror 'Weapons'. Cregger's film may not be an Anderson movie but it's got a multi layered narrative that tells its horror story from several perspectives. The central premise is what happens to a community when all but one child in a third grade class disappear overnight? The class in question is taught by Julia Garner's Justine Gandy in the Pennsylvanian town of Maybrook. With no obvious explanation for the children's disappearance, wild conspiracy theories abound.  Josh Brolin's angry parent Archer Graff leads unproven accusations that Justine must have had a central role. As the town starts to look at Justine for some kind of explanation, uncomfortable truths start to surface about her past and her messy personal life. This impacts Alden Ehrenreich's marrie...
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DYING LIGHT (BLUE MOON)

  BLUE MOON It's about time Ethan Hawke landed an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Twice nominated before in the supporting actor category, over the years he has delivered superb lead performances for directors like Ben Stiller, Sidney Lumet and Paul Schrader. However it's his lead work with Richard Linklater that has really stood out - most notably in  the 'Before' trilogy  with Julie Delpy. Hawke's first nomination in the category has finally come about working with Linklater on 'Blue Moon' - a biographical comedy drama about the American musical lyricist Lorenz Hart. It's a superb performance of not so quiet desperation, with Linklater setting the mould for Hawke at the start of the film with a quote from Mabel Mercer that Hart was "the saddest man I knew". We hear a radio newscaster also announcing Hart's death from pneumonia as we watch him slump in a drunken stupor in a New York alleyway during a torrential rainstorm. Going back seven...
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WHEN PAST IS PRESENT (HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM BELFAST)

  HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM BELFAST We all need a laugh at this moment. Amid a barrage of depressing news stories around the fallout from the Epstein files, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the destruction of Gaza, Iran's suppression of protesters, Trump's fractious relationship with America's old allies and January's record breaking rainfall, you can see why people just need a good sitcom or comedy drama. So does Lisa McGee's eagerly anticipated ' Derry Girls ' follow-up deliver those laughs? An ambitious comedy mystery caper, it certainly looks the part thanks to some superb visuals created by directors Michael Lennox, George Kane and Rachna Suri, cinematographers Ashley Barron, Nathalie Pitters and Daniel Stafford-Clark, production designer Tom Conroy, set decorator Valerie Nolan, costume designer Cathy Pryor and hair and make up supervisor Sharon Watson. But do the scripts have the substance to match?  'How To Get To Heaven From Belfast' centres...
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