Alexander Larman

The actor Sidney Poitier, who has died at the age of ninety-four — a month shy of his ninety-fifth birthday — has justifiably been celebrated as one of the last remaining actors from "Old Hollywood." Poitier continued to act until 1997, with his final role being a somewhat anti-climatic appearance as an FBI director in the indifferent remake of The Day of the Jackal. But his heyday came in the Fifties and Sixties, when he established himself as the first bona fide African-American box office draw and a performer of rare force and charisma.

I sat down to watch Adam McKay’s Netflix comedy Don’t Look Up over the Christmas break with an unusual burden of expectation. Half the people I’d known who had seen it — admittedly, mainly those on the right — had denounced it as unfunny, heavy-handed agitprop, whereas their politically opposed brethren praised it as "timely," "inspiring" and "important." Would I finish watching it and sign up for a series of Greta Thunberg podcasts, or smash my television in and take to the streets, hollering? To be honest, the film is neither offensive nor clever enough to arouse such strong opinions.

The box office news from earlier this December was mixed. The stupendous success of the latest Spider-Man sequel, No Way Home, indicated that fears of the Omicron variant have not deterred audiences from coming out in the millions: it grossed $260 million at the US box office and $600 million globally. But it also trampled other less franchise-friendly films. Guillermo del Toro’s new picture Nightmare Alley debuted to a dismal $3 million, and Steven Spielberg’s version of West Side Story will be one of the director’s greatest flops, having grossed a mere $18 million in the US so far. The chances of either film — expensively mounted period pieces from A-list directors — recouping their production budgets at the theater, let alone their advertising costs, is zero.

The first time I saw Love, Actually was upon its release in 2003. I thought it was generally fine, with good and bad bits jostling alongside one another, and scene-stealing performances by Bill Nighy and Emma Thompson going a long way to counteracting the dreadfulness of some of the supporting cast and general Richard Curtis-ness of it all. But what I was unprepared for was that it would go from being a reasonably enjoyable portmanteau rom-com into a film that epitomizes "the contemporary spirit of Christmas," or some such rubbish. Every year, it becomes ever more ubiquitous, whether on streaming platforms, television or even in theater re-releases. And every year, something inside me dies a little harder.

Casting was recently announced for the film Renfield, an apparently humorous and contemporary take on the character of Count Dracula’s long-suffering assistant. The actor Nicholas Hoult, who has displayed fine comic timing in projects such as The Favorite and The Great, is to star as Renfield, and he will be joined by the hyphenate actress-rapper-comedian Awkwafina. Yet the most exciting news is that none other than Nicolas Cage will be playing Dracula. After a decade in which he has largely eschewed mainstream Hollywood, it's a career comeback that even the undead would be delighted by.

The composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s death at the age of ninety-one does more than simply rob the world of musical theater of its most distinguished practitioner. With the exception of Tom Stoppard, there was probably no greater figure in contemporary world drama. To mourn his passing, even at his extraordinary old age, is only to pay dutiful homage to one of the most extraordinarily diverse (in its usual meaning) and accomplished canons of work that any figure in English-language drama has ever produced. He was born in New York City in 1930 and remained the most Manhattanite of talents all his life.

It has been quite the 2021 for Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex. When she wasn't publishing children’s books or giving birth to her second child, the trollingly named Lilibet, she was winning court cases and dropping in at the United Nations. Little wonder that some have speculated that, in the not too distant future, she might even consider running for the highest office in the land. But more than anything else, this year has been dominated by interviews for Meghan. The conversation that she and her husband-cum-comic relief sidekick Prince Harry had with Oprah Winfrey in March certainly enlivened lockdown with endless conversations about whether the Duchess’s much-vaunted "truth" was anything of the kind, and launched a thousand opinion pieces.

I love a British costume drama. My idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon film is something picturesque, with Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter and others looking alternately repressed and joyful, even as they exchange clenched platitudes about weather, money and train times. "The trains mean sex," someone who knows about these things told me once. "And so does money." "But what about the weather?" I asked. "Surely storms mean passion and sunshine means sex?" The expert looked at me as if I was mad. "The weather means the weather. Don’t forget, these things are filmed in Britain.

Just as the real-life antics of the Royal Family continue to enthrall — and in some cases, depress — so their fictional presentation in the ongoing high-class Netflix soap opera The Crown is eagerly dissected, and garlanded with awards, with each passing season. The show's upcoming fifth installment promises to be the most high-profile yet, partly because of its starry cast featuring everyone from Dominic West (as Prince Charles) and Jonny Lee Miller (as Prime Minister John Major) to Lesley Manville (as Princess Margaret) and, unexpectedly, Imelda Staunton as HRH herself.

One of the few upsides to the pandemic’s peak last year was that no Marvel films were released in theaters. We’ve suffered for it this year, with the arrival in close succession of Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and, now, Eternals. But it was glorious to have a period of nearly two years without the deadening, soul-destroying presence of Kevin Feige’s Riefenstahlian masterplan deafening audiences in our multiplexes, and, increasingly, at home on our televisions. But the brief respite is over. Over the next eighteen months, no fewer than seven Marvel films will fight, bite, and kick their way onto our screens, in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.