The 98th Academy Awards are held on March 15th, when 50 movies compete for a golden statuette nicknamed ‘Oscar’. In celebration, Barn Cinema brings you eight of the best contenders – and three other unrelated gems as a bonus!
This year is shaping up to be quite a contest. Sinners, a genre-defying vampire story told through musicand a visual feast to boot,has garnered a record-breaking 16 nominations. It has nine competitors for Best Picture, with One Battle After Another, possibly the best chase movie ever, as its greatest competitor. There are often shocks on the night, and this year, Sentimental Value or The Secret Agent might provide them. Academy voters are increasingly recognising the merits of films not in English, and a shout-out must go to Stellan Skarsgard and Wagner Mouna for their outstanding performances.
Despite having 13 nominations between them, Frankenstein and Train Dreams are likely to go home empty-handed. Yet both are beautiful, all-enveloping experiences that work better in a cinema than on television. These days streaming on Netflix is so easy, but do treat yourself to seeing them in a cinema environment where they belong, while you have this rare chance. Netflix wouldn’t let us show likely category winner K-pop Demon Hunters, so instead, we have another visual feast, Little Amelie or the Character of Rain, which is a charming animation about a Belgian girl growing up in Japan. I’m ready to be pleasantly surprised: are you?
Our eighth and final Oscar contender is Hamnet, containing a searing – and soaring – performance from Jessie Buckley. This is a film about grief with an opening scene where Buckley shows off her hawk-handling prowess. Jessie is rightfully winning every award on offer, but I’m reminded of H is for Hawk starring Claire Foy, a film partly filmed locally, and of this review in The Spectator: “it’s a career-best for Foy, who will doubtless win many awards. I hope the unnamed bird gets one too.” Her film attracted a Bafta nomination only. How disappointing for everyone involved and a sobering reminder of how rare winning is.
By sheer co-incidence we are screening The Audience from National Theatre Live with a central performance from Dame Helen Mirren, in which she revisited her Oscar-winning portrayal of Queen Elizabeth and added Olivier and Tony Awards, too.
Our final selection is Exhibition on Screen’s Turner and Constable, a film accompanying the exhibition at The Tate, detailing the rivalry between two painters born 250 years ago. In life, these painters constantly drew comparisons, and you can find out more from experts with access to diaries, scrapbooks and other personal items. These men were competitors in a different medium, but like everyone else listed here, all were winners just for being entered in the competition.
Book early to catch these unmissable screenings. Visit www.barncinema.com, view trailers on YouTube, or reserve your seats by calling 01285 648 255 or emailing boxoffice@barntheatre.org.uk.
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