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” ...

The Last Breath review – Julian Sands’s last film is solid shark-meets-shipwreck thriller

A group of friends are terrorised by a shark while exploring a shipwreck in an unremarkable film that marks Sands final outing onscreen

In most respects this suspense-thriller with aquatic antagonists is pretty unremarkable, apart from the sad fact that it was British actor Julian Sands’s last film before he died while hiking. It’s a shame that he didn’t have a more interesting role, but few get to choose their swan song. Sands has a strictly functional supporting role here as Levi, a grizzled boat captain originally from Blighty, looking for the wreck of a ship that went down in the Caribbean during the second world war. Unable to dive any more because of an injury, Levi stays onboard supposedly knitting (even though the red hat he wears looks more like a misbegotten crochet project) while his younger crewmate Noah (Jack Parr) searches the ocean floor.

Then not long after they finally find the wreck, a posse of Noah’s friends from New York show up hoping to enjoy a diving holiday. Levi’s chance to get out of debt by charging one of the richer visitors a ridiculously large fee to see the wreck is the act of greed which surely dooms most of the ensemble. That said, we’re clearly meant to root for Sam (Kim Spearman), Noah’s ex who is now a doctor and presumably the most sympathetic of passengers because she gives a local kid with an infected wound sound medical advice and $20 for a tatty bracelet. From the start it’s obvious that obnoxious and entitled finance bro-cum-influencer Brett (Alexander Arnold) is a dead man swimming. The outcomes for supporting characters Riley (Erin Mullen) and Logan (Arlo Carter) are less foretold by genre convention, but given they are all about to meet a huge shark, don’t hold your breath.

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