Hollywood is rolling out the red carpet. It’s awards season, a time to celebrate all the best that cinema has to offer. Unless, of course, you happen to live in Shropshire . . .

Yes, the Baftas and the Oscars are coming over the next few weeks, giving our big earning screen stars chance to slap each other on the back and beg, steal or borrow the most head-turning designer outfits they can find.

But it’s a world away from rural Shropshire, where once more we are struggling to keep pace.

Brad Pitt’s Babel is up for a stack of gongs, but it hasn’t been released in our county.

Dreamgirls is the most nominated film of the lot, yet Telford cinema ain’t getting it on its first week of release.

What’s going on? Are we really second class movie citizens who should be expected to drive over to Star City in Birmingham to see the cream of tinseltown?

Perhaps it’s time to petition the Government, who are trying to get us rural folk out of their cars, not into them!

In fairness, it’s not as bad as last year when the likes of Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, and Transamerica weren’t given a mainstream release in our county at all.

This week we do have the excellent Notes on a Scandal, starring Judi Dench in a compelling and genuinely creepy portrayal of a lonely lesbian teacher who stirs up the life of fellow teacher Cate Blanchett when she starts a relationship with a teenage boy.

It’s a fabulous piece of cinema – but a harsh lesson in the darker side of human nature. Dame Judi (as well as Blanchett) is superb, but for my money, she’ll miss out on a gong to another great Dame of British cinema, Helen Mirren, for her portrayal of the Queen – a film which, happily, we all got the chance to see.

Elsewhere, instead of the lively Dreamgirls which is carried by a mesmerising performance from American Idol songstress Jennifer Hudson, Telford gets Arthur and the Invisibles, a part-live action, part-computer-animated yarn which absorbs elements from Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, The Dark Crystal and A Bug’s Life to create an otherworldly fantasy without any discernible personality of its own.

It is bland, lacking engaging characters or a decent script, and even the visuals, several years in the making, fail to seduce the senses.

And the loser is . . . Shropshire. Again.

Carl Jones is the Shropshire Star’s film critic. You can catch his views and the latest local film information every Friday in the newspaper.

Comment on Carl’s blog by clicking here.

YOUR COMMENTS:

Just saw your story and that you don’t think Hollywood is in the area. Did you know that Pete Postlewaite who has done two films this year already and also Marc A Bradley who plays Jack The Ripper (showing now in the US on national Geographic ) and as James Stewart in the recent Queen Mother In Love programme on Channel 4, both live in Church Stretton?
Tina