The Post is a wonderfully acted, well-shot and well-lit display of prime Spielberg craftsmanship. It also is not very good.

The Post shares similarities and problems I had with Spielberg’s previous film, Bridge Of Spies. Both have the Hollywood 60s/70s aesthetic: meticulously created production design, smoke and desaturated film. Both are films about people doing the extraordinary in deeply political world events. The problem is Spielberg’s approach to the politics of it all, or rather, half-approach. There are two ways of making Bridge of Spies, or The Post: a well-crafted, loosely adapted good vs evil underdog story, or a politically and emotionally nuanced drama at a smaller but more intimate scale. The Post attempts to straddle both approaches and fails, because of a weak script.

Never forget the words of wisdom from one of Spielberg’s heroes, Akira Kurosawa:

“With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film.” 

There are fundamental problems I had with the script, namely any sense of conflict between and within characters, external to the Newsapers vs. Nixon conflict.

First and foremost, is the character of Kay Graham. Discovering her backstory was well-handled, and what a backstory it is: beloved-by-all husband committed suicide, leaving the company to her — she becomes the reluctant owner of the newspaper, lacking respect from the Old Boy’s network surrounding her. It’s easy to see why the film has been proclaimed a feminist film, but really, Wonder Woman is a better film in terms of Hollywood feminism. Why? This life has been imposed upon her. The newspaper business is not a passion, it is just a job. The Pentagon Papers are an annoyance, a problem that won’t go away. She has no feeling of duty to delivering the truth to the public until the end of the film, after being convinced by men like Bradlee, who actually care about doing the right thing. Despite what the film wanted me to believe, it didn't seem like Graham had much agency.

Graham’s memoir is the basis for the screenplay. The film twists itself to make this person of wealth and privilege an underdog at the centre of the action, even though all the important work is done by journalists beneath her. The interesting conflict that it spoken about but never shown, is the difficulty to publish the papers due to her relationship with people in the government. Again, this problem is said, but never shown or felt. This fascinating personal conundrum takes a backseat, when really the decision on whether or not to sacrifice all these relationships to publish the truth is far more captivating than continuous board meetings of “Do! Don’t! Do! Don’t!”

An example of the screenplay telling us the stakes, and convincing us of Graham's struggle, rather than seeing or feeling them, is an entirely redundant scene between Bradlee and his wife. She tells him, “To make this decision… To risk her fortune and the company that’s been her entire life… Well, I think that’s brave.” At this point, we should know these stakes. If not, then this is a clumsy, clumsy way of trying to impose a sense of drama upon an audience that somehow missed them.

Another problem, one that reared it’s head in Bridge Of Spies, is Spielberg dealing with politics. Spielberg made a great World War II film out of Saving Private Ryan, because he delved into the complicated choices and sacrifices people made when faced with pointless, cold violence. In retrospect, World War II is a perfect backdrop for Spielberg, because it can be made a fairly cut-and-dry good vs. evil context within which to explore character motivations. Post-WWII Berlin and the Vietnam War, are not the same ball game. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong; some push moral arguments, some push political ones, some push personal ones, and some pushed all three and more. I wished Spielberg added more pulp into Bridge Of Spies, and a little less American “Democracy always wins” politics. With The Post, I wished the screenplay had delved deeper into the moral politics of publishing the Papers, and toned down the excitement — more á la Spotlight. To further demonstrate the clumsy political handlings, The Film Stage noted:

“This is a film that talks up the rights of the public while only showing “the public” in the form of crowds of cartoonish protesting hippies. The famous chant “One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fucking war!” is changed to say “stinkin’ war,” because only grizzled journos cracking a story wide open get to be abrasive.”

On the less negative side, Streep and Kaminski shine. (Here is an interview with Kaminski on The Treatment, for your listening pleasure.) Streep becomes Graham, and Spielberg let’s her loose, focusing on small character details that Streep created. Perhaps her glowing, nuanced performance gave them a false confidence that it will make her a stronger character? Janusz Kaminski plays with smoky interiors and desaturated film to try and captures a time of ugly commercial American design. Most impressively, he manages to produce truly great long takes. In a time where long takes have entered the mainstream so prominently, from music videos to television to advertisements, it is good to see that seasoned veterans live by the rule that every type of shot exists as a tool for a filmmaker’s process.

I found this to be a frustrating film. Everything about it is excellently crafted — but it doesn’t matter how good you are at telling a story, if the story doesn’t hold up in the first place.

Get A Job is an incredibly confused film that wastes a remarkable amount of talented actors. To be honest, it's difficult to write a review for such a sub-par comedy. The problem is not that it's bad, that would be easy to write about - the problem is that it's just so damn mediocre.

There's a glimpse of social satire - but for whose side? At times when the audience is supposed to root for the underdog millenial, the characters come across as naïve and spoilt. At other times, it's the adults who are irrationally cynical. So maybe it's the rare occurrence when a film manages to create a complex dialogue within itself about societal expectations? No, unfortunately not. It's just a very confused script. The characters flip-flop in their motives and views as much as politicians: whenever the script demands it, they fulfil their role regardless of contradiction or rationality.

A lot has been said about the film's troubled distribution history. It was shot four years ago, unreleased because of studio stuff and personnel shifts - exactly what the film sorta kinda tries to poke fun at. Some say due to all this, it's dated. I'd have to disagree with that. Young people still face these same "problems", people are still making stupid apps to make money fast and taking jobs that are unfulfilling.

It's a comedy, is it funny? I think I smiled a couple of times. Just like everything in this film, the comedy walks that dreadful line of perfect mediocrity: not hilarious, but the jokes don't fall flat. They just are. There are attempts at crude sexual humour that are tonally jarring, physical humour that is... is... it is. There's physical humour. Of course, the talented Miles Teller pulls off some funny reaction shots, but you know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel when the only thing you can praise about a film is it's protagonist's face.

What else, what else? The film has energy, I guess. It's well acted and fairly well edited considering what they're working with. The director is Dylan Kidd, who wrote and directed the lovely little indie film Roger Dodger, featuring one of Jesse Eisenberg's first big-ish roles. This film feels like it was made by an imposter in every sense: tone, style, script, character.

Here are the reasons you'll probably watch the film: Anna Kendrick, Miles Teller,Bryan Cranston, Alison Brie, Marcia Gay Harden, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and John Cho. They add up to the one star I'm giving to this film. Recommended for anyone who wants to forget 90 minutes of their life.

Out of the the exisiting nominees for 2016's Academy Awards, here are the choices for the main awards I would make. Of course, if I had my way, instead of a Foreign Language Film section, there'd be a Hollywood Film Section with 5 nominees. Get it? Because Hollywood sucks compared to most foreign cinema? Anyways, carrying on... Some of these choices are realistic, some are not. It's just, like, my opinion man.

Best Picture

The Revenant

The Revenant is the clear winner for me. Out of all the nominated films, it is the most daring, most brilliantly executed and most importantly: it's the one that contributes most to the art of cinema. In my eyes, an Academy Award should be awarded with foresight to the film that is the worthiest addition to the cannon of cinematic history.

Iñárritu & Co. had an idea, a vision and they went with it, all caution thrown to the wind. It paid off in the form of a film which addresses topics like race, violence, man and nature in a poetic and spiritual way.despite the long runtime, the film flies by and engrosses the viewer in the lives of these very different people.

Actor In A Leading Role

Michael Fassbender

Of course, many would argue that Leonardo DiCaprio deserves the award, but a difficult shoot plus grimacing and screaming and foaming at the mouth does not necessarily equate to "good acting". What Michael Fassbender did in Steve Jobs was pure acting, through and through.

It's a crime Michael Fassbender wasn't nominated for his performance in Macbeth, which was stunning. Fassbender keeps on proving that he is one of the best English-language male actors in the world. His skill does not only come out in friendly, Hollywood productions, but in films like Shame, Frank and Slow West. In Steve Jobs, he embodies the spirit of a cruel genius, becoming him in the eyes of the audience despite little to no physical resemblance. It's about time for Fassbender to get his Academy Award.

Actress In A Leading Role

Brie Larson

Brie Larson has had a very varied career up until this point, concerning the quality of the films she has been in. Despite this, she has always shown great character and individuality in the crowded mess that is the film industry.

It was her performance in the wonderful little indie film Short Term 12 that it seemed something clicked - this is what she's supposed to be doing. Films with emotional heft, characters with baggage. In Room, she is singlehandedly the driving force behind the film. It is important to recognise and encourage young talent, and so, Brie Larson comes out on top.

Actor In A Supporting role

Tom Hardy

This is by far the easiest decision out of all the categories. Mark Ruffalo comes second for his performance in Spotlight, but it's Tom Hardy's complete and utter transformation in The Revenant that takes the cake. Makeup and hair have a lot to do with this of course, yet his frontier accent is effortless and his eyes have a mad glint hitherto unseen in his past performances (yes, even in Bronson). Hardy demonstrates a respect for his character, playing the most interesting man in the film with great nuance and dedication to the unethical if not sound thinking of his character.

Actress In a Supporting Role

Jennifer Jason Leigh

Another nigh impossible choice to make. Rooney Mara comes close, with Alicia Vikander even closer, especially considering her excellent in Ex Machina the same year. However, Jennifer Jason Leigh with her first Oscar nomination during a career spanning decades should take home the award for her madcap performance in The Hateful Eight, pulling all the male characters into a maelstrom of violence around her. She makes for an entrancing character onscreen, and despite the film nearly three hour long runtime, every moment she is onscreen one cannot help but pay attention.

Directing

The Revenant

Despite how much I hated Birdman, I could not deny that Alejandro G. Iñárritu is a great director. In difficult and time-sensitive shooting conditions, it requires a strong head and trusted leader to pull a film together with such a singular vision. To squeeze out the performances that he did, Iñárritu demonstrates that he is the one guy an actor would like to have behind the camera.

Cinematography

Sicario

Though at first glance, this award looks like a tough call, it really isn't. Sure, The Revenant had great "Lubezki doing Lubezki" cinematography, but after Bridman and Gravity, he better start learning new tricks or his work will look old real fast. I would love to say Carol or The Hateful Eight deserve it, since they're repping celluloid, which I love, but... There's really only one choice.

Roger. Deakins.

13th time lucky? Seriously - the greatest and most consistent cinematographer alive still hasn't won an Oscar? Well, hopefully this will change with Sicario, as his mastery of light is on full display here, shooting unbeliveable scenes with wide-lenses and an insanely small amount of natural light to create a cohesive style and tone for a great film.

No contest.

Animated Feature Film

Anomalisa

Refer back to the rave review this film got from Cinespective for a full explanation why this film deserves the award. For those with shorter attention spans, Anomalisa beats the excellent Shaun The Sheep and Inside Out because it is more... remarkable, unexpected, beautiful, brutal and poetic. The fact that it's animated is besides the point, it's what the film is about and how it's expressed that marks it as a winner.

Film Editing

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

This one seems to be a tight contest, but in reality is a no-brainer. Sure, The Big Short is basically what it is because of it's editing. Sure, Mad Max: Fury Road had phenomenal editing for elaborate action sequences and a simple storyline. The thing is, The Force Awakens was a big film as soon as it was announced, and the lead-up to the film was almost part of the whole cinematic experience. That's from the audience's perspective - from the editor's perspective, they were facing their most terrifying task: editing together a film that will establish a new set of characters and locations as well as not disappointing die-hard fans that may or may not kill them if they fail.

And boy, did they not fail. The Force Awakens is a tightly edited film and flies by despite it's long runtime. That's because of excellent pacing constructed in the cutting room, courtesy of Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey.

Music (Original Score)

Sicario

Wait, what. The Revenant was basically nominated for everything but not for Original Score? Ryuichi Sakamoto would have instantly won this award for his remarkable and nuanced construction of a musical soundscape that reflects the themes and tone of the story.

Instead, the Oscar goes to Sicario. Why not John Williams for his beautiful reworkings of his previous themes? Why not legendary Ennio Morricone? Simply because their original scores contain elements of previous scores they have composed, and so therefore are not entirely "original". Instead, it goes to the underrated minimal Jóhann Jóhannsson who constructed a soundtrack that only made a masterfully tense film even tenser.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Ex Machina

If Shakespeare and Hitchcock had a baby and it grew to be into cerebral science fiction, it very well could have written this script. Instead, Alex Garland wrote it. Ex Machina is a film which some people may mistake it's simplicity as a weakness, but, when has simplicity ever been a weakness?

Alex Garland's screenplay consists of three sharply defined acts, and three sharply defined characters, demonstrating that character and plot are not separate things but two sides of the same coin. Each character follows their own agenda, and the audience is left to figure out what it is as things begin to spiral out of control. This is a tightly written script that could have easily been executed no matter what the budget, or director or even actors.

(Of course, Inside Out comes extremely close to second.)

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

The Martian

Andy Weir's original book surprised the world when it became such a hit, a bestseller - until the world then read it. The hard scifi elements of the book did not distract from an engaging and tense battle of survival between man and planet. When it was (inevitably) announced tht the book was going to be adapted into a film, everyone who read the book had little to no faith in the adaptation.

However, with a Best Picture nomination, it worked out for the better. Drew Goddard did a phenomenal job of adapting an 'unadaptable' book into a tight and smooth script, leaving little, if anything at all, in translation.

Costume Design

The Revenant

This is a tough one. Carol narrowly misses out on this category. The costume design in that film is gorgeous, and more than mise-en-scene - it represents the characters and their emotions themselves. The Danish Girl likewise. For crying out loud, Mad Max: Fury Road misses out in this category.

However, the creative minds behind The Revenant did not skimp nor underestimate the power of great wardrobe on a film such as this. It would be easy to dismiss effort in this department as it''s chiefly about a guy in rags rolling around in the snow. However, the attention to detail and authenticity are crucial to the audience's suspension of disbelief. The detail put into the Native American, French and English wardrobes respectively never underplayed the realism that the film set out to achieve.