One Sundance film I should have included on my final shortlist is Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Bronson. Journalist Bilge Ebiri yesterday spoke of “a bunch of New York journos” having seen an early screening of the bio-prison pic and gone “ape-shit.”

And for what it’s worth, a fellow with a certain professional interest in Bronson has written the following: “It’s a directorial wow from Refn and it has a Best Actor Oscar-worthy performance by Tom Hardy. I’m not kidding about Hardy’s work. It’s a total ‘who is that?’ performance which is right up there on my very short all-time list with David Thewlis in Naked and Hillary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry. Please do not miss it.

” And there’s something that’s not getting across anywhere, by the way — the film is very, very funny.”