Bong joon-ho

Mickey 17 is the latest film from the South Korean writer-director Bong Joon-ho, who won an Oscar for Parasite and made Snowpiercer and Okja. It’s a dystopian sci-fi satire starring Robert Pattinson twice over (all will be explained) but while it initially kicks some decent ideas around, it eventually descends into a cartoonish, sub-Armando Iannucci comic caper with, as far as I could ascertain, nothing fresh to say. It’s not the biggest disappointment I’ve had in my life but it’s up there. The film is set some time in the future and Pattinson plays Mickey 17, a crew member on a space-colonisation mission who, in the opening sequence, has fallen

Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, predicted to win big at this year’s Oscars, is not a terrible film. It’s a slight, sentimental Grapes of Wrath-ish journey through the Discourse, with essential Discourse stop-offs at an Amazon warehouse and the rust belt. It belongs in the New Yorker, not on screen. As with almost every film to win big since No Country for Old Men 13 years ago, you just think: the ‘highest honours in filmmaking’? For that? Amid all the change that’s being trumpeted at this year’s Oscars — more women directors, more ethnic minorities — the one thing missing is any discussion about why the awards are such a lousy guide