I’m back for more BBC World Service’s “The Arts Hour” again today, Saturday, August 1st
My second pandemic-lockdown, recorded-from-home appearance…
My second pandemic-lockdown, recorded-from-home appearance…

A ramble with appealingly messy people rethinking their priorities that is perhaps more charming and touching than it might have been if this pandemic summer didn’t have so many of us doing the same.

Not fit to lick the boots of Martin Scorsese or Christopher Nolan, though the height of its ambition appears to be its desperation to do so. A movie as pathetically ineffectual as its protagonist.

I correctly guessed 15 out of the 24 categories, which is one of my better showings ever, I think.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri wins big…

The Shape of Water wins Best Film, and Best Director goes to Guillermo del Toro. Agnes Varda is Defying Age and Ageism, and Hollywood’s sexual tormentors are inducted in the AWFJ Hall of Shame.

Get Out wins Best Film and Best Original Screenplay. Call Me by Your Name, Dunkirk, and Three Billboards also take two awards each.

Primal and exhilarating, full of dread and tension. Drops us right into the chaos of war to tell an intimate story about fear and intensity of purpose.

Delightful dry and snarky satire on wartime propaganda, sharp feminist commentary, and a brilliant cast make this snappy historical dramedy a real corker.

Thrilling intellectually and viscerally, full of stirring notions of what humanity is capable of, and full of hope. A wonderfully refreshing sort of SF.