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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...

MARTY SUPREME Sometimes the casting of a movie can tell you a lot about the film and the people who made it - even the smallest of roles. That's certainly the case with 'Marty Supreme,' the second feature that Josh Safdie has directed without his brother Benny. Safdie's film has two bits of striking casting. The first is Canadian businessman, 'Shark Tank' contributor and ardent Donald Trump supporter, Kevin O'Leary . Playing a successful businessman, O'Leary's casting tells you Safdie's movie is particularly fascinated by the mindset of entrepreneurs. However perhaps a more significant piece of casting is in a fringe role. Abel Ferrara , the director of controversial thrillers like ' Driller Killer ,' ' Ms 45 ' and ' Bad Lieutenant ' plays an ageing gangster. We'll come back to the significance of his involvement in the film. Let's focus on the plot first. Loosely based on the life of the  flamboyant American tabl...

  SHEDITES It began in Australia and has grown in popularity around the world. The Men's Shed movement has provided a shared space where men (and sometimes women too) can gather and forge friendships while repairing and recycling items, doing woodwork or other craft making. It's helped older or unemployed men, in particular, to find a sense of purpose, contributing to their local communities and, in some cases, has helped them to address loneliness. Men's Sheds have been so popular, it's no big surprise someone has spotted the opportunity to build a comedy drama around it. BBC1's 'Shedites' is an attempt to do just that. Essentially a 30 minute pilot for a show, created by ' Mrs Brown's Boys ' cast member Paddy Houlihan, it features that sitcom's star Brendan O'Connor and his son Danny who plays Buster on the hit BBC and RTE show that has been repeatedly panned by the critics. Don't let that put you off because the cast also includes ...

  No sooner have we said goodbye to g 2025, thoughts are now turning to what 2026 will bring. The first few months will be dominated by awards season fare. There will also be plenty of sequels. But what are the movies on Pomona's watchlist this year? HAMNET (January 9) Chloe Zhao's adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel is shaping up to be one of the big awards season rivals to Paul Thomas Anderson's ' One Battle After Another '. Jessie Buckley, in particular, has been getting rave reviews in the US for her performance as Agnes Shakespeare, the wife of Paul Mescal's William in a story about how the couple coped with the death of their 11 year old son. Billed as a gut wrenching but ultimately uplifting drama, Buckley and Mescal are joined by Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn, David Wimot, Louisa Harland and real life brothers Jacobi and Noah Jupe. The Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes on January 4 and 11 will tell you exactly where Zhao's film sits i...

Christmas is nearly over. A New Year has landed. New series of 'The Traitors' and 'The Night Manager' have already landed on BBC1. But what are the shows Pomona will be keeping a close eye on in 2026? THE FALL AND RISE OF REGGIE DINKINS Tracy Morgan and Tina Fey are back working together but not on a reboot of '30 Rock'. NBC has instead commissioned them to create this sitcom which lands this February and also features Daniel Radcliffe. Morgan plays a disgraced former American Football star who tries to rehabilitate his public image by hiring Radcliffe's documentary filmmaker to follow him around. Admittedly, this is one of those sitcoms that could really misfire but given the comic pedigree of Morgan, Radcliffe and Fey who is on executive producer duties, you'd like to think not. Erika Alexander, Jalyn Hall, Bobby Moynihan and Precious Way round out the cast.  HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM BELFAST There has been a lot of buzz around Lisa McGee's first T...

  TEN BEST FILMS OF 2025 2025 was the year when superhero movies stuttered at the box office and Tom Cruise apparently said goodbye to his 'Mission Impossible' franchise. It was the year when Daniel Day Lewis returned to screen acting after a retirement which he said was never meant to be a retirement. 'Anora,' 2024's film from indie filmmaker Sean Baker, about a stripper dusting up against a dodgy Russian oligarch family, took the Oscars by storm. Jon M Chu's musical juggernaut 'Wicked' returned for a second bite at a box office dominated by 'Zootopia 2,' the live action remake of 'Lilo and Stitch,' 'A Minecraft Movie' and 'Jurassic World: Rebirth'. However the world's top grossing film was actually a critically acclaimed animated movie sequel from China 'Ne Zha 2' which was powered by huge box office receipts in Asia and decent returns in the west. As Netflix continued to flex its muscle with an array of film...