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   It says an awful lot about an actor's contribution to a franchise that when he no longer appears in its movies, it leaves a gaping hole. But that is exactly what happened when Robert Duvall did not reprise the role of consigliere, Tom Hagen in Francis Coppola's 'The Godfather, Part III' in 1990. The reason he did not reappear was down to his salary - he was offered four times less than Al Pacino's. And while he was not looking for pay parity with Pacino but something recognising his importance to the story, Hagen was instead written out of the saga and was replaced by George Hamilton's character BJ Harrison. Audiences and critics agreed that was a mistake. Even when Coppola recut the film with the 2020 director's cut 'Godfather Part III: Coda - The Death of Michael Corleone,' while it attracted more favourable reviews than the original, Duvall's absence continued to haunt it. In a largely favourable review of the new version, Chicago Sun Times...

WUTHERING HEIGHTS (2026) Some films generate their own atmosphere. ' The Full Monty ' was one such movie that created a frisson of excitement in cinemas before the rolling of the opening credits. ' Titanic ' achieved it too, as did ' Calendar Girls ,' ' Top Gun: Maverick ' and ' Barbie '. They were films that became more than films because their screenings were events. Sitting in Dublin's Savoy Cinema the night before Valentine's Day, it's clear Emerald Fennell's 'Wuthering Heights' is that kind of movie. It's been a while since we've heard excited chatter in a cinema resembling the sound of the women attending the  stoning in 'Monty Python's The Life of Brian' . Yet here we are and it's oddly appropriate for a film that begins with a crowd relishing the spectacle of a public hanging. Fennell, who has written and directed what may possibly be the 17th movie version of Emily Brontë's novel, very ...

  H IS FOR HAWK No sooner have we been applauding  one movie that tackles grief , another comes along and blows you away Just like 'Hamnet,' Philippa Lowthorpe's 'H is for Hawk' is a gripping watch. An adaptation of naturalist Helen MacDonald's prizewinning 2014 memoir about how training a goshawk helped her process the shocking death of her father, it's a piercingly honest meditation on life and loss and the wonder of nature.  Adapted for the screen by the Irish novelist Emma Donoghue, it stars Claire Foy as the Cambridge academic whose love of birds was instilled at an early age by her dad, Brendan Gleeson's Alisdair, an accomplished press photographer. Plunged into grief when Alisdair dies from a heart attack at the age of 71, Helen rapidly becomes obsessed with the notion of raising a goshawk despite never having trained a bird of that size. With the help of Sam Spruell's falconer Stuart, she sources a bird and drives to Stranraer with her Austra...

It's every film buff's favourite bloodsport and this year's Oscar nominations certainly didn't disappoint. This year has given us a film that has broken the Academy's nominations record. There were at least two surprising acting snubs. There was also a good smattering of international films in the major categories. But what do this year's nominations say about the races in the main categories? Pomona gives you its penny's worth. BEST PICTURE Bugonia F1 Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein Hamnet Marty Supreme  One Battle After Another The Secret Agent Sentimental Value  Sinners  Train Dreams The ten films on this shortlist include one summer blockbuster, two movies not fully in the English language and a record breaking vampire film. However only three of the ten have emerged as frontrunners in this contest. The movie out in front at this stage is undoubtedly Paul Thomas Anderson's mesmerising satirical revolutionary tale 'One Battle After Another...

WAITING FOR THE OUT Dennis Kelly's six part drama 'Waiting for the Out' begins with Josh Finan's academic Dan Stewer fretting over a cooker in his kitchen. He obsessively checks the dials, its flame heads and oven for any sign of a gas leak over and over again before eventually leaving the house. However he's about to enter a pressure cooker of a different kind as he embarks on a new job teaching philosophy to inmates in a prison. His students include Tom Moutchi's Tom 'Junior' Kouame Jr, Charlie Rix's Zach Colton, Nima Taleghani's Malik Zahir, Sule Rimi's Sansom Blake, Steve Meo's Dan 'Macca' McKenzie, Josef Alton's sensitive Greg Turner and Alex Fairns' bright Keith McKellar. Attempting to simplify the philosophical concepts of John Locke and Descartes, Dan is taken to task for doing so by Keith. Inviting each prisoner to talk, most of them relate the theories he teaches to their own lives and reveal real struggleswith t...

HAMNET There comes a point in every Oscar race where one of the frontrunners' credentials gets called into question. Sometimes it comes in the form of someone raising concerns about the behaviour of one of those involved in a particular movie. 'Emilia Perez' anyone ? Occasionally a contender's artistic credentials are attacked - for example, when it emerged  'The Brutalist' director Brady Corbet had used AI in post production to make Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones' dialogue in Hungarian more authentic. Often it comes from naysayers who start to question whether the film is all it's cracked up to be. That happened to ' La La Land ,' ' A Star Is Born ,' and ' Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri'  and most of the time, it injects just enough doubt to undermine the film's bid for Best Picture. From the outset of this year's awards season, there have been two clear Best Picture frontrunners. In the blue corner we have s...