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TV review: Orchestra United **

2010-07-28T17:41:00.005+01:00

An email I sent recently to Channel 4. I'd be interested to hear other people's considered responses, particularly those who are musically inclined.

I am writing with some comments on Sunday night's opening episode of "Orchestra United".

I have been involved with amateur, community-level music making for many years, and I also do voluntary work with teenagers. I feel very let down by the contents of the opening episode of this programme. It is not clear to me the extent to which this was due to editing for television rather than flaws in the orchestral initiative itself, but in any case, I feel that "Orchestra United" has done the world of classical music a great disservice, not to mention severely underestimating the talents of the young people involved.

The programme fatally misrepresented or glossed over the background of many of the participants. It was billed as an attempt to form an orchestra of young people who had no classical experience, yet the vast majority were proficient - many of whom were very talented - at their instruments. A talented violinist or harpist cannot help but already have exposure to classical music. It was mentioned in passing that at least one of the young people was already a member of the Halle Youth Orchestra - this is hardly in the spirit of opening up a new world of classical repertoire to a generation raised on popular music.

Consequently, the programme failed to address the inherent difficulty in persuading young people of the merits of classical music. Yet the programme presented itself as an attempt to sell the virtues of classical music to those with no experience of it. For example, much was made of the cornet player saved from going off-the-rails by joining his father's brass band. Surely this was the act of most interest. Why did he start playing the cornet? How was he persuaded to keep going to rehearsals? What do his friends think about it? How does he feel about the repertoire he is discovering? All this would have made for a significantly more interesting programme. Furthermore, it would have been educational for those of us who have similar problems in our community music-making.

The crux of the problem with the approach shown on screen is that all of the young people were already motivated by the idea of being in a professionally-led symphony orchestra. Because of this focus, the programme came across as deeply patronising. It also set unrealistic expectations for what young people, particularly disadvantaged ones, might achieve in similar circumstances.

At the same time, the technical process of establishing the orchestra seemed hopelessly naive. Including musicians with "potential" who could neither read sheet music nor play a traditional orchestral instrument was a worthy idea but not in the spirit of the specified intention of the project. One might cynically conclude only that this makes for good television and serves no purpose for the orchestra itself.

These young people were then placed into a full orchestral rehearsal with no preparation whatsoever, and the rehearsal was shown to be disastrous. Unless James Lowe has spent far too long working with professional musicians and has forgotten what it is like to be a student (and a teenager), this was completely inevitable and should have been easily foreseen.

The conductor waved his baton and then shouted at them that the music was "in two". Since the entire premise was that most of the musicians had never been in an orchestra before, why assume that any of them understood his instructions or even knew what a conductor is actually for? Why did Lowe not take the time to explain this? Why did he not take the entire contingent to watch an orchestral concert first, so that they knew what to expect? Why did he not begin with sectional rehearsals instead of trying to co-ordinate 75 musicians on the very first try? The conductor was extremely unrealistic and naive about what would happen.

The fault for that first rehearsal was entirely in the planning and organisation, yet the programme appeared to blame the young people themselves, perhaps in an effort to emphasise how much work is required in order to achieve concert quality. This does a further disservice to the musicians involved and to those hoping to inspire other young people.

Because "Orchestra United" was funded by a public service broadcaster and in association with the Arts Council, I had high expectations that were profoundly missed by the opening episode of this programme. I look forward to the balance being redressed in the remaining instalments. But I shall continue to be extremely disappointed if the musicians' pre-existing talent is not acknowledged, if Lowe continues to act as if he is conducting a professional orchestra, and if the series does not adequately explore what opportunities classical music can offer the disadvantaged.

Channel 4's response message:

Thank you for contacting Channel 4 Viewer Enquiries regarding ORCHESTRA UNITED.

We are sorry to hear that you feel that this programme has done classical music a disservice and underestimated the talents of the young people involved.

Please be assured your complaint has been logged and noted for the information of those responsible for our programming.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us here at Channel 4 and for your interest in our programming.

Quarterly film roundup - April to June 2010

2010-07-01T13:49:00.002+01:00

Son of Rambow *** - Interesting if somewhat implausible coming-of-age type drama about two boys with very different backgrounds who begin an awkward friendship over a shared desire to shoot a short film.

The Fox And The Child **** - Thoroughly beguiling dramatised nature documentary from the makers of March Of The Penguins that does exactly what it says on the tin.

Quarterly film roundup - January to March 2010

2010-04-01T10:40:00.004+01:00

Up In The Air **** - A masterfully understated performance from George Clooney is just one of the highlights of this film. The supporting cast also shine but it's the intelligence and humanity of the story that linger.

It's Complicated ** - In stark contrast to the above, a massively over-the-top performance from both Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep make this farce completely forgettable.

Memoirs Of A Geisha **** - Sumptous costume drama that manages to be affecting and engrossing.

Happy Feet *** - Fun and timely (in the sense of environmentally aware) animated comedy.

Over The Hedge ** - Zany animation aimed squarely at kids with little to interest more mature viewers.

Coyote Ugly ** - Potentially interesting drama with a good cast, but cannot reach the heights to which it aspires.

Quarterly film roundup - October to December 2009

2010-01-01T16:18:00.002Z

Up! 3D *** - Its haphazard story arc and awkward juxtaposition of reality and fantasy make this a lesser film than the Pixar average, but it is still sumptuous to watch. The opening five minutes or so have more emotional bite than any film I've seen in the last year but sets the expectation of quality for the remainder of the film too high.

The Hangover *** - Hilarious, what-will-they-think-of-next slapstick that doesn't overstay its welcome (but is forgotten quickly after watching).

The Ugly Truth ** - Unsubtle, unoriginal and unfunny "romantic comedy" that manages to incorporate every worthless cliché of that genre.

Metropolis **** - A complex and stylish work whose sheer scale of ambition is staggering. Made by Fritz Lang in the 1920s, in some respects it hasn't aged a jot. A superb DVD release including re-recorded original score and sympathetic, detailed intertitle explanations where parts of the original film have been lost is let down in only one respect - running at 24fps (where the original was almost certainly at 18fps) means that everybody seems to be in a hurry all the time; using a DVD software player to slow the film down by around a quarter makes the action seem much more fluid and natural.

Quarterly film roundup - July to September 2009

2009-10-01T16:16:00.002+01:00

Kung Fu Panda *** - Funny but hardly groundbreaking mistaken-identity / fish-out-of-water comedy. Entertaining but largely forgettable.

Mamma Mia! *** - Surprisingly watchable (with gritted teeth, at least) musical in which a young woman, on the eve of her marriage, tries to determine which of three of her mother's lovers is her father. Absolutely implausible in every way but fun, tongue-in-cheek performances from the all-star cast.

The Dark Knight *** - Long, twisting and portentous - befitting its subject matter, perhaps, but less conducive to action or even plot development. The performances are good (not outstanding, as was suggested by many reviewers) but as a piece of popular entertainment it is somewhat gruelling.

The Other Boleyn Girl ** - Revisionist and too-often hysterical retelling of the story of the falling out of favour and execution of Anne Boleyn, via her lesser-known sister, Mary, who had an affair with Henry VIII. While a handsome production in many respects, the film is necessarily pared down to the most sordid plot aspects - from secret affairs, through political machinations, to incest - leaving little room for empathy with any of the characters.

Waltz With Bashir *** - Animated "documentary" in which an Israeli ex-soldier tries to come to terms with his past. Deeply stylish visuals work most effectively when conveying the horrors faced, but become rather confusing when switching between timeframes and in some of the longer conversation / exposition scenes.

Quarterly film roundup - April to June 2009

2009-07-01T16:11:00.003+01:00

Persepolis *** - Stylish, educational but flawed analysis of the move to ultra-conservatism in Iran, as seen through the eyes of one young woman. The animation is impressive but, by concentrating on one individual's story, many of the implications of the regime change are missed: the fact is that she escapes the worst of the oppression and so her opinion of it is inevitably softened.

Hancock ** - Irritating extension of the tired vogue for superheroes-as-flawed-humans, in which Will Smith plays the eponymous rebellious, thoughtless, drunk man of steel, who undergoes an image transformation at the hands of a marketing consultant. From the theme to the pointless plot twists to the very name of the film, nothing quite works as it should. Unlike the travails of Bob "Mr. Incredible" Parr, or Peter Parker, there is little to empathise with in Hancock.

Review - Star Trek ***

2009-06-09T17:07:00.020+01:00

It was a low-budget space adventure series from the sixties that was cancelled after only three seasons. It was camp, the acting was rigid and the actors themselves insufferable, the costumes deliberately provocatively revealing and impractical, and the planets that the intrepid crew visited were about six feet square and made of polystyrene. Sometimes, alien creatures were actors wearing blankets. Oh, and the fans turned out to have a strong tendency to dress up in costume and write their own fiction, some of it very unsavoury.

Yet it is arguably one of the biggest cultural influences of our times, thanks in large part to the cultish band of fans who went on to become film and television show producers themselves - including Matt Groening, creator of that other primary-coloured tele-cultural phenomenon. It was an optimistic and inspiring vision of a future in which the good guys all got along with each other, lending a firm but gentle hand to developing civilisations, and successfully repelling the advances of the warrior enemies. It inspired NASA to name its prototype Space Shuttle "Enterprise", and Richard Branson did the same with his Virgin Galactic spacecraft. It was done in good humour and often tried to push boundaries. And it has given us instantly recognisable cultural references and aphorisms, from Klingons to "Beam me up Scotty" and that famous split infinitive.

I believe I grew up at the right time to be a fan of Star Trek. The original 1960s series played throughout my childhood and while I always found the jelly-bats and shape-shifting salt-monsters very disturbing, it was entertaining teatime fare. Most of the political subtext of the series went well over my young head - even when the politics become ridiculously overt. There was often a strong tendency for Spock to say something like:

"Fascinating, Captain. This planet appears to be an exact duplicate of Earth of the 1960s."

During my teenage years, through The Next Generation and Voyager, much of the original series' optimism and hope for the future was evident. For a geeky awkward teenager, these were great escapist fantasies. I never liked Deep Space 9 much, simply because its vision was that much darker. It was the spirit of adventure that I enjoyed, the exploration, the discovery and the diplomacy - not the endless space battles, however spectacular the new era of special effects made them.

At the time, there didn't seem much to be learned from Star Trek, beyond the fact that one should not wear a red shirt on an away mission to a strange planet. Did it shape my personal politics? My choice of career? Quite possibly, if only because of the other people I was hanging around with. At the time, I probably didn't often share this information outside of a small group that I identified as being at least as keen on Trek as me, but the fact is, I was quite a long way down the road that led to genuine Trek obsession. I owned the original James Blish short-story anthologies of the original series; the official encyclopaedia; a communicator badge; a board game and a Trek edition of Trivial Pursuit; a starship on a keychain; and an alarm clock which awoke me with a violent start every morning, a loud voice booming:

"Landing party to Enterprise. Beam us up, Scotty!"

followed swiftly by a bright light shining down from the model "Enterprise" onto the "planet" below and into my sleepy eyes.

I went to watch First Contact in Leicester Square on its opening day and sat behind a man dressed in an astonishing recreation of a Borg costume. I even once went to see Star Trek: the Stage Play, which was surprisingly good fun, if only because it too had planets that were about six feet square and clunky special effects.

To me, the decline of Star Trek as a franchise exactly mirrored the end of that particular stage in my personal life. There was no sudden transition; simply that the film Nemesis wasn't very good; Voyager came to an end; and the new series, Enterprise, wasn't very accessible. My interest in Star Trek waned exactly as I was discovering interesting new things: (proper) films, art, alcohol, music and, to a very limited extent, girls.

By then, it was readily apparent that Star Trek was a joke to many people. "Trekkie" was and is a pejorative term, referring to obsessive, pasty, overweight teens who spent their waking hours discussing the minutiae of warp drive theory and unhealthily fantasising about female cast members, even those who, objectively and with hindsight, weren't really all that attractive. Really.

Consequently, the increasing self-awareness that comes with age and life-experience should enable the reformed Trek-fan to regard his own wasted teenage years with a mixture of bemused horror; memories that are embarrassing rather than fond. We fans have latterly been encouraged to laugh at ourselves and at the seriousness with which we regarded a simple piece of entertainment.

In the film Galaxy Quest, a bunch of washed-up television actors from a cancelled, campy sci-fi series are identified by real passing aliens as space adventurers and are "beamed up" in an attempt to avert an inter-planetary war. The fictional television series in the film has many unsubtle parallels to the Star Trek phenomenon, from the fractious interplay between its leading actors to knowing references to the disposability of the lesser-known cast members. As viewers, it helped to skewer our own pomposity, as well as that of the actors; the film relies upon at least some familiarity with the Trek canon in general and fandom in particular. Yet it is gentle satire rather than cruel parody, treating the fans with some respect: it is still a good sci-fi romp in its own right and the geeky teenagers get to help save the day at the end.

For years, the original Trek actors have been living with the millstones of their early roles around their necks. What should have been three years of work at the beginning of long careers has turned into an endless cycle of guest appearances at fan conventions, where they are asked fatuous questions about fictional scenarios. Leonard Nimoy attempted to set the record straight with an autobiography entitled "I Am Not Spock". He followed this, several years later, with another volume called "I Am Spock" when he realised that that is what everybody wanted to read about.

Famously, William Shatner told fans to "get a life" (an incident mirrored in Galaxy Quest). Whether he said this because Shatner takes himself far too seriously or whether he in fact is "in on the joke" is a matter for debate. This is, after all, a man whose personal website is called The Shatner Project. The Guardian's TV Blog posits the theory that:

"William Shatner may be a living joke, but his dignity, not to say his genius, is that he's the one telling it."

The burden of Star Trek to its performers is eternal. For its fans, however, its legacy is like that of a long-running comic book series. They feel it very personally if any detail is wrong - as another scene in Galaxy Quest depicts, as one group of fans asks the erstwhile "captain", whose patience is running short:

"In The Quasar Dilemma, you used the auxiliary of deck B for Gamma override. The thing is that online blueprints indicate deck B is independent of the guidance matrix, so we were wondering where the error lies? ‘Cause we were wondering if the quantum flux, now just listen on this..."

We've heard the shrieking of fans when "their" show, "their" comic or computer game, "their" characters are altered outside of very narrow parameters. For every Batman Begins there's a Hulk; for every Spider-Man there's a Tomb Raider. The dilemma for filmmakers is obvious: the new film must feel fresh and must be a break from the previous unsuccessful, unsatisfying installment - yet it must be true to the mythology that has grown up around the franchise. What would fans make of a revitalised Star Trek movie? What would reformed ex-fans make of it?

The burden of expectation is naturally great. Reviews so far have been overwhelmingly positive; but who is writing the reviews? And who is actually going to see the film? Fans of the original series? When did it suddenly become OK to be, and to admit to being, that fat, obsessive, teenage archetype? Or is this simply a good action film that happens to have some familiar elements? In which case, why are the fans not up in arms?

From what I heard prior to seeing the film, the plot builds-in an explanation for any discrepancies that arise between this "rebooted" episode and "classic Trek", in the form of an alternative reality. This, I feared, was a massive cop-out and possibly unnecessary. It is akin to finishing a work of surrealist literature with the words "... and then he woke up."

In my view, belief can be adequately suspended without having to jump through plot hoops. In fact, in recent times, these so-called "reboots" have been a useful device for covering up the inadequacies of earlier parts of the franchise. How we all wish that Batman Begins were the sequel to Batman Returns and not Batman And Robin. And wouldn't the Superman series be significantly improved if we could skip straight from Superman 2 to Superman Returns? Fans don't complain about the fact that there have been a dozen different James Bonds, including Bob "Blockbusters" Holness on the radio. Enjoying Casino Royale doesn't mean that there is no longer any pleasure to be had in watching Dr. No, even if the later film has key inconsistencies with its predecessors.

In fact, as a plot device, the "alternate reality" thing works quite plausibly within the context of the established Star Trek rules of physics. It is more of a leap to retrofit this new knowledge into what we already know. For example, this alternate timeline explains why Kirk is so impetuous and also how the classic crew first come together aboard the Enterprise. This therefore raises the questions: Why in the original timeline was Kirk so impetuous? And how could the crew possibly have come together without the sequence of events precipitated by this change of history?

Of course, this film doesn't seek to answer such questions, and nor should it. By my own reasoning, the plot merely has to be self-consistent. Unfortunately, it isn't. Even by the standards of most action adventure movies, there are some intensely awkward coincidences and contrivances. It would spoil the film to enumerate them all here, but among the most jarring is the fact that the Enterprise, the brand new fleet flagship, ends up being crewed entirely by cadets. Even acknowledging the real world's history of sending woefully underprepared young people into battle in deperate circumstances, it is preposterous in the extreme to suggest that the most senior person aboard capable of command would be Jim Kirk, a hot-tempered, pugilistic cadet, who has just been suspended from the Academy. Besides which, the argument used for displacing the previous incumbent in the captain's chair - that he was emotionally compromised - would surely have applied just as equally to Kirk himself as he prepared to battle the man that killed his father. This Cadet Kirk is effectively a pirate, lying, deposing, fighting and swaggering his way to the top of the hierarchy.

This is only one example of the non sequiturs encountered. One should not have to spend time watching a film - a fantasy film, of all things - wondering how or why something has occurred. Why are starships being assembled on Earth when canon and common sense both indicate that they are constructed in space? Why were the Vulcans - a highly technologically advanced species - sitting around doing nothing while their planet was attacked? How is it that Spock, a man never known to have made the slightest flaw in logic or calculation, manages to be the catalyst to such a tragic train of events?

The film darts from being faithful to its source to being borderline disrespectful. This is true in broad plot points, in overall tone and in fine detail. From the perspective of a fan, the worst crime this film can commit is to change established conventions or characterisations for the worse, particularly as it has ample opportunity to improve upon the original.

The Enterprise itself is gorgeously rendered. In the original series, budget concerns meant that there were a few stock shots of a lumbering, awkward craft; here, it moves gracefully and powerfully through three-dimensional space. It is, literally, the Enterprise as it has never been seen before. It is, at long last, a wholly plausible design for a spacecraft. Where before there was an unreliable video screen on the bridge, now there is a window with a head-up display. The doors leading onto the bridge incorporate an airlock. Computer control panels are as complex as you would imagine, but the helm has ergonomic flight controls. In the engineering section, there seem to be actual engines. There is plumbing and ducting, not just blinking lights.

Another delight was to see a shipboard romance blossom. It had been alluded to a couple of times in the classic series but never followed up, presumably because only Kirk was ever allowed to have a love interest. Here, it added an extra dimension to otherwise well-known characters.

Overall, the characterisations are a mixed bag. Spock is indeed the Spock we have come to know through the original series and numerous guest appearances in the spin-off series. Kirk is a plausible extension of the known character, based on his changed personal circumstances under the new timeline. Uhura and Chekov have slightly more back-story, all fitting within the canon. Sulu is perhaps a little under-developed, but does nothing out of character.

Scotty and Bones fare less well. Bones persistently sounds like he is doing a poor impression of Richard Nixon a la Futurama, but worse, it is not really clear why he is always present. In the original series, he was persistently on the bridge because of his close friendship with Kirk; here, he seems always to be in the right place, but never for adequately explained reasons. Scotty, meanwhile, is lacking his jovial swagger.

Star Trek often, although not always, had some comic relief. In the movie, this is decidedly hit-and-miss. Scotty's jubilation at successfully operating the transporter, while clearly intended to raise a laugh, didn't; and his sidekick strayed into dangerous Jar Jar Binks territory. Overall, however, the film does not take itself too seriously and there are a handful of genuine laughs to be had.

But always, we return to these inexplicable gaps in logic where the fan is left wondering why. Here's an example:

It's an established "fact" - legend, even - of the Star Trek universe that Kirk is the only Academy cadet ever to beat the simulation of the "Kobayashi Maru" no-win scenario, in which a mission to rescue the titular stricken vessel becomes an unescapable Klingon ambush. Kirk beat the system by covertly reprogramming the computer so that it was possible to beat the enemy ships and rescue the hostages. However, the exact nature of his hack wasn't known. For his efforts and lateral thinking, he was awarded a commendation.

There are many possible, subtle ways he could have gone about bending the rules of the simulation, and for examples I defer to the Star Trek wiki, Memory Alpha:

He makes the Klingons believe he was a famous starship captain and surrendered. [Or] He introduced slight weaknesses in the Klingon ships' shields that he could later exploit. [Or] He makes it possible to establish that the rescue mission is a trap and thus justifies blowing up the stricken ship.

So in our reboot, how is the simulation corrupted? He switches off the enemy vessels' shields and blows them up. This doesn't show that Kirk is a brilliant strategist or that he "doesn't believe in a no-win scenario", as he explains in The Wrath Of Khan. Instead, it proves beyond doubt that he is an arrogant, opportunist jackass who richly deserves the suspension that he receives.

And this, ultimately, is the most significant failing of the film: Far from being a charismatic hero, Kirk is unbearable; unlikeable, even. We are supposed to presume that this film is an immediate prequel to his famous "five-year mission", yet it is completely apparent that he is too rough-hewn, too impulsive and too prone to violence and lawlessness to be allowed to lead what is, after all, a diplomatic and scientific mission

...to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations...

Worse still, the bad guy - we know he's bad not only because he's attacking Federation starships, but also because he has a tattoo, which is a clear indicator - actually has an understandable reason for his hatred. A film is in a dire state indeed when it is possible for the audience to muster more empathy for the villain than the hero.

Under the circumstances, when old Spock begins to intone the famous introductory words, at the end of the film:

Space: The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise...

it actually stops sounding meaningful and starts to sound twee instead. The filmmakers didn't use the opportunity for the new boy Kirk to step into his predecessor's shoes, which would have been quite suitable; imagine a space cadet venturing out into the galaxy for the first time and saying those words with true wonderment and with hope for the future. Instead, Spock gets to recite them, more-or-less exactly as he did at the end of The Wrath Of Khan; the difference being, on that occasion, he was actually dead.

Does Star Trek work as a simple adventure? Divorced from the baggage of forty years and the weight of the expectations of millions of fans, is it a better film than I have intimated? It's pretty clear that I am not in a position to judge that. The otherwise positive reviews it is getting, including those from my fellow cinemagoers, would indicate that it is. And in truth, I did not dislike it too awfully, despite its plot contortions; it is actually only a handful of geeky details to which I most object. At the very least, it gives me hope that a renewed series of films can be as complex and as spectacular as they always aspired to be.

Quarterly film roundup - January to March 2009

2009-04-01T12:39:00.007+01:00

Lust, Caution *** - Chinese spy drama in which a group of students plan to assassinate a powerful political figure. One of their number is selected as a "honeytrap" to seduce him, but their plans go awry. A dark and menacing film with plenty of explicit distubing moments; many strong performances but overall rather unsettling.

The Lives Of Others **** - Very effective Cold War-era spy drama set in East Germany, where the Stasi monitor potential troublemakers using high-tech bugging devices and old-fashioned interrogation techniques. There is a palpable sense of authenticity and atmosphere, which helps both to ramp up the tension and to justify the characters' ultimate redemption.

The Girl From Paris *** - An IT trainer from the city decides to give up her life and become a dairy farmer, to the surprise of her mother and on-off boyfriend and to the disgust of the farm's retired previous owner. Some imagery is memorable but the plot meanders without offering any real surprises.

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly *** - True story of a former magazine editor who, following a stroke that left him almost completely paralysed, dictates an autobiography entirely by winking one eye. Early scenes shot from a first-person pespective help to establish the dilemma of being "locked in" with full cognitive faculties. The film necessarily focuses on the people around him and helps expose both positive and negative attitudes towards the profoundly disabled.

In Search Of A Midnight Kiss *** - An all-too-obviously independent drama / comedy, with plenty of discussion and little in the way of drama, rather similar to Before Sunrise. The plot revolves around two lonely people who meet on New Year's Eve in the hope of not spending the night alone. The low budget actually helps establish the mood of the piece and it is, in a way, encouraging that American filmmakers can still produce such non-commercial films of a type vastly more prevalent in Europe.

Juno **** - A schoolgirl accidentally ends up pregnant after sleeping with her best friend. The plot has no doubt been repeated many times before in independent films, but this remains a winner in its genre (not to mention successful at the awards) because of its central character's no-nonsense approach. Rather than allowing her to wallow in pity, or to descend into squallor, our heroine is immediately likeable, has an eminently sensible approach to her situation and enjoys the support of predominantly supportive friends and family. As a result, the plot has her growing up, learning something about herself and about life, while still remaining in part a naive, frightened and hormonal teenager. A thoroughly winning performance from Ellen Page helps make this an enjoyable and uplifting film.

Quarterly film roundup - October to December 2008

2009-01-01T15:20:00.003Z

Das Boot *** - Famously epic submarine drama. A satisfying sense of claustrophobia is undermined by the film's wide scope; perhaps by having every conceivable wartime disaster befall the vessel and its crew, there is less room for manoeuvre when it comes to plot development.

The Emperor's New Groove ** - Highly disappointing and twee Disney animation, pitched firmly at the younger audience. The central character is not merely vain, as suggested by the plot, grates from the outset and, as such, is hardly worthy of the redemption that is ultimately on offer.

The Pursuit of Happyness *** - Will Smith plays a penniless man who must make ends meet for his young son whilst pursuing a potentially-lucrative financial job. The ending never seems to be in any doubt but his attempts to protect his son are moving enough.

Quarterly film roundup - July to September 2008

2008-10-01T11:35:00.012+01:00

Open Season * - A lamentable, charmless, exceptionally derivative and unfunny animation which sees Sony borrowing shamelessly from the leaders in this field (Pixar and Dreamworks). The central buddy pairing of lumbering, complex oaf and fast-talking impulsive sidekick is ripped off directly from Shrek, only in a completely implausible way and without any trace of spark; whereas Shrek and Donkey needed each other and gradually learned to like each other, in Open Season Boog the grizzly and Elliot the one-antlered deer have absolutely nothing on which to base a relationship. Meanwhile, plot elements (hippy caravan-dwellers looking for Bigfoot - eventually rehashing a great Simpsons gag) and characters (violent Scottish squirrels) are apparently introduced only for comic effect and without any thought to relevance or structure. This isn't a family film - it's emphatically a kids' film, with absolutely nothing to recommend it to anyone over the age of five. Somebody needs to tell Sony that an animation has to have more than a wise-cracking sidekick in order to be successful. As an audience, we care about Shrek and Donkey; we care about Nemo and Buzz Lightyear and all the rest. We can't care about these unlikeable idiots. A terrible waste of time.

Wall-E **** - By way of direct contrast to Open Season, Pixar demonstrates its storytelling prowess by proving that we can even be made to care about a hundreds-of-years-old, somewhat eccentric lump of metal. The animation is never less than stunning, but it's the heart that makes the film so successful - and ultimately, it is a triumphant and remarkably human story. There's a timely, but not superfluous, environmental message here; not only is this necessary (all good sci-fi needs a decent dystopia to work with) but it is also well-balanced with the upbeat ending. And, as we've come to expect, there are nods to other sci-fi works and popular films aplenty, from Short Circuit to 2001: A Space Odyssey, via Disney's own The Black Hole - and is that even a cheeky Little Mermaid gag in there, too? Unfortunately, but inevitably, the film has been over-hyped and, perhaps as a result, it doesn't quite press all the same emotional buttons as Monsters Inc. or Toy Story 2, but it's still an instant classic. It was accompanied at cinemas by a hilarious short about a magician and his hungry bunny.

And, talking of magicians...

The Prestige **** - Christopher "Memento" Nolan deftly weaves fact and fiction and a highly erratic timeline to create an intriguing, suspenseful film about two Victorian-era stage magicians, whose rivalry becomes deadly. By working in real-life characters (Nikola Tesla, Chung Ling Soo) and with a fine attention to authentic detail, Nolan pulls off a magic trick of his own - making the extraordinary seem completely plausible, and hence massively increasing the sense of danger. And, although there is a gratuitous final "reveal" shot for people who haven't been paying attention, there are enough clues throughout the film for most armchair sleuths and conjurors to work out who did what and when.

No Country For Old Men *** - The Coen Brothers turn in a typically sprawling, meandering thriller - in truth, almost a horror - about a redneck being hunted down by a hired killer intent on retrieving stolen drug money, and the grizzled old sheriff who hopes to intervene. The good recreation of seventies small-town America helps increase the claustrophobic tension. However, the indiscriminate and dispassionate nature of the killings asks more questions than the film can possibly answer and also unfortunately brings to mind Sylar, the villain of the first series of Heroes, which probably isn't quite what the Coens had in mind.

In The Shadow Of The Moon **** - Documentary featuring many of the astronauts who manned the Apollo missions, discussing the development, execution and aftermath of their trips into space. Some genuinely moving anecdotes and utterly stunning genuine archive film and photography help to make this one of the most memorable films in some time. The DVD features additional footage of similar quality.

Lilo And Stitch **** - A heartwarming and visually sumptuous Disney animation about a little girl's friendship with an evil blue Elvis-loving alien. There's nothing exceptionally profound - the moral of the story is practically rammed down our throats - but the execution is sincere, heartfelt and fun.

Idiocracy ** - A brilliant idea (it's the future, machines do all the work and everyone is completely dumb) and even some impressive special effects do not make up for the poor story development. It's rather a shame; there are many elements that could have been explored further, but the viewer is left with the unshakeable feeling that the filmmakers simply ran out of funding and had to turn in a film half-completed.

Cars **** - So if Pixar can make us care about fish, toys and robots... can it do the same thing with cars? Almost unbelievably, the answer is emphatically yes, although of course it helps that the absorbing story is a readily recognisable human one. Much of the humour of the film is derived from the way in which human (and animal) archetypes are reimagined as road vehicles, but more subtle is the faithful reproduction of a quiet backwater town stuck in its 1950s neon-lit heyday.

The Wild ** - A bunch of zoo animals escape and head to Africa - the Wild - to rescue a lion cub. Proving once and for all that Americans can't tell the difference between accents, Eddie Izzard plays a neurotic koala, producing a few mildly humorous moments.

Tales From Earthsea ** - A highly distracting, simplistic visual animation style (even more so when contrasted with the sumptuous backgrounds which are typical of Studio Ghibli) is just one of the mistakes made by this loose adaptation of Ursula Le Guin's fantasy series. On the face of it, the source material is ideal Ghibli material, but even for those versed in the studio's language, there are some impenetrable plot elements. It's also pretty scary in places, with little in the way of comic relief. Possibly a wasted opportunity.

Quarterly film roundup - April to June 2008

2008-07-01T09:11:00.002+01:00

Chicago *** - If musicals are always prone to artificiality and unlikely plot developments - if only because the real world isn't full of people spontaneously breaking into song - then this example of the genre is doing better than most. At least it has a point to the sudden flights of fantasy and ends up serving something of a lesson in the brevity of modern-day celebrity.

The Last King Of Scotland **** - A staggeringly powerful performance from Forest Whitaker as General Idi Amin, the increasingly paranoid military dictator of Uganda, towers over this film almost from the very first scene. The story is told through the eyes of Amin's fictional Scottish doctor and confidante, who finds himself helplessly woven into the fabric of the General's violent politics. Even when laughing amongst friends and even at his most vulnerable, Whitaker's characterisation is never less than menacing and sometimes outright dangerous. The threat that he is about to do something unspeakably evil counterpoints nicely with the surprising bursts of humour scattered throughout the film, which help showcase Amin's legendary charisma and add shreds of humanity to his brutal nature.

Enchanted *** - An unfortunate example of the type of film that has all the best bits in the trailer, this fails to live up to its billing (Princess Bride for the twenty-first century?) An animated fairytale princess is thrown into our modern hectic world, where she gains a third dimension, although not much of one, and may just be about to change the life of a little girl and her single father. Whether you can stomach the film depends, at best, on your attitude to musicals and, at worst, your response to dangerous levels of saccharine.

The Science Of Sleep ** - Michel "Eternal Sunshine" Gondry leads us on another labyrinthine journey through a dysfunctional relationship, but the writing falters without Charlie Kaufman's flair. As a result, the film is an impressively disjointed mess of reality and illusion, with a hint of menace that does not suit the nominal romance being played out. However, it's hard not to admire the work Gondry has put into the practical effects and one can readily imagine that the film would have been great fun to shoot.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull *** - Preposterous even by the standards of its own franchise, this is still an entertaining, if over-long, entry in the series and clearly marks the way for future sequels. The action is wisely updated by a decade or two, so there are USSR KGB agents but no Nazis in sight. However, the most visually and emotionally striking sequences all occur in the opening twenty minutes or so, which means that the remainder of the film feels like something of a let-down.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated *** - Documentary investigating the seemingly arbitrary nature of the American film industry's censorship panel. The conclusions reached are somewhat predictable (that it's conservatively-run, secretive, and geared up to protecting the interests of the big studios rather than smaller artists). But there are humorous touches and small, satisfying victories on the journey.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith ** - Whether this is supposed to be a straight action film or a metaphorical take on the trials of modern marriage scarcely matters - it's so ridiculous that the only option is to switch off brain, suspend disbelief and watch slack-jawed as two of Hollywood's most attractive people try to kill each other.

King Arthur ** - This take on the old legends probably sought to do what Prince Of Thieves achieved - tell a familiar but great story within a plausible historical context. However, this particular retelling of the Camelot stories is excessively revisionist and, other than the name, ignores hundreds of years of story-telling by some of our leading poets and authors. Clive Owen lacks the gravitas required for such a supposedly great leader and Keira Knightley does herself and her career absolutely no favours whatsoever.

Quarterly film roundup - January to March 2008

2008-04-01T09:11:00.003+01:00

Blood Diamond *** - Leo DiCaprio dons his best Seeth Eefreecan accent as a ruthless mercenary diamond dealer who may or may not have a little compassion in his heart. Overall an adequate thriller but could have been edited down to a keener run-time.

Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason ** - Goes to great lengths to repeat every single one of the most humorous gags from the first film, to generally unamusing effect. Where a new concept for a joke is introduced, more often than not it misfires. If Bridget Jones is supposed to be a hero to modern women, then why on Earth must this film (and, presumably, the book) attempt to mine comedy from far-Eastern women's jails and lesbianism?

Atonement **** - Very effective and affecting costume drama exploring a girl's guilt at a one-off case of childish jealousy and its devastating repercussions. Amongst the emotional anguish, it might by easy to overlook the film's technical achievements: an astonishing one-take Steadicam scene set on a wartime French beach is both low-key and dazzling, natural and virtuosic.

Serendipity *** - Two strangers meet by chance and feel a connection - but she's evidently a bit of a hippy, because she feels that their relationship should be governed by supernatural forces. This is a quirky, non-traditional rom-com which is mostly rather sweet. It's a bit unfortunate that love triangles tend to leave victims in their wakes, however, because while her partner thoroughly deserves to be ditched for the romantic ideal, his partner is entirely blameless.

Singin' In The Rain **** - They don't make 'em like this any more. While some of the songs are all-too-apparently selected to showcase MGM's catalogue rather than to drive the story, it's still brilliant, with catchy tunes, wit, charm, absolutely hilarious jokes, and that classic rainy set-piece.

Beauty And The Beast *** - Disney's award-winning take on the tale is let down in places by the odd non-sequitur, uneven plot development and some irritating "humorous" banter, and the well-known set-piece (swooping down from the ballroom ceiling) has lost some of its shine in the light of more recent advances in animation technique. But it still has romance and charm to spare.

Letters From Iwo Jima **** - The second of Clint Eastwood's pair about this wartime island conflict is told from the Japanese point of view and is markedly superior to Flags Of Our Fathers. The story attempts to explain the Japanese mentality: their dogged refusal to give up on their hopeless task; their ever-prevailing sense of honour. And, even as it condemns the officers for their cruelty, the film cannot help but be an awe of the men's courage.

Ice Age ** - Raucous, annoying and even tedious in places, this is the story of a prehistoric migration in which all the animals band together to escape onrushing disaster. The film fails to notch up the tension sufficiently quickly, the animals aren't sufficiently cute to hold a younger audience's interest, and the inclusion of comic vignettes involving a single-minded squirrel seem to be an admission on the part of the filmmakers that the film overall just isn't that funny. And an attempt to address important issues of identity and belonging fall flat, mainly because the character in question refuses to discuss them in any way.

Ice Age II *** - An improvement on the original, but no classic, this is essentially a take on the road-movie genre but with added sabre-toothed tigers. This time, the jokes are funnier, including some nice flights of fantasy that recall the wackier daydreams in Scrubs. Furthermore, the film doesn't try to burden itself with such awkward issues as before - this time, it's a simple theme of good vs. bad and doing the "right thing".

Quarterly film roundup - October to December 2007

2008-01-01T18:22:00.008Z

Angel-A ** - A desperate small-time crook is saved from committing suicide by a beautiful woman who may or may not be an angel - although if she is, she's a highly unconventional one. A typically stylised, black-and-white film from Luc Besson, there is exceptional beauty to be uncovered in its more whimsical scenes, but this is marred by a lack of chemistry between the man and his saviour, by the lead being essentially unlikeable, and by a thoroughly disturbing subtext of misogyny and sexual violence.

Flags Of Our Fathers *** - The first in Clint Eastwood's pair of films about the American attack on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima explores the complex emotions and relationships of a small band of soldiers feted as heroes due to their involvement in a staged reconstruction of an heroic moment. As such, the film strives to comment on the artificiality of media and the need of any political campaign to have its icons - as relevant today as ever.

Ratatouille *** - A beautifully-animated, if wildly implausible, Pixar tale about a rat who loves fine cuisine. Patience and repeated viewing does help to draw out the heart from the tale; unfortunately, at first sight, the story and execution seem a little too cold and clinical.

Gulliver's Travels (TVM) *** - An epic and comprehensive retelling of Daniel Swift's most famous work, with Ted Danson in the title role. A surprisingly complete and involving experience.

The Hunchback Of Notre Dame **** - Disney's animation seems to take as its cue the musical adaptation of Les Misérables - and indeed, the comparisons are legion. Apart from source material by the same author, there are thematic similarities; for example, a blurring of right and wrong and a villain who believes himself to be righteous. Even the musical set-pieces are staged and shot like a live-action musical. Altogether, an effective piece of work.

Caché *** - A disturbing and occasionally deliberately confusing thriller in which a normal couple suddenly start receiving video cassettes showing themselves, as filmed by a hidden cameraman, going about their daily lives. As they investigate, they must come to terms with a dark past. The tension is palpable.

Quarterly film roundup - July to September 2007

2007-10-01T15:50:00.000+01:00

Tideland ** - At the beginning of the DVD of this self-consciously macabre, fiercely-offbeat film by Terry Gilliam, the directory himself pops up onscreen. He pleads with the audience to see the film for what he is, and he delivers a heartfelt (if excruciating) expression of gratitude to the little girl at the centre of the story. And small wonder that he feels the need to excuse his work and to thank his star (or his character); this child is placed through the sorts of indignities one wouldn't wish on anyone, from looking after her dead and decomposing drug-addict father, to exploiting the sexual urges of a local simpleton. This is a deeply troubling, voyeuristic film and whether or not Gilliam intended it to be a celebration of childhood resilience - of the ability of a young mind to protect itself by wrapping itself in fantasy - doesn't make it any less uncomfortable to watch. Like Pan's Labyrinth, the exotic fantasy cannot begin to atone for the grim reality.

Dirty Pretty Things **** - A British immigrant makes a grim discovery in the bathroom of the hotel where he works illegally and is faced with an impossible dilemma. He cannot go to the authorities, yet he cannot allow such inhuman barbarism to continue. Showing an underbelly of British culture rarely explored on screen means that it is hard to judge the true-life accuracy of the story. But the central performances are extremely compelling, and the lines between good and evil are sufficiently blurred to allow for the outcome to be in some doubt.

Volver *** - A young girl kills her abusive father and is protected from the obvious consequences of the crime by her mother. Life starts to improve, despite being overshadowed by a mysterious - maybe even ghostly - figure from the past. Like many Spanish dramas, or so it seems, this one deals with strong women characters and about the relationship between child and mother. Its benign supernatural element, rather than adding a new dimension to the drama, seems more like a quirk deliberately inserted to give more depth, but this does remain a slickly-executed film.

The Simpsons Movie *** - Every once in a while, a film is so eagerly anticipated that it can only disappoint. The question then is, by how much? What margin for failure does a television show as successful and beloved as The Simpsons have? On the plus side, there are plenty of strong laughs to be had. But it's not a particularly memorable experience, particularly when the TV series does have so many memorable gags, albeit ones that have been repeated ad infinitum. One is left desperately hoping that the forthcoming Futurama television movies will offer something more substantial.

Die Another Day ** - Even by the standards of most Bond movies, this is wildly-implausible - sometimes even completely baffling - entry in the girls 'n' gadgets genre. Nothing, from the opening credits onwards, gels properly or makes much sense. And, seen with the hindsight of the excellent Casino Royale, it is perhaps a very good thing that this was Brosnan's last outing as the suave superspy.

Lovers Of The Arctic Circle *** - A film about coincidences, about tiny choices having profound effects, and of life's occasional savagery. It's mostly a handsome production, but the deliberately obfuscated conclusion greatly lessens its dramatic impact.

Paris, Je T'Aime *** - Eighteen leading filmmakers from around the world shoot a short film each, each on the topic of love, here strung together into a single two-hour anthology that seems to go on much longer. The best of the stories are humorous, memorable, and moving. Some are just surprising. The problem is not even that some of the stories aren't very good: it's more that there are just too many. Pick and choose eight or ten and you might have a superb film. Hopefully the DVD will allow just this; maybe it will even have a jukebox function. But over the course of eighteen segments, the ensemble's flaws are obvious. For a start, it's too uneven. And even the rules laid down by the producer haven't been followed consistently. While most directors have chosen the topic to mean romantic love specifically, this is not always the case. However, as a quick introduction to directorial style, it works surprisingly well: Tom Tykwer's segment is like having the essence of Run Lola Run distilled into five minutes, for example, and the Coen Brothers, Sylvain Chomet and Gurinder Chadha likewise. But at no point does it convey the supposed magic of Paris; with only five minutes or so each to tell a story, none of the directors felt like allowing their romantic backdrop more than a mere glance of screen time.

Road To Perdition *** - A frustrating, but meticulously made and beautifully shot, gangster film, whose biggest crime is to depend overly on cliché. As a result, key plot points will be obvious to most viewers well in advance. Its roots as a graphic novel are occasionally exposed, with an uneven story and line sketches where characters should be. For all its pulchritude, Road To Perdition lacks the depth it aspires to. There are many better examples of bad-man-as-good-guy films out there.

Gloucester floods

2007-07-27T22:24:00.001+01:00

I'm very touched by the sheer quantity of emails, text messages and Facebook posts from friends across the UK expressing concern following the recent severe flooding in Gloucester. Even people I haven't spoken to in months or years have been getting in contact to ask if I'm OK. Some people who haven't even been to Gloucester have been asking after me, and after my Gloucestrian friends and colleagues, and offering all sorts of help. Even friends and acquaintances from Gloucester itself have been getting in touch to ensure I'm OK. I am extremely grateful for each and every message of support.

The truth is, I've had it very easy indeed compared to the vast majority of people in this city. My house is some twenty metres above the level of the Severn with only very small feeder streams anywhere nearby. I've spent most of the week putting on weight in a guesthouse in Sussex (it's a combination of the fried breakfasts and the expense account that does it) and enjoying the hot shower there. As a result of this cowardly exodus, much of the rest of this text is based on second-hand information.

I've arrived back this Friday evening to discover that I still have running water. To all intents and purposes, then, I haven't had any interruption to my water supply at all. I'm extremely perplexed by this state of affairs, as the next roads to the east, south and west are all still being supplied from bowsers in the streets, and Churchdown, the next village to the north, is ditto. I can only assume, until I'm told to the contrary, that Severn Trent have managed to fill a local reservoir (Chosen Hill?) with non-potable water. This is in direct contradiction with their own website, which has me right in the middle of the drought zone. It's all rather mysterious. Severn Trent's press release says that the temporary measure in place in Tewkesbury cannot be expected to supply the majority of the 130,000 affected homes across north Gloucestershire - and I'm nowhere near Tewkesbury.

This text was supposed to be a photo-journal of the current situation, but after two hours of motorcycling around Gloucester and Cheltenham this evening, I honestly couldn't find anything that was worth snapping. If you've seen one roadside water tank that looks like a large blue plastic Dalek, well, then you've seen them all.

The weather here right now is fine, although heavy rain is expected over the weekend once more. The roads are certainly dry, apart from a couple of places outside of town where small streams are draining from fields. Apart from the bowsers all over the place, and the occasional person wandering around with a couple of buckets trying to find a full one, you'd be hard pressed to identify anything wrong. Gloucester Festival is currently in full swing, and although it's muddy in the fairground in Gloucester Park, it's nothing out of the ordinary.

Look more closely and there are a few other clues. Many businesses, especially pubs and restaurants, have closed their doors. Others (including my own place of work, but also several pubs that I passed) have hired in portable toilets. In one outlying village, a particularly thoughtful parish council has hired in toilets for the use of the villagers. But many places are, somehow, just getting on with it. Plenty of local hostelries have that tell-tale gaggle of smokers outside their front doors, indicating business as usual.

The situation unfolded like this.

Last Friday afternoon, the weather was so spectacularly inclement that many colleagues opted to leave early in order to get home. This turned out to be a very good idea. My team, being highly conscientious employees, stayed until the usual finishing up time - well, almost - before trying to depart, only to discover that every route north of Gloucester was blocked. The M5 was so badly congested that hundreds of people had to sleep in their cars overnight. Other routes, including the A40, A417 and A46, were closed due to flooding. Minor roads, including Churchdown Lane near to my home, had deep water collecting in dips and were impassable. The A38 on the west side of Gloucester was open, but unreachable from the east side. Initially, everyone thought that it would be best to get some dinner at the pub and try again later. With the rain continuing and traffic still not moving by late evening, however, P. and S. both sensibly decided to stay at my house overnight. L., meanwhile, was trapped at work, due to a deep torrent of water running down the road cutting her off from her own car (actually, T.'s car, which she'd borrowed for the day). She cracked open the wine and tried to make the best of it.

On Saturday, the weather was considerably better. Gloucester city centre was bustling and busy during the day, with no obvious signs of the weather beating it had received. However, it was on Saturday that the (possibly apocryphal) story emerged of an idiot who approached a bridge with a water depth marker reading just below seven feet. He carefully moved a line of cones out of the way of his car and proceeded into the floodwater, only to crash immediately into a completely submerged vehicle in his path. That the story has already taken on the status of urban legend is indicated by some of the embellishments that I've heard, including that, as he was pulled from his terminally-damaged and now submarine vehicle, he tried to fend off his rescuer with the words, "Never mind me - what about my car?"

By Sunday, the extent of the devastation was becoming clear. The beautiful market town of Tewkesbury was almost completely submerged. H. in Quedgeley and R. in Tuffley, in the southern parts of Gloucester, reported that power and water had been cut. There were angry scenes at supermarkets across the city as fights over bottled water began to break out. People began to fill their baths and whatever vessels they could find with the last of the mains supply.

On Monday, businesses were trying to establish how they could function effectively without a fresh water supply. Bowsers started to be deployed, although Severn Trent was finding it difficult to keep them filled: their tankers were too large to fit into the residential roads where they were sited.

It was at this point that yours truly, having filled a very nice collection of old wine and beer bottles with drinking water, decided that the best course of action was to run away for the week.

A. reports that on Tuesday, although most people had their power restored, there were still queues panic-buying water at supermarkets. At Morrisons in Abbeydale, customers near the front of the queue were loading their trolleys with all the water they could physically carry, then selling the bottles to people further back in the queue at a markup of 500%. This is probably not what is being described as the "Blitz spirit". One "entrepreneur" attempting to sell water from the back of a van was reportedly hounded out of Gloucester by an angry, violent mob.

On Wednesday, news reports and some personal anecdotes indicated that there was some vandalism of water bowsers. Furthermore, A. reports, some local youths were deliberately draining all of the water out of bowsers as soon as they were filled. The BBC reported that one idiot had broken the seal on the top of a bowser and urinated into it. Both these tales make it into the list of the week's most depressing stories (along with the tragic case of the man shot dead for asking people not to smoke) that prove once and for all that mankind is doomed.

On Thursday, the police were handing out bottles of water to passing motorists. This seems to me to be a bizarre policy. After all, driving along in a private motor car is one of the times when one would not expect to have access to fresh drinking water. One might have assumed that the police had better things to do, and that fresh drinking water would better be targetted at the elderly, the infirm, and the housebound.

This brings us up to date. By Friday, things are evidently considerably more organised. Supermarkets have larger water tanks, while the vans of local companies are supplementing those hired by Severn Trent to keep bowsers filled. The bowsers are mainly blue plastic, standing on their own moulded plastic base or mounted on a trailer. Some are older metal tanks, on loan from other water companies. Larger containers are either the Dalek-shaped ones previously alluded to, or are mounted within a metal frame with reflective strips. Many have pieces of paper attached reading "WATER", although only a few bother to add "BOIL BEFORE USE".

There are bowsers at intervals along major roads. Groups of smaller roads have their own bowsers at a suitable junction. Severn Trent is maintaining a list of their locations. Some are sited in peculiar places, such as one on Abbeymead Avenue, away from any of the junctions with residential streets.

Despite the reports of vandalism, there is not much in the way of an obvious police presence at most. One bowser on Bristol Road had a couple of PCSOs standing nearby when I passed, but they appeared merely to be chatting amiably to the man filling his bottle. In fact, the only possible sign I saw of any disturbance was at the former B&Q on Trier Way. Being a large disused car park central in the city, several large tanks are sited here and there was a significant police presence, although even here, the officers seemed mainly to be managing the traffic rather than dealing with any unpleasantness.

So that's that: it's not the apocalypse, although it might well seem like it to those who live near to the Severn or Avon at Tewkesbury. There are plenty of stories of quiet heroism (although the best one - the rescue of 150 cats and dogs - actually occurred during the last round of flooding in June) and many stories of barely credible stupidity and quite spectacular selfishness.

Update 30/07/2007: Today's news about flooding in China puts the entire disaster into perspective. 119 million people affected, 450,000 homes destroyed, 650 dead.

Fascinating fact of the day. The word "bowser" is defined both by Chambers and by Dictionary.com as referring exclusively to portable containers for fuel, not water.

Quarterly film roundup - April to June 2007

2007-07-01T12:04:00.000+01:00

Children Of Men **** - I'm a fan of the genre I like to call near-future dystopia, and this one's fantastic, not least because, despite an unlikely central plot device, it all seems scarily plausible. It's set two decades hence and the world is in the grip of a terrible and mysterious affliction: no new children have been born for years. Faced with the possibility of the end of the human race in its entirety, civilisation has largely broken down. Britain has turned into a run-down police state with entire towns huge concentration camps for asylum seekers. What's especially terrifying about this vision is that an entirely realistic futurescape is created simply by shooting particularly run-down parts of London, adding minor dressings to familiar objects (such as metal grilles to red London bus windows) and shooting on a cool grey-blue film stock. But by making the familiar so oppressive, the filmmakers also show us that this is really a fable about today's fears and concerns - and a satire, and a warning. The fact that it's also great sci-fi and a solid action piece place it firmly as one of the best films of the past couple of years.

United 93 ** - This 9/11 film's much-praised sense of realism and urgency is derived from three components. First, events unfold almost in real time; second, the dialogue is either taken from actual transcripts of events or is partially improvised; and third, the photography is entirely on handheld cameras. Unfortunately, not one of these ideas actually succeeds in helping to create a watchable cinematic experience. The real-time simply means that there are sections in which very little seems to be happening. The dialogue is distracting and sometimes plain wrong. And ever since The Blair Witch Project, audiences have been aware that handheld camerawork, done wrong, can be irritating and nauseating. There is, sadly, very little to be learned from this film and many areas that could have been improved. Extremely disappointing.

Thank You For Smoking **** - A timely, and very funny, examination of the role that media spin plays in shaping public opinion. Although the nominal target is cigarette smoking, the lessons could be applied to almost any other area of public concern, including the so-called War On Terror. Top-notch satire.

Spider-Man 3 ** - A disappointing mish-mash that goes on too long and introduces too many new characters - which is a shame, because the previous two installments were model comic-book adaptations, carefully rationing the number of villains and balancing the action sequences with the series' thoroughly human moral (with great power comes great responsibility). It's all too easy to imagine some unimaginative business suit at Sony insisting on more special effects, less talk.

Pan's Labyrinth *** - This is, in essence, what Life Is Beautiful would have looked like if Roberto Benigni's character in that film had turned out to be a wizard, who could really conjure up a fantasy world for his young son, rather than merely pulling off an elaborate hoax. Billed as a sort of Alice In Wonderland for adults, this really boils down to an unexpected combination of genres: on the one hand, a bitter, highly (and explicitly) violent war film, and on the other, a fantasy which is, in places, no less difficult viewing. The success or failure of the film would always hinge on how well the parts were integrated and although the filmmakers manage some success, the realities of the outside world never mesh with the fantasies of the young girl as successfully for the audience as they do for the character. The setup of the first couple of reels, in particular, is considerably over-done. Overall, an occasionally fascinating and moderately moving story is undermined by the gruelling and relentless graphic horrors of the real world, while the fantasy world cannot sufficiently capture the audience.

March film roundup

2007-04-01T16:35:00.000+01:00

Little Miss Sunshine *** - Yet another dysfunctional suburban family dramedy (see also: Happiness, Napoleon Dynamite, The Safety Of Objects). This has more substance than most, with strong morals about being true to oneself and one's family, and it has one crucial ingredient that cannot fail to be funny: a bright yellow VW camper van, that's malfunctioning as badly as the family that owns it. But it's also a strangely amoral film in certain regards, and its sideswipes at the utter ridiculousness of junior beauty pageants will seem to UK audiences to be picking on a very easy target indeed.

Look Both Ways *** - With the visual inventiveness of Tom Tykwer at his best, this film nonetheless very obviously has a woman director - which is no bad thing, dealing as it does with everyday fears and emotions of normal people, particularly when confronted with death at close hand. The Australian cast may not be well-known in the UK, but that's also a good thing, investing the film with an intimacy and immediacy that would be lacking if they were all stars. The nightmarish animated flashes that haunt the lead character are very obviously an extension of the director's earlier short animation (also included on the DVD) but are an effective and expressive medium. A compelling and promising directorial feature debut.

Layer Cake *** - Not being a massive fan of the great British gangster drama, I did not have high hopes for Layer Cake - but fortunately it is amongst the more slick and interesting of that genre. It's notable nowadays mainly for being Daniel Craig's biggest pre-Bond role, and he's pretty good, although since absolutely everybody else sports a cockney accent, it's not absolutely clear that he's the right man for the role. There are a couple of spurious asides that don't quite work amongst the twisting plot. There's a couple of nice little jolts at the end too, although hardly on a par with Fight Club or The Usual Suspects.

An Inconvenient Truth *** - Neither as boring as it sounds (it's a slideshow by Al Gore, interspersed with his thoughts on climate change) nor as convincing as it should be, this documentary inhabits a strange position in US and world politics. "Hi, I'm Al Gore, and I used to be the next President of the United States," says he, to a ripple of laughter from his audience - and he seems relaxed and spontaneous, even though he undoubtedly uses the same line every time he presents this show. Unfortunately, the points he makes about climate change (increased temperatures, massively increased species extinctions, and the end of the gulf stream) are chosen for shock value and he fails to back up a single one of his assertions with evidence of causality - a crucial requirement for convincing the climate change sceptics. He might be forgiven for sticking to a resolutely non-technical argument, in order to reach the widest possible audience, but this merely means that inevitably he alienates those hungry for more detailed information. Despite best intentions, it's going to change nobody's opinion.

Hot Fuzz *** - Fans of Shaun Of The Dead will be well pleased with this comedy action adventure, which amply does for police buddy films what Shaun did for zombies. Anyone left underwhelmed by the earlier work, though, won't find anything particularly new here: it's hilarious in places, but not nearly consistently funny enough across its running time. And the "surprise" twist ending (or at least, the bit before the climactic gun battle) will be familiar to anyone with more than a passing knowledge of the works of Agatha Christie.

February film roundup

2007-03-01T18:52:00.000Z

A Scanner Darkly *** - A deliberately confusing, overly serious but visually stunning examination of drugs dependency, given a sci-fi sheen by author Philip K. Dick. It's surprisingly heavy going, and the inclusion in the closing credits of a list of friends fallen (to drugs) is embarrassing, but it's still a thought-provoking film and you're guaranteed never to have seen anything quite like it before.

Ray *** - Despite a superb central performance by Jamie Foxx as the eponymous Ray Charles, this is less succesful than the other recent acclaimed musical biopic Walk The Line. Like the subject of the latter, Johnny Cash, Ray had his fair share of troubles as his success grew, including drug addiction and extra-marital affairs. The difference here is that the script makes him more a pathetic victim whose redemption lay in his music - whereas WTL had a more romantic streak. It's not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, and of course the music is great, but it just misses the heights to which it aspires.

8 Mile *** - Also a music documentary of sorts: 8 Mile could be seen as a veiled biography of its star Eminem (at least, it's easy to get the impression that it was a very simple casting decision). I'm not generally a fan of the music or the lifestyle but there was plenty to hold the attention and actually I did rather enjoy the soundtrack. The outcomeof the protagonist's struggle is pleasingly left in some doubt until very near the end, with a pleasantly ambiguous finale.

January film roundup

2007-02-01T12:56:00.000Z

The Last Samurai *** - A beautifully-shot but rather heavy-going genre-crossing historical war epic / romance / martial arts picture. In mood and weight, it would likely appeal to fans of the likes of Braveheart or Dances With Wolves, but whether you can stomach it depends on whether you can stand the idea of American soldier Tom Cruise becoming an honorable samurai.

The Terminal **** - Showing the lightness of touch displayed in Catch Me If You Can, Steven Spielberg's gentle romantic comedy is a genuine crowd-pleaser that's as far removed from his subsequent Munich is it is possible to be. Tom Hanks, playing a principled foreigner stuck in an airport departure lounge due to a coup in his own country, delivers a heart-warming peformance despite (or perhaps because of) his ridiculous accent.

December film roundup

2007-01-01T17:56:00.000Z

Casino Royale **** - I have yet to even bother seeing Die Another Day, so disappointed was I with the previous installment in the enduring Bond franchise. Happily, Casino Royale disproves my assumption that the series was on its last legs. Following the successful format of recent how-it-all-got-started superhero stories such as Batman Begins, Spider-Man and the small-screen Smallville is a great idea, even if it messes with the audience's perspective on Bond continuity. (And surely Bond is a superhero, of sorts.) The action is fantastic, the Bond girl is beautiful (and no caricature either) and if the film is a little over-long, with several false endings, it doesn't matter because it's constantly entertaining, as well as unexpectedly intelligent.

When The Wind Blows **** - A throroughly moving animation from Snowman creator Raymond Briggs, this stands beside Grave Of The Fireflies as a masterpiece in examining the effect of weapons of mass destruction on innocent civilians and, as such, is as bitterly relevant today as it was twenty years ago. Jim and Hilda Bloggs (apparently the same couple as in Briggs' graphic novella Gentleman Jim) are retired and living in a countryside idyll, during the last few days before the outbreak of nuclear war. Drawing on the only experience they remember of war - WWII - they follow governmental advice to the letter in preparing for the worst. Of course the advice is useless. The highly stylised scene in which the bomb actually drops is just as disturbing as it is in Threads, but the animation style in general is revolutionary, with 2D cell animation drawn on top of 3D model sets against watercolour backgrounds. This, along with Jim's frequent flights of fancy, lend the whole film a beautiful, slightly ethereal atmosphere that only makes the ending even more heartbreaking.

Changing Lanes *** - Do unto others... is the moral of this thriller in which a car accident precipitates a tit-for-tat exchange between two strangers that soon escalates into dangerous territory. It's an obvious message and the two leads are both quite unlikeable, but the execution is good enough to hold the attention.

Requiem For A Dream *** - Possibly conceived as an American Trainspotting, this lacks the humour and depth of the Edinburgh version. Clever tricks with camera and soundtrack isolate the audience from the characters' plight so that it's hard to find much sympathy for them.

American History X *** - A disturbing look at neo-Nazism is suburban America, this also suffers from having a cast of mostly unlikeable characters. Just as sympathy for reformed skinhead Ed Norton starts to build, we are presented with a timely flashback to remind ourselves just what a nasty piece of work he was. And while an explanation for his extremist views is eventually given, it doesn't redeem his behaviour in any way.

The Sum Of All Fears *** - A nuclear bomb may or may not have been smuggled onto US soil and it's up to rookie CIA agent Jack Ryan - previously portrayed on-screen by Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford, but here played by Ben Affleck - to convince his seniors that it's not the Russians that are to blame. As such, it's a similar problem to that presented in Hunt For Red October, albeit with considerably more dire consequences if Ryan fails. It's tense enough but let down by some plot holes and the fact that it's hard to suspend disbelief.

The Virgin Suicides *** - Sofia Coppola's first film is an unusual romantic tragedy, that is intended to be as baffling for the audience as it is for the narrator. At its heart, a sort of love triangle between some boys in their early teens, the beautiful teenage sisters who live opposite, and the older kids from school who briefly attempt to break the sisters out of their parents' oppressive, religious upbringing, before the girls all simultaneously commit suicide. As such, it makes for thoroughly depressing viewing. It does, however, successfully capture just how hard being a teenager can be (or at least, seem): for the boys, their first crush and a loss of innocence; for the girls, a struggle for survival in a world that doesn't seem to fit them.

Superman Returns *** - Full of contradictions, the film is alternately earnest and humorous, slick and shoddy. Intended to be a direct follow-up to the Christopher Reeve films, but set in a recognisably twenty-first century Metropolis, somehow this fails to live up to the energy and excitement of at least the first two in that series, even with John Williams' original score being liberally deployed to keep things moving along. Kate Bosworth is beautiful but woefully miscast as Lois Lane, being too young and insufficiently world-weary to be a mother, let alone a Pulitzer-winning journalist.

The Living And The Dead *** - Simon Rumley's first theatrical feature since his Strong Language trilogy is a (possibly deliberately) frustrating experience. The idea is compelling: a disabled woman is left alone in a huge, rambling mansion with her mentally ill son who, soon enough, stops taking his medication and starts "caring for" his mother in a way that suggests that, following her death, he might well go a bit Norman Bates and continue "caring" for her. The cinematography is often remarkable, alternating between beautiful, almost serene visuals and manic, disturbing spasms of noise and movement. The ending is pleasantly ambiguous, too. But the sheer manic energy of the ill son is wearing from the start and played without subtlety. Like all of Rumley's films, this one has split audience reactions down the middle and it may require repeat viewing to tease out its highlights.

November film roundup

2006-12-01T23:01:00.000Z

Passport To Pimlico *** - First of this month's triple-bill of classic Ealing comedies, this is a high-concept movie in which the London suburb of Pimlico declares itself to be an independent state. The situations start off funny (such as stopping Tube trains on the Victoria line for customs checks) but even across the slim running time the jokes start to wear thin.

Kind Hearts And Coronets **** - A wonderful and very funny piece of classic British cinema whose biggest achievement is encouraging complicity between the audience and the (at best, amoral) protagonist who seeks to murder his way to the inheritance he believes is rightfully his. Alec Guinness, as several members of the same dynasty, is exceptionally good. Thoroughly deserves its place on IMDb's Top 250.

The Ladykillers ** - This other well-known Ealing comedy starts promisingly, with a gang of thieves masquerading as unlikely concert musicians taking up residence in a boarding house with the intention of using their unwitting landlady in a daring million-pound heist. However, as the film descends into pure farce, the humour has dated less well and eventually becomes both tiresome and uncomfortable.

Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan *** - There is little left to be said about this film which has been thoroughly examined, re-examined, praised and criticised. Yes, the film is in places extremely funny, but also makes for uncomfortable analysis. Is it highly offensive or good satire? Is it ever right to manipulate people into condemning themselves without giving them the right to explain themselves? This is an entry into a growing trend in television comedy in particular, in which ordinary citizens are humiliated in the name of entertainment. The two best things that can be said for Borat are that its performer is utterly fearless and that it is a masterpiece of editing. The worst thing that can be said is that it is highly dangerous.

Brick ** - This is explicitly a film noir, transplanted into a modern Californian high school, complete with analogues for all the standard cast of characters of a noir, from grizzled policeman to femme fatale. Some of the cast provide fantastic performances, but the film overall fails to compel, because of the sheer effort that it demands from its viewer: the dialogue is swift and idiomatic (and there is no subtitle track on the DVD) which means that the plot is often baffling rather than exciting. This is a real shame, because in mood it does successfully recall not only classic noir but also contemporary works such as David Lynch's Mulholland Dr., with its cool, mysterious atmospherics and lingering cinematography; but without the ability to draw the viewer into its highly artificial world, it cannot maintain its sense of intrigue.

Tsotsi *** - More or less a South African answer to City Of God, Tsotsi follows a thug from the Soweto township near Johannesburg as he steals a car from a rich neighbourhood, only to discover that he has accidentally kidnapped a baby as well. As the film meanders towards his possible redemption, it takes some time to ponder both what has changed since the days of apartheid when the novel was written (the baby belonged to rich black parents) and what has not (the crippling poverty and squalor for millions of people). Unfortunately the impact of the film is lessened by a weak ending and by missing some opportunities to be as profoundly moving as it could potentially have been.

October film roundup

2006-11-01T09:53:00.000Z

The Cat Returns *** - What Douglas Adams did for both mice and dolphins - that is, give them a secret civilisation that humans couldn't see - Studio Ghibli now does for cats. For anyone who views cats with distrust, this is a great film - but it probably equally suits cat-lovers, too. It features The Baron, the cat figurine featured in Whisper Of The Heart, in a fantasy adventure that is both thematically similar and stylistically dissimilar from other Ghibli works, weaving in elements of Alice In Wonderland, The Wizard Of Oz and even - I'm pretty sure - Winnie The Pooh. At 75 minutes, it's very much shorter than the average Ghibli animation, suggesting that it is pitched at a younger audience. While it's fun, it's far too modest, lacking the usual Ghibli magic. As (mostly) usual, the English language dub is good, with a couple of well-known actors in the main roles (Cary "Dread Pirate Roberts" Elwes, who voiced The Baron in Whisper, returns in the role). But it can't avoid showing its roots: as a short film that's been expanded, it feels too slight compared to most of Ghibli's output. One for Ghibli completists and cat lovers.

Heaven *** - Tom Tykwer's latest film - co-penned by Three Colours director Krzysztof Kieslowski - is as beautiful and as infuriating as might be expected of the director of Run Lola Run and The Princess And The Warrior. Tykwer's obsession with coincidence and serendipity is much in evidence, as is his distinctive visual style. Cate Blanchett is wonderful; she makes a potentially hateful figure immensely likeable. But the film can't quite shake the fact that, as religious allegory (which is surely what it is - certainly there are unsubtle pointers) it simply doesn't work.

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow ** - This experiment in combining live action with computer-drawn sets is handsomely painted but lacks plot, script, humour and heart. Things start promisingly enough with giant robots spectacularly attacking New York in some kind of alternate 1930s, but the film quickly goes off the boil with unlikely plot developments and some cringingly-bad dialogue. In style, this is close to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within which suffered similarly from a lack of any kind of plot or character development, not to mention some truly bizarre lapses in the "reality" of the scenario. In mood, though, this most represents one of those animé films (giant robots, lasers and retro-futuristic flying machines all present and correct) in which the English language dub has been severely dumbed down. When the aircraft she is travelling in is visibly diving perilously towards the sea, is it strictly necessary for Gwyneth Paltrow to say so repeatedly? It's moments like this that turn this into an earnest, risible and ultimately forgettable mess.

Threads (TVM) ***** - This BBC drama from 1984, directed by Mick Jackson - an acclaimed documentary filmmaker whose previous credits included the seminal The Ascent Of Man and whose later move to Hollywood would result in, er, The Bodyguard and LA Story - is a bold, thoroughly brilliant and extremely disturbing examination of the events in the days leading up to, and the several years following, a nuclear attack on the UK. Even though the fashions have dated somewhat and the 16mm photography lacks contrast and colour saturation, the film still seems years ahead of its time, both in plot (the US is facing a stand-off against hostile forces in Iran - OK, it's against the USSR in this case, but there are plenty of modern parallels) and in execution: presented in a serious yet matter-of-fact kind of way, like a documentary, which adds even more weight to the events as they unfold. The closing credits list a number of academics who contributed to the film, suggesting that this is just about the most truthful examination of nuclear war that one could expect to see. The two-hour run-time is split down the middle with the attack itself occurring right in the middle of the film and, subsequently, some horrific images of the immediate and more distant aftermath, including a nuclear winter and a return to mediaeval ways of life. No punches are pulled: the dead and dying are everywhere; things get violent and ugly as people realise that there is no food; traffic wardens are armed with machine guns to guard troublemakers in makeshift prison camps. But it's the first half of the film that is truly terrifying. In the days before the attack, the ordinary citizens of Sheffield casually go about their business, barely paying attention to the growing military crisis in the Middle East, even when the UK Government starts to bring in emergency powers (which, to an early twenty-first century viewer, may seem uncomfortably familiar, amongst them compulsory ID cards and the right to hold potential troublemakers without trial). By the time the attack siren sounds, very few people are prepared, most caught out in the open doing their weekly shopping. Again the film pulls no punches: private citizens and local government officials alike panic, scarcely believing what's happening. And besides, after the bomb drops, those who have taken some precautions fare no better than those caught completely unawares. Overall, this is harrowing, seriously horrifying material: this reviewer has never been as comprehensively terrified by a film before.

September film roundup

2006-10-01T14:57:00.000+01:00

A good quantity of (mainly older) films this month of and wildly varying characteristics: none quite reach the standards achieved last month, but there's some fascinating pieces of filmmaking here.

The Safety Of Objects *** - I don't appear ever to have written a review of Panic Room (an unusual omission on my part) but I remember being slightly surprised, about three-quarters of the way through, to realise that Jodie Foster's young son was actually a girl called Sarah. Curious, then, that young actress Kristen Stewart's androgynous, tomboyish appearance is actually a crucial plot point in the previous year's The Safety Of Objects. There's no doubt at all, from the opening scene onwards, that we are watching the work of a female director (and, indeed, mainly female crew). It's yet another entry in the genre of films that contains American Beauty, Donnie Darko, Napoleon Dynamite, Me And You And Everyone We Know, Happiness, Ghost World and The Rules Of Attraction: that is, interlocking character pieces, mainly set in normal suburban lives with dark secrets. As such, it's not an especially interesting example of the genre, although there are some solid performances and a more optimistic ending than in many of the films listed. I guess I'm just not a fan of a genre that, by definition, relies on intricate cross-threading and hence, by restrictive screen time and a large number of strands to cover, doesn't allow the audience to develop intimacy with the characters.

Syriana **** - Also an ensemble piece, but in no way similar to The Safety Of Objects, this is a highly complex, politically-charged drama about America's dependence on oil. The structure is more tightly bound than Traffic, with which it shares a pedigree. If there's a fault, it's that it's such a complicated story - and such a complicated issue - that it demands a great deal of concentration and, consequently, leaves little time for the audience to develop much of a connection for the characters. Overall exhausting but extremely worthwhile.

V For Vendetta *** - Like Syriana, this sets out to show us some truths about the world we live in today - but does it through the medium of a near-future dystopian sci-fi / graphic novel adaptation. Now don't get me wrong: as a writer, I really like near-future dystopias, but V failed to convince for the first 45 minutes or so. Thankfully, things did improve in the second half, but instead of reaching the heights aspired to (a twenty-first century Nineteen Eighty-Four, I assume), it still managed, frustratingly, to come across merely as a big melting pot of ideas from Doctor Who added to a splash of the eponymous mysterious benefactor in Phantom Of The Opera and any number of masked-avenger stories. Briefly: the US and possibly the rest of the world has fallen into anarchy, leaving the UK in the hands of a totalitarian, Christian fundamentalist government who probably don't have the best interest of their citizens at heart. Actually, in reality, it's probably easier to imagine that the US has gone this way than the UK. There are occasional condescending fumblings that betray the American authorship; and some casting decisions are a trifle bizarre; but at least the film attempts to make effective and moody use of its London locations (yet also manages a liberal number of studio or digital sets that stand out a mile). The film's primary downfall is probably its deeply cold execution: it's supposed to be a story that invites its audience to think for themselves and make comparisons with the current state of the nation, but falls flat because it never lets us close enough to the characters to care. A film that heads for greatness but misses the mark. V. disappointing.

Good Night, And Good Luck *** - Yet another film that seeks to show us some truths about the world today, this time in a historical context. It's the 1950s and Senator McCarthy's witchhunt is in full swing. At CBS, liberal broadcasters attempt to discredit McCarthy's methods without themselves occurring his wrath and without losing their sponsors. It's really all about the ongoing self-interest of the media versus exposure of the truth, a topic with profound relevance today. Interestingly, one of the key criticisms levelled at the media organisations in the film is their unwillingness to report bad news. In the twenty-first century, one might argue that the opposite is true: that it's politicians' leaking of bad news and the media's propagation of it that leads us to the vastly inflated sense of fear in the West today. The drama is compelling enough but perhaps a little too constrained by its setting (almost entirely within the Columbia television studios). I'd love to see this as a stage play performed by these actors: it would be riveting.

Only Yesterday *** - Of considerably less universal importance is this Studio Ghibli animation (Omohide Poro Poro, literally (apparently) the beautifully poetic "Memories Of Falling Teardrops") about Taeko, a city woman in her late twenties, struggling to reconcile her memories of childhood whilst on a working holiday on a safflower farm. It's an occasionally eccentric and baffling film from the director of the brilliant Grave Of The Fireflies. Sandwiched in production terms between the highly enjoyable Porco Rosso and the equally wonderful Kiki's Delivery Service, this is heavily grounded in reality: so this is likely to be the first and probably only cartoon that discusses both agricultural economics and menstruation in the space of a few short minutes. The animation, too, is ground-breaking in its level of detail. It's certainly a beautifully drawn film whose main fault is simply that it's too introspective: for all the verbal and physical bullying the ten-year-old Taeko endures, she seems to have fared no worse than any other child on the cusp of puberty, which makes her reminiscences seem rather trivial and self-absorbed.

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg ***- Catherine Deneuve has appeared in several rather bizarre musicals in her lifetime. Even the likes of Dancer In The Dark and 8 Femmes don't quite prepare the viewer for this gloriously, self-indulgently artificial musical in which, rather than shoot on Technicolor to achieve that MGM look, the director opts to paint everything in dayglo colours and have his cast wear bright purple and pink clothes that, more often than not, match the wallpaper in whatever venue they happen to be: it's a bit like a prototype for Baz Luhrmann's brilliant but garish Moulin Rouge! Every word is sung, which heightens the artifice still further. (Early on, a car mechanic sings that he prefers films to opera, because he doens't like the way people sing all the time in opera - hammering the point home just a shade too much.) The story isn't particularly deep - but then, it doesn't need to be - and yet it shies away from convention and has a "happy" ending that isn't the one the audience might expect. Some of the music is pretty good and it doesn't outstay its welcome. Of course, the film is aided no end by the fact that Deneuve herself looks positively angelic (leading to this being allegedly the only musical in history with more male fans than female). But the primary colours and incessant singing can also add up to something of a headache: one would not want to watch this with a hangover. As a unique piece of movie fluff, then, it's good; but it requires some patience to overcome the initial bemusement.

Don't Look Now *** - This classic British psychological thriller stirs up requisite amounts of dread without resorting to blood 'n' gore. The plot centres around a couple whose young daughter may or may not be attempting to contact them from beyond the grave. As audience, we are more frequently frightened than perhaps the characters themselves as they are placed in increasingly (apparently) perilous situations and it becomes apparent that, while there may well be a perfectly innocence explanation for the various phenomena occurring, equally some or all may not be as it seems: anyone, from their friends to the police officers to the churchmen, might be a threat. Sadly the film has not aged well. The cinematography - shot with delibeartely washed-out blues and greens (but particularly garish reds) does turn Venice, which in summertime is a sumptuous and beautiful city, into an eerie, creepy, threatening place; but additionally, time has taken its toll both on the print quality and the soundtrack to Don't Look Now, which proves to be a distraction. The suspense builds well to the iconic closing scence, which will be familiar to even to first-time viewers as a result of repeated use on clip shows and in other movies, and in homage form in the likes of Mulholland Dr.

Barton Fink *** - Like the best of the Coen Brothers' output, this is a sprawling but enthralling tale with surreal undercurrents. The eponymous Fink is a playwright in New York whose critical success leads to him being lured to Hollywood, where he tries to write something meaningful for an audience that just wants the latest brainless blockbuster. It's a multi-layered film: part psychological thriller, part statement on the mass audience for film, part autobiography for the Coens (who, like Fink, had had one major critical success that they were attempting to follow up with this film). Structurally, the film gets across the nature of the artistic process: there are long periods in which nothing happens, followed by a frenzy of activity when inspiration strikes. However, it's this structure that hinders the film somewhat, making it feel somewhat uneven and even a bit dull in places. Fortunately it is redeemed by both an excellent cast and the Coens' unfaltering visual style.

August film roundup

2006-09-01T09:10:00.000+01:00

What a month. August started out looking like a bit of a damp squib but quickly warmed up thanks to some of the best films I've seen in the past couple of years.

Happiness ** - A film designed from start to finish to make the audience squirm. For your consideration: domestic violence; obscene phone calls; rape fantasies; paedophilia; and full and frank discussion of burgeoning teenage sexuality which climaxes (ahem) in a now infamous shot of projectile bodily fluid. Oh, and divorce, theft, suicide and murder. This is, incidentally, billed as a comedy. The plot, such as it is, centres around three sisters and the friends, family and neighbours around them, of varying degrees of weirdness and / or criminality. It could be that, on the page, this looked like a daring, unique philosophical work. Unfortunately the film isn't even a fraction as clever as it seems to think it is and instead comes across as pretentious, unsubtle and too calculated to truly shock. Sadly, this turns the film into little more than a freak show in which the only emotion actually evoked is relief that real life just isn't this bad.

Heat **** - A long but surprisingly complex, moody and very effective cops vs. robbers thriller with the leads on each side played respectively by acting heavyweights Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. The tension ratchets up over the entire (nearly 3-hour) runtime and, brilliantly, the audience can find themselves rooting for both opposing parties.

March Of The Penguins *** - Well-regarded throughout the world as a formal theatrical documentary, this might come across as somewhat redundant to a UK audience who have grown up with David Attenborough and BBC Bristol. The story of Emperor Penguins' annual fight for survival whilst tending to their vulnerable single chicks is always a compelling one - and it's easy to anthropomorphise the creatures and believe narrator Morgan Freeman's description of this as a love story - but actually, we've seen it before and familiarity does indeed bring a degree of contempt. Certainly nowhere near as compelling as Grizzly Man.

Porco Rosso **** - In 2001, Empire magazine carried a brief article about the ongoing failure to release Princess Mononoke in the UK, in which a spokesperson for Buena Vista confidently claimed that none of the Studio Ghibli back catalogue would ever be released, as there was no demand for them in the West. Happily, she was quite, quite wrong: nearly all of the catalogue is now available on region 2 DVD. There is always going to be a market for the "alternative" to mainstream cinema, particularly when so well-executed that it puts to shame what most people would consider to be the gold standard of Western animated filmmaking, epitomised by Disney and more recently by Pixar and Dreamworks. Ghibli has been consistently turning out brilliant, near-perfect animations for two decades. Amongst my own humble reviews, the average mark scored by Ghibli films is astonishingly high; there is not a single one that could be considered as even slightly below average. Porco Rosso is one of the lesser-known works by Hayao Miyazaki and is certainly less celebrated than Spirited Away whose critical and commercial success was, in fact, the key factor in the eventual release of the majority of the back catalogue. But this film is, as near as makes no difference, perfect. Two years ago, I would have readily given this the full ***** score and the only reason I haven't is because I now have much more stringent requirements for that (which has resulted in only a single ***** film in the past two and a half years): and actually, Porco won't have universal appeal, even for some Ghibli fans. The title character is an ace pilot and bounty hunter in the inter-war era, battling pirates in the Adriatic and collecting his reward, living alone on an island beach. His real name is Marco, but due to a mysterious "curse", he has been turned into a pig, earning him the nickname Porco. (Of course, the curse can be perceived as a figurative device. We learn that he became a pig after fighting for the Italians in the First World War, when he lost many of his friends and colleagues - shown in a haunting, ethereal, near-silent scene in which they pilots and planes float away to Heaven in a shimmering cloud. His appearance is a physical manifestation of the guilt he feels. What, then, can break the "spell"? But Porco's physical appearance is also an unexpected literalism: he is a chauvinist pig; he is pig-headed.) After nearly losing his plane to an American hired by the pirates to shoot him down, he teams up with the feisty granddaughter of a plane builder and repairer, who happens to be a brilliant aeronautical engineer, as well as the most disgracefully tempting teenage animated character since, uh, Ariel. Overall, the mood is rather different, perhaps more adult and more personal than most Miyazaki films, although it contains many familiar themes (flying machines, no easy good vs. evil categorisation, and strong female characters) albeit without such grand environmental and social subtexts that he has favoured of late. Instead, it's a film about honour and about coming to terms with one's own past, which happens to sit snugly in its historical context, with Italian fascism on the ascent and the romantic, heroic era of early aviation not yet in descent. It's also probably the most beautiful of all Ghibli's animations in its pre-CGI era, which is high praise indeed. In the end, not a huge amount actually happens and the ending feels slightly too abrupt - we could have done with a more emotional pay-off, even if the existing conclusion is entirely in keeping with the character - but it's easy to forgive any minor flaws because it's otherwise so perfectly executed throughout. Even the English-language dub by Disney is successful, with Michael Keaton effective as Porco - who, come to think of it, is almost a Batman-esque avenger in his own right, hiding behind the mask of his curse. Modest as it is, I'm happy to call this the best "new" film I've seen this year.

The Princess And The Warrior *** - Cinderella for the twenty-first century, tied into a taut thriller, with the same director / leading lady pair as the brilliant Run Lola Run. It's not quite as original as that work but explores similar themes of fate and serendipity - this time in a romantic context, but again against a criminal background. The romance is realistic - awkward as much as sweet. But the intentionally dreamy nature of the film makes it feel too long and without the frenetic pacing of Lola it struggles to hold the interest.

Snakes On A Plane *** - Having gained a huge amount of publicity in advance of its release, the filmmakers decided to shoot a handful of new scenes to please the burgeoning fanbase. These scenes tend to stick out like a sore thumb. Whether this fact even matters depends on the viewer's point of view. If you take this as a "serious" disaster flick, it's diabolical, on a par with the very worst that genre has to offer. If you take it as a light-hearted riff on the stereotypical 1970s aeroplane-in-trouble film - which, post Airplane!, is probably the right way of thinking - then it's fun and enjoyably gruesome. The laughs tend to come from knowing the well-worn routines: death coming unexpectedly, or to the most irritating / bravest / stupidest of the supporting cast (with the lead cast never in much danger). There's even an Airplane!-esque "Can anybody fly a plane?" moment [*]. It's a good film in the way that From Dusk Till Dawn was fun and seems destined to find a similar niche market.

[*] Even though it rips off a joke I wrote in my first feature screenplay as far back as 1999. Although, actually, I nicked it lock-stock from Flight Of The Phoenix anyway.

Capote *** - At one time, Truman Capote was the most celebrated author in America, and possibly the world. He was, apparently, also a squeaky-voiced weirdo who struggled to reconcile his friendship with the subjects of his masterpiece, In Cold Blood, with the fact that he really needed them to be found guilty of murder and, preferably, hanged, so that he could finish the book. This biopic pulls no punches and works as a documentary, but whether it works as a film depends on how quickly the viewer starts to find Capote's endless self-absorption irritating. Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance is almost uncanny, but that doesn't make the character any less annoying. As with this year's other celebrated biopic, Walk The Line, some of the supporting characters are almost as interesting as Capote himself, including Capote's close friend Nelle Harper Lee, whom generations of schoolchildren will recognise as the author of To Kill A Mockingbird.

Munich ***** - A fictionalised account of the kidnapping and subsequent murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and, more importantly, Israel's subsequent response to it: Mossad sends a handful of its agents - disavowed, of course - to murder eleven Palestinians that they judge to be instrumental in organising the Munich kidnapping. As mentioned above, it's been a very long time since I issued a ***** review and even in this case, it was not without some agonising. Spielberg still, even now, can't do endings and the film could have been more tightly edited. But, apart from this and a couple of very minor but surprising technical glitches (parts of the dialogue soundtrack were a bit ropey), the film is near flawless. As a straightforward conspiracy thriller, it stands head-and-shoulders above anything else in the genre recently. It's always taut, as the characters must wrestle not only with their own belief systems but also with constant fear as the KGB and CIA appear to get involved in their plotting. As political piece, it's more lightweight, but the filmmakers have evidently gone to some trouble to humanise both sides of the equation. The violence is restrained at first, more bloody later, as the five assassins begin to warm to their task: so although we do not see the aftermath of the first bomb the group plants, we are not spared when they shoot a young woman and leave her, deliberately naked and splayed as a final humiliation. Near the film's conclusion, Spielberg unwisely links the themes of sex and murder in a way that might well have appealed to Kubrick. As with all Spielberg's films, this is about family and home: the lead assassin (played by Eric Bana) has a wife and young child to protect, as well as more broadly his homeland, and of course the Palestinians are mainly motivated by a land to call a home of their own. The film finishes with a shot of the New York skyline with the Twin Towers prominent: a trivial comparison, perhaps, but effective in context. It's a brave project for a top Hollywood director and an even braver one for a brace of mainstream studios to back (Universal, Dreamworks, Alliance Atlantis) but it works and it feels balanced without being unnecessarily restrained.

July film roundup

2006-08-01T17:26:00.000+01:00

Grizzly Man *** - The story of one of America's most well-known experts in grizzly bears, Timothy Treadwell, who spent years living wild with the bears until - inevitably, really - he was killed and eaten by one of them, along with his girlfriend. The documentary is mainly footage shot by Treadwell itself. Remember when the Martin Bashir documentary on Michael Jackson was aired on ITV? There were two main reactions. The Daily Mail crowd, perhaps unsurprisingly, were utterly shocked by the self-evident paedophilia on display. More liberal observers might, on the other hand, have viewed Jackson as rather a sad character, so naive and lost in his own inner fantasy world that by default he could not possibly mean harm to any child. Well, Grizzly Man does for bears what Bashir's doc did for children, although with significantly less sensationalism (being narrated, after all, by a dispassionate German man, who reserves judgement until quite near the end of his story and who seems more inclined to a quasi-parental expression of disappointment in his subject than judgement). Treadwell, like Jackson, is shown to be increasingly withdrawing into a fantasy world which deliberately shuts out most human contact in favour of the company of bears. As eccentric as he is, it's impossible not to notice that some of the lesser characters in this story (such as the coroner who examined Treadwell's remains, and the narrator himself) are pretty weird, too. Eventually, Treadwell's mood swings (he seems prone to violent, obscene outbursts directed at his camera) become uncomfortable viewing and one begins to wonder what his motivations really are - leading to unanswered questions about how Treadwell and his partner came to die, particularly as this was recorded on audio but not video. Might he, perhaps, have deliberately provoked the bear into causing his own death, deliberately recording the sound only, to become a grizzly martyr? It would fit his personality. Or, even more sinisterly, might he even have been intentionally responsible for the death of his own girlfriend, but fudged the audio to make it sound like a bear attack? We can, of course, never know; his death is generally accepted to be down to misadventure, caused by a gross miscalculation on his own part about the level of danger he was in. Fundamentally, the whole premise, persona and execution of this one man's mission is so outrageous that it's difficult to take the documentary seriously, despite its tragic conclusion.

The Libertine ** - Johnny Depp insists in his opening monologue that "you will not like me" but then proceeds to attempt to disprove himself with what should be a sympathetic portrayal of the decadent Earl of Rochester: the audience is, I think, supposed to support him and, yes, to like him as he drinks and sleeps his way to certain death. It doesn't quite come off, however. Not because of his debauchery: that might almost be fun. Perhaps it is because, post-Pirates Of The Caribbean, it's difficult to see anything Depp does as being more than self-indulgent swagger on his own terms, which detracts rather from Rochester's own intense arrogance and self-belief. Sadly uncompelling.

Whisper Of The Heart **** - OK, so, we've established that I'm a fan of Studio Ghibli. We've also determined that every Ghibli film is, more-or-less, a remake of the one before (with a couple of notable exceptions - Grave Of The Fireflies principal amongst them). So why do I persist in rating them so highly? Why have I not long-since become bored with these repetitive "kids films"? Because they are so beautiful, so charming, so completely different to anything produced by an American studio. In this case, the story could hardly be simpler: two teenagers meet and fall for each other. What could be cringe-inducing turns out to be brilliantly, sensitively handled and not embarrassing at all. Perhaps the fact that it's an animation (unlike most other Ghibli films, with their creatures and spirits, it really need not have been) helps in this regard. The medium also allows for more detail, more humour and more flights of fantasy than live-action could provide. The English-language voice cast do a good job.

January 2nd *** - Independent film with a strong, infectious sense of humour, good use of location and some remarkably fine performances from its relatively unknown cast, but with too many flaws to make it to the big league of British film. A somewhat mismatched bunch of 30-something friends meet over a New Year weekend in the Welsh countryside. Revelations about prior behaviour and infidelities abound, shattering friendships and ruining relationships. There is a genuine claustrophobic sense that these people are here together in this great wilderness, far from the rest of civilisation, and it's anybody's guess whether they will resolve their differences by the conclusion. Overall a rewarding experience but the technical and logical errors will try the patience of most audiences.

June film roundup

2006-07-01T14:57:00.000+01:00

An even quieter month than last, at least I've made up for a lack of quantity with some better quality.

Wah-Wah **** - This autobiopic (is that a word?) from Richard E. Withnail Grant could have been an indulgent vanity project extolling the brilliance of life in late colonial Swaziland; or it could have turned into morbid self-examination, full of guilt and angst. That Grant steers a successful course between these murky waters is to his credit. The tragic aspects (such as his father's drink problem, violence and divorce) are handled sensitively and are offset by moments of warmth and humour (and sometimes out-and-out comedy). It may poke fun at the British class system, but on the whole this is not a political film, nor especially complex, preferring to tell its story through vignettes rather than epic sweep. The cast are universally wonderful.

My Neighbour Totoro **** - Two young sisters move to a new home and find it and the surrounding forest inhabited by strange creatures that only they can see. Critics have argued that animé master Hayao Miyazaki has made his reputation - and that of Studio Ghibli - by endlessly repeating the same story over and over. So it appears here at first glance, with many Miyazaki trademarks present and correct. If anything, this is more lightweight than some of his other films; there are no profound observations on growing up (Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service) or mankind's impact on the environment (Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind). Instead, we are presented with a simple, uncomplicated but beautiful and tender portrait of childhood. My Neighbour Totoro is a sort of cross between Alice In Wonderland and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. It's not a comedy in the Disney sense of the term: when the viewer laughs, it is not likely to be for humour, but for joy.

May film roundup

2006-06-27T14:31:00.000+01:00

May was not a particularly good month quantity-wise, but I was looking forward to a couple of the most highly-regarded films of the past year. Without further ado...

Brokeback Mountain *** - A slow-burning melodrama that, despite being as beautiful and unique as all the hype has made out, managed to feel rather insubstantial. Part of this was due to the deliberate attempts to keep the film sensitive and sympathetic both to the characters and to the worldwide audience. The "issue" the film addresses is, of course, that same-sex love is very rarely presented in mainstream cinema. But beyond the "issue", Brokeback Mountain does not offer much insight. For a tragic love affair, it is surprisingly unemotional, uncomplex and offers little insight beyond what we already know (which is that redneck middle-Americans are likely to react badly, maybe even violently, to "threats" such as homosexuality). A gay Romeo & Juliet this most certainly is not.

Lost In La Mancha *** - This documentary records the increasingly hopeless attempts by Terry Gilliam to make a film version of the Don Quixote story. Things commence badly with actors who can't (or won't) cooperate and a star who needs urgent medical treatment just as filming is due to start. By Day 2 of the shoot, when crew and equipment are almost washed away by unexpected rainstorms, Gilliam must have been starting to wish he'd never bothered. The documentary offers a glimpse of Gilliam's perfectionist personality and tantalising details of the film that might have been. However, the only real sting is simply to demonstrate how fickle Lady Luck can be.

The Constant Gardener ** - One of the most overrated films of the past couple of years. When the activist wife (Rachel Weiss) of the eponymous gardener / British civil servant (Ralph Fiennes) is killed in suspicious circumstances, he is plunged into the dangerous world of Big Business, in the form of an ethics-free pharmaceutical company. The story takes some swallowing (although we are told by author John Le Carré that what goes on in real life is much, much worse). In the latter sections (and even more so in some scenes that were eventually deleted), the action takes place across multiple countries and even continents at a highly frenetic pace yet still the film fails to drive home the essential element of menace: like director Fernando Meirelles' earlier City Of God, the handheld camerawork tends to be intrusive rather than naturalistic. Fiennes' performance begins lumpenly and unconvincingly and doesn't really pick up until the closing scenes. Fortunately he and the film are saved from severe awfulness by the brilliant and lovely Rachel Weiss, whose personality is sufficiently passionate and whose story (told mainly in flashback) sufficiently compelling to hold the viewer's interest. Overall, a botched opportunity for a really great film.

Film roundup: the missing reviews, part 1

2006-05-13T15:32:00.000+01:00

I try - hard - to review every film as I watch it, not least because it is only really possible to do justice to a film if it's still fresh in my mind. At the time of writing this entry, I have 46 unreviewed films, mostly watched between six and twelve months ago. I have extremely brief notes on these and will try to convey this as fairly as possible. This is the first in a series of minireviews in an attempt to catch up.

Perfect Blue *** - Unusually amongst the animé films I've seen, this is a character-based thriller. If Hitchcock had tried his hand at animation, the result might have looked something like this. A young "manufactured" pop star gives up her place in the most popular girl band around in order to pursue a career as an actress. Soon enough, she finds herself being stalked and people near to her suffering gruesome murders. Increasingly hysterical, it's never really clear whether she is in real danger or whether this is a manifestation of her own internal demons. It's a genuinely taut psychological thriller in which, ironically, the animation is the biggest distraction.

Teaching Mrs Tingle ** - A trio of cardboard-cutout schoolkids accidentally take their overbearing teacher hostage and then, unable to release her, play a series of psychological games on her. The scenario is not remotely plausible and this is best viewed as wish-fulfillment fantasy. Nowhere near the standard of other Miramax films of its time.

Pieces Of April *** - A young woman, misunderstood by her family, plans a Thanksgiving dinner for them, only to befall a series of disasters that threaten to prove what her estranged family thinks they already know: that she's an irresponsible mess. The success or failure of this independent film (shot on HDV) depends on the viewer's ability to imagine two parents who like and trust their daughter so little. The film labours its points a little too hard in places, but ultimately achieves its goal: we do feel sorry for April, and hope that the meal will be a success.

Million Dollar Baby **** - Despite having no interest whatsoever in boxing, I was mesmerised by this brilliant drama about an ageing boxing coach who reluctantly takes on a female student. Clint Eastwood stars and directs, proving once and for all that his extraordinary career is still going from strength to strength. Morgan Freeman is, of course, fantastic. But both are upstaged by Hilary Swank, whose Oscar-winning performance is heartbreaking and utterly compelling.

The Rules Of Attraction ** - On the one hand a fantastic technical tour de force, the only major problem with this film is that it's so incredibly unlikeable. Nasty, horrible, self-absorbed characters do nasty, horrible, selfish things to each other and everybody feels miserable. There are hints that the film is trying to be something more - an ignored lover who commits suicide could be seen as the equivalent of Miss Lonely Hearts in Hitchcock's Rear Window, the one true tragedy in a sea of otherwise rather meaningless lives. But actually, the back story (the central character is supposed to be Patrick American Psycho Bateman's brother) and the director's technical prowess are the only reasons to see this film.

April film roundup

2006-05-02T13:28:00.000+01:00

K-19: The Widowmaker ** - Hollywood once again plays with the facts, not to mention casting the most implausible Russian submariners since Sean Connery, in this long and turgid film about a stricken nuclear flagship. The fact that it's a tragic true tale does not, sadly, make up for the lack of pace. The memories of the brave Soviet crew members who risked certain death by entering the reactor are not, on the whole, well-served by this film, which relishes in pointing out the obvious: that the most serious price of communism was the state's lack of compassion for the individual. Ironically, then, the film as it its most horrific and effective when pointing out these incidental details: a nameless quartermaster, finding no radiation suits in stores, supplies the boat with chemical protection suits instead, and it is in these, as useless as tissue paper, that the reactor repairs are carried out.

Maria Full Of Grace *** - As always with an "issue film", it's hard to separate the quality of the film from the gravity of the issue. Like Lilya 4-Ever this is about a distinctly late-twentieth / early twenty-first century phenomenon: in this case, young, desperate Columbian women are hired as drugs mules, forced to swallow huge quantites of drugs, and then sent into America. Despite showing the fates of two of Maria's fellow mules - one extremely grizzly - somehow the film fails to convince that Maria herself is in imminent danger.

Walk The Line **** - This acclaimed biopic of Johnny Cash is actually as good as the critics say it is. Joaquin Phoenix portrays the singer's inner torment well; there are delightful sidelines from Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis (not to mention producer Sam Phillips) that place the film in historical and musical context; and the music is great. But the real ace up this film's sleeve is Reese Witherspoon's performance as June Carter, the moral and emotional core of the film, who is so instantly adorable it's little wonder that the real Man In Black proposed to her more than thirty times.

Bound *** - Before The Matrix there was this. The opening section is pure porn-movie spoof; the latter part a fairly standard heist / double-cross movie that does, in fact, manage to spark a real sense of danger. But, directed by two of the geekiest brothers on the planet, the film never quite stops feeling exploitative.

A History Of Violence *** - David Cronenburg's latest starts promisingly with a small-town everyman turned reluctant hero finding himself and his family terrorised by gangsters from another state. Unfortunately, after building tension admirably for the first hour or so, it veers off into altogether more run-of-the-mill territory. We're left wondering what the long-term ramifications on this close-knit, loving family are likely to be: questions which the film ducks out of answering.

Serenity *** - This space fable from the pen of Buffy creator Joss Whedon - the big-screen spinoff from failed sci-fi series Firefly - plays something like a cold war version of Starship Troopers or the short-lived Space: Above And Beyond - which is no bad thing. A cast of complete unknowns helps (although, distractingly, they appear to have been cast based on their physical resemblance to various A-listers). Proceedings are lively but mostly unoriginal, borrowing heavily from Star Wars and Star Trek, and the seriousness of the film's "message" is but a veneer on something which is all-too-obviously intended to be eye-popping but shallow.

Collateral **** - Tom Cruise successfully plays against type in this violent and very tense thriller. Not dissimilar to phone booth (the majority of the action here taking place in a taxi), all the elements of really good thrillers are present and correct, especially the good guy being mistaken for bad, and the one "believer" in the good guy being despatched before the movie is out. Jamie Foxx, as the innocent taxi driver taken for a ride by Cruise's ruthless assassin, is superb, playing in turn outright fear, distraught defiance and, eventually, finding his own inner strength.

March film roundup

2006-03-05T14:31:00.000Z

Cold Mountain **** - Epic drama about the American Civil War (starring, bizarrely, a Brit and an Australian). As it becomes clear that the South is losing the war, an injured Jude Law deserts his unit and tries to make his way back to sweetheart Nicole Kidman. The cast is first-class throughout, with superb support from the likes of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Jack White and Ray Winstone. Ironically, perhaps, the least convincing performance comes Renée Zellwegger, who won an Oscar for her troubles. The film depicts the war in all its horrific detail. The comparisons with films set in other wars, from the World Wars to Vietnam, is stiking and goes to prove that we humans never learn: we always assume that war will be glorious and mercifully brief.

The General ***** - Probably the greatest film-related experience of my life - until I get nominated for the Palme D'Or, that is - was seeing two silent Chaplin films with live symphony orchestra accompaniment. The fact that thousands of people were rolling in the aisles at a series of grainy frames shot nearly a century ago was moving and humbling. Much of the credit for this must go to Carl Davis' excellent original scores. But this was not the first occasion that he had written an accompaniment for a classic silent film. In the late 1980s, Thames Television on behalf of Channel 4 commissioned him to write the score for a new transfer of Buster Keaton's masterpiece The General, a film that has since been released several times on DVD but, until now, never with the Davis score. And "masterpiece" is truly the mot juste to describe this wonderful film, which makes a surprisingly good double bill with Cold Mountain: both films depict the Civil War from the point of view of the losing Confederates. The General is, simply, stunning from start to finish, with cinema's greatest chase sequence; a brilliant mirrored plot (in which elements of the first chase are reused when the hunter becomes the hunted); spectacular stunts (all performed live); and all offset by that gorgeous Davis score, which weaves in Yankee and Confederate themes such that the intertitles become completely redundant. A gem.

Howl's Moving Castle *** - Regular readers (both of them) will know that I love Studio Ghibli's work. I desperately wanted to love this film - which is to say that I wanted the press reports of it being confusing and over-long to be erroneous - but in fact it is a rather flawed film. It may be stunningly beautiful to behold, there are a few laughs and a few really spectacular scenes; but the story and, ultimately, the heart have been lost along the way. It's easy to see why Miyazaki was attracted to work on an adaptation rather than his usual original material, though: it contains many themes familiar from his work, including the central character of a young(-ish) girl who must learn to find her own inner strength; the European setting; the retro-futuristic steam-powered flying machines; and the wholly original mythology.

The Edukators *** - This could have been really great: a film about two activists who break into rich people's homes, not to steal, but in order to "edukate" them to social reality. The acting is really rather good, particularly Daniel Bruhl (Good Bye, Lenin!) and Julia Jentsch, who comes across like a German version of Kelly MacDonald. The film is let down by the shaky digital camerawork which, rather than instilling a genuine sense of urgency, is just irritating; by occasionally dubious soundtrack music; and by editing which could easily have been tightened considerably with no ill effects. Still, well worth seeing.

Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind *** - Early Miyazaki with many of his trademarks present and correct, with a competent English dub (yes, I'm pretty sure that is Patrick Stewart lending his gravitas to his role). A bit clunky compared to what we've seen in the genre lately but by no means bad.

February film roundup

2006-03-05T14:10:00.000Z

La Haine *** - Meaning "hatred", this is, apart from the language, a film that could have been shot in many British cities. Indeed, there are several renowned directors working in the UK today who specialise in the "grim up north" kind of filmmaking to which this can be compared, grainy monochrome photography and all. The hatred in question in this case can be seen as racial or social, with a gritty council housing estate simmering with tension and anti-establishment feeling. The film manages to generate a genuine fear in the viewer, who can only hope that things will turn out well, against all the mounting odds.

Before Sunrise *** - Richard Linklater directs this slight, but interesting, story of two strangers who meet on a train and decide to spend the night together exploring a European city unknown to either of them. Although the partially ad-libbed script occasionally seems a bit clunky, the viewer does grow to care about the pair sufficiently that the ending, in which they agree to meet up again in a year's time, works as a genuine cliffhanger.

Before Sunset ** - Linklater teams up again with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy nearly a decade on to find out what has become of the young ideallists of Before Sunrise. It turns out the years have not been kind to either of them. Linklater adds a new element to his part-improv film this time - it's in real-time, which gives a more genuine sense of urgency over their time together. But this time, it's harder to care about two characters who have lost their youthful charm. Hawke and Delpy share the credits for the Oscar-nominated script.

Me And You And Everyone We Know *** - Falling into an indie sub-genre inhabited by the likes of American Beauty, Napoleon Dynamite, Ghost World and even Donnie Darko, this is one of those films about relationships between disparate and quirky individuals in which, inevitably, some of the characters self-destruct while others find redemption. The cast is distinctly non A-list, which does help draw the audience in. Special credit must go to Miranda July, who writes, directs and stars, but keeps her involvement unobtrusive.

Stickmen ** - It could be argued that there are too many Brit-flicks about violent gangsters and hard-men, without New Zealand weighing in on the act as well. This film - a sort of billiards-based version of The Big Lebowski - starts slowly but does eventually succeed inasmuch as the audience will be rooting for the good guys by the end.

January film roundup

2006-03-05T14:00:00.000Z

Kinsey *** - Biopic about the famous sex researcher, who starts off trying to educate the students at the university where he teaches entymology about sex and relationships, but ends up compiling the world's largest dataset on sexual behaviour in human beings. The film explores the man's own relationships as well as the examining the establishment's attitudes to his research. Interesting but not especially profound.

Following ** - Before Christopher Nolan made the brilliant Memento, he shot this short black & white feature about a man who decides, for his own self-amusement, to trail complete strangers. Perhaps the most common mistake that first-time writers/directors make (I know I've done the same) is to take a structural idea - in this case, the time frame jumps between several different sequences of events - and over-use it. Such is the case here, although it does help to disguise the fact that the plot is quite weak.

Etre Et Avoir **** - Fantastic documentary about the teacher and pupils of a rural French primary school. The teacher's dedication to his flock is genuinely moving.

December film roundup

2006-03-05T13:44:00.001Z

The Descent *** - Occasionally scary horror which, despite British credentials, is set in North America. Every year, a group of young women get together for an adventure holiday: white-water rafting etc. This year, they're going caving. Predictably, there are tensions amongst the group and, also predictably, certain corners have been cut in the planning of their trip, leaving them vulnerable to whatever lurks in the darkness. Whilst I have no doubt that being trapped without lighting in a cave inhabited by something intent on ripping one to pieces would be utterly terrifying, the filmmakers are hindered by the fact that the medium obliges them to show images most of the time, even in supposed absolute darkness.

King Kong *** - Poor Naomi Watts: although she's one of the world's finest dramatic actresses, she's also one of the most frequently imperilled. So it proves here, with her character contributing little more than (1) wide-eyed stares; (2) screams; and (3) standing around in a very wet dress. There must come a time in a successful director's career when he can get away without somebody telling him that it's all going wrong. Peter Jackson desparately needed someone to tell him to cut out swathes of the material here: in going for an epic feel, he ends up leaving in scenes that are of very limited relevance. Whilst undeniably spectacular in places, in other scenes the special effects don't seem all that special at all; there are particular problems when the CGI elements are supposed to interact with the humans. There are a few nice touches: when Jack Black, as the film director, is trying to find an actress for his film, Faye Wray is dismissed because she is "shooting a picture for RKO". But such moments are few and far between. It's also unexplained why it's set in the 1930s: sure, the original was, but that's because it was made in the 1930s. Finally, in going for a motion-capture Kong, played by Andy "Gollum" Serkis, they have invested the ape with too many human emotions; ironically, then, this hugely expensive bit of animation ends up looking like a man in a monkey suit.

Under The Greenwood Tree (TVM) **** - Effective adaptation from ITV that maintains Hardy's sense of humour.

8 Femmes *** - Bizarre whodunnit-style film about eight women stuck in a country house during a snow storm with a dead man; one of them must have committed the murder, but which? The film takes frequent, slightly surreal turns as it is also a musical, complete with song-and-dance numbers. However, overall it feels a little too much like a stage musical, relying on a single set.

TV review - Movie Lounge *

2006-02-22T22:15:00.000Z

Waaaaay back in the day, I had this great idea for a new television programme about films that was based on BBC2's Top Gear. The thing about current TV shows about films is that, well, they're dull, which is a real shame, because films are anything but. Top Gear seemed like a good model because I love watching it, even though I have absolutely no interest in cars. A TV show format that can do that is a powerful thing.

Here's what's available in this arena at the moment: There's Film 2006, of course, which is the most reliable of movie review shows, but suffers greatly from having a single reviewer's point of view (Jonathan Ross now, Barry Norman before him) and also suffers from Ross' insistence on sucking up to his guests, or asking crass questions like, "Have you lost weight?"

There's Talking Movies, which is another BBC production concentrating on the latest releases on the other side of the pond.

On ITV, you have regular "behind the scenes" programmes, which are basically cheap filler, because they are provided essentially as advertising for the film in question. Channel 4 fills its film-reviewing remit through its weekend T4 strand, alongside a very nice website which, with the demise of FilmFour's production arm, seems to have taken rather a severe pruning recently.

So, up steps Five, with its new offering, Movie Lounge. At first glance, this seems to be exactly what I was hoping for: the Top Gear of film review shows, with celebrity guests offering their opinions, and a weird and wacky sense of humour underpinning the show.

That's not exactly how it turned out. The "celebrities" selected for tonight's opening episode were hardly experts on, or even very interested in, film. One of them, who was charged with the task of reviewing the critically-acclaimed, award-winning film Capote, confessed early on to not knowing who Truman Capote actually was, rendering his opinion of the biopic rather moot. His contribution became even more derisory when it emerged that he hadn't seen any of the other films under discussion. "I don't go to the cinema," he said, twice; "I stay at home and watch Antiques Roadshow." So, an ideal guest for a show about films, then.

Things got steadily worse as the host was repeatedly ridiculed by his guests for being "posh". As he struggled to keep the uninformed debate under control, he introduced "the most famous actor in the world... under four foot." I was expecting, as I am sure every other viewer was, Verne "Mini-Me" Troyer, but no, it turned out to be Warwick Davis, whose main credits are as Marvin in Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy (in which he doesn't actually appear) and an Ewok in Return Of The Jedi (ditto). The format of this interview was uncomfortably similar to Jonathan Ross, inasmuch as it comprised mainly praise for Mr. Davis' work in a series of low-budget horror films called Leprechaun.

There was a brief diversion into the history of local picture palaces - a subject in which I am very interested - that went absolutely nowhere apart from a long and pointless plug for the presenter's local cinema. No mention of the fact that local cinemas are being shut down and demolished at an alarming rate, but an invitation to the viewer to submit the local fleapit for consideration for a future bit of irrelevant propaganda.

There were two moments that nearly saved the show. First, they had a teenage boy "reviewing" Into The Blue, which focused exclusively on the exact moments in that opus at which either Jessica Alba or Ashley Scott disrobed. That would have been moderately funny, were it not for the sinking feeling that the producers are going to re-use that gag every week. Then they had snooty art critic Brian Sewell on to rant about the latest multiplex-fodder, The Fog. He's always good value for money. Unsurprisingly, his scathing review appeared only to encourage the show's studio guests to go and see the film he hated.

The programme lasted 45 minutes but felt longer, even though it imparted absolutely no useful information whatsoever. It is utterly impossible to make a judgement on whether to go to see the films reviewed on the basis of the studio discussion shown here. One can't help but feel a scintilla of sympathy for the presenter, Giles Coren, who probably is a genuine cinema buff, who happens to have been landed with a dull, pointless TV show.

Movie Lounge (2006) *

December pre-Christmas film roundup

2005-12-21T11:20:00.000Z

Stage Beauty ** - A film about the end of the era of men playing women's roles in Britain's playhouses and the start of the brave new world of women doing it instead, centred on the relationship between the leading female impersonator of the day and his dresser who, despite being an awful actress, is at least famous for being the very first. Neither Billy Crudup nor Claire Danes are at their best, but Rupert Everett has an absolute ball as the decadent Charles II and Richard Griffiths, as would-be theatrical patron Sir Charles Sedley, steals the screen. The film, which inevitably draws comparisons with the much superior Shakespeare In Love, makes half-hearted attempts to show parallels to the modern day, particularly in the "cult" of celebrity (Danes, having her portrait painted, is encouraged to expose her breast because that's what the punters really want to see). The recreation of London of the era is inadequate and stagey, although perhaps appropriate for a film such as this, particularly one made by a renowned stage director. But ultimately there is a terminal lack of sexual energy between the two leads.

The Majestic *** - Frank "Shawshank" Darabont's ode to an America that has never really existed is not amongst his best work, but does at least prove once again that Jim Carrey can be extremely powerful in dramatic roles. Carrey plays a blacklisted Hollywood writer of the McCarthy era who washes up in a small town where, suffering from amnesia, he is mistaken for the missing son of the town's cinema owner and given a hero's welcome. Darabont handles the story well and evidently has a good handle on evoking the appropriate era, but even in the context of his other films this is pretty implausible stuff.

Crash **** - Described fairly early on in 2005 as "film of the year", this is an ensemble piece about the theme of prejudice in twenty-first century Los Angeles - particularly, but not exclusively, racial prejudice. The interest comes from having an A-list cast in an essentially independent production, many playing against type - Sandra Bullock is a particularly nasty, elitist specimen. Some of the scenarios take on the horror of nightmares in their crushing inevitability. One scene in particular is a masterpiece of emotional manipulation on the part of writer/director Paul Haggis (author of the excellent Million Dollar Baby), leaving this reviewer deeply moved. The film's overall lack of cohesiveness is only a minor niggle: this quite possibly is indeed Film Of The Year.

The Forgotten *** - Bears an uncanny resemblance to an extended episode of The X Files, with grieving mother Julianne Moore investigating the air crash that killed her son and finding mysterious goings-on. A few jolts but, ironically, rather forgettable.

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe *** - Suffers, as most adaptations do, from damaging comparison with the novel (or even the BBC television serial). Some ropey graphics makes it occasionally hard to care about the CGI-based characters and consequently Aslan's death, which is extremely moving in other versions the story, is curiously uninvolving. The New Zealand-shot battle scenes are highly unlikely to convert anyone who didn't appreciate The Lord Of The Rings. But some of the acting is rather fine, particularly Tilda Swinton, who relishes her role as the evil White Witch, and newcomer Georgie Henley as young Lucy, who, at only ten years old, provides an astonishingly mature performance.

Perfect Day (TVM) ** - While it's great that Five are investing in original drama, this is a bit of a dud, not only covering ground seen elsewhere a hundred times before, but doing it in a rather plodding manner. Set on a couple's wedding day, it's essentially a will they / won't they situation with the ending never in any doubt. The comedic elements are never as funny as the likes of Four Weddings even though they are often much the same, occasionally wandering into uncomfortable territory (there's a recurring "gag" on the idea of underage sex).

The Chorus (Les Choristes) **** - This is, in essence, a French version of Dead Poet's Society with slight overtones of Mr. Holland's Opus, a smattering of Billy Elliot and spiced with the counter-authoritarian attitude of The Shawshank Redemption in which the inmates take delight in small victories over the oppressive regime. In this case, it is music that provides redemption for a bunch of orphaned and disruptive kids in an austere reform school in rural mid-twentieth century France. Despite all these antecedants, though, and despite the modern-day framing story, the film remains realistic and unsentimental. While the outcome is predictable, the journey there is entertaining and moving enough to keep the audience involved throughout. The memorable performances are all the more remarkable for the fact that the young actors do all of their own singing.

November film roundup

2005-12-14T09:33:00.000Z

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride **** - It's frustrating to try and review this. I want to give it *****, because it's a brave project and, in its own way, a remarkable achievement. But I feel I ought to give it ***, because the story is weak: love triangles can never be resolved both happily and satisfactorily, and Corpse Bride ducks out. Neither the story nor the songs are as effective as Burton's earlier Nightmare Before Christmas, but the romance is sweeter and the animation inspired. If, in five or ten years time, Burton makes another animation combining the best elements of both films, then it will certainly be brilliant.

Mystic River *** - Clint Eastwood directs this rather depressing tale of three friends torn apart in childhood by terrible circumstances, then thrown back together as adults under equally appalling conditions. It's well made and brilliantly acted, but it is never clear what the overall message of the film is and offers no hope of redemption for its ultimately tragic hero.

Ghost In The Shell *** - An animé that pushes all the proper Japanimation buttons - cyborgs, violence, hi-tech futurescapes. The animation is, occasionally, stunning, but the plot, which draws obvious parallels with The Matrix, is too confusing and lacking in heart to be truly memorable.

October film roundup

2005-10-31T18:34:00.000Z

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie *** - Fun, cool and sassy animé that seems to be drawn most obviously from Batman and, more specifically, The Joker. The only bum note is the computer whiz Ed who manages to be annoying in every single scene.

Office Space *** - A bit like Falling Down, only with fewer bazookas. Wish-fulfilment comedy that doesn't quite strike the right chord. (Is an intelligent, articulate computer programmer really going to feel more valued doing manual work salvaging fire-damaged goods?)

The Dukes Of Hazzard ** - Fun while it lasts, but instantly forgettable. Hopefully (but not obviously) the role of Daisy Duke - who exists solely to elicit vital information from male characters by wearing tiny denim shorts and / or exposing a lot of midriff - is a recurring joke rather than appalling cliché.

Swimming Pool *** - Enigmatic and mysterious, but beautifully shot, this is either patent stereotyping or brilliant subversion.

Somersault ** - Slow-burning drama about a teenage girl finding herself through running away and experiencing casual and not-so-casual sex. Well-acted but overall rings false.

Tokyo Godfathers *** - One of the least "animated" animations I've ever seen, this is an unusual way of celebrating the spirit of Christmas (complete with its own Holy Trinity and miracle baby) with doses of high humour and gritty realism.

Wallace And Gromit In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit **** - Sounds a bit daft to say this about a film whose central character is a plasticene dog who knits recreationally, but somehow this film doesn't seem quite as "real" as W&G's earlier adventures. The animation, acting and script are all first-class.

The Castle Of Cagliostro *** - Hayao Miyazaki's first film is as beautiful as one might hope, allowing for the fact that it was made twenty years before Spirited Away. It also includes many of what would come to be regarded as the director's hallmarks: Young girl on the cusp of adulthood; flying machines; a European location.

Hotel Rwanda **** - Harrowing and shocking (and true) account of the atrocities in Rwanda that shows that the appalling treatment of one human being by another is not a feature limited to historical cases, but for some people is still a threat today. Inviting inevitable comparisons with Schindler's List, a more interesting parallel is The Pianist: in that film, one man is helped by dozens of people (who place themselves at massive risk, for no apparent reason) whilst in Hotel Rwanda, one resourceful and brave man uses every avenue open to him to save as many people as possible. Directed by Terry George, the author of The Boxer, which also invites speculation that he is comparing the situation in Rwanda with that in Northern Ireland and asking: If we can let this genocide happen, even under the watchful eye of the UN, what does this say about us as human beings? And are we not close to monsters ourselves?

Update: The Railway Rant

2005-10-14T12:21:00.000+01:00

I've been regularly using public transport for about fifteen years. It's one of the least pleasant side effects of my decision not to learn to drive a motor vehicle. Back in 2004, when I was travelling by rail a considerable amount, I kept a journal of all the delays and errors that occurred on the rail network. My aim was to prove that travelling by train is fraught with difficulty. Grudgingly, I had to admit that the situation had improved somewhat since the old BR days.

But until yesterday, I'd never actually been stuck on a broken down train in a field in Oxfordshire.

The morning started badly for many commuters. The 0715 was cancelled due to mechanical failure, doubling the number of passengers on the 0745 service. Those of us who have experienced the delights of budget air travel might also have been forgiven for bemoaning the cost of a ticket at peak times. (The return fare from London to Florence, including airport taxes etc., by RyanAir next month was about £60. At 752 miles, that works out at about eight pence per mile. The return fare from Gloucester to Guildford by First Great Western was £86 - or about £1 per mile - 12 times more expensive than flying.)

I don't normally read the horoscopes, and certainly don't believe them, but I do like to pick holes in them and I do like the idea of spotting the way in which horoscope predictions can be written to be very vague yet seemingly specifically applicable to the individual. This was precisely the trap into which I fell. The morning's Metro newspaper informed me that single Scorpions would "have a story to tell by the end of the day." Not unreasonably, I assumed that this story would at least be related to the singleness and was therefore happily contemplating a serendipitous encounter on the train leading to True Love and eternal happiness.

So it didn't occur to me until more than an hour after the train had shuddered to a halt outside Tilehurst that this was probably the story that I'd be telling at the end of the day.

Early indications that something was wrong included the air conditioning system pouring a stream of water onto my head and some tasty emergency braking alongside a field containing two very bored-looking goats. After the first announcement of "mechanical failure", there was a general groan, particularly from all those passengers who'd had to transfer from the aborted earlier service. Everyone leapt onto their mobiles to reschedule meetings. Spirits were not dampened to any great degree, but nor was there a particularly high level of camaraderie. The Great British Crisis Spirit was not in evidence. The buffet was dispensing free drinks, but nobody offered to go and get some on behalf of their neighbours.

Here was the plan, as relayed to us after half an hour of sitting motionless. A mechanic would come out, by road, to see if he could fix the problem. If not, the train would be driven using a second driver in the rear locomotive into the next station, where one of the trains that was stuck behind us would stop and pick us up.

It had never occurred to me before, but in order to get a train driver and a mechanic to a train that is stranded in the middle of nowhere is to draw another train alongside and have him hop across the tracks. This is precisely what occurred, thus delaying yet another service.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that the train was indeed driven from the rear, at a low speed, into Reading, where it arrived approximately an hour and three quarters late, just a quarter of an hour shy of the point where FGW are obliged to refund the entire cost of the journey.

That's my story, just like the horoscope predicted. And no Brief Encounter moment to be seen, worse luck.

I have learned a valuable lesson. Never make assumptions based on a horoscope.

Update: Despite applying for a refund from First Great Western the very next day, it took more than two months and two follow-up emails for compensation to be despatched. Because the response took "longer than seven days", said the covering letter, they had added an additional £5. Now, if only they added £5 for every seven days they were late...

Minireview - Napoleon Dynamite ***

2005-10-14T11:26:00.000+01:00

The title character is a geeky, freaky high school kid who lives with his older brother (and whatever assorted relative can be bothered to look after the pair of them) in some kind of 1980s timewarp, where life is simpler, fashions are naffer, but the Internet still exists. He has one friend at school and, perplexingly, a girl who may or may not be interested in him - but otherwise, he lives in an isolated bubble, in which he even appears to be mostly free of the kind of torment that one might expect of an uber-geek in an average American high school.

Honestly? I have no idea whether or not I liked this movie. In fact, since I started reviewing every film I watched, I have seen and had an opinion (one way or the other) on more than 300 movies. Until Napoleon Dynamite, I have never come out of a film feeling quite so bewildered. I don't know whether I like the character or whether I'm supposed to be rooting for him. I'm unsure whether I buy the story.

Tacked onto the end of the closing credits is a significant coda - shot some time after the rest of the film - which subtly shifts the perspective we have on several key characters. It's a self-consciously odd thing to do at the end of a film that is inherently basking in its own oddness. For this reason alone, it fails to work effectively as either a comedy or a drama.

Minireview - Ghost World ***

2005-10-14T11:18:00.000+01:00

Based on a graphic novel - what "cult" films coming out of America these days aren't? - this is a rather slight film about two misfit teenagers leaving school and starting to explore the wider world. While one tends towards a more conventional life - finding a steady job and spending the proceeds shopping for housewares - the other is determined to remain resolutely outside mainstream society. To that end, she strikes up a bizarre relationship with a weirdo older man, a jazz obsessive who she sees as being similarly marginalised by a society so demanding of conformity.

For the most part, despite the bizarre relationships, it's quite a believable film and engrossing in its own way. The performances of Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi, in particular, are compelling. However, a few points niggle. Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch aren't quite weird enough - or weird-looking enough - to seem plausible as social outsiders. Birch's character, Enid, is broadly unpleasant rather than simply counter-culture, making it hard to empathise with her; she treats strangers, her friends and her admirers with the same contempt.

Some cameo appearances and throw-away references to other comic books start to grate after a while - it starts to feel like an incestuous comic-book love-in. (Not surprising, given that the director's previous film was Crumb, about the graphic novel author Robert Crumb - who also cropped up as a character in American Splendor. Evidently, the world of graphic novels is a small and close-knit one.) But the main difficulty with the film is that there is no plot to speak of; rather, a series of occasionally self-destructive vignettes. That may well have been the raison d'etre of the original novel - the celebration of a tiny slice of a tiny life - but it makes for a frustrating motion picture experience.

Minireview - Akira **

2005-09-20T09:13:00.000+01:00

This autumn looks like it's shaping up to be a bumper season for animation. In only a couple of short months, we have the long-awaited Wallace & Gromit movie, Curse Of The Were-Rabbit; Tim Burton's follow-up to his acclaimed Nightmare Before Christmas, a claymation musical with the morbid title Corpse Bride; and the new animé from Hayao Miyazaki, the Oscar-winning director of Spirited Away.

To get in the mood, I have been selectively expanding my collection of Japanese animations with films such as Perfect Blue and Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. But of all the films in the genre, Akira is supposed to be the definitive Manga animé - described by Empire magazine's reviewers as "no Akira, no Matrix" - so I had high hopes, which were rather rudely dashed by a messy, incoherent plot and unexpectedly sub-standard animation. Indeed, the biggest debt The Matrix appears to owe to Akira is in the persistent use of impenetrable quasi-religious mysticism, along with highly stylised, gratuitous violence.

It's a great shame, because there are some nice flourishes. But one of the reasons I got into animé films in the first place, via the works of Miyazaki, was that all the preconceptions I'd had about Japanese animation - violence, poor drawings, killer robots who shoot lasers from their eyes (nicely sent up in an episode of The Simpsons) - were completely wrong. The likes of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke were beautiful and thought-provoking; Grave Of The Fireflies proved that the medium could also be serious and moving. Akira, conversely, managed to fall exactly into my prejudices about Manga animé - the violence, shaky animation, teenage anti-heroes with big mouths and fixed fierce expressions.

I readily admit that, for much of the time, I wasn't quite sure what was going on. But, after two hours of trying to figure it out, I no longer really cared.

Minireview - Nowhere In Africa ****

2005-08-31T10:53:00.000+01:00

A wannabe-epic autobiographical story of a dispossessed Jewish family during the Second World War, this almost, but not quite, succeeds admirably. Father, mother and daughter, with remarkable foresight, escape Germany just before the borders are closed and attempt to set up a new life on a struggling farm in Kenya, then under British rule. Whereas the young girl fits in quickly, making close friends with the native cook and local children, the mother cannot or will not except her dramatic change in circumstance and, horrifyingly, displays towards the local inhabitants the precise sort of racist intolerance that she herself has so narrowly escaped.

With the war itself raging a continent away, the historical action is progressed in the form of a long-wave radio and a few, sparse letters from relations as they are forced into ghettoes and eventually write no more. Meanwhile, with the start of hostilities, the family finds itself rounded up by the British and placed in prison camps, although these are, at least, relatively comfortable.

They are eventually released to manage another farm, this time with more success, and the daughter is sent away to an English boarding school, costing the family nearly all that they have. At the end of the war, the family must decide whether they now belong in Africa, or whether they should return to Germany and help rebuild it. And this is very much a film about belonging. The family start by finding themselves unwelcome in Germany and arrested in Kenya; by the end, they must decide where they are most accepted. In Africa, they still do not fit in, treated with contempt by the British, misunderstood by the natives, alienated because of their religion at school. There is strong sense that nobody truly belongs, certainly not the British ruling class, nor the native underclass that are forced to serve them.

A slow, beautiful ode to home and to family with great and occasionally moving performances all round, ultimately the only let-down is the lack of a sense of real threat, even during the arrests or when the letters from home dry up.

Minireview - The Machinist ****

2005-08-31T10:37:00.000+01:00

A fine thriller that effectively crosses the state of mind of Fight Club with the building paranoia of Arlington Road. Made in Spain (presumably because no Hollywood studio would touch it) and released under the frankly bizarre "Paramount Classics" label, the film succeeds due to a fantastic performance from Christian Bale, not to mention an unprecedented dedication to his craft (manifest in his character's emaciated appearance, achieved by Bale losing 60lbs of weight before shooting). As a paranoid, obsessive-compulsive insomniac, Bale manages to be tortured yet sympathetic, spooky and sleazy yet occasionally caring and loving. And, unlike either of the films cited earlier, the reason for his state of mind is gradually revealed and proves to be a worthy and horrific conclusion to the film.

Highly recommended for fans of psychological thrillers in the Hitchcock mold.

To beard or not to beard?

2005-08-24T17:15:00.000+01:00

In the last half a decade or so, there have been two questions that I have been asked more than any other regarding my personal appearance. First, why did I grow a beard? And second, why did I shave it off again, particularly when it was looking just fine?

I am then usually drawn confidentially aside by the asker of the question, who adds, did I have more success with women with a beard, or without?

It's a far cry from my schooldays when the three most common questions posed by strangers were: Why is my head a strange shape? Why do I look like a horse? (My Blogger profile informs me that I was, in fact, born in the Year Of The Horse, so that explains that.) And, the perennial imaginative playground insult of the immature, all-male closed community, am I gay?

I would like to take the opportunity to answer some of these questions. Alas, the equine comparisons must surely be put down to genetics, so I'll stick to the beard-related questions.

I grew a beard primarily because I could. Several days after growing it for the first time, I needed a passport photo, so I shaved it off and grew it back again after the photography was complete. I launched it on my friends several days later via a spoof newspaper front page with a headline reading David Grows Beard, as though it were as much a surprise to me as to them.

By the time I got back to university after that summer, people were firmly divided into two camps. Most, it must be said, hated it. A handful thought it suited me. It proved its worth when a former housemate and ex-girlfriend failed to recognise me after a fifteen-minute conversation with a colleague on the first night back at uni.

It also proved itself time and again when it came to recognition. Even as an avid follower of Student Council and Ents Committee meetings, the majority of the union hacks (including Sabbatical Officers) would have been hard-pushed to identify me or even to associate me with Oscar Film Unit. Whereas, post-growth, I ended up with people who - shock! - knew my name. This led directly to the successful election to Union Chairman, via the nickname (which has kind of stuck) "The Real Goatee".

For a year, I let the beard grow somewhat wild, as evidenced by photographs of the time. When it came to start Real Work, I tamed it slightly and kept it for more than two further years.

I shaved it off after becoming just a little bored of it. Keeping it neat and tidy was a chore. More and more people were telling me that I would look better without. Plus I was about to go on holiday to the Med and didn't want to develop tan lines on my face.

The face that emerged in the mirror was completely unfamiliar to me. The shape of my face had changed somewhat since my university days. It was quite disconcerting to be greeted by a complete stranger when shaving each morning for the first week or so.

Gratifyingly, people who had only ever known me with the beard found it as difficult to recognise me after it was gone as most people had done after I grew it for the first time. Both of my housemates at the time failed to recognise me and I got some funny looks at work. Intriguingly, one of my senior managers asked the question, "So what are you going to call your website now?" which suggested an alarming level of interest in my extra-curricular affairs.

Did I get more attention from women with or without? That's difficult to answer, even though the absolute numbers remain very low. I suspect without, but with the caveat that having the beard in the first place changed my personality sufficiently that, post-beard, I now have more confidence (= more attractive?) anyway.

There you go. Bet you never thought anybody could have that much to say on beards, did you?

Questions are invited, as long as none of them mention the fact that my beard was gingery.

Sometimes it's hard to be an individual

2005-08-23T15:44:00.000+01:00

Picture this for me, please. It's a cold, wet November night in a provincial French town in the latter half of the 1930s. Across the empty street, a yellow lamp outside a nondescript door beckons you inside. Down a short flight of steps and you emerge into a warm, smoky room with low ceilings. There is a low-key friendly ambience in the air. A smart, polite waiter shows you to an empty table and pours for you a glass of the local wine, which tastes fantastic. In one corner of the room, the mayor and his mistress are unsuccessfully trying to be discreet. A handful of uniformed German officers, swastikas highly visible, sit in an unsmiling semicircle around the table nearest the stage, but everyone steadfastly ignores them and they steadfastly ignore everybody else. An American civilian at the table next to yours is chatting to a French girl - maybe it is Rick Blaine and Ilsa Laszlo.

The woman singer on the stage is dressed eccentrically and has an odd, delicate voice which she bends around some mournful blues tunes, in English and French, by leading songwriters of the day, accompanied by a minimal band of piano, double bass and snare drum, the latter played exclusively with soft brushes. Every now and again she breaks into a more swinging number or is joined by a local accordionist, but these are brief interludes in an otherwise downbeat set. It's an enthralling set - everybody in the establishment is hooked - and you spend a pleasant and relaxing evening, even though you are alone at your table.

Chances are that the musician you've just been imagining sounds something not dissimilar to Madeleine Peyroux, an American jazz singer clearly strongly influenced by the years she spent busking in France. She covers songs by the likes of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, writes some of her own material, and makes each song pretty much her own.

I bought Careless Love, her second album, as a result of a determined attempt to find some good music that nobody else was listening to. In short, I was going out of my way to be An Individual. At the time of purchase, it had been on release for about six months and was languishing at around number 22,000 in Amazon's charts. I was not disappointed, either. For me, the highlight is Between The Bars - a melancholy blues number in slow waltz time, which hits the spot - that elusive thirties bar - on the button. But there are several other great songs on the album, beautifully rendered. I was happy. I was An Individual and I was displaying Good Taste.

Sadly, when I checked back again a few weeks later, I discovered that I was no longer an individual but a mere sheep, the album having risen to within the top 10 and actually peaking at number 1 in the jazz chart. Presumably this is because her music is mainly light, accessible jazz - of the type that, presumably, played rather well as a busker.

The final nail in the coffin so far as individuality was concerned was when Peyroux appeared on Top Of The Pops singing her successful single. Sure, she (along with the TOTP producers) was roundly ridiculed for singing a thirties-style jazz number on a television show watched entirely by pubescents for whom the very definition of jazz lies with either Jamie Cullum or Norah Jones. But after an appearance on BBC Breakfast that the BBC themselves described as "taciturn", Madeleine did exactly what I would have done under the circumstances: she disappeared.

One can picture the record company executives tearing their hair out. She did this before, they reported ruefully. After her first album, she disappeared for seven years and was eventually traced busking on the streets of Paris. She's an artist, she's prone to doing these eccentric things. It's part of her charm, they lied, before despatching a private detective to find her and drag her back to all the press sessions that she had so cunningly ducked out of.

All went silent for a few days, until it was announced, somewhat triumphantly, that she had been found. The private eye had tracked her down to… her manager's office in New York, where she was part way through a conversation about how much she hated the press. Her manager, very sensibly, told the record company to get lost. According to the BBC, the head of Universal Jazz said that he was "fed up" of her behaviour. Presumably, though, not so fed up to forget to count the huge quantities of cash appearing in his bank account as a result not only of her successful album and single sales, but also the extra publicity garnered through her "disappearance".

Madeleine Peyroux, I salute you. You have managed to outwit a private detective by the rather trivial expedient of hiding in your own manager's office; you have produced a great "sleeper" album that is taking the world by storm; and above all, you are An Individual. Which is more than can be said for me.

Minireview - Festival Express ***

2005-08-18T11:59:00.000+01:00

I quite enjoyed Festival Express, although I can't say I would have made a particularly good rock 'n' roller myself. Watching Rick Danko, Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia laughing and singing together while utterly smashed may be historically interesting, particularly as they are all now dead, but it's not a particularly comfortable thing to see, any more so than being the only sober person at a party ever is.

This was one of those rare DVDs where the extra features were at least as important as the film itself, so in a way I'm glad I didn't see it in the cinema after all. The features doubled the length of the material with extra music performances and interviews which answered some of the questions raised by the film itself. Since the film was less than 90 minutes long, I'm surprised they didn't go for a longer edit - they obviously had sufficient material.

Apparently the rest of The Band and several members of the Grateful Dead decided not to travel on the train at all but made their own way from venue to venue, which seems to me to rather destroy the point of the enterprise.

Minireview - Grave Of The Fireflies ****

2005-08-18T11:55:00.000+01:00

There's a tendency to assume that the only way that war (or, more accurately, anti-war) films can be effective is to show the horror of battle in all its gruesome detail: hence Apocalypse Now and the stunning opening to Saving Private Ryan. Only rarely, then, do we see an effective anti-war animation.

Grave Of The Fireflies is the first Japanese animation I've seen that's not directed by Miyazaki. I chose this because it's in the IMDb top 200 (#163 at the moment; Princess Mononoke is at #100, Spirited Away at a scarcely believable #41).

Fireflies is an excellent film, but a long way removed from the fantasy worlds of Miyazaki and is certainly not a children's film, despite being about two children. It's set during the final months of the Second World War and concerns a young boy, orphaned by the US firebombing of his city, as he misguidedly struggles to look after his four-year-old sister. With the film told in flashback, from the very first scene, we know it's not going to end well, as we see him die emaciated and alone in a subway just after the end of war.

The fireflies of the title feature in both a literal and figurative sense; fireflies being, as we are told, creatures that burn brightly and die too soon. It's powerful and horrifying material, definitely not the sort of thing one expects to see in an animation of any kind. In its analysis of the effects of conflict on the civilian population in general, and innocent children in particular, it turns out to be a potent anti-war film, as well as an intimate portrait of sibling love. Where once I described Life Is Beautiful as a comedy version of Schindler's List, I can now only describe Grave Of The Fireflies as a tragic version of Life Is Beautiful as the boy struggles and ultimately fails to protect his sister from the true horrors of war. In mood, the film closely resembles Raymond Briggs' When The Wind Blows. That, too, concerns two innocents - in this case, an elderly couple - failing to cope with the war being waged around them.

It's also allegorical inasmuch as the boy's blundering attempts to protect his sister are increasingly desperate, mirroring the misplaced arrogance of the Japanese military in their increasingly evidently futile attempts to win the war. Plus it is, of course, as beautifully drawn as any Ghibli film.

As devastating an anti-war poem as one could wish for, this is an essential part of my DVD collection, despite the fact that I can scarcely bear to watch it again. Recommended, but for when one is in a sombre mood.

Oscar Film Unit community site goes live

2005-08-17T17:23:00.000+01:00

Andy Ga. has begun a new Blogger website for past members of Oscar Film Unit. It is intended to build up an OFU Reunited type of community around the site with photos, reminiscences and all the usual sort of abuse to which we've become accustomed. See it now at http://oscarfilmunit.blogspot.com/ (and eventually at its own dedicated URL, too, maybe).

Meanwhile the old OFU website, written (in chronological order) by Paul Williamson, Rob Finnis, me, Jolyon Hunter and Scoot Geary, is preserved forever on the main IWroteThis website at http://www.iwrotethis.co.uk/archive/ofu/. Most of the links are broken (because they were hard coded) but I've fixed all 860 of them offline and will upload them soon-ish.

Weekly... or at the very least, weakly

2005-08-17T15:23:00.000+01:00

I know what you're thinking. Believe me, I'm thinking it too. A "blog" of my own. I swore it would never happen and for a long while honestly believed it.

I don't even like the word "blog". Ugly word. Nasty.

The main reason behind starting a blog is that my main site gets updated once in a blue moon, mainly due to the fact that I don't have an Internet connection at home. There are two things I can do with Blogger I can't do in any other way...

I can write a quick 'n' dirty review or article - first impressions of a film, or album, or gig - and publish it straight away. Then I can refine it in the future and insert it into the index where it belongs.

I can write something using the email functionality of my mobile phone and have it update automatically. At least, I can in theory. So I can now, potentially, write articles away from any kind of Internet connection and have them update immediately, rather than waiting days (or in some cases, months).

These seem like good enough reasons to withdraw my previous anti-blog stance. So here it is: IWroteThis.co.uk Live: Boring the Internet live since 2005.