2021 Hugo Award: Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

[emperor]

atreic and I thought it might be fun to watch the Hugh short-listed films this year. I'm beginning to think this may have been a bad idea...

We figured alphabetical order is as good as any, so started with Birds of Prey. This is a DC Comics film about Harley Quinn, and the events that spiral from her break-up with The Joker. It has a similar sassy fourth-wall breaking energy to Deadpool, but is nothing like as funny; and while I enjoyed the chaotic roller-coaster series of events, I didn't find myself caring very much about the plot. Also, I'm not sure this is really SF/Fantasy - it has the same sort of cartoon physics/violence of a James Bond movie, but beyond one appearance of Oynpx Pnanel'f pnanel pel novyvgl there is essentially no paranormal activity here. Entertaining enough, but nothing to get excited about.

Rom-coms are not really my thing, and I can't abide cringe comedy. But I do enjoy Eurovision. I absolutely hated Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, though. The plot is entirely predictable - we were both waiting for the boat to sink/blow up some time before it actually did, for example; and this means there is never any narrative tension, because the inevitability of the plot bulldozes all before it. The characters are unbelievably stupid even by genre conventions - how does Lars get through check-in (never mind home and out to work the next day) without anyone mentioning the result? How can he get a flight home at zero notice, but no-one has a mobile?. It's not very funny (OK, here I must admit my hatred for cringe comedy again); I think I laughed twice in a 2-hour film. And it's not even a very good Eurovision parody - Love Love Peace Peace was both funnier and understood its material much better.

Lars and Sigrit are meant to have grown up together as childhood friends, but Lars is clearly much older (there's an 11-year age gap between the actors). And is it really OK to make a series of jokes about how Icelandic people are all in-bred, cast hardly any Icelandic actors, and then make almost no effort to even try and get the accent right? It's particularly dreadful in the final Husavik, meant to be an emotional end to the film, where Will Ferrell's pronunciation obviously awful - and entirely unnecessary!

Dreadful, dreadful film. In slightly-redeeming features, Graham Norton as himself is quite amusing (though rather phoning it in), and Husavik is not a bad Eurovision-style number.

Anyhow, so far I still think that Possessor (which, alas, didn't make it onto the ballot) is miles ahead...