Greta Gerwig directed a billion-dollar work of art shame on the Oscars

HAT is a film for, in W the end? What is a work of art created for the big screen supposed to do? Don't worry if you're a bit stumped.

- Nancy Durrant

You're in good company. Apparently the ultimate experts, the voting body of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, doesn't even know.

Yesterday the nominations were announced for this year's Oscars.

Inevitably, the big "men talking" movie of the year, Oppenheimer, dominated with 13 nominations, followed closely by the latest "Yorgos Lanthimos being edgy and weird", Poor Things, with 11.

The "Martin Scorsese refusing to cut anymore, no sir, over my dead body", AKA Killers of the Flower Moon, got 10. No surprises there, all completely expected and in most cases more or less deserved.

But amid the breathless analysis of this year's choices, there has been a rumbling of consternation, and the subject of that has been Oppenheimer's sister film, if you will - Barbie.

Yes it got a very respectable eight nominations, including for best picture (a 10-strong list). America Ferrera got a best supporting nomination for her role as the imaginative Gloria, and Ryan Gosling got one too, for his Ken, a delightfully ridiculous role which he sells with admirable conviction and which his children will, in the future, find toe-curlingly, deliciously mortifying. All good.