Pomona Rewind

Some actors exude a sense of decency, even when they are playing deeply flawed people. Sam Neill was that kind of actor. Born into a British military family in Omagh in the west of Northern Ireland in 1947, he was very much seen as an Antipodean acting great - having moved to New Zealand with his family moved when he was seven. With roots on his father's side in Northern Ireland and an English mother, there was a definite Anglo Irish sensibility to him that audiences really responded to. Neill was wonderfully self-deprecating, modest, generous and supportive of other actors and performers. He was also, as many people have observed following his passing, a versatile and daring screen actor who was as comfortable in indie movies as he was in big budget TV dramas or major Hollywood blockbusters. Originally christened Nigel John Dermot Neill, his father Dermot was a New Zealander who served in the Royal Irish Fusiliers - a career which brought the family to Omagh. His mother Priscilla ...

F1 Ever wondered what ' Top Gun ' on wheels might be like? ' Top Gun: Maverick ' director Joseph Kosinski answers that question with 'F1' - a blockbuster hit in cinemas last summer which has made this year's Best Picture Oscar shortlist. Costing somewhere in the region of $200-300 million, it's a sleek, petrol fumed tale of Formula One drivers in an underdog team trying to make their mark in the sport. At its core is Brad Pitt's Sonny Hayes, a former F1 prodigy in the autumn of his career, eking out a living at Daytona and other US race tracks. Sonny is wooed back into Formula One racing 30 years after a career ending crash at the Spanish Grand Prix by Javier Bardem's friend and former Lotus teammate turned team owner, Ruben Cervantes. Ruben wants Sonny to join his struggling APXGP team as the second driver to help Damson Idris' up and coming star Joshua Pearce win one Grand Prix race. Failure to achieve that goal will result in APXGP's i...

TWO PEOPLE EXCHANGING SALIVA Could a quirky black and white French short film about a dystopian world where kissing is outlawed win an Academy Award? It seems it could do, with directors Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh scooping up awards left, right and centre including at film festivals in San Francisco, the American Film Institute and Clermont Ferrand. The winner of the Cesar for Best Live Action Short, it stars Luana Bajrami as Malaise, a shop assistant in a luxury fashion store. In a society where goods are exchanged not for money but slaps across the face, Malaise finds a customer, Zar Amir Ebrahimi's Angine who keeps coming back to her and who she develops an attraction to. As Malaise delivers blows across Angine's face, her colleague Aurelie Boquien's Petulante bristles with envy as Angine was once a valued customer. Because kissing is outlawed, people live in fear as young women are seized off the streets by guards and are placed kicking and screaming into tape...

A FRIEND OF DOROTHY Right from the moment Stephen Fry appears onscreen, you can see why Academy voters were swayed enough to nominate the English 21 minute comedy 'A Friend of Dorothy' for Best Live Action Short. A sweet natured tale of an unlikely friendship between Miriam Margolyes' pensioner Dorothy and Alistair Nwachukwu's Afro-Caribbean teen JJ, Lee Knight's short has a cheeky title for a start. It has two British national treasures as well in the shape of Margolyes and Fry. But there's also a delightful English eccentricity to it. In Knight's short, Margolyes' Dorothy Woodley first encounters JJ after he kicks a football into her back garden and knocks on her door to retrieve it. Inviting him inside her house to retrieve the ball on condition that he also opens a can of prunes for her, they quickly bond as he waits for her to retrieve her keys and marvels at her collection of plays in her bookcase. Noticing his interest, Dorothy elicits from JJ tha...

  THE SMASHING MACHINE At the start of awards season, it seemed like there was a clear path for Benny Safdie's 'The Smashing Machine to be a real Oscars contender. It's easy to see why. Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson underwent a physical transformation for his role in the biopic of  MMA fighter Mark Kerr  and really tested his acting prowess. Emily Blunt also waded into new territory as well as Kerr's girlfriend. But despite securing Golden Globe nominations for both stars, Safdie's film never quite built momentum during awards season to land nominations at the key ceremonies. As a result, the film landed justbone solitary Academy Awards nomination for Best Make Up and Hairstyling and deservedly so. Should Safdie's movie, however, have landed more? 'The Smashing Machine' charts the downfall of Kerr, a two time MMA heavyweight champion. Sporting a wig, Johnson plays the Ohio MMA fighter whose reliance on painkillers tore him down from the heights in hi...

THE SINGERS As anyone who has ever dropped into an impromptu musical session in a bar can tell you, sometimes the most memorable renditions of a song can come from the most unlikely of people. That's the basic premise of Sam A Davis' Netflix acquired Best Live Action Short Oscar nominee, 'The Sinners'. Based on a short story from the 19th Century Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, Davis' beautifully filmed tale transposes the story to a sad looking, isolated blue collar bar in the dead of winter. As the regulars prop up the counter, one patron, Will Harrington's construction worker badgers the others for money to buy drink. Irritated by his behaviour, Mike Yung's bartender cuts a deal with him and Chris Smither's frail customer. Whoever sings the best will win a $100 note he has stashed away in a cluster of  dollar bills decorating the bar. And so after a few feeble starts, a game of musical one upmanship emerges with the ailing man impressively belting out ...