Once upon a time, a filmmaker named John Carpenter directed a string of creative entries in the horror, sci-fi and action genres. Some of these proved to be highly influential (Halloween, The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13), while many have at least gained a notable cult status (Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, They Live). Bar one film or two, Carpenter maintained a rather enviable streak of success until the 1990s, a decade in which he dabbled in ill-advised sequels (Escape from L.A.), terrible remakes (Village of the Damned), and a Chevy Chase romantic comedy about an invisible man. Excluding some TV work, The Ward marks Carpenter’s first foray into directing since 2001’s woeful Ghosts of Mars. While this new effort certainly isn’t near the quality of some of the lowest points of the man’s career, it’s unfortunately nothing close to a return to form.

The Ward’s biggest problem is that it’s completely devoid of tension.  The various twists and turns of the asylum-set story, as well as the various character traits on display, are over-familiar in horror cinema, but this would be forgivable if they were delivered in an exciting fashion. As it is, Carpenter’s trademark wit is missing, the film is dull from a visual standpoint, and the whole thing is over-reliant on ineffective jump-scares. Such a technique can be genuinely scary when the “jump” comes from an unexpected but plausible place: see the tunnel sequence in Alien, or the kitchen murder in Carpenter’s own Halloween. The Ward’s jump scares all involve cutting to reveal the film’s ghostly villain – whose rubbery face effects lend her the unfortunate look of a Scooby-Doo criminal – lurking behind one of the girls, seemingly just teleporting into rooms in some cases. You’re likely to jump out of sheer force, but the lingering effect is one of humour rather than terror.

One of the film’s few good aspects is the actually occasionally spooky score written by Carpenter himself, perhaps in an attempt to channel earlier films of his in which he did so, and the opening title sequence based around imagery of shattering glass has a unique beauty to it. There’s also a little fun to be had with character actor and recent Mad Men star Jared Harris’ performance as the girls’ doctor, in which he almost seems to be channelling Donald Pleasance’s iconic appearance in Halloween. It’s a shame more of these influences from Carpenter’s better films couldn’t find their way into this.

Darren Aronofsky’s latest offering deconstructs the classical conventions of fairy-tale into a dark, intoxicating battle between art and reality.
When New York’s Lincoln Center begin auditions for a modern re-telling of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the theatre’s director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) looks for a girl who can encompass both the fearful fragility of the White Swan and the destructive sensuality of her evil twin, the Black Swan. Nina (Natalie Portman) gets the part for her virginal innocence and both she and Leroy doubt from the beginning her ability to abandon her sexual and technical insecurity in portraying the Black Swan. This insecurity swells and manifests itself as Lilly (Mila Kunis), a fellow dancer, irrepressible and less controlled, however as Leroy puts it, ‘she isn’t faking it.’

This is no simple story of back-stage bitch slapping however. The implicit grey area where Nina goes to in which she must face her deepest desires, like her both sexual and malignant feelings towards Lilly, to break free from her suffocating mother, her desire even to hurt herself, blur the borders of her mind and our own conception of what is real and what is not. Her surroundings, such as the narrow hallways of her mother’s small apartment, the monochrome theatre, the grey breezeblock changing rooms and mirrors on every surface intimate prison-like entrapment, and her image as inescapable.
As rehearsals commence, the confusion between the art of the ballet and the reality of the ballet catalyses a decent into a sort of artistic madness that is coupled with Shakespearean motifs of infection, disease, bubbling sores and the harrowing amplification of fingernail clipping. A homage to the sort of bloody theatricality of the Grand Guignol is here evident, whilst Aronofsky’s influence from several films cannot be ignored. In particular, Nina’s almost toxic paranoia and jealousy of her double echoes that of Bette Davis’ performance in All About Eve (1950), whilst Aronofsky has cited the films of Roman Polanski, notably Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Repulsion (1965) as great influences, both concentrating on the mental deterioration and insecurities within their leading women.

It is Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 masterpiece The Red Shoes however, that lends the greatest insight into Aronofsky’s film. Vicky Page (Moira Shearer) and Nina share a common goal; to give the perfect performance. Nina’s claustrophobic upbringing, her innate desire to please the beastly seductive Leroy and Lilly’s position as artistic and sexual competition constructs a dark parallel to the Swan Lake ballet itself. Similarly Vicky plays the part of a girl who when putting on a pair of magical ballet pumps controlled by an evil shoemaker who reflects her commanding director, is unable to stop dancing until she dies. Both she and Nina share a grim perfection because they bring their art into their reality and live out the fate of their on-stage personas. 

In a film industry that seems to be increasingly composed of base romantic comedies, action films and your standard group of factory-pumped-body-part-performers, this is a welcome departure. It will do well in the award season there is no doubt, but more than that, it really is unlike anything I’ve seen before despite its similar ideas and homages to other films. Aronofsky treads boldly on familiar grounds such as the psychological thriller as a genre, the cult of female destruction in slasher horror, themes of back-stage rivalry, art as spectacle and female objectification, creating something quite indefinable. A passionate, melodramatic production that leaves us questioning did Aronofsky, or Portman, or indeed any other member of the crew, experience a dwindled but similar conflict in their creation of a ‘perfect’ piece of original film-making.

“A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it”-Alfred Hitchcock 

Cinemas are changing. The actual physical place of exhibition underwent a revolution with the emergence of the multiplex in the 70s/80s. These mammoth, populist and faceless entities directly provided an alternative to the ‘good film’ experience that Mr. Hitchcock is referring to. Catch an earlier showing (no need for the babysitter), buy some nachos, maybe a hotdog and enjoy the latest iteration of the same story (now in 3D!). When was the last time you heard someone refer to Cineworld as a ‘theatre’? These are not the place to proper engage with the stunning aesthetics or narrative mastery that film can offer. A further threat to film appreciation comes from the proposed premium Video-On-Demand, which studios are looking at as a way of countering both the flailing DVD market and piracy. On 3 November, Time Warner announced that they wish to employ this tactic very soon, with ‘Variety’ speculating huge releases (‘The Hangover 2′ and ‘The Green Lantern’) are being used to ‘make a splash’ in this new marketplace. Viewers will never have to leave the indentation in their sofa or their well stocked refrigerator. Audiences who value film on a higher level, fans of the medium who find great joy within it, now have fewer places to appreciate the art. 

      A way of not only creating a community of film fans but also exploring films through a deeper experience is through more immersive film events. By making the practice of film exhibitionism more of a unique one it should make it not only special but more engaging. If the correct aspects of the film are explored hidden depths can be found, layers of meaning and (importantly) enjoyment that are certainly not evident in a home viewing and would be tough to find in a large faceless multiplex. This is obviously not a radical new idea and is built upon the immersion experiences already on offer in certain locations, set up by organizations such as Future Cinema’s ‘Secret Cinema’ or Jameson’s Cult Film Club (in their own words they are ‘staged to transport our members into the film’s universe’). We can take it even further back in history, right to the start of film exhibitionism; way back in 1906 ‘Hale’s Tours’ capitalized upon the escapism that film was discovering, the cinema’s stylized like train carriages and offering viewers the chance to see ‘the colonies or any part of the world (without luggage!)’. Although I am not proposing that we immediately create these substantial events, I think slight additions to the experience go a long way. Take, for instance the GFT’s ‘Late Night Cult Classics’, one of showings of classic films on a Friday night-that alone adds atmosphere. Or merging cinema with another event; the upcoming ‘Thunder Disco’ club event at the SWG3 gallery is putting on a screening of ‘The Warriors’ beforehand. By extending the experience beyond the simply passing time with a few flickering images we can strive to deepen our enjoyment, collate our opinions, elevate the works’ meaning and (in accordance to Hitchcock’s statement) make sure that the cost of it all is well worth it.

Studying a year of A Level French taught me many things. Firstly, that I do not speak French well, nor will I ever understand its grammar. Nevertheless, it did teach me to love French cinema. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the subject or know too much about the history (when googling it, many websites were in French and we already know the trouble I have there!) But I do know that the French know how to make good films.

In recent years, French cinema has been going from strength to strength in all aspects. Most notably, Amélie in 2001 became the highest grossing French language film in the United States box office and Marion Cottilard won the 2008 BAFTA for her performance in the Edith Piaf biopic La Vie En Rose.  

So why the sudden rise in popularity for French cinema? Partly, I think, it’s due to the recent influx of talented French actresses in Hollywood films: Marion Cottilard (Public Enemies); Juliette Binoche (The English Patient); Audrey Tautou (The Da Vinci Code); and Clémence Poésy (In Bruges). The versatility shown in acting in two different languages and cinematic styles is pretty impressive and I can see why, after watching In Bruges for example you’d be inclined to check out some of Poséy’s projects in her native language. However, I’d like to think it takes more than just one actress to make a film successful so what are the other pulls to French cinema?

For me, I can almost sum it up into one particular moment of genius in the first ever French film I watched aged thirteen- Belleville Rendezvous. A silent, animated film, it’s a good way for non-speakers to ease into the French cinema culture. But the moment that made the film for me was an almost irrelevant scene in a restaurant where the waiter was literally falling over backwards to help. This attention to detail is personally one of my favourite things about French cinema.

Of course, my tastes- and to some extent my language skills- have matured at least a little since then, which brings me to the wonderfully hilarious Bienvenue, Chez les Ch’tis, a comedy directed by and starring Dany Boon about a postal worker who accidentally gets transferred from the beautiful South of France to the cold far North with its incomprehensible dialect ‘Ch’tis’. Typical of any comedic film based on geography, he fears for his life and his sanity based on the disturbing things he has heard about the area but, unlike many a Hollywood blockbuster, the stereotypes are destroyed, rather than reinforced for more humour. This is what I enjoy the most about French film. We get to see the truth.

The same can be said about the French World War II film Days of Glory. It doesn’t instill a sense of brotherhood and compassion the way many Hollywood war films do. Instead, it shows us the awful conditions for the troops and how unjust the war could be. As a more dedicated French student and friend of mine Paul Simpson said: “It inspires thought, which is a statement I would definitely tie to the French cinema industry.”

So the next time you’re stuck and looking for a good film to watch, stop and give French cinema a thought. There’s something for everyone’s tastes and I promise they are excellently subtitled!

The history of Russian cinema mirrors closely the turbulent fate of the country
in the last century. Until the mid-1920s no one took it under account as a major
film producer. Destroyed by the lengthy Civil War, there was simply no money
for sets, equipment or film stock. This is why Battleship Potemkin (Sergei
Eisenstein, 1925) came to many like a bolt from the blue. Today best known for
its Odessa Steps sequence, it has become somewhat a cliché, but at the time it
was truly ground-breaking. Eisenstein, in his depiction of the mutiny of a Russian battleship against the Tsarist regime, has demonstrated the to the world that film editing can be as important in creating meaning for a motion picture as the plot itself.

Unfortunately, Bolshevik demagogues quickly picked up on the propaganda potential of Eisenstein’s technique, as well as movies in general. By the 1930s mass produced communist agitprop films were flooding Western cinemas. Over the next few decades, the more talented Russian directors were constrained to make films under such self-explanatory titles as Three Songs About Lenin (Dziga Vertov, 1934), Victory (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1938), or Liberation (Alexander Dovzhenko, 1940). While often innovative in terms of filming techniques and acting methods (see Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera), they were mostly painfully simple stories praising social involvement, as understood by the Party line.

Only Stalin’s death in 1953, and the reformatory spirit of Khrushchev, brought
about a certain amount of independence to Russian filmmakers. Talents were
allowed to flourish in a less controlled environment, which culminated in the
maturing of auteurs such as Sergei Bondarchuk (War and Peace, 1967- known
as the most expensive film in history) Ivan Pyryev (The Brothers Karamazov,
1969) or Andrei Tarkovsky. The latter, possibly the most admired Russian
director of all time, was the precursor of metaphysical cinema. His masterpieces, Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979), both based on science-fiction novels, make the viewers feel as if they’re witnessing someone’s dream unreel in front of their eyes.
Regrettably, geopolitics again upset the evolution of Russian cinema. With the
fall of the USSR in the early 1990s, the arts funding system collapsed. Only well
established people could afford to make quality movies. Such was the case of
Nikita Mikhalkov, who with films such as Territory of Love (1991), and especially Burnt By The Sun (1994), the story of Russian Civil War hero who is betrayed by his comrades, is responsible for some of the most critically acclaimed works of modern Russian cinema. Nonetheless, outside his work mediocre action films abounded, inspired by 1980s Hollywood. The only notable director in this genre is Aleksei Balabanov, and his crime epics Brother (1997) and Brother 2 (2000) provide an insight to the problems of alienation and desensitisation to violence in post-Soviet Russia.

Fortunately for Russian cinema, the natural gas-based economic miracle of the
last decade turned the cards. Astounding amounts of money are being spent on
promoting young, talented filmmakers. The best ambassador for this success
story is Timur Bekmambetov, the man behind the multi-million dollar grossing
Night Watch (2004) and Day Watch (2006) fantasy movies (and, more recently,
Wanted with Angelina Jolie). Films in Russia today range from applauded
artistic personal drama (Andrey Zvyagintsev’s The Return), through high-budget Afghanistan war movies (Fyodor Bondarchuk’s The 9th Company), to successful experimental cinema (Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark presenting 300 years of the country’s history in a single, continuous 96-minute shot). With such wealth of material, talent, and style, the future is certainly looking bright for Russian film aficionados.

Spanish cinema is not always given the credit it deserves. The country seems mostly famous for mainstream films like Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphanage but in reality Spain has a lot more to offer a film lover. Its history and the wake that Franco’s dictatorship left in the hearts of many Spaniards can be seen in many of Spain’s contemporary films and has made Spanish film-making one of the most interesting in the world.
 
Spain played an important role in the prehistory of cinema. Fructoso Gelabert, from Barcelona, made his own filming camera and is attributed with making the first ever fiction film in Spain, the 20 minute “Argument in a Café”. The following year he filmed the documentary “Train arrival to the Norte station in Barcelona”. It is important to place him in time and to remember that the Lumiere brothers, inventors of the film camera, made their first presentation two years earlier and among the films presented was “Arrival of a train at La Ciotat”. An even bigger role was played by Segundo de Chomón. He became a rival of Georges Méliès in the innovation of the colouring of images, special effects and animation.
 
Guardian was privileged enough to be granted an interview with Lluís Bonet. Bonet has been a film critic for the Catalonian newspaper La Vanguardia for the past 30 years. He says that these two examples show “the pioneering role developed in Spain within the field of world cinema.”
 
Bonet criticizes the effect that Hollywood and American film-making has had on European cinema. “It is clear,” he says, “that the present day situation is very different to that of those pioneers due to the power Hollywood has in the industry.”
 
When asked about English-Language Spanish films – a new phenomena in which films are made in the English language but are produced and made by Spanish firms, The Machinist (dir. Brad Anderson) and The Others (dir. Alejandro Amenabar) are two examples – Bonet seems to consider it a negative sign. He feels it is an indication of Spain losing its identity in favor of trying to find success in abroad. He says that “except for Pedro Almodóvar,” possibly Spain’s most famous contemporary director, “filming in English seems quite necessary nowadays if the aim is to reach the international market.”
 
These English-Language Spanish films, however, can be seen as an indication that the world is turning to Spain for guidance. Steven Soderbergh, an American director, turned to Spanish firms for help when it came to making Che Parts 1 and 2. Even Woody Allen, in 2002, said he hoped that the Spanish “will continue to lead the way in film-making”.
 
Since the end of Franco’s dictatorship Spain has felt the need to push the boundaries of cinema and as a result it has become one of the most liberal film-making countries. During the dictatorship Franco banned a large number of films (Last Tango in Paris being an example) because he and his government felt they were unsuitable for the people of his Catholic country. There is the famous example of Mogambo in which the plot has Grace Kelly married to Donald Sinden. In the Spanish version the dialogue was changed in the dubbing to make the two characters not husband and wife but brother and sister. Why? Because Grace Kelly has romantic tensions with Clarke Gable. So it was more acceptable for a brother and sister to act almost incestuously towards each other than for a married woman to even be implied having adulterous thoughts. Spain will never fully recover from Franco. 
 
Today the one director that seems most representative of Spain and Spanish cinema is Pedro Almodóvar. He has, as Lluís Bonet put it, “managed to surpass all borders and become the most representative of Spanish films. In his films he uses characteristics, protagonists and themes which are nearly always Spanish but are also universal because feelings, emotions and fiction about life do not know frontiers.” His success has reached all over the globe and with his films laden with references to Spanish identity it is impossible to deny or ignore where his films come from.

Fresh from setting the box office alight with 2009’s The Hangover and before next year’s inevitable sequel, writer/director Todd Philips once again teams up with funnyman Zach Galifianakis to bring us this odd-couple-on-the-road tale of fatherhood, patriarchal loss and masturbating canines. Playing the straight man to Galifianakis’ man-child Ethan Tremblay, is household name and Ironman himself Robert Downey Jr playing the uptight expectant father Peter Highman. First meeting on arrival in Los Angeles airport, the pair are then reacquainted when Tremblay is bumped up to first class and then subsequently manages to get them both removed from the aircraft. Wallet-less and on the no-fly list, Highman decides that his best course of action is to join his new acquaintance on a nationwide road trip to witness the birth of his child. Following several standard plot contrivances and brash character decisions, we begin a journey on the road with the bickering duo.

As many will immediately notice, the film bears more than a passing resemblance to John Hughes’ 1987 Steve Martin and John Candy vehicle, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Like Hughes’ semi-classic, Philips’ movie blends both the dialogue heavy, character based odd-couple dynamic and the madcap road-trip genre. As far as the character based comedy goes, the humour lies squarely upon the shoulders of Downey Jr. and Galifianakis. The challenge that Philips gives these two gifted performers is that of crafting their characters’ fairly despicable personalities into ones that the audience can not only just bear, but actively route for throughout the film’s 100 minute running time. Fortunately the two actors easily rise to the challenge, with Downey Jr’s witty everyman quickly becoming justifiably exasperated with Galifianakis’ witless, but endearing wannabe actor (whose aspirations stretch as far as to desire a part on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men). The ridiculous events and personas are grounded by giving the two leads something real and emotionally complex in which to set their cross-country escapades around; these are quite literally matters of life (the birth of Highman’s child) and death (Tremblay carries with him his departed father’s ashes) that have an obvious through line, each of them perhaps too conveniently dipping in and out of relevance.

However, despite the best intentions of these performances, Philips – who co-wrote the screenplay – puts the characters into numerous situations of questionable decency; at one point Highman alarmingly punches a small child, while Tremblay recklessly endangers the lives of everyone on the highway multiple times. Instances such as these threaten to push the audience away from the protagonists in disgust. The characters are reeled back in, not only through the leads’ charm but also through the constant movement that the road trip setting provides. Philips, obviously having learnt that a little can go a long way, echoes the much talked about cameos in The Hangover with a plethora of recognisable faces. With each one we get new interactions and violent confrontation, as has become standard with the physical nature of the comedy. The film is far from a classic, but with the two stars being at the height of their popularity and Planes, Trains and Automobiles being just past the double-decade anniversary it is a bawdy, amusing but ultimately forgettable trip between Hangovers one and two.

Maxwell Ward

To say that Jim Carrey’s films are defined by the elasticity of his face is a little much, but it can give a big, gurning clue about what they hope to achieve. That’s why I Love You Phillip Morris is an anomaly in his portfolio, a film which has familiar rubbery expressions, but also moments of pitch-black humour, drama and a heartfelt love story. It is, all in all, surprisingly hard to define.

The story, which we are reminded is true, follows the life of Steven Jay Russell (Jim Carrey), a con artist and serial prison escapee. During one of his first spells in jail he meets fellow inmate Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor), and quickly falls for him. It is the start of a relationship that provides the motor for the film; a love story of exhilarating highs and crushing lows across Russell’s life as a conman, inmate, and fugitive.

The film, which has not been released in the US due to delays finding a distributor, has been re-edited to be less controversial, apparently on the basis of its homosexual content. It is a troubling illustration, if true, of intolerance throughout the US market, and it makes a big statement when films with multiple murders can be seen as mainstream, but those with romantic storylines between two men can’t.

That’s not to say that there are no adult scenes in this film, but the sexual content throughout felt more Carry On than graphic to me. It could be as a consequence of the re-edit of course, but more likely because of the film’s lack of a clear identity, a condition wholly analogous to Russell’s ever-changing persona.

At times the development of Russell and Morris’s relationship, especially in the sex scenes, can feel disturbed by irreverent jokes. It is as if I Love You Phillip Morris cannot decide whether to focus on the drama and character development of the story, or whether to maximise Carrey’s comedy potential, leaving the humour feeling forced and the story interrupted.

That being said, both Carrey and McGregor put in strong performances. Carrey brings his ceaseless energy to a role in which he well cast, an impressionist playing an impressionist, while McGregor is very convincing as the vulnerable Phillip Morris, providing excellent, restrained support that allows a sense of romance and heartbreak to develop subtly. It is his consistency that provides the necessary grounding on which the film succeeds; he invokes compassion, while Russell’s stranger-than-fiction story will keep you entertained throughout.

In recent years, Tim Burton’s output of films has been both offbeat and refreshingly non-conformist. Films such as the supernatural comedy horror of Corpse Bride and his adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory cemented his reputation as a director who wasn’t afraid to go a bit crazy. Anybody would think, therefore, that an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland would be the perfect vehicle for Burton’s skills.

We start the film with seven-year-old Alice waking from a nightmare in which she has fallen into another world full of talking animals, petulant despotic queens and mad men in crazy top hats. She is comforted by her father, who tells her that “all the best people are mad”, signalling an obsession with psychotherapy which runs throughout the film. We are then introduced to the grown-up Alice (Mia Wasikowska) who falls back down the rabbit hole in an attempt to escape an unwanted engagement. She appears to have forgotten everything about her original journeys in Wonderland, or Underland, as it is now known.

The mania of the original books becomes sidelined in favour of a more serious Wonderland in which the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) has taken control. It is up to Alice, the foretold saviour and destroyer of the Jabberwocky, to save the day and restore the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) to the throne. The inclusion of Carroll’s famous poem The Jabberwocky gives Burton the chance to add a gothic element to this classic children’s tale, giving it a much-needed purpose. The battle between the armies of the Red and White Queens tries but fails to emulate profitable franchises like Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.

The famous cast reads as a wish-list of British talent, with the voices of the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), Dormouse (Barbara Windsor), Tweedledum/Tweedledee (Matt Lucas) and Absolem the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman) allowing the audience to play a game of guess-the-voice. However, the acting of each character is convincing and engaging. The decision to make the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) simultaneously speak in posh English and gravelly Scots is at times distracting. However Johnny Depp’s performance has the right degree of madness with a touch of wistfulness that is at times heartbreaking. There are occasions where the film slightly loses track, mixing Victorian ideals with modern sentiments. A scene in which Alice tells her spinster Aunt (Frances de la Tour), “you’ll need to talk to someone about these delusions” is not only smug but completely at odds with the setting of the film.This much-hyped Disney offering appears to have been made to cash in on the recent trend of 3D films, and like recent blockbuster Avatar it has sacrificed plot for visual effects. Burton’s more inventive tendencies have been curbed leaving a successful Burton/Carroll collaboration an elusive concept.

Tom Bonnick

As of March 8, awards season may have been over, but for all of you haters who thought that would mean idly speculative newspaper commentary also being done with for the year — ha! Think again. For what would any “significant” cultural event be without its post-game analysis, I ask you? Possibly all the better for it, but that’s a story for another day.

Oscars night yielded few real surprises, but critically, just enough raised-eyebrow, I-sort-of-wasn’t-expecting-that moments (at least in the last half-hour) to make following the whole thing on YouTube and blog feeds not seem like the biggest waste of time imaginable (that would be watching the Grammys).

Devoted followers of these pages — and while we’re on the subject, I know there are some; I got sent all kinds of pissy letters after last issue demanding to know what I have against the Academy (for the record, nothing; I just think they’re a bunch of slightly reactionary sentimentalists who only sometimes get things right) — will remember that I predicted that Avatar would win Best Picture, but that Katherine Bigelow would win Best Director for The Hurt Locker.

In the event, The Hurt Locker did rather better than that, winning — as if anyone needs reminding — not only the top two prizes, but also statues for Best Editing, Best Original Screenplay, and some sound awards no-one really cares about. As much as it’s never a good idea to look a gift horse in the mouth and question how or why Bigelow’s low budget, little-seen Iraq movie did so well, its victory over Cameron’s behemoth does have some interesting lessons.

It’s quite likely that the reason The Hurt Locker so trounced Avatar is because this year, for the first time, the Academy introduced a system of weighted voting, and so whereas on previous occasions, everyone just chose one film, this time the shortlisted nominees were ranked from one to ten. Avatar, a film which polarised opinion, will certainly have got a lot of first-place votes, but probably not so many second or third choices. The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, evidently fared very well all round. The fact that there were twice as many nominees will also have helped Bigelow’s chances: ten films dilute the vote and reduce the chance of a runaway winner, which Avatar looked sure to be at one stage. Finally, The Hurt locker won because the anti-Hurt Locker campaign simply kicked in too late: by the time one of the film’s producers had been barred from the ceremony for sending anti-Avatar begging letters to voters (hey guy, here’s a tip: if you’re not Harvey Weinstein, don’t try muscling a win. That’s not for novices) and mutterings of plagiarism and lawsuits had begun to emerge, most voters had already cast their ballots.

And so, with that mystery solved, on to some of the other questions the evening presented: namely, would Steve Martin be funny? Why was Lauren Bacall not being allowed to accept her Honorary Award on the night itself? And, with Precious nominated in so many categories, which token black face (Morgan? Denzel?) would the camera cut to at every mention of the film’s success?

Well, the answers are, respectively, “Sort of, but only sometimes” (best joke of the night: “Everyone who works with Meryl comes away thinking two things – ‘can that woman act’, and ‘what’s with all the Hitler memorabilia?’”), “Because the Academy are idiots who think Hannah Montana has more star power than The Woman Who Was Vivian Rutledge”, and “Oprah”.

I think that about wraps everything up. The only question I have left is, why are there butterflies all over Bigelow’s dress?