Loving the Arrival of Strange Trolls

The first half of November is well in the books, and brought with it were a handful of releases that could figure into the Oscar race, albeit in limited ways.

Loving was a mainstay on many prediction lists for most of the year, even after the soft though respectable impression it left at Cannes. But having now been seen by a greater number of domestic press and audiences, it's looking more like a fringe contender. Jeff Nichols' telling of the story of interracial couple Richard and Mildred Loving -- who fought and won a groundbreaking Supreme Court case to have their marriage recognized in Virginia in the 1960s -- eschews the obvious Oscar-bait hooks of its premise and takes a far more low-key look at their shy personal lives.

Review - Black Mass

After the better part of a decade squandered on commercially shiny yet artistically hollow multiplex vehicles, Johnny Depp has reemerged from the abyss and has his steely blue, contact-lensed eyes on awards validation in Black Mass. Though hardly a one-man show, all eyes are on Depp as the strictly criminal South Boston gang lord James 'Whitey' Bulger.

A wily machinist of the Irish mob with purported psychopathic tendencies, who manipulated a dubious informant alliance with the FBI to expand his own bloody empire throughout the 70s and 80s, Bulger provides the 52-year-old actor's juiciest opportunity in years. Resembling a grim spectre of death – capped with prosthetic fivehead and darkened eye sockets – he commands his scenes with quiet malice, hissing a sinister Southie brogue through blackened teeth.

Longtime devotees of Depp and his famously eccentric characters may hope that the inevitable "comeback" narrative set to unfold around his awards campaign takes. But they'd also be the first to admit that such an angle is sheer media-generated poppycock. Even when prestigious material eluded him, he's never stopped being one of the most ubiquitous and bankable stars in the industry.

Whether or not the quality of his performances have been as consistent as his mere presence is subjective of course, but Black Mass is at least a return to the sort of movies that serious film-lovers can get behind.

Review - The Great Gatsby

When Baz Luhrmann announced that he was adapting the American literary classic The Great Gatsby, anticipation and skepticism abounded in equal measure. Would the Aussie auteur's in-your-face-stylistics be the right fit for the F. Scott Fitzgerald's subtext and symbolism? An unexpected schedule change that shifted its release date from the thick of last year's awards season to a less crowded May 2013 slot only heightened the nervous curiosity. The production became enshrouded in as many rumours and unsure whisperings as the mysterious titular antihero of the novel itself.

At first it appears as though Luhrmann might be adopting a style more conducive to his source material. In a opening that recalls Citizen Kane, we push on a flashing green light – just one of the story's many recurring symbolic motifs – before meeting our narrator; Nick Colloway (Tobey Maguire), a baby-faced but disillusioned Wall Street pencil pusher now confined to a sanitarium where he recounts his experiences with a wealthy and elusive tycoon named Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio).