Why F1 the Movie should win the best picture Oscar

It may not be in pole position, but Brad Pitt and director Joseph Kosinski’s sleek, technically inventive ode to motor racing definitely qualifies for the Academy podium Could, should, would F1 the Movie win the best picture Oscar? Well, we have to be realistic here: F1 is currently a massive outsider, at 200-1 along with The Secret Agent , which has no chance either but for very different reasons. It’s not hard to see why: this is a swaggeringly mainstream film, where tech and branding dwarf the human input, with the film itself acting as a front-end battering ram for a sports organisation desperate to break into the promised land of the US auto racing circuit. (I mean it’s right there in the title.) So even the most reactionary, conservative Academy voter is going to find it hard to mark F1 with their tick. So no, I don’t think it could win. That’s not to say F1 doesn’t have quite a bit going for it. The Oscars, as we know, have historically had a problem with so-called “popular” ...

Sting review – low-budget alien-spider horror offers laughs and out-of-your-skin shocks

A fun-filled terror yarn featuring a flesh-eating alien secretly reared by a 12-year-old that delights in cutting its teeth on the apartment block’s pets

This killer-spider-from-outer-space movie feels like a cross between Alien and TV’s Only Murders in the Building. It’s a mostly fun throwback horror comedy set in a Brooklyn apartment block where 12-year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne) finds a spider, puts it in a jar and calls it Sting. “Awesome,” she marvels when Sting doubles in size in two hours, hungrily tapping the glass for more cockroaches to chomp on. What Charlotte doesn’t know is that her new pet is a flesh-eater recently hatched out of an asteroid that crash landed on Earth.

At the screening I attended, someone a few rows behind couldn’t hack it and walked out after a few minutes. Which is a credit to first-time feature director Kiah Roache-Turner, who pulls off a couple of moments that will make you jump out of your skin using simple shadow tricks and oh-there-it-is! shocks. But really, the film’s mood is larky, with some big laughs as Sting cuts its teeth on the building’s pets. There’s a majestic fluffy white Persian cat, and a parakeet that steals the show acting-wise with its worried face as Sting scuttles out of an air vent.

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