My Picks for the 2014 Academy Awards

For the first time in a few years, there have been two really great films in the running for the Best Picture category at the Oscars. I really enjoyed Argo and I was pleased that it won the Best Picture last year, but I'm not sure that its greatness will necessarily stand the test of time.

My selections for the 2014 Academy Awards are hampered by the fact that I haven't seen a few of the key movies, including Her, Nebraska and Philomena, but I have picked out my favourites in several of the major categories. It was hard to choose between 12 Years a Slave and Gravity because each is extremely impressive in a very different way. Ultimately, I think the former should win Best Picture and I hope the award doesn't go to American Hustle instead, which I liked but which isn't a truly great film. I hope Cuarón gets the recognition he deserves for Gravity, but David O. Russell could well end up seizing victory, especially after narrowly missing out for Silver Linings Playbook and The Fighter. It was also nice to see Before Midnight getting a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay, although I'm not entirely sure what it was adapted from — there was a lot of improvisation, so perhaps that contributed.

I had a tough job choosing between Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club and Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave in the Best Actor category; I don't think Leonardo DiCaprio should win for The Wolf of Wall Street, but the Academy may just feel that it's finally his time. Meanwhile, Cate Blanchett surely has the Best Actress category sewn up, right (unless the Academy members have seen The Monuments Men and baulk at her "French" accent). I think new-to-the-big-screen Lupita Nyong'o should win Best Supporting Actress, but can she stop the seemingly unstoppable Jennifer Lawrence? I guess we will see on Sunday night.

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave [seen 6/9]
Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity [seen 4/5]
Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey,  Dallas Buyers Club [seen 4/5]
Best Supporting Actor: Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips [seen 5/5]
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine [seen 3/5]
Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave [seen 3/5]
Best Adapted Screenplay: Before Midnight [seen 4/5]
Best Original Screenplay: American Hustle [seen 3/5]

Oh, and speaking of the Oscars, isn't this infographic showing the dresses worn by all the Best Actress Oscar winners awesome?

Courtesy of: Mediarun

The Caffeine Chronicles: Drink Shop Dash Review

Since the sad demise of the Brewhouse on York, King's Cross has returned to its former dearth of good coffee. Yes, there's Caravan, but their fancier brew techniques are better for sitting in with a pizza rather than grabbing a quick drink to go. Enter Drink, Shop & Dash on Caledonian Road, a new coffee and fro-yo purveyor from the people behind the neighbouring Drink, Shop & Do.

Drink, Shop & Dash is tiny inside with only a few seats at the window. But it makes up for its small size by packing considerable heft in terms of coffee geekery. I've tried a couple of different filter coffees (they rotate each week) and will soon be offering Aeropress brews. The friendly staff really know their stuff too.

The coffee is from Volcano, a small-batch coffee roastery from south-east London. My favourite filter coffee so far has been a smooth, chocolatey Mexican offering, although the Rwandan sample I tried on Friday was also pretty good (and very different).

And for fans of espresso-based drinks, I'm pleased to report that the espresso is also very good with a nice crema and a rich, strong taste.

Drink, Shop & Dash also serves cakes and a range of home-made sandwiches and light bites. In sum, they are a great addition to the King's Cross area and as they are just around the corner from my office, I'm doing my best to support them, lest they go the same way as the ill-fated Brewhouse.

Drink, Shop & Dash. 11 Caledonian Road, London, N1 9DX (Tube: King's Cross). Facebook. Twitter.

"The Story of Our Lives Painted on Canvas or Etched in Stone"

Faced with a choice between Spike Jonze's Her and George Clooney's new film The Monuments Men this weekend, I decided I would probably enjoy the latter more. Based on the poster, I was expecting an Ocean's Eleven-style caper, although with more serious subject matter. I did like the movie, but I think it suffered from trying to be too many things to too many people.

Clooney, who directed, co-wrote and produced the film, also stars as Frank Stokes, an art expert tasked with putting together a small team of art and architecture specialists to try to recover some of the paintings and sculptures stolen by the Nazis in the dying days of World War Two. These guys, including James Granger (Matt Damon), Walter Garfield (John Goodman) and Richard Campbell (Bill Murray), are about as equipped to head off to war-torn Europe as Bruce Willis's team of drillers are to save the world from asteroid doom. They do, however, know their art, so after rudimentary training, they ship out to France and Stokes splits them into mini-team tasked with rescuing specific works.

Token Brit Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville) heads to Bruges to save the Madonna; Garfield and the beret-wearing token Frenchman Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin) travel into the countryside. Granger gets sent to Paris where he meets Claire, a museum curator who might know where the Nazis took some of the paintings, played by Cate Blanchett doing her best to look dowdy. The operation faces a number of challenges and are frequently asked to justify their efforts to save mere art works when millions are dying. This gives the screenplay the opportunity to opine about the importance and transcendent power of art and how you have to destroy culture to truly, permanently crush a people. "Great works of art can never belong to one individual," Stokes says.

And the film's worthiness hampers its enjoyability to some extent. It was clearly trying to be funny too but in that case, it wasn't funny enough. There were a few chuckles from the audience — mainly about the frequent language/accent jokes (Damon's character has appalling French — he learnt in Montréal he admits, cuing the eye-rolling of the French — although Blanchett, playing a French character, didn't have a very good French accent either). Damon, and especially Blanchett, felt under-used, with their characters marooned from the rest of the gang. The momentum never really builds up, either, so that when a big breakthrough is made, it doesn't have the dramatic force Clooney is shooting for.

Still, it's an interesting story — based on real events — and one I knew nothing about, and all of the lead actors are as fun to watch as always. I just think Clooney needed to think more carefully about whether he wanted to tell a powerful, worthy story or an entertaining one.

The Burger Bulletin: Jackson + Rye Review

I've been wanting to visit Jackson + Rye, a New York-style all-day eatery on Wardour Street, soon after visiting its sister restaurant, Grillshack last year. It has been getting a lot of press of late, and with its sleek, dark interiors, impressive cocktails and comfort-food-heavy menu, it's easy to see why. In fact, their PR team may have been doing too good a job because when we arrived for our 6.30 dinner booking, we were shown to a bank of tables that were so tightly packed that a visit to the bathroom required some serious furniture juggling.

The ambiance was great though, with candle-lit tables and comfy leather seating. I also love the design of the menu and the website: quirky but stylish.

The all-day menu is fairly straightforward — steaks, burgers, fried chicken, meatballs and the like — although there are also daily specials. Several of the cocktails sounded delicious so it took a while to decide which to have. In the end, I settled on the Floradora, under the misguided assumption that the ginger, raspberries and lime, as well as the gin, would help to shift my sore throat. This wasn't the case, but it was a damn good cocktail.

I very nearly ordered the buttermilk fried chicken for my main course, but in the end I had to give the cheeseburger ago. Besides, my dinner partner went for the chicken, so I was hoping I might get to sample that too. I'm all in favour of efficient service, but our main courses arrived literally 30 seconds after our drinks, which was about two minutes after ordering. This is too fast. When you're having a nice meal out, you don't want to feel rushed and you don't want to feel like your food has been sitting on a warming plate in the kitchen waiting for your order. If we had been able to enjoy our drinks for even five minutes before the food arrived, it would have been a big improvement.

The burger itself was good, although both of my instructions — medium rare and no gherkin or onion — were ignored. Again, if the food hadn't arrived instantaneously, maybe they would have got this right. The meat was tasty and tender and the gruyère cheese made a welcome change. The shoestring fries were true to their name and were very thin indeed. They were tasty, though, even if they arrived slightly lukewarm. Next time, I would probably go for the fried chicken, which was excellent: juicy and crispy in all the right places.

Jackson + Rye's pudding menu is also strong, but I couldn't not order the peanut cookies and ice cream. The cookies had a jam centre and the ice cream came with chocolate sauce, which I poured over the cookies too, of course. The potted cheesecake was also very good.

Overall, Jackson + Rye gets a big thumbs-up. It looks cool, the wait staff are friendly and the food is good. They are getting a lot of things right and have ticked off a lot of boxes on the New York all-day-restaurant checklist. There are still a few kinks to be worked out — even if that just means removing one table-for-two from an overcrowded bank of tables to make customers feel less like sardines, and allowing people time to enjoy their drinks for a few minutes. I'm also keen to see what the place is like at brunch time, brunch being my favourite of meals.

Jackson + Rye. 56 Wardour Street, London, W1D 4JG (Tube: Piccadilly Circus). Website. Twitter.

"I Don't Steal — I Borrow"

"One small fact," opines the narrator, as The Book Thief opens. "You are going to die." Well, with that cheerful thought, let's head off to Nazi Germany in 1938 for some, er, light relief? I haven't read Markus Zusak's novel on which Brian Percival's new film is based, but I saw a trailer for the movie a few weeks ago and thought it sounded interesting, so I signed up for a preview screening last night.

At the start of the film, our young heroine Liesel (Sophie Nélisse) is on a journey to a new foster home, when her brother dies suddenly. Liesel picks up a book from the graveyard and keeps it to remind her of her brother, even though she can't read. Her new foster parents are the Hubermanns: the dour Rosa (Emily Watson) and the jovial, accordion-playing Hans (Geoffrey Rush). They are being paid to take in Liesel, whose mother is suspected of being a communist, and Rosa is initially hard on the girl because the death of her brother means they receive less money. Hans is more welcoming, however, and he begins to teach Liesel how to read: they start with her rescued book, which turns out to be a guide to grave-digging, before moving on to more literary works.

Liesel has a few run-ins with the school bully, but becomes firm friends with her cheerful blonde neighbour Rudy (Nico Liersch). Life returns to normal. Well, normal for late-1930s Germany. But then Liesel's foster parents agree to take in Max (Ben Schnetzer), the son of an old friend of Hans's to whom Hans's accordion belonged. Max is Jewish and seriously unwell after months on the run from the Nazis. He hides out in the Hubermanns' basement and strikes up an unexpected friendship with Liesel: he challenges her to describe what is happening in the outside world in imaginative ways and she reads to him the books she steals — borrows — from the library at the Burgermeister's house.

Around them, the world is changing fast as World War II begins and nothing is certain any longer. Books are burned, basements are searched and people are taken away for having one n too few at the end of their name. For Liesel, who has already lost so much in her life, the thought of something happening to her new friends and family is unbearable.

Overall, I enjoyed The Book Thief. At 130 minutes, it is a little long and the pacing felt slightly odd at times — many small or medium events that weren't anchored by big turning points. Part of the problem is the narrator (voiced here by Roger Allam), an omnipotent Death character who, throughout the film, breaks the fourth wall, making dry asides to the audience as he eyes up his next victim. These seemed out of place and weakened the dramatic tension, particularly in the last few scenes. Nélisse was impressive as the titular book thief (she reminded me of Kiernan Shipka), and Watson and especially Rush entertained as Liesel's good cop, bad cop foster parents. The story is compelling and thoughtful, but may irritate those hoping for something with a bit more vim and/or vigour.

The Caffeine Chronicles: Browns of Brockley

Bermondsey is good for coffee production, but there is a serious shortage of nice places to sit and linger over a top-quality brew. This caffeine dearth is fairly standard for south-east London but a quick glance through The London Coffee Guide pointed me in the direction of Browns of Brockley.

Brockley is only about three miles from my place, but with its leafy streets and chilled-out suburban vibe, it feels further out. It also boasts the popular Brockley Market, in the car park of Lewisham College on Saturday lunchtimes.

Local food producers sell their wares and an array of street food vans, including Mother Flipper, feed the hungry masses. I was sorely tempted by Swine Dining's bacon sarnies (great name, right?), but it has been a bit of a meat-heavy week, so I went for a Fish Dog instead — Mark Hix's take on street food, with a chunky, posh fish finger served in a hot-dog bun with fancy mushy peas. Very tasty.

The sky started to look very ominous so I hurried to Browns before the heavens opened. The cafe is just opposite the Brockley Overground station but about as far from your typical station caff as you can get. I made it just in time and grabbed a spot at one of the tables. Browns is pretty small inside, but has a friendly, casual vibe that makes it easy to linger over a coffee and cake, and a copy of Caffeine magazine. I ordered a macchiato and a raspberry-almond cake.

The cake was delicious, but when I sat down I had missed out on the chocolate-hazelnut muffins. Next time.

My Square Mile macchiato was top notch: smooth, chocolatey and strong, just the way I like it. As I'd come such a long way, though, I decided to try the filter coffee too. They were brewing up a Brazilian Square Mile coffee called Ambiental Forteleza, which I've tried before and really liked for its richness and sweetness.

Warmed and reinvigorated after my coffee, I stepped back into the outside world. Almost immediately, the rain restarted, followed by a bout of hail. This was unfortunate, as I had decided to head home via Telegraph Hill Park. I was pretty soggy when I got there, but at least the sun came back out just in time for me to admire the view. A bright end to a lovely first visit to Brockley.

Browns of Brockley. 5 Coulgate Street, London, SE4 2RW (Brockley Overground). Website. Twitter.

"Screw the FDA, I'm Gonna DOA"

To my surprise, Jean-Marc Vallée's last film, Café de Flore, ended up being one of my favourites of 2012. His latest work, Dallas Buyers Club, is very different in terms of topic, theme and mood, but both films tell of ordinary lives writ extraordinary and offer strong performances at their core.

Matthew McConaughey plays Ron Woodruff, an electrician and former rodeo bull rider in small-town Texas who is told he is HIV-positive and has 30 days to live. The Ron we first meet isn't easy to like: he's racist, sexist and homophobic, addicted to drugs and women. Initially, he rejects the diagnosis, telling Dr Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner) and her boss Dr Sevard (Dennis O'Hare) that he can't be HIV-positive because he's the straightest, most macho man in all of Texas. After doing some research, however, he realises that his intravenous drug use may have had a role in the infection and that a promising new drug, AZT, might be the answer to his prayers. But AZT clinical trials are only just kicking off and it hasn't yet been approved by the FDA, and Ron can't even buy the stuff.

For a while, he steals discarded vials of the drug from the dumpsters at the back of the hospital, washing down the meds with beer and following up with a cocaine chaser, but when his supply dwindles, a tip from a janitor sends him to Mexico in search of a doctor who can hook him up with some AZT. When he arrives, though, Dr Vass (Griffin Dunne), tells him the AZT he has been taking has actually been worsening his compromised immune system, and instead gives Ron several other treatments that he says will alleviate the symptoms. After his health improves greatly, and Ron realises that he can make some money and potentially help others with HIV if he imports some of Dr Vass's drugs to the US for resale.

Sale of unapproved medical products in the US is, of course, illegal, so instead he launches the Dallas Buyers Club after reading about a similar concept in New York. Members pay Ron a $400 monthly membership fee and in return, they can have access to all the drugs they want. Ron's problem is that he doesn't know many would-be members, so he recruits Rayon (Jared Leto), a transvestite prostitute, to find potential clients. This leads to a cat-and-mouse game with the FDA, who keep trying to block Ron's supply and shut down his operation, and Dr Sevard, who seems to have been compensated by the manufacturer of AZT for allowing his hospital to participate in AZT trials.

McConaughey is fantastic as Ron — and almost unrecognisable, with his 'tache and gaunt, painfully thin frame. He injects just the right amount of black humour and edge (and impeccable comic timing) into a complex and sympathetic portrayal. Leto, also nearly unrecognisable, is very good too, and the chemistry between them works well, especially as their friendship develops. It was also fun to see Dennis O'Hare, who plays the bleeding-heart-liberal Judge Abernathy in the Good Wife, as the hard-nosed, brusque Dr Sevard. Another Good Wife actor, Dallas Roberts, has a small role as Ron's lawyer too. Dallas Buyers Club is entertaining and compelling, but is a good, rather than a great, film that will probably be remembered as the film that earned — or nearly earned — McConaughey his first Oscar.

The science bit
One thing that irritates me about Dallas Buyers Club is the way it seems to distort how the medical research process works. Some people will watch the film and think, "gee, aren't the FDA and drug companies terrible?" because they were preventing patients with HIV from taking AZT. One asks why the clinical trials can't be expedited. If only it were that simple. I'm not saying that the FDA and Big Pharma are perfect, but handing out potentially effective drugs willy-nilly on the basis of some promising results in an animal model would not end well. I work in scientific publishing and see dozens of research papers offering potential new therapeutic treatments for disease each week, but the percentage of these that end up proving both effective and safe in humans is very small. I think Vallée could have done a better job of portraying such a complex issue.

The Burger Bulletin: Burger Pit Review

Update (2015): Burger Pit has now rebranded as Breakfast & Burgers.

After a wild goose chase in search of a lost glove, I found myself walking home through the City tonight when I remembered spotting on Twitter that a new burger joint — Burger Pit — had opened on Leadenhall Street and was offering 50% off today. Even a hardened hamburgerologist like me tries not to have more than one burger per day, or even per week, and I had already partaken in a very fine Honest Burger at lunchtime. However, in the interests of hamburgerology, I decided to hit the Pit.

Nestled at the base of the Gherkin (appropriately enough), just around the corner from Leadenhall Market, Burger Pit occupies some prime real estate. You can't miss it either, with its bright yellow storefront and neon sign. Today was their first day and they are still in soft-launch mode, so it was pretty quiet inside, save for the cool choons. As I was leaving, though, a whole crowd of people headed in, so I must have started a trend.

The decor is casual and neutral, with pops of citrus. There are a few small tables and a longer counter for perching. The menu is etched on a huge blackboard. Like Tommi's Burger Joint, they offer meal deals, and as at Tommi's, you can upgrade to a steak burger. I would have dearly loved to try the steak burger, especially at the bargainous price of £7.25 including fries and soda, with the 50% off. But after my burger-ful lunch, that felt like an indulgence too far, so I went for a cheeseburger, the full price of which is £6.50.

Burger Pit has a few other things in common with Tommi's: it's at the faster end of the food spectrum, for one thing, and the burgers are served unceremoniously in plastic baskets. The burger was also really good. I forgot to ask to have mine medium rare, but it came beautifully pink in the middle and was very juicy and meaty, dripping all over the table in the way a great burger does.

I usually like to try the fries at a new burger restaurant but I was just too full. Oh well. I'll just have to go back when I haven't already reached my daily burger limit and try the steak burger and fries. They are still figuring out opening times and such like, but the upside of the soft launch is that you can get 50% off for the rest of today and tomorrow (5 February). It's great to see a great burger joint in the City at last. What's not to like?

The Burger Pit. 106 Leadenhall Street, London, EC3A 4AA (Tube: Aldgate). Website (not yet functional). Twitter.

Spirits and Spice

My sister-in-law loves Mexican food and cocktails — who doesn't? — so to celebrate her birthday, we headed to Shoreditch to indulge in both. Boho Mexica, on Commercial Street, is about halfway between Spitalfields Market and Shoreditch High Street. I've walked past many times, but hadn't eaten there until last night. It didn't disappoint. Boho Mexica is a friendly, intimate restaurant, with delicious food and great drinks. I plan to go back again soon to sample the brunch menu.

To keep us going while we perused the menu, we kicked off with some tortilla chips and homemade guacamole — the guac was chunky and delicious. We also got in a round of cocktails. The drinks menu is impressive and it was hard to decide which margarita to go for, but in the end, I ordered a cucumber margarita. This involved cucumber-infused tequila and it was served muddled with fresh cucumber and a chilli rim. The cucumber was the perfect foil to the intensity of the tequila and the chilli, and it was very refreshing.

We shared a couple of rounds of tacos to start. My favourites were the Tacos Al Pastor: grilled pork with chili and pineapple. For my main course, I chose the enchiladas with pulled chicken, cream, cheese and salsa verde. It came with a side order of rice and black beans, but I was too full to make much of a dent. The enchiladas were great though — like the rest of the food, they tasted very authentic.

I couldn't resist ordering another margarita — pomegranate, this time — but I did pass on a shot of mezcal, complete with worm.

We couldn't book a table at Callooh Callay, so we ended up at NOLA, a N'orleans-themed cocktail bar on the opposite side of Rivington Street; you have to go through Bedroom Bar to get inside. It took a while to work through the menu — the drinks are all serious stuff.

In honour of some research my journal published this week, I ordered a N'Orleans special, the 1000 Blue Eyes (Noilly Prat, Monkey 47 gin, lemon, rose water and Boston Bittahs), which was short, sharp and feisty, like most of the other cocktails. I didn't manage to try the Nuclear Hurricane (only 2 per customer, presumably because it's so intense), but I did sample some of Gris Gris (rum, sherry, maraschino, spice and "a hint of smoke").

All of the drinks are expertly mixed by the knowledgeable staff using ingredients from the incredibly well-stocked bar. NOLA itself is cosy and sexy, with its leather banquettes and dark booths. It is definitely worth booking a table, particularly at the weekend, because seating comes at a premium.

Boho Mexica. 151–153 Commercial Street, London, E1 6BJ (Tube: Liverpool Street or Shoreditch High Street). Website. Twitter.

NOLA. 1st floor, 68 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3AY (Tube: Shoreditch High Street). Website. Twitter.