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Best supportive wife: how female characters fare at the Oscars

This year, Amy Adams is set to face off against Claire Foy for their roles as wives of important men from history, a long-running Academy traditionIt is often said, only semi-jokingly, in Hollywood that the best supporting actress Oscar has the incorre…

This year, Amy Adams is set to face off against Claire Foy for their roles as wives of important men from history, a long-running Academy tradition

It is often said, only semi-jokingly, in Hollywood that the best supporting actress Oscar has the incorrect moniker. Best supportive actress is closer to the mark for an award frequently handed to women playing the stoic, loyal wives or partners of great and/or troubled men – often in that most Oscar-favoured of genres, the biopic.

Hey Duggee at the Cinema! review – CBeebies earns its movie badge

An hour-long compilation of favourite preschool TV episodes brings simple pleasures for toddlers and in-jokes for the grownupsAs regular viewers of the BBC’s preschoolers channel CBeebies will know, Hey Duggee is an animated series about a friendly dog…

An hour-long compilation of favourite preschool TV episodes brings simple pleasures for toddlers and in-jokes for the grownups

As regular viewers of the BBC’s preschoolers channel CBeebies will know, Hey Duggee is an animated series about a friendly dog who runs Squirrel Club, an activity group for assorted youngsters of all species: mouse, crocodile, hippo. (Everybody’s welcome in this inclusive, anthropomorphic utopia.) Alexander Armstrong narrates in plummy, jolly tones, animator andassistant director Sander Jones does Duggee’s droll “woofs”, while young actors voice the rest of the cast.

This package, assembled for theatrical release, collates several of the show’s best episodes and it’s not hard to see why the series is so treasured by fans of all ages. Much like Peppa Pig, which it resembles a little too closely, the character design, supersaturated colour palette and highly stylised animation have an easily decipherable, eminently replicable simplicity, all the better to appeal to young minds and spawn a million items of merchandise. Every plot revolves around an effort by the troop to win badges, like Cubs or Brownies. Troop leader Duggee awards them to those who have completed tasks such as running an obstacle course.

IO review – post-cataclysmic Netflix adventure aims high, lands in middle

Margaret Qualley and Anthony Mackie add gravity to a sci-fi drama about a dying Earth that marries admirable ambition with inconsistent plottingIn promotional blurbs, Netflix describes its newest original film, IO, as set on “post-cataclysmic” Earth. I…

Margaret Qualley and Anthony Mackie add gravity to a sci-fi drama about a dying Earth that marries admirable ambition with inconsistent plotting

In promotional blurbs, Netflix describes its newest original film, IO, as set on “post-cataclysmic” Earth. It’s a fitting description – somewhere between calamity and full apocalypse – for a film that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. Too measured and sedate for a post-apocalyptic thriller, yet too barren for a Christopher Nolan-style space and time travel epic, IO appears most akin to The Martian in that it focuses primarily on one person’s grit and resourcefulness to endure and grow plants in an unforgiving place.