Room, The Big Short and The Revenant

It's Oscar season and all the films up for rewards come thick and fast. My favourite of these three is definitely Room. We read the novel by Emma Donoghue  for book club and having enjoyed it so much, wondered if the movie would be a disappointment. It wasn't. The author had written the screenplay and what a clever and emotional interpretation she made. The suspense was incredible, and the powerful story powerful alternates between  gruelling and uplifting. This is due to superb direction by Lenny Abrahamson and a stand out performances from Brie Larson as the mother and young Jacob Tremblay as Jack. And we have to guess why William H Macy cannot look at his grandson. A truly riveting movie.

 

How else to make a movie about the seriously fraudulent American housing mortgage crash of 2008 but to create a zany crazy picture of the zany crazy traders who spotted the crisis and themselves made a bundle. So an immensely enjoyable film about a highly worrying financial scandal. How else could writer and director Andy McKay (also writer for Will Ferrell movies that I hate) make such a movie. So we get a clever and funny screenplay and great turns from the likes of Christian Bale and Steve Carell. However the lasting impression is that the this was too raw a subject to deal with in this way. A guilty pleasure.

I tried hard to avoid The Revenant. I was not looking forward to a  raw and pulverising two and a half hours. When Mark Kermode said even he had to close his eyes to the bear attack, I thought no. But then there were the Oscar nominations so I forced myself to watch this ultimately powerful and brilliantly filmed piece of American history. I felt the cinematography was superior to anything I had seen before and created a new benchmark for outdoor scenes. Director Alejandro Inarritu and camerman Emmanuel Lubezski made it feel as if we were right there in the real wild west. Only Roger Deakins came close this year with his filming on Sicario.

This is maybe a movie to be endured, the wild frontier (the Davy Crockett song entirely missed the hardness of life on the edge) was an awesome sight. A story about endurance of the most difficult kind was, in the end, never boring. And then there was that first 20 minutes where the ferocity of the Indian attack and then the bear from which I never really recovered for the rest of the film. For a pure nerve shattering experience, it reminded me of the opening horrors of Saving Private Ryan. Leonardo DiCaprio was never the world's best actor, but what he goes through will probably win him an Oscar. And it will also push for best film (but not mine). Although how costumes are also nominated I will never know!