Random Rants, Reflections and Reviews

Haywire

2012-01-27T18:21:00.002Z

Haywire is one of those confusing films that leaves you with the feeling that it's not anywhere near as it should be and its not immediately obvious why. I mean, it's not a bad film, its well shot, has some OK performances and cool touches, but the whole just feels that little bit flat.

Steven Soderbergh continues with his experiments with non-professional actors in the lead roles (following The Girlfriend Experience) casting mixed martial arts star Gina Carano in the lead as the independant contractor (read spy) betrayed and set-up by her employers. She's not the strongest of actors, but then again she's better than the likes of Stallone, Arnie or Statham and has the moves and the potential to be better still, but is let down by the film.

Soderbergh does surround her with a lot of the best male actors in the business (and Channing Tatum), but here there seems to be hugely different approaches - Ewan MacGregor (yet again, making some horrible attempt at an American accent) and Michael Fassbender are too smirky, like naughty boys enjoying themselves and highly amused at the prospect of getting beat up by a girl. Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas at least put some effort in, but seem to think they're in an action flick with a comic side, whilst Tatum and Paxton are all deadly earnest. Even that would not be a big enough fault to sink the movie, if only...

The action held up, but it doesn't. Soderbergh, for all his undoubted strengths, just doesn't seem to be the right director to handle this kind of film. There are a couple of good fight scenes which really work, but otherwise the action is slow, laboured and flat. Carano can clearly handle herself, but too often Soderbergh creates scenes that feel too choreographed and fake with moves that look more like a pre-arranged wrestling move. Carano is also a fighter, not a free-runner and the Dublin rooftop chase seems dreadfully slow and laboured compared to many other examples.

Overall - 5.5/10 There's potential here, but the end result is disappointingly flat and unengaging. A case of a good director being wrong for the film.

2012 Oscar Nominations - first thoughts

2012-01-25T19:13:00.000Z

Part of the fun of the Oscars is all the speculation beforehand, so here are my first thoughts on the nominations and some questions for Oscar. I'm not claiming to have seen all the nominated or overlooked films, but that's never stopped me being opinionated before.

First up, where's the love for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Gary Oldman fully deserves his nomination, but the film is grossly under-represented elsewhere - it's better than at least four of the Best Picture nominations and would be a better shout for Best Director than many.

Best Picture - Midnight in Paris, seriously? Have you watched it? Similarly from the advance reviews - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The Help was more predictable but arguably no more deserved. No Tinker, Tailor... No Girl with the Dragon Tattoo... No We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Best Director - Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris. Again, that's a joke right? Ahead of Spielberg and Fincher and Alfredson. Did he get to pick the nominees himself?

Actors - Demian Bichir is a surprise (not seen the film, but nice to see a bit of an oddball nomination). Brad Pitt for Moneyball rather than The Tree of Life - surprising but not necessarily wrong. Can anyone stop Clooney here?

Actresses - that perennial favourite - how come Viola Davis is up for best lead in The Help when Emma Stone was the lead in that movie, whilst Berenice Bejo is up for best supporting role for her leading role in The Artist? No Tilda Swinton? Its probably down to Maggie vs Marilyn though, and in Hollywood you have to make Marilyn favourite.

Best Animated Film - No pixar and deservedly so - when was the last time that happened?

War Horse

2012-01-23T17:33:00.000Z

War Horse is the film adapted from the stage play adapted from the children's book by Michael Morpurgo. It tells the story of the titular horse's (called Joey (although he later gets both French and German names too)) journey from a small Devon farm to the battlefields of the Somme via an ill-fated cavalry charge, a couple of German deserters, the care of the grand-daughter of a French jam-maker and finally a German artillery unit. And its the latest from a little-known director by the name of Steven Spielberg.

In many ways the film is a good fit for Spielberg, giving ample room for both his strengths and weaknesses. On the strengths side, the story falls somewhere between rambling and epic, with its shifting locations and series of characters being introduced who each get their moment in Joey's life, but Spielberg tells the story with verve and panache, allowing each of the characters some life whilst never getting distracted from the story. This allows the audience to buy into the film despite the main character being a horse.

He has also lost none of his ability for a beautifully framed shot - the sight of a young girl, standing in a doorway with the sunlight behind all shown through the reflection in the horse's eye is pretty close to the quintessentially Spielbergian shot. Also look out for the cavalry charge through a ripened corn-field, whilst Joey's eventual flight through no-man's land is a bravura piece of film-making and the most thrilling sequence of the film (and a early contender for scene of the year).

On the other hand, Spielberg's greatest weakness has long been a tendancy to excessive sentimentality and that really needed to be reigned in (pun fully intended) at times here. It kind of works in the early scenes in Devon, partly due to the performances of Jeremy Irvine, whose earnestness sells the difficult part of Albert (a naive young man who'll do anything for his horse), and the ever reliable Peter Mullan and Emily Watson as his parents. David Thewlis also provides good value as the comically villainous landlord. You can stomach this slightly romanticised rural idyll because you feel it is providing a contrast for what is to come.

Its when the film shifts to France and the idyll continues that you feel Spielberg is over-romanticising and over-sentimentalising. The period where Joey is being looked after by the plucky sick grand-daughter of French jam-maker Niels Arestrup that this is at its most jarring. The war is only a few miles away and yet everything is so perfect - the strawberries couldn't be any redder, the farmhouse any more perfectly rustic, even when the war does intrude, the German soldiers seem more comic than genuinely threatening. The sin is compounded by that fact that in moments leading up to this, it has felt that Spielberg has been deliberately shielding our eyes (in one case literally, by the use of a windmill sail, in other cases by judicious cutting from machine guns to empty horses) from the reality of war in order to maintain this idyll.

From here we are catipulted into the full horrors of trench warfare and the film regains its footing. Albert is now in France fighting the war and there is a nicely underplayed subplot about his relationship with the landlord's son. Meanwhile, Toby Kebbell manages to bring humour and emotion together in a nice scene of a Brit and a German working together to free Joey from barbed wire. The touches here, athough a different style for a different war and different genre, remind you that this was the director who brought you the beach landings of Saving Private Ryan.

Overall - 7/10 Good but not great. Spielberg at his best and worst with beautifully images and storytelling let down by an overdose of sentiment and romanticism.

US Update: Poor Ol' Mitt

2012-01-22T18:27:00.000Z

Having a bad week? Well, spare a thought for poor old Mitt Romney. A week ago, he looked like he had victory in the opening two states sewn up and was well ahead in the polls for the South Carolina primary this weekend. He was looking like being 3 out of 3 and well on the way to securing the Republican nomination.

Then Iowa turned round, rather red-faced, and said "Er, we might have got our counting wrong, it rather looks like Santorum won not you". There followed a battering in the debates over his tax-returns and South Carolina gave quite a thumping victory to Newt Gingrich instead.

The circus moves on to Florida next with only 4 contenders still in the race - Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul. Paul is independantly wealthy enough to stay in the race, although really his involvement now seems to be about how much damage he can do to the others and maybe as a platform to launch a third-party bid for the white house in November. In Iowa Santorum seemed to have emerged as the preferred challenger to Romney, he now looks to have fallen well behind Gingrich in that regard. If he drops out soon, Gingrich is likely to move clear of the field. If Santorum stays in, Romney remains in the driving seat, but only just. And that brokered convention is still a possibility.

The Iron Lady

2012-01-18T21:32:00.000Z

Love her or loathe her, Margaret Thatcher was one of the most controversial political figures of the twentieth century. Her influence is still felt - no conservative politician can really establish themselves without being defined in some way by their relationship to her and her ideals. Everybody has an opinion on her, one way or the other. Everybody, that is, except it seems Phyllida Lloyd, the director of The Iron Lady.

So eager does the film seem to avoid being controversial that it ends up being nothing really. Why make a film about such a controversial figure and have nothing to say about them. In fact, the film can't really decide what it wants to be - it toys with the idea of being a love story, but Margaret and Dennis as Romeo and Juliet doesn't really fly. It glosses over most of the politics. What it comes closest to being is a film about dementia with the present day narrative framing, however it lacks the pathos of, say, Iris or Away From Her. Even the most dramatic moments, like the car-bombing of Airey Neave, somehow lack real drama.

As to the politics, everything is gone over so quickly that if you know nothing about the events or the policies, the film will leave you none the wiser. The 3-day week, the miners strike, the poll tax, the Brighton bombing are all referenced in shots, but hardly covered. The Falklands gets slightly more coverage, but if you know nothing about, say, the sinking of the Belgrano, you still won't after the film unless you go home and google it. In fact the film buys almost totally into the myth, both negative and positive, and makes no effort to get below the surface. We are offered one brief scene of a speech by her father as her political inspiration. The film makes her out to be even more groundbreaking than she was by having her as the only woman shown in any shot in the commons. It also comes close to making out that she was the reason for the Tories victory in 1979, whereas most polls at the times indicated that they won despite of rather than because of her.

All that said, this is not a badly made film. Its well-shot and on the whole well-acted. Meryl Streep is uncanny in her impersonation of Thatcher although there's not that much actual character to work with. Jim Broadbent is fun, although essentially playing Jim Broadbent, as Dennis. Elsewhere a host of familiar faces play a host of familiar faces. But it all feels ultimately purposeless.

Overall - 5.5/10 The most controversial thing about this film is how uncontroversial it is. Well shot and acted, but ultimately pointless and unsatisfying.

The Artist

2012-01-16T19:06:00.000Z

There are some film pitches that you would just love to be witness to. Imagine the scene - the director of critically and commercially indifferently received French Bond spoofs OSS117 comes in and says he has a wonderful idea for a new film- he wants to make a film about silent movies and he wants it to be silent.

Fortunately for said director, Michel Hazanavicius, and fortunately for us, somebody decided to take a chance on him, because the result is nothing short of brilliant. It has already won 3 Golden Globes and is among the front-runner (along with The Descendants) for the Oscars.

The film is both love letter to and a slightly humourous take on a forgotten art. It is both a great example of the kind of film that they just don't make anymore and also a film that still has a 21st Century feel to it. So, you get more of a peak behind the curtain, behind the smoke and mirrors of the movie business than you would have done in Hollywood's golden age, and yet the tone is decidedly respectful and loving. And so one scene where the star George Valentin (played by Jean Dujardin) has to compose himself facially for the right emotions, time after time through multiple takes is both very funny whilst also being appreciative of the forgotten craft of the silent film stars.

The story starts with Valentin at his peak. He meets and young ingenu, Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) and helps to set her on the road to stardom, but whilst her star rises, he fails to adapt to the new talking pictures and is all but forgotten. In true silent movie style, the film mixes moments of humour with melodrama with song and dance spectacle. Keep an eye out for how the films-within-the film seem to mirror reality for the stars both in their titles and their action. There are also some highly inventive sequences, including a dream sequence Hitchcock would be proud of, and some beautifully composed uses of light, shadow and reflections echoing classics like Citizen Kane (explicitly in one scene).

Hazanavicius is aided by some top notch performances. Having the likes of John Goodman and James Cromwell in the supporting roles was always going to be a good move, but his previous collaborators Dujardin and Bejo excel in the leads. Their achievement should not be underestimated - to act in a silent movie requires different skills. To act acting in a silent movie in a silent move is this no mean feat, and to do so with such engaging charm and conviction deserves all the plaudits they're receiving. The film also features one of the most amusing canine performances you'll ever have seen.

Overall - 9/10 Both a homage to and humourous look at a lost art, and brilliant at either level. The first standout movie of 2012!

The Independance Referendum Phoney War

2012-01-13T13:30:00.000Z

So, the Referendum is the big story this week and the opening shots in the battle are being fired. Except that they're not really. Behind the sensationalist headlines, what is really happening is the start of a process towards agreement on how the referendum will be carried. Sure, there's some jockeying for the best negotiating position in that, but really there is more agreement than might be supposed from the headlines. Yes, both sides are trying to position themselves (or more accurately the other side) where they want them, Salmond is trying to paint the coalition as unwelcome interferers in Scotland and Scotland's business, whilst the unionists are trying to make Salmond out to be headstrong, petty and reckless. Truth to be told, there's probably some accuracy in both accounts, but neither will have much bearing on the overall outcome.

So what are the issues being discussed at the moment:

1. There will be a referendum. This is now beyond dispute. The Westminster government has acknowledged that the SNP have a democratic mandate to hold one following the results last May. Holyrood does not currently have the legal authority to carry this out, but Westminster is willing to devolve the powers. The question will be what conditions come attached to that devolution of powers. This is the current battleground.

2. The Timing Noises from the coaliton were of trying to force it in the next 18 months. They forced Salmond to set a date of Autumn 2014. Noises from Westminster now indicate that this should be acceptable to all.

3. Who will Oversee the Referendum? The coalition want the Electoral Commission to be in charge. Salmond objects that they are directly answerable to Westminster and therefore unacceptable. In my view, Salmond's on weak ground here - any body set up by a Nationalist adminitration in Holyrood without cross-party support would have questionable legitimacy to oversee such a referendum. I would also question how far Salmond can push the objections to the Electoral Commission given that they oversaw the elections that put him in power - there would come a put where he would, in effect, be questioning his own legitimacy. Personally, I would be surprised if the Electoral Commission wasn't involved in overseeing the referendum.

4. What will the Question be? The coalition are adamant that it must be a simple yes-no for independance. The SNP seem keen of including some kind of option or second vote for further devolution (devo-max). The coalition say that that is not just a matter for Scotland as it would have implications for Wales, Northern Ireland and other parts of the Union. Back come the SNP, butt out, this is none of your business. Well, that's the gist of it. The arguments on both sides are rather weak - as far as I'm aware there was no mention of devo-max in the SNP's manifesto, therefore there is no mandate for it to be included in the referendum. Again, I'm not sure how far Salmond can push this without it looking like we know we're going to lose the independance vote, but... On the coalition side, devolution was totally uneven under the last government and it was only the Welsh referendum last year that brough things anywhere near being consistent. The coalition might well argue that this is a new government doing things differently, but its hard to argue against Scotland having had a different relationship to the rest of the Union for hundreds of years. It might well come down to which side has the best negotiating team.

Politically speaking, Labour has the most to lose from devo-max as they are likely (especially with the proposed boundary changes) to need their Scottish MPs in order to govern at Westminster and devo-max would throw the West Lothian question into even sharper perspective. For the SNP, it would obviously allow them to claim some kind of victory in the case of losing the referendum. For the Tories, there is a careful balancing act - as committed unionists they can't stomach the idea of an independant Scotland and even devo-max is probably loosening the bonds of the union too much. On the other hand, there is an argument that they wouldn't want to see the SNP humiliated and a spent political force 6-9 months before the next General Election. They're not going to be making any advances in Scotland any time soon, the LDs could well still be feeling the coalition backlash north of the border and the Tories need some kind of buffer against Labour up here, even if its only the SNP rather than Labour taking seats off the Liberals. Winning the referendum but allowing the SNP to continue arguing about the option they weren't allowed maybe allows the SNP to continue as a challenge to Labour into 2015.

5. The West Sheppey Question* Who gets to vote? Salmond wants 16 and 17 year olds to have the vote? Should Scots living outside Scotland get a vote? How about Scots living outside the UK? What about Scots serving in the armed forces elsewhere in the UK and therefore registered there? And how do you define who is Scottish in this context anyway? After all, we don't (yet?) have Scottish citizenship and surely you would need something tighter than the current rules on who's eligible to play football for Scotland (anyone whose Great-grandmother once visited Edinburgh Castle). Solved all that. How about non-Brits living in Scotland - currently for the General Election Irish and Commonwealth citizens can vote, whilst for Holyrood and local elections any EU national resident in Scotland can vote. Should they get a say on whether Scotland should be an independant country. These are possibly the most difficult questions about the process and nobody has even begun to really provide answers yet.

* This term was coined on an online forum after Gordon Henderson, the conservative MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, asked in the Commons whether his grandfather, a Scot living in England, would be eligible to vote.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

2012-01-06T18:10:00.001Z

Tom Cruise is back in the 4th installment of the variable franchise. This time behind the camera is Pixar alumni Brad Bird (Ratatouille, The Incredibles) making his live action debut. Joining Cruise on the team in front of the camera are Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner, with Simon Pegg also returning with a more beefed-up role from part 3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's Michael Nyqvist takes on the standard Euro-villain duties.

A mission to steal files from the Kremlin goes badly wrong and leaves Cruise's IMS team framed with blowing up part of the Kremlin, disowned by their own government and in a battle to clear their names, stop a nuclear war and avoid being arrested (or worse by the Russians). Which as plots go is fairly standard. The villain, too, is pretty unremarkable - a crazy genius who thinks that nuclear war will trigger the next steps in mankind's evolution, or some such. So far, so bad Bond knock-off.

But Mission Impossible has never been about plausible plots, but more about excitement and action. And here, Bird, bringing touches of Pixar's inventiveness, really makes the film work. Most of the action set pieces deliver and some even feel a little fresh and innovative. Highlights include a foot chase through a sandstorm and the final showdown in an automated car park. The MI staples - self-destructing messages and latex masks - are referenced, but mainly for comic effect and not allowed to dominate the film. In fact there is a good deal of humour throughout, which blends well with the action.

Cruise does the kind of job you would expect of him (although, dare I suggest it, he is starting to get a wee bit old for this - definitely too old for the hoodie look he tries to get away with). Should he ever decide to hang up the franchise, then Renner (who is definite plus for the film) would be well placed to take it on, or at least he would be were he not already taking on the Bourne franchise later this year.

Overall - 7/10 Probably the second best of the franchise - might not be totally original, but the action works well and its an entertaining popcorn movie and, to be honest, that's all anyone can expect from Mission Impossible.

Looking forward to 2012 politically

2012-01-05T16:50:00.000Z

Continuing the blog re-launch and switching to my other obsession. After looking back on 2011 cinematically, let's look forward to 2012 politically.

Truth be told, with the exception of the forthcoming City of Edinburgh Council elections (of which more later) the more interesting and meaningful elections this year are probably happening in other parts of the world, so I'm unapologetic about a slightly international flavour to this post, starting across the pond.

US Presidential Election
The year long roadshow has already started with the first Republican caucus in Iowa on Tuesday. Theoretically, Obama should be facing a tough re-election bid with the US economy struggling in the mire and relatively low approval ratings for the president himself. Of course, that would be dependant on the Republicans having a credible candidate and there is the nub of the matter.

Already retired from the race is Michelle Bachman - a rabid Tea-party-er (think Sarah Palin without any redeeming features). The winner in Iowa, Mitt Romney, won by a massive 0.01% of the total vote (hardly a ringing endorsement). He's probably the most moderate of the bunch with the possibility to appeal to the centre ground, but he's also a mormon and that ain't going to sit well with the Party's evangelical bible-belt base who could just sit at home were he the candidate, giving Obama crucial Mid-West swing states.

The man he narrowly beat, Rick Santorum, is much more on the right with some pretty hard-line views on things like homosexuality, abortion, etc... so much so that some naughty satirists came up with a new meaning for the word Santorum just to offend him (although I'd advise you not to google it). Like most of the other candidates, might galvanise the base but lose the rest of the country. Also still in the race are Ron Paul (a bit of a maverick with some allegations of racism in a publication he was responsible hanging over his head) and Newt Gingrich who's just pretty objectionable and Rick Perry.

Any of these could yet win the candidature (but are unlikely to win the presidency), or we could head into the Republican party convention with it all undecided (what is known as a brokered convention) in which case an as-yet-undeclared candidate may emerge from the floor - Jeb Bush is being mentioned. Whatever, I would expect Obama to be re-elected fairly comfortable although not with the landslide of 2008.

French Presidential Elections.
Another electorate facing a pretty poor choice this year are the French. Their presidential election (over two rounds) seems almost inevitably to come down to a choice between Sarkozy and socialist candidate Francois Hollande. Hollande is maintaining a healthy (but slightly shrinking lead) in the polls and the conventional wisdom is that Sarkozy is a goner. This would fit - across Europe almost every government that was in power when the financial crisis hit has been voted out at the first opportunity. The problem is that nobody (maybe not even Hollande himself) sees him as a president. He's more of a nearly man, who's been around for a long time without ever really achieving high office or anything spectacular. This might come into play more as the campaign progresses and I wouldn't be surprised to see Sarkozy pull back and maybe even pull of the big shock and win.

Of the other contenders, it seemed at one point last year that Front National leader Marine Le Pen might challenge Sarkozy for a place in the second round, but she seems to be fading away a bit. Centrist Francois Bayrou seems to enjoying something of a bounce and might catch Le Pen for third, but that's about his limit, whilst Left Front (Communist) Melanchon, Green Joly and fromer Sarkozy ally Villepin remain stuck in single figures.

London Mayor/Assembly
If the French feel like they have an all-too-familar choice, spare a thought for Londoners, where all three main parties have selected the same candidates for mayor as last time. The Deja-vu will probably continue with the same result - Boris re-elected as Livingstone fails to win back any of the votes he lost last time. In the Assembly there will also probably not be much change - maybe a seat or two changing between Labour and Tories, the LDs will try to hold all their seats whilst the Greens will try to gain an extra one and, hopefully, the BNP will be wiped out of the Assembly (in reality they are no longer there as their AM defected to the English Democrats) but it will be nice to see them defeated in an election.

Local Elections
Most local elections in England will be for seats last elected in 2008, which was Labour's nadir in terms of results, so expect some significant gains for them, especially in the Metropolitan areas. I'd expect the LDs to have reached their nadir last year and to maybe hold a few more seats this time round relatively. The Tories were boosted by the anti-AV vote last May and will probably do slightly, but not significantly worse this time.
In Wales, Labour will make significant advances.

The most interesting contests will be in Scotland where the SNP will be trying to carry on from their phenomenal success last year in local council elections. They could take control of some of Scotland's biggest councils - my prediction they will get a majority in Dundee and become the largest party in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, whilst narrowly missing out on doing the same in Glasgow (although preventing Labour keeping their majority). At the other end of the scale, the question for the LDs is just how bad will it be?

Tony's Favourite Films of 2011

2012-01-03T16:55:00.000Z

So, after an absence of many months, my New Year's resolutions see me at start of January attempting to re-launch this blog. Hopefully, unlike many New Year's resolutions, I will manage to keep it going this time.

What better way to start the New Year than by looking back on the old one and, as per tradition, listing my favourite movies of the past 12 months. For one reason or another I didn't end up seeing (quite) as many movies as in previous years, but of those I did see these were my top ten.

But before that, a few Honourable Mentions for films that didn't quite make the list: 50/50 was funnier than any film about cancer should be; Rabbit Hole was a brilliantly acted study of the impact of grief on a family; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 finished off a franchise in triumphant style, whilst X-Men First Class was a promising re-launch of one.

Whilst we're at it. a few Dishonourable Mentions for films that should be avoided at all cost. Most predictable, but Little Fockers, Your Highness, The Hangover Part 2 and The Dilemma would struggle to find a single redeeming feature between them.

But back to the Top Ten:

10. Submarine was quirky, funny and very individual, all the more striking for being a debut for most of those involved.

9. The Guard is probably not one for the easily offended, but was outrageously funny and gave Brendan Gleeson the kind of material that he really deserves.

8. Never Let Me Go was kind of lost amongst all the awards nominees, but was intelligent and thought-provoking not quite science-fiction and featured great performances by some of Britain's best young actors.

7. Senna was the best documentary of the year. Whether or not you are a fan of Formula 1 or not, it was a fascinating portrait of the collision of talent, faith and fate.

6. Hugo Scorcese makes a film for children, except that it's not really, more a tribute to the pioneers of cinema. What it is is visually stunning and genuinely heart-warming.

5. Troll Hunter breathing new life into the found footage sub-genre, with some stunning special effects mixed with good characters and some nice performances. Watch it before they ruin it in the American re-make.

4. Black Swan. Again, possibly not to everyone's tastes, but a gripping psychological film and a deserved Oscar win for Natalie Portman.

3. True Grit Better than the John Wayne original, beautifully shot, full of wonderful characters and entertaining performances by Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon alongside a stunning debut Hailee Steinfeld. Top notch.

2. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Le Carre's thriller was always going to suffer slightly from being condensed into a film rather than a series, but Tomas Alfedson does an amazing job of creating an atmospheric, gripping and intelligent tale of espionage. A strong cast is headed up by Gary Oldman who triumphs in the unenviable task of filling one of Alec Guinness' most famous roles.

1. The King's Speech making it a 1-2 for Britain and for Colin Firth, who is outstanding here. What could have been a rather worthy period drama is instead a stunning, lively and funny film centring on the unlikely relationship between Firth and Rush. Almost worthy of all the acclaim it received.

As always, feel free to comment, disagree or offer your own thoughts.

Coming soon: looking forward to the year ahead politically (with an international flavour).

Kung Fu Panda 2

2011-06-18T11:09:00.000Z

The original Kung Fu Panda was a fairly solid and fairly typical Dreamworks Animation film: stellar voice cast (Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogen and Jackie Chan); well done animation (although not up to PIxar standards) and an entertaining story mixing humour and action. It screamed competence rather than inspiration, it was a decent second rate effort that failed to match Pixar or even Dreamworks own best efforts (the original Shrek or How to Train Your Dragon).

Hardly surprisingly, Kung Fu Panda 2 gives us more of the same - the voice cast gets more stellar (Gary Oldman on villain duties; Michelle Yeoh and even Jean-Claude Van Damme!). The animation remains attractive and effective and there are some nice touches in mixing in different styles of animation for the flashback sequences. It has some funny moments and some decent action, without ever being truly hilarious or emotionally engaging.

The story, having sorted out Black's Po at the end of the last film, has to un-sort him to give him a new character arc (or rather the same arc repeated). To do this, they fall back on the old-hat daddy issues. Although, to be fair, this does knowingly play on one of the most perplexing aspects of the first film - how a panda has a goose for a dad. On the positive side, Oldman is a delight, hamming it up to great effect as the villainous Lord Shen and the interplay between him and Michelle Yeoh's soothsayer goat is one of the strongest aspects of the film. The rest is never less than entertaining, but never much more either. And it loses marks for the shameless link to a possible third film in the final scene.

Overall - 6.5/10 Solidly competent with a few nice touches.

X-Men First Class

2011-06-12T18:48:00.000Z

After the success of the first two Brian Singer directed films, the X-Men frachise took something of a nosedive through the messy Last Stand and the hugely disappointing Wolverine prequel. Once again we return to prequel territory with this origins story. On paper there was reason to be optimistic - the director's chair was taken by Matthew Vaughn (fresh off the success of Kick Ass) and the cast includes Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones and Kevin Bacon.

So, does this film work to heave the franchise back on track. The answer would be an almost unqualified Yes. Almost unqualified in that it has some faults - it probably tries to introduce too many characters so that some are poorly served - Riptide has little to do and less to say and some of the new characters' powers are either a bit derivative of previous characters (Havoc) or just a bit naff. But on the whole it works very well.

Vaughn, re-teaming with Kick Ass scripter Jane Goldman, has delivered a film which combines a bit of wit and humour with some good characters and some great action set pieces. The final battle of the coast of Cuba is one of the best handled and most thrilling finales to a superhero movie for a long time. In fact, the period, the tone and setting in the Cuban missile crisis gives this the feel of something akin to a Connery era bond movie, only with mutant superpowers and echoes of the Anakin/Vader plot from Star Wars.

As for the cast, the stand-out is Fassbender who makes a startingly good young Ian McKellen and brings some depth to the role. McAvoy struggles a bit more to live up to Patrick Stewart (hence repeated jokes about not wanting to lose his hair) but generally holds his own well enough. Of the others, Winter's Bone's Lawrence makes for a sympathetic Mystique, Nicholas Hoult brings pathos to the role of Beast and Mad Men's January Jones makes a great Femme Fatale as Emma Frost. It goes without saying that Kevin Bacon also makes superb villain. Also watch out for brief cameos from Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Romjin from the first films.

Overall - 7.5/10 First Class superhero flick and franchise firmly back on track.

Edinburgh City Centre by-election

2011-06-12T17:43:00.000Z

There's go to be a by-election in Edinburgh. The sitting SNP councillor for the City Centre ward is resigning to go to Harvard. Normally, council by-election wouldn't be all that interesting, certainly not enough to warrant its own blog post. However, there are two things that make this interesting:

1. Should the SNP lose the seat and the Lib-Dems not gain it, then the ruling Lib-Nat coalition in Edinburgh will no longer have enough seats to control the council and will need to bring on board the Tories or the Greens, (unless the Libs decided to ditch the Nats and hook up with Labour - not likely at the moment!).

2. More interestingly, City Centre ward is perhaps the closest 5-way marginal seat in Scotland. The results in 2007 were:
SNP 20.3% (elected)
Con 20.1% (elected)
LD 19.7% (elected)
Lab 17.9%
Grn 16.8%
By the time the Green candidate was eliminated, he was only 18 votes behind the Labour candidate (who was a sitting councillor). Transfers from the Greens then took the LD candidate over the threshold for election. The surplus from the LD then saw the SNP candidate elected and kept the Tory far enough ahead of Labour to be elected.

Of course, a lot has changed since then. The Lib-Dem vote, in particular, can be expected to have dropped quite sharply as they experience the backlash of nationally being in coalition with the Tories. The Tory vote has also probably dropped (although their New Town vote in this ward is probably quite loyal). Labour's vote should have risen, but in Scotland generally they find themselves in a bit of shell-shock after their drubbing in May. The SNP generally seem to be on the rise, but might themselves suffer a wee bit for being in coalition locally with the Lib-Dems. The Greens were disappointed not to pick up more seats in May, but did increase their vote across Edinburgh and finished ahead of the Lib-Dems on the list in all Edinburgh constituencies except Western.

So putting all that together what is likely to happen. On first preferences, the SNP will probably finish first and a little bit further ahead. Then it could end up being very close between the Tories, Labour and the Greens, with the LDs probably dropping to 5th. After that supposition gets even more tentative. Currently transfers from the LDs are likely to break more in favour of the Greens, probably followed by the SNP and then Labour and the Tories. This might stretch the SNP lead. Then...
If the Greens are eliminated next, their transfers would probably also favour the SNP, then Labour and finally the Tories. Meaning the Tories would be next to go. Most of their votes probably wouldn't transfer but the ones that would, would break in the SNP's favour. Result SNP victory.
If the Tories were eliminated after the LDs, again most votes probably won't transfer. Those that do would heavily favour SNP, with probably the Greens marginally ahead of Labour. If the Greens went next, the SNP would clearly beat Labour, but if Labour went next, their transfers might break in the Greens' favour although probably not by enough to catch the SNP.
If Labour were eliminated after the LDs, their transfers would almost certainly ensure that the Greens were ahead of the Tories, although to stand any chance the Greens would need to be ahead of the SNP too at this stage, as Tory transfers will probably favour the SNP.

So, by far the most likely outcome is an SNP victory. Surprisingly, the party with the best chance of beating them is the Greens, but only if they can get ahead of Labour early on and even then their chances are slim. In reality, they will probably be content with a strong showing putting them in a good place for one of three seats that this ward will elect next May.

Of course, if the current thinking prevails and this election in the city Centre of Edinburgh is held in August in the middle of the festival then absolutely anything could happen!

Senna

2011-06-12T14:57:00.001Z

I was in Zimbabwe when Ayrton Senna died in a crash at Imola in 1994 and even there it was big news. The film Senna from director Asif Kapadia is both powerfully enthralling and ultimately slightly frustrating. Kapadia takes the route of eschewing voice-over, instead relying on the accounts of those who actually knew him and archive footage to tell the story. The result is a fascinating story in two parts.

The first two thirds of the film covers Senna's quick rise to being one of the leading drivers in the world and his long-running duel with Alain Prost. The film paints an enigmatic picture of a man of devout faith, but who was also convinced the establishment was out to get him. Kapadia's tone is more reverential than objective and as such the fiery Senna is shown in a more positive light than the more calculating Prost. One effect with this foregrounding of the rivalry is that other key players (Piquet, Mansell, etc...) are more or less ignored, but this is Senna's story, so fair enough. However, the draw back of the reverential tone is the feeling that, despite the evident combination of faith and paranoia, the film never gets really gets under the surface and grapples with what really made Senna tick.

The final third of the film is taken up with Senna's last season and the events leading up to the fatal crash. This is where the film really packs some emotional wallop. Showing Senna's reactions to the earlier crashes of Rubens Barrichello and the fatal crash of Roland Ratzenberger. There is a kind of horrible inevitability building and when they cut to onboard cameras on Senna's car for the race itself, it becomes almost unbearable. One of the things that strikes you is just how unlucky he was - his crash looked by far the most innocuous of the three (if anything, Barrichello's looked the most horrific and he survived).

Overall 8/10 Often with a story this powerful in a documentary, it is very difficult to actually evaluate how good the film is, but this is fascinating and compelling, if not flawless, documentary making.

The Hangover Part II

2011-06-04T11:41:00.000Z

The original The Hangover wasn't everybody's cup of tea (or indeed, bottle of beer), but what it did have was fresh creative energy in large amounts which showed itself in the innovative structure and the sheer unpredictability of some of the events. This was actually the source of much of the humour. So making a sequel, you have a choice of whether to find something new and equally inventive or to repeat the same gags, merely upping the gross out factor.

Unfortunately, here the filmakers decided to go with option B. The same tricks are repeated again, replacing the surprise factor of the original with more ugly extremes. So the film starts with a telephone conversation between the same two characters (who in this instance would have no real reason to be talking). The baby is replaced by a monkey, the prostitute by a ladyboy, the tiger by a mute monk and so on and so forth. The result is all very predictable, unengaging and unfunny. To be fair, there is one moment of genuine invention, where the flashback enters the mind of Alan (Zach Galifianakis) who sees them playing out the events of the previous evening as children. But this moment just highlights what lazy film-making the rest of it is. It goes from bad to worse at the end when the viewers eardrums are assaulted by the aural torture that is Mike Tyson trying to sing One Night in Bangkok.

Overall - 4/10 A comedy so unfunny that not even the presence of Paul Giamatti can lift it.

Win Win

2011-05-28T19:25:00.000Z

As an actor, Thomas McCarthy is one of those faces that keeps cropping up but you can never put a name to. However, as a writer-director, his previous two films (The Station Agent and The Visitor) have been underseen slices of brilliance. He has a gift for crafting compelling stories out of very real but unlikely relationships and human contact.

Win Win is lighter in tone than his previous two films. Paul Giamatti gives us another performance as a put upon everyman as Mike, a lawyer with financial problems, who takes on the guardianship of an old man because he needs the fees. Things start to get complicated when the man's grandson, Kyle, turns up to stay. But what would you know, the kids a star wrestler and Mike coaches the local, not very successful, team. Of course, things don't turn out that smoothly.

In different hands, this could have turned into a standard comedy, with Mike going to ever more desparate lengths to cover up what he's doing. McCarthy doesn't go there, preferring instead to keep some very real, sometimes funny, but sometimes painful relationships at the core. At the heart of the film is a true-feeling relationship between Mike and his wife (Amy Ryan) and their growing bond with Kyle. Given this, the ending is a bit of let down - feeling too neat and not quite real somehow, straying into the kind of Capra-esque feel-good factor which is fine in its place, but feels out of place in this film.

Elsewhere, the acting is superb - Giamatti and Ryan are every bit as good as you'd expect. Bobby Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor add most of the laughs as Mike's two friends and fellow coaches.

Overall - 7/10 The ending's a slightly off note, but otherwise this is a funny and moving film with the ring of truth to it.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

2011-05-27T17:07:00.000Z

The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was an unexpected delight - a genuinely fun and exciting film, so much better than anyone would have expected from an adaptation of a theme park ride. It also unleashed a truly memorable cinematic character in Captain Jack Sparrow. The sequels suffered from trying to make it a formula, too much plotting, a surfeit of Orlando and Keira and the incomprehensibility of Keith Richards.

In those last two respects, On Stranger Tides has a headstart - no Bloom or Knightley and Richards is amazingly intelligible in his brief cameo (and has one of the best lines of the movies - "Does this face look like its been to the fountain of youth"). In fact, the film starts promisingly enough with the nonsensical court scene and Sparrow's escape from king's custody. Unfortunately, from then on its downhill most of the way, with a brief upswing for the mermaid attack (which is the best action sequence in the whole film). Yes, the production values are still great and yes, the film still looks gorgeous, but its not enough.

On Stranger Tides, despite a new director, falls too closely into the short-comings of Dead Man's chest and At World's End. There's too much plot without any real reason - three different groups all seeking the fountain of youth, only one person actually seems to really want to find it, one group are completely sidelined, we have zombie sailors, giant flamethrowers and real ships in bottles for no apparent reason other than somebody thought it was a good idea. There are also still too many characters. Of the new characters, only Penelope Cruz's Angelica has any real presence (and more chemistry with Depp than Angelina Jolie in The Tourist). Ian McShane's Blackbeard is the real disappointment - the pirate all other pirates fear lacks depth, conviction or menace, coming out much worse than Bill Nighy's Davy Jones in the villain stakes. The romance between missionary (Sam Clafin) and mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey, yes, really) is so starved of room and bland that you might find yourself getting nostalgic for Orlando and Keira. Even Geoffrey Rush' Barbossa seems to be running on empty.

Director Rob Marshall (Oscar nominated for Chicago) strangely seems afraid to try anything original, so we get a fight reminiscent of the forge in the first movie, and a climax in cave with numerous reverses which seems to lifted straight from the original. Which wouldn't have been such a crime, if only it had been carried out with some energy and conviction, but instead it feels rushed and half-hearted lacking the twisting sense of the first film. Whisper it quietly, but on of the main problems here is with Jack Sparrow himself. In the first film, he was a breathe of fresh air who had a rock'n'roll sense of unpredictability. Now on his fourth outing, we know him too well, there are no surprises left, we know exactly what he's going to do in any situation. Depp seems to sense this and appears less invested in the character than ever before. In fact, with this on the back of The Tourist there is a worrying possibility that Depp is starting down the De Niro route of lazy performances to pick up a paycheque (although to be fair, Depp has yet to make anything equivalent to Little Fockers).

Overall - 5.5/10 Its still a well-produced and mildly entertaining film rather than a bad one, but it feels half-hearted and over-familiar.

Catching up on films

2011-05-19T18:46:00.000Z

May elections and personal developments have been rather occupying my time lately, so I've fallen rather behind in the film reviews. Here then is a whistlestop overview of what I've seen over the past few weeks.

Red Riding Hood - 5.5/10 Gorgeous looking but rather flat fairy-tale updating which doesn't manage to match The Company of Wolves. Amanda Seyfried is left rather stranded in a love triangle with two men competing to be the most wooden whilst Gary Oldman does a rare turn demonstrating how to go truly over the top.

Your Highness - 3.5/10 Deeply unfunny so-called comedy in the genre of those 80s fantasies. Krull was both a better movie and funnier. Oscar-winner Natalie Portman (why????) gamely tries her best, whilst Oscar-nominee James Franco seems to spend the whole film laughing at a joke that is lost on the audience. Maybe its just me, but I just don't get Danny McBride's appeal.

Thor - 7/10. Portman is better served here in the latest from Marvel. Kenneth Branagh directs and manages to do a good job of making it fun without descending into self-parody (given that we need to buy into the hero being a Norse god, thats no easy feat). Anthony Hopkins and Stellan Skaarsgaard add the gravitas, whilst relative newcomers Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston give star-in-the-making turns as hero and villain respectively. It also gets The Avengers back on track after Iron Man 2 plugged it rather too heavily - watch out for Jeremy Renner's cameo and the post-credit teaser. Next up - Captain America.

Cedar Rapids - 6/10 Frank Capra updated for the gross-out generation. Small little comedy drama which is pleasantly watchable, but at its best when it goes meta with its riffs on The Wire.

Hanna - 7.5/10 The latest from director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) is a slightly strange combination of Bourne and fairy-tale. The film combines action and comedy well, but could have done without the soundtrack that tries to bludgen you into submission. Tom Hollander makes a truly creepy bad guy (referencing the Fritz Lang classic M) whilst Cate Blanchett also enjoys a trip to the dark side, but Saoirse Ronan holds the film together with a performance thats part cold killer, part naive innocent but never jarring.

Rio - 6/10 Over-trailed, but quite watchable family entertainment. Even as an animated bird, Jesse Eisenberg is still Jesse Eisenberg, but the film is almost stolen by the Jermaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) as the villainous cockatoo, but why did they only give him one song - which is the film's only moment of true genius.

Attack the Block - 7.5/10 Aliens take on inner city yoofs in a British film that effectively combines humour, action, elements of gore and horror and Nick Frost. The Aliens look a bit too much like shaggy dogs to be genuinely scary, but the cast of largely non-professional youngsters add a sense of authenticity to the dialogue and setting.

Elections - who will be the happiest?

2011-05-07T18:57:00.000Z

So the votes are all counted (except Northern Ireland) and there were some predictable features - the failure of the referendum, the collapse of the Lib Dem vote. Others were more surprising - the SNP gaining an outright majority, the conservatives making gains in the English local elections. Who will be the happiest?

1. SNP A no brainer really. Watching the seats fall was the closest to the experience of the '97 landslide there's been since. An outright majority at Holyrood is a remarkable achievement. Of the four big parties, the SNP are the best to govern at the moment. My main concern is that large majorities (of whatever party) without an effective opposition tend to produce bad governments - the SNP need an effective opposition to sharpen and balance them. Labour are clearly in no position to provide that, so its going to be down to the Tories, but with only 15 seats that's going to be tough.

2. Conservatives Their vote held up reasonably well in Scotland, they progressed in Wales and finished the second largest party and they won the referendum. They gained seats and councils in England - far fewer than Labour, but this was an election where they were supposed to lose seats by the hundreds, so their achievement is more remarkable.

3. Labour Overall, it will have been a slightly disappointing night - they obliterated the Lib Dems in the English metropolitans, but failed to take the number of seats that they would have hoped for overall. They made progress in Wales, but missed the outright majority. They won the Leicester South by-election, but without the huge bounce they enjoyed in Barnsley. But the major fly in the ointment was an absolute disaster in Scotland, losing seats that they previously thought they owned by right.

4. Greens Will be disappointed by their failure to gain extra seats at Holyrood, despite promising pre-elections polls. Also failed to gain their first Welsh Assembly member, but in both cases increased their vote. They also did better than expected in the English locals, where they were expected to struggle against a resugent Labour, they held most of their seats and made gains elsewhere to finish 13 seats up overall and the largest party in Brighton (the first time ever they've been in this position).

5. UKIP Failed to build on promising by-election performances. Missed out on gaining a Welsh AM. Disappointing result in Leicester and finished with only 7 councillors elected across England - exactly the number of seats they were defending. Treading water.

6. Plaid Cymru Totally failed to emulate the SNP's success - finished down 4 seats in Wales and in 3rd place. Disappointing.

7. BNP Defending 13 council seats in England - won just 2. Vote in Wales almost halved. In almost terminal decline, but probably thankful they aren't the...

8. Lib Dems Surprisingly, what looked like being their worst result at the start of the years - Wales - actually turned out to be their best - they only lost 1 seat. In Scotland, their vote collapsed and they were reduced from 16 seats to just 5, with Orkney and Shetland being the only constituencies held and with no representation at all in 4 out of 8 regions (remarkably including Lothians). In England, they lost over a third of their councillors up for election and lost countrol of 9 out 19 councils. Their best result was arguably in Leicester South where they held on to second and only had a 4% drop in their vote.

Thursday - some predictions

2011-05-03T21:00:00.000Z

Scottish Elections

This should have been an election tailor-made for a Labour victory. Now in opposition at both Westminster and Holyrood with unpopular cuts being forced through. Two months ago, Labour looked unassailable for Holyrood - surely they couldn't blow it from here. Step forward Iain Gray and co. Most polls now have the SNP consistently in front. An admittedly rather suspect one for STV today had Labour down to the mid-20s in both votes. Whereas it looked like Labour would be reclaiming the seats it narrowly lost to the SNP 4 years ago (Glasgow Southern, Stirling, Edinburgh Eastern; Almond Valley, etc....) now it looks more like a question of which seats the SNP will add to therir gains from Labour - Linlithgow is the most likely to go, followed by Aberdeen Central, then maybe Clydesdale where the absence of a Lib Dem candidate could produce an unusual result. (There are also large votes for parties no longer standing in Glasgow Kelvin and Strathkelvin and Bearsden, which make them slightly unpredictable).

Both parties will look to capitalise on the Lib-Dems unpopularity. Labour will almost certainly take Dunfermline off them and will look to take Edinburgh Southern (where the sitting MSP has a strong personal vote and potentially a lot of Tory/SNP votes to squeeze). The SNP will be looking to take the Lib Dems two Highland seats and also Aberdeen South (where Nicol Stephen is standing down). There are even some rumours that Tavish Scott may be in trouble from a Independant in Shetland (I reckon he'll still be pretty safe though).

The fall away of Labour's campaign has left most of the Tory constituencies looking a bit safer. McLetchie should now hold Edinburgh Pentlands. Galloway might possibly be a gain for the SNP though. They might also lose some list seats

The Greens are of course focussing on the list vote. Their most likely sources of seats in order are (I reckon)
Lothian, Glasgow, Highlands, North East, Mid and Fife, South, 2nd Lothians, West, Central.

My prediction:
SNP 54
Lab 46
Con 15
LD 7
Grn 6
Margo 1

Wales
The Labour campaign here seems to have held up better. The may or may not get an overall majority - I reckon they might come just short. It might be a funny election in that the Tories could lose most of their constituencies, but still finish up overall. On the other hand Plaid and the LDs could both hold their constituencies and finish down. Also a chance of UKIP getting their first AM.

I'm going for
Lab 30
Con 15
Plaid 11
LD 4

AV Referendum
After an amazingly poor campaign by both sides, the referendum will be lost, by something like 59% to 41%.

Leicester South by-election
Lost amidst all the other elections, there's a by-election in Leicester South (a seat the Lib-Dems won in a by-election in 2003 - they won't get close this time). It will be another smooth ride for Labour.

Lab 57.3
Con 19.9
LD 14.8
UKIP 6.8
Loonies 1.5

English Local Elections
Inevitable gains for Labour, but they are coming back from a very low point. I do get the sense that they have lost a wee bit of momentum and the results won't be as pleasing as they would have liked. They might finish about 1200 seats up (900 from the Tories; 300 from the LDs). What will be interesting to see to tell how much Labour are actually winning voters back, or how much the coalition is losing them, is how Labour fares against parties like the Greens where they are in contention in places like Brighton and Norwich. Looks like being a bad set of locals for the BNP though ;-)

Tomorrow, When the War Began

2011-04-13T14:20:00.000Z

This grammatically-interestingly-titled offering from Down Under is adapted from a best selling series of books by John Marsden (8 books so far and counting). (The tense-bending title seems to come from a line that's in the trailer, but not the actual film). The story follows 7 Australian teenagers who go on a camping trip to the enticingly named Hell, only to discover on their return that their part of Australia has been overrun by the evil invading armies of The Coalition (the political jokes here are too obvious, so I'll pass over them) and decide to become guerilla fighters in the Outback.

The Characters are more stock-types than fully-fleshed individuals - think The Breakfast Club goes to War. And the character arcs are equally predictable - you know the posh girl is going to end up falling for the rebel, who in turn will respond well to the crisis and become a leader and you know that at some point the Christian who refuses to kill will at some point pick up a gun and mow down everything in front of her.

However, where the film succeeds are in the action sequences - a genuinely thrilling car chase around the town and the climactic attempt to blow up the bridge are handled as well as many a Hollywood blockbuster with a much larger budget. Its when things slow down and get talky that you start to notice the patchy acting talent and the leaden script (at one point a character really does say "what's the worse that can happen?" without a hint of irony). Still that doesn't stop the whole being rather entertaining fun. Part 2 is already in the works.

Overall - 6/10 Counter-intuitively for what is a low-budget take on a Hollywood staple genre, the action scenes rock, but the talky bits drag. Not bad though.

What a Choice...

2011-04-13T11:09:00.000Z

I will be voting on May 5th as I want my vote to count both in the regional list vote for Holyrood (for the Greens) and in the AV referendum (Yes). However, when it comes to the constituency vote for Holyrood I'm faced with a completely uninspiring choice - in my particular constituency (as in many this year) the choice is just the candidates from the main 4 Scottish parties. In all cases, I can come up with very good reasons not to vote for them, but am struggling to come up with a single decent reason to vote for any of them.

The Conservatives seem to have put together a manifesto that is totally blind to real issues of poverty and inequality that Scotland faces, not to mention a head in the sand approach to pressures on the environment. Labour still seem to be in absolute denial about their role in damaging the UK economy and creating the pressure for the cuts and have come up with a bunch of crowd-pleasing slogans and no money to pay for them. The SNP also have a huge unexplained financial hole in their plans and are an environmental disaster with their support for more fossil fuel use and more road-building. As for the Lib-Dems, who would normally be my default choice, not only are there the compromises of coalition, which in themselves wouldn't put me off, but actually more importantly, the absolute insanity of what seems to be their central campaign idea of financing their ideas by selling off Scottish Water's debt. That's not going to end well in the long term. If Labour mortgaged our children's future, the Scottish Lib-Dems now seem to want to re-mortgage it.

So, the choice is do I hold my nose and put the cross beside one of the above or do I, for the first time in my voting life, spoil the ballot paper. Its not a practice that I normally approve of, but if I was to do it, I'd like to do it quite imaginatively by, for example, writing in a candidate that I would genuinely like to see elected to the Scottish parliament. Any suggestions?

The Eagle

2011-04-08T17:41:00.000Z

It is rather hard to believe that The Eagle is directed by the same man (Kevin MacDonald) who brought us excellent films such as The Last King of Scotland, State of Play and Touching the Void. This adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliffe's well-loved novel The Eagle of the Ninth concerns the quest to re-capture the lost eagle of the ninth legion from the barbaric lands north of Hadrian's wall. As such it covers very similar ground to last year's Centurion (directed by Neil Marshall), but whilst Centurion had a certain visceral thrill to it and a sense of fun at times (mainly when Dominic West was on screen), The Eagle has, well, not a lot really.

What should be at its heart is a tale of an unlikely friendship between Roman Marcus Flavius Aquila (Channing Tatum) and his British slave, Esca (Jamie Bell). However, the film gives very little in way of credibility as to how the friendship forms and how they move from mutual mistrust and enmity to surprising loyalty. When Sutcliffe wrote the character of Marcus it is doubtful that she envisaged muscle-bound and decidedly American Tatum talking of his family's honour being pissed on. However, Tatum's not the worst thing here (although his presence does seem to lead to the crazy fact that all the Romans, even those played by British actors, now have American accents). If anything, he holds his part better than Bell, who looks a bit lost searching for some believability in his role.

Structurally the film suffers from having the best set-piece battles at the start, leaving what follows as feeling rather flat, although the last stand of the remnants of the Ninth at the end briefly raises spirits. Also, whilst Centurion had some genuine tension and sense of threat in the chase across the Highlands to avoid the pursuing tribes, here things feel peculiarly tension-less. And then there's the problems with the tribes themselves - MacDonald seems to have put great effort into the historical accuracy of the Romans and their tactics (although there was one moment early on when the Romans were sitting huddled in their fort, afraid to send a patrol out because a druid had been seen when I did wonder if I walked into Asterix by mistake) and against them we have these British tribes who look and act more like they belong in Polynesia or the plains of Africa. Woeful.

Several of the films best moments come courtesy of twinkle-eyed Donald Sutherland and that, by itself, says a lot about how disappointing this really is. The landscape is well shot and the fights well-handled, but the characters lack depth and its generally dreary fare.

Overall 5.5/10 Disappointingly flat and unconvincing.

Coming soon...

2011-04-06T21:24:00.001Z

As I received some positive feedback on the policy comparisons I did before last year's general election, I'm aiming to try and do something similar for this year's Scottish elections - watch this space.

Killing Bono

2011-04-06T20:33:00.000Z

Killing Bono is the loosely based on true story of the McCormick brothers. I'm not well enough informed to know how much is true and, frankly, I don't care enough to find out, so I'll concentrate on what's in the film. The McCormick brothers, Neil (Ben Barnes) and Ivan (Robert Sheehan) went to school with the members of U2. Ivan had the opportunity to join U2, but Neil blocked this without telling him, preferring to have Ivan in his own band. As U2 become increasingly big and globally successful, Neil is driven by guilt and desparation to try and make it too.

As a film its an entertaining little yarn, with a smart script, some OK tunes and likeable leads. Barnes, in particular, shines, not only maintaining a fairly good accent, but bringing a degree of humanity and likeability to a character who is basically a self-delusional ass. There are a series of amusing cameos and bit parts, most notably from Pete Postlethwaite as the boy's landlord when they move to London. And the films rolls gently on - consistently amusing, but rarely outright funny. By the end, it feels overlong and over-familiar. The whole Irish gangster sub-plot feels rather unnecessary and only adds coarse stereotypes, coarser humour and gratuitous nudity. Credit then to the two leads for holding things together so well and for Martin McCann for making a pretty good Bono.

Overall - 6/10 Gently amusing, but overlong tale that feels like it should have been tighter and funnier.

The Best Argument Against Proportional Representation???

2011-04-06T20:19:00.000Z

Many of you may not recognise the woman opposite - she's Marine Le Pen, daughter of Jean-Marie and leader of France's far-right Le Front National (in other words you could see her as a blonde Nick Griffin, but that's probably not a particularly pleasant mental picture). She's also been doing rather well in the polls recently - at least well in terms of getting votes, but not seats.

The last two weekends in March saw the Cantonal elections in France for about 2000 seats. The French system works rather differently - over two rounds of voting on successive weekends. After the first round:
- If any candidate gets over 50% of the vote, they are elected without a second round
- Any candidate securing votes of over 12.5% of those registered to vote (NB not those who actually vote) proceeds to the second round
- If less than two candidates meet this requirement, the top two automatically proceed to the second round.

Le Front National polled over 20% in the first round nationally, winning them places in about 400 second round contests. In the second round, they polled almost 12% (at an average of over 30% for each candidate they actually had standing). And how many seats did they win - just 2. That's right - 2 or roughly 0.1% of seats. By contrast the Greens managed to double their first round vote to about 8%, but ultimately won 27 seats. Under a proportional system, Le Front National would have won 300-400 seats probably.

Now, in reality i don't think that keeping any party (however obnoxious they are) out of power should be the deciding factor in choosing an electoral system (something that neither campaign in the upcoming referendum seem to agree with me about - both seem to be arguing that a vote for the other gives the BNP more power), but it is food for thought. And with Ms Le Pen currently polling around the same levels as M Sarkozy and the leading socialist contenders, it looks likely that she might make quite a splash in next year's presidential elections.

Elsewhere in Europe (using a proportional system) there was better news for Greens. Two German state elections also at the end of March saw them increase their number of seats in Baden-Wurttemberg from 17 to 36 and in Rhineland Palatinate from 0 to 18.

Meanwhile, closer to home, our own nasty far-right seems to be struggling somewhat - it looks like the BNP will fielding well under half the number of candidates in this year's English local elections as they did in the last equivalent elections.

Limitless

2011-04-06T19:57:00.000Z

Limitless is a competently entertaining thriller that is probably most noteworthy for one thing. It marks the emergence of Bradley Cooper as a genuine leading man. After strong performances in ensemble pieces (The A Team; The Hangover) and miraculously coming through Sandra Bullock disaster All About Steve with his career more or less intact, here he has to carry a film for the first time and proves himself comfortably up to the task. He may not ever be troubling the Academy voters, but showd he has enough charisma and sparkle to keep an audience with him, even when his character is doing things that may not be altogether likeable.

Cooper plays Eddie Morra, a struggling writer whose life is transformed when he is offered a drug that enables him to tap into more of his brain's capacity. Needless to say, in good Faustian trandition, there are consequences to this path to success, including blackouts, headaches and many a nasty thug to deal with.

Director Neil Burger delivered a competent thriller in The Illusionist, but this is better and the action holds together well, although some of visual flourishes to show the effects of the drug are a bit too showy for their own good. Burger also leaves pleasing ambiguities in the ending, like is or isn't Eddie still using and was he guilty of killing a girl during one of his blackouts. Make your own mind up. Cooper is ably supported by Abby Cornish, who has more of a character to work with than in Sucker Punch, but drifts out of the film towards the end. Its also nice to see De Niro acting as if he actually cares about the role for a change as Cooper's mentor-nemesis.

There are weaknesses here too - the stereotypical Eastern European rent-a-thugs add little to proceeding other than to muddy the plot a little and up the violence levels.

Overall - 7.5/10 A confidently engaging thriller which marks the emergence of a true leading man.

Source Code

2011-04-03T21:14:00.000Z

Source Code is director Duncan Jones follow-up to intelligent indie sci-fi success Moon. This time he's got a bigger budget, bigger stars and a script that's not his own idea. The good news is that he's still managed to produce a gripping film thats's above average in both intelligence and execution, even if it lacks a little of the originality and charm of Moon.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Colter Stevens - a US air force chopper pilot, who wakes up on a train, opposite an atttractive woman who's talking to him as a friend and with another man's face. Eight minutes later the train blows up and Colter finds himself inside a capsule somewhere talking to military types (Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright) on a screen, who explain that they have the technology to send him into the last eight minutes of somebody's life in order for him to work out who planted the bomb in order to stop a bigger attack threatened to happpen later (this is, of course, classic movie bad guy mistake #7 - start with a small attack to give the authorities time to respond and catch you before you can pull off your catastrophic masterplan). So we get the same 8 minutes repeated with differences as Gyllenhaal looks at different likely suspects to try and catch the villain, all the while falling more and more for Michelle Monaghan's fellow passenger. Here the film throws up some good red herrings alongside the real clues before finally revealing its hand. All the while there are interesting questions in the background about where Gyllenhaal's capsule really is and how he got there from flying missions in Afghanistan. And, most importantly, about whether he can actually change what has already happened.

The explanations for the science part of this are rather glossed over, which is probably a good thing as they would probably have sounded even more ridiculous than the do if it had been explained at any length. As it is, its a interesting movie idea that works in the world of the movie. Even then, the ending raises all sorts of questions and suggests several paradoxes and wholes in the plot that the film can't quite answer. However, by this point, the film will have taken you along with it enough that you won't really complain bout being given the ending you feel it deserves (even if it doesn't make a lot of sense).

The cast are great - Monaghan believably fallable for, Farmiga touchingly human in the uniform, Wright unusually hard for him and Gyllenhaal carrying proceedings very well both in believable character and in action. Jones keeps things brief and moving to good effect and whilst this might not be as good as his debut, it shows enough to prove it was no fluke.

Overall - 7.5/10 Thoroughly engaging film built around some good ideas and strong performances.

Sucker Punch

2011-04-03T20:10:00.000Z

Sucker Punch is the mutant offspring of Girl, Interrupted; Moulin Rouge; Casshern and countless Japanese Mangas. If that sounds a mess, broadly speaking it is. The story, such as it is, follows the heroine Babydoll (Emily Browning) as she is pit in an asylum by her abusive step-father and faces the prospect of a lobotomy in 5 days time unless she can work out a way of escape. She retreats into a fantasy world, where the asylum becomes a brothel where she dances for the clients to distract them, whilst her companions (Abby Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung) go about pilfering the various things they need to make their escape. Except we don't see the dance, but rather enter into a deeper layer of Babydoll's fantasy where the girls are fighting giant samurai robots, clockwork steam-powered German zombies, dragon and yet more robots.

Director Zack Snyder's previous films (300, Watchmen) have suffered from a triumph of style over substance, but at least the style was impressive and there was some kind of coherent story to hang it. Here, there are impressive images but there are all thrown together so haphazardly in a blur of action that what you end up with is lots of things that might look good as still images getting lost in the blender with none of the steampunk, gothic, burlesque, martial arts, anime, fantasy, sci-fi or just plain weird elements having enough room to actually shine. As for the story, well, by the end you might well be scratching your head. In other filmd with multiple layers of reality (most recently and notably, Inception) the links between the layers are managed well, here -they feel clumsy to the extent that we're left wondering what happened to three characters in reality (is it actually reality) after events at one fantasy level. By the end, you might even be wondering whose head this is all happening in. Of the characters, only Browning, Cornish and Malone are allowed anything anywhere near depth or nuance.

That said, each individual set piece is well enough handled in terms of the action to be engaging and interesting, even exciting at times. The performances are on the whole not bad and there's a cheesy charm to Scott Glenn (channeling the late David Carradine) turning up and offering advice and corny aphorisms.

Overall - 5.5/10 Noisy and messy, but not without some good features and invention, but maybe needed a more disciplined hand in putting it all together.

Submarine

2011-03-20T22:34:00.000Z

Submarine, adapted from a novel by Joe Dunthorne, is the debut as director of The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade. It is a confident debut - coming across as almost a British Juno (without the pregnancy), or in other words a cool, indy teen comedy. Ayoade directs with an assured hand, full of nice little flourishes without ever being two showy. The script is smart and funny, without ever being quite as self-consciously (and artificially) cool as Juno. And the soundtrack is enhanced by som great original songs by Arctic Monkey's Alex Turner.

The story follows Oliver (debutant Craig Roberts), who is trying to handle his first relationship with Jordana (Yasmin Paige) whilst simultaneously trying to stop his parents (Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor) splitting up after his mum's old flame, now a self-help guru (Paddy Considine bravely sporting one of the worst mullets you're ever likely to see), has moved in down the street. The adults are brilliant in their roles, but the film stands or falls on the younger performances and both Roberts and Paige absolutely nail it. They are slightly let down by a few of the other younger members of the cast who at times lapse into incomprehensibility, but that's not a major factor.

Overall - 8.5/10 An amazingly assured debut, with great performances by the young leads. Fresh, funny and moving. Well worth seeing.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

2011-03-20T22:18:00.000Z

This is the latest London-set Woody Allen film, following his usual themes of love, relationships, insecurity and fate. Its an ensemble piece with a terrific cast - so Gemma Jones consults a mystic (Pauline Collins) to help her deal with her husband, Anthony Hopkins, leaving her. He is meanwhile about to re-marry a much younger "actress" (Lucy Punch). Meanwhile their daughter (Naomi Watts) is struggling in her marriage and has a crush on her boss (Antonio Banderas), whist her writer husband (Josh Brolin) sits at home lusting after the woman in the flat opposite (Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto). And that's before Anna Friel, Ewan Bremner, Celia Imrie and Philip Gleinster all come and go.

Allen's London films (of which this is the fourth) have so far produced one decent one (Match Point) and two absolute turkeys. This isn't quite as bad as that and has some redeeming moments, but its a messy affair that falls a long way short of Vicky Christina Barcelona, let alone his genuine classics, and confirms that Allen is going through something a lean spell at the moment. There are two rules which seem to determine the characters - the older ones seem better written than the younger ones and the men better written than the women. So Jones manages to be almost decent (even if they are playing rather stereotyped caricatures) and Brolin and Hopkins have the most fleshed out characters, whilst Watts has moments but also some bits which clang dreadfully (not sure if its the script or the strain of the British accent), but Punch struggles with a lazy cliche of a gold-digger and poor Pinto has to try (and utterly fails) to bring any credibility to what is essentially an Allen fantasy - the young, intelligent, attractive woman who ia actually attracted by the older loser perving on her at every opportunity.

The tone veers sharply between broad comedy and pseudo-profundity and attempted pathos in a way that achieves nothing successfully. The ruminations on fate and the twists and turns and downfall of plans are painted with a blunt instrument rather than a deft hand and a light touch. And yet there are moments which suggest that this could have been much better and which show the talent that Allen still possesses. Like the moment Brolin moves in with Pinto and looks back through the window the other way or Watts awkward attempts to declare her feelings to a Banderas who is doing his best not to acknowledge them.

Overall - 5.5/10 Moments of something better, but overall this is messy and confused and a long way from what Allen is capable of.

Battle Los Angeles

2011-03-20T21:49:00.000Z

Battle Los Angeles is rather similar in plot to last year's Skyline - aliens invade Los Angeles. However, it decides to focus on the military response rather than the civilians caught up in it and has a rather bigger budget and more recognisable cast (more recognisable in the sense that you might actually be able to name one or two of them rather than going "Oh its him off that thing on TV"). Its also a better film, but not as much better as you would hope for.

It could probably win several awards for bad science (if they're hitting the earth they're meteorites, not meteors) and terrible geography (aliens land in the sea and attack coastal cities including Paris!) as well as some questionable military tactics. It has dialogue that ranges from the dreadful to the so bad that its actually quite good (my favourite being "we've already had breakfast"). They plotnotes and character arcs are stereotypical and utterly predictable - you know just who is going to be reconciled to whom, who will make it and who won't, etc... It borrows heavily from the predictable sources - Independance Day, War of the Worlds, Aliens, etc...

However, once you get past all that and a horrendous meet the characters opening section and get into the action, its actually a lot more fun than it has any right to be. Director Jonathan Liebesman handles the action efficiently, if with no great flare, and the cast give good value to their limited roles. Aaron Eckhart is the Sergeant whose last mission went badly wrong, Michelle Rodriguez essentially plays the same role she did in Avatar and Michael Pena plays the civilian dad caught up in the middle of things. At times it feels like it wants to have pretensions to be Platoon with aliens, but is actually much better when it stops taking itself seriously and just keeps the action rolling.

Overall - 6/10 Loud, dumb and unoriginal, but entertaingly action packed and surprisingly fun.

Why I won't be voting for the SNP in May

2011-03-19T13:03:00.000Z

OK, the Scottish elections are something like a month and a half away and my mind is already made up in terms of how I will be voting for the regional list, but the absence of a Green candidate in my constituency means I still have a choice to make about that. However, I might already be reaching a decision by process of elimination - I've seen nothing so far that would persuade me to break my longstanding habits and vote either Labour or Tories. Added to that I can categorically say that I won't be vote for the SNP.

This has nothing to do with independance (an issue which, as an Englishman in Scotland, I am surprisingly neutral about). No, my decision is based on what for me are the two most important issues in this election - in the short-term there are the cuts facing Scotland and in the long-term there are the environmental issues. In the first case I find the stance of the SNP contradictory and in the second their track record is now approaching the disastrous.

The Cuts
If I was to put the parties on a specturm with regard to their attitudes towards the cuts, at one end you have
The Tories who, however much the try to dress it up as necessity, ideologically like the the ideas of cutting back state funding.
Next come the Lib-Dems who seem to have been persuaded that the cuts are necessary due to the economic situation.
Somewhere in the middle you have Labour and the SNP both of whom seeming to be appealling to the popular vote by appearing to stand against the cuts and the evil coalition who are viciously imposing them on poor Scotland. Labour are doing this whilst offering no alternative strategy and doing the whole "No sir, it wasn't us, a big bank did it and ran away" act as to how the country ended up in an economic mess in the first place. The SNP are attacking Labour for this, but still not offering an alternative to handing on the cuts from Westminster. Indeed they allowed the democratically mandated tax varying powers of Holyrood (which could offer some alternative vision) to lapse into a state where they could no longer be used without informing parliament (symptomatic of a contempt for parliamentary process they have shown around a number of issues). Meanwhile they exacerbate the situation be cheap populist vote-catching measures like the council tax freeze and by huge, expensive ~~photo ops for Salmond~~ unnecessary public projects like the Forth crossing (of which more later). For a party whose whole raison d'etre is the separation of Scotland from the UK, this unwillingness to explore Scottish alternatives to the Westminster solution, but it actually fits with the way the party has acted in local government across Scotland - they complain about cuts to get support and then cut when in power. It might actually be a fiscally resonsible approach compared to Labour, but they need to stop trying to milk the anti-cuts vote so hard - that is not where they are standing by their actions!

At the other end of this spectrum is, of course, The Greens who say that the cuts are going too far and are wanting and prepared to use the powers the Scottish parliament has to try and find alternatives in Scotland.

The Environment
The SNP, like the other major parties, do their best to try and present themselves as green. Salmond will make speeches about Scotland's potential for renewable energy, but politicians need to be judged by what they do and not what they say and at every opportunity the SNP has shown its loyalty to the coal and oil industries, a dependance on short-term solutions that are denying us the chance to build for the future. The SNP favour building more coal-fired power stations in Scotland rather than investing more in renewable sources, they will try to explain away the environmental impact of this by talking about the carbon capture potential of the North Sea, but there they are talking about technology that has yet to be proved feasible anywhere in the world. They favour allowing deep-sea drilling off Shetland, using the same technology that failed so dramatically in the Gulf of Mexico. Even without the environmental impact, there is a short-termism to these solutions - fossil fuels are running out, investing more in them now is denying us the chance to prepare properly for that time. The fact is that Scotland could be producing almost twice its electricity needs from entirely renewable sources within 20 years or so. If we were to invest now, we could be at the forefront of Green energy. This just won't happen under the SNP.

They also remain committed to more road building projects, like the new Forth crossing, which will cost £2billion (budgetted - as we all know, major projects in Scotland seem to have a problem sticking to budget!). Repairing the existing bridge, which is only 50 years old, could be achieved for a very small fraction of that cost. The costs for that project include a £100 million liability cost to BP as the new crossing will be built across a pipeline thar carries an awful lot of oil. Again, the SNP decided to withhold this information and costing from the parliament when the project was being considered (for "security" reasons). At the same time they are withdrawing funding from an initiative which was working, which had the support of businesses, to get more freight off the roads and back on to the rails.

I could go on, but I won't.

Rango

2011-03-18T21:53:00.000Z

Rango is the latest CG animation film to hit the cinemas. It features the voice of Johnny Depp as the eponymous chameleon who finds himself in the wild west town of Dirt, where the tall tales he tells land him the job of sheriff and of finding out what has happened to the town's water supply.

The first pleasant surprise about Rango is that it has resisted the current craze to put everything in 3D. The second pleasant surprise is that this is just about the best looking non-Pixar animated film you're likely to fine. They really have shown great attention to detail and produced a wonderful looking film.

The script and the characters might not quite be up to Pixar standards, but all in all, they're not bad. There's an impressive vocal cast - Ray Winstone, Isla Fischer, Abigail Breslin, Bill Nighy, Timothy Olyphant and Alfed Molina (among others) and a script that is silly enough to entertain younger ones, whilst offering enough humour to keep adults watching as it plays with the cliches of the Western and the Clint Eastwood iconongraphy.

Director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) keeps the action moving from one set piece to another, some of which are very well handled indeed, and whilst the plot might be somewhat predictable to say the least, its at least an enjoyable ride to get there.

Overall - 7/10 A pleasantly surprisingly entertaining animated feature - full of fun.

Fair Game

2011-03-13T19:13:00.000Z

Director Doug Liman's (The Bourne Identity) return to the field of spy movies couldn't be further from the world of Bond and Bourne. There's very little in the way of running, shooting and blowing stuff up. Instead this is the true story of former CIA operative Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) whose identity was exposed to the press by those inside the White House after her husband, former US ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) wrote an article detailing why some of George W's claims in justifying the invasion of Iraq couldn't be true.

There are obvious strengths and problems just from that set-up. With Watts and Penn in the leads, you get the strong, committed performances that you might expect. You also get, given Penn's involvement and the subject matter a fair deal of speechifying on true American democracy, etc... However, one of the main problems with the subject (as with last year's Green Zone) is that we all know how its going to turn out - that there were no WMDs, that the White House did exaggerate and push things in its justifications.

It still manages to be thought-provoking through a few effective scenes - the bullying and manipulation of CIA analysts by White House staff until they got the answers they wanted and the callousness with which the CIA itself abandoned Plame's Iraqi contacts to be killed by the Israelis once her cover was blown. This last point is particularly telling, as in a war against terrorism intelligence has got to be key and the attitudes of the americans in both ignoring the intelligence they got and betraying their sources must ultimately prove hugely counter-productive.

However, the film's most moving and strongest moments actually come away from the political arena in the relationship between Plame and Wilson, the strains events and their differing reactions put upon that and their ultimate strength.

Overall - 7.5/10 The material feels slightly too familiar by now, but strong performances and confident handling of the elements will keep you watching.

The Adjustment Bureau

2011-03-12T16:30:00.000Z

The writings of Philip K Dick have long been a source of intelligent (and less intelligent (yes, I do mean Total Recall)) sci-fi movies of the likes of Blade Runner and Minority Report, even if they often don't stick that closely to the souce material. The Adjustment Bureau (adapted from Dick's short-story Adjustment Team) follows in this tradition, essentially turning Dick's story into a metaphysical romance.

Matt Damon as would-be senator David Norris who is inspired by a chance encounter with a girl Elise (Emily Blunt) to give the speech of his career. What he doesn't realise is that the encounter has been engineered by the titular bureau - be-hatted men who engineer events to run according to their plan. This plan also states that David and Elise should never meet again. When David discovers this, he is rather reluctant to comply with the plan (opening up a whole free will vs fate idea).

Writer George Nolfi (The Bourne Ultimatum) makes a good debut as director, especially in the early stages of establishing the world and the concepts. The aesthetics of the Bureau itself (borrowing from Wings of Desire) are beautifully realised and devices like the shifting diagrams in books showing the plan and the interconnecting doorways (accessed by the hats) across the city that the bureau use work well, enabling Nolfy to create the his world without too much clunky exposition.

He's aided by a script that is intelligent without being too talky and a strong cast. Damon is as dependable as ever and Blunt seems to get better with every role. The two conjure up a strong chemistry between them. They are aided by The Hurt Locker's Anthony Mackie, Mad Men's John Slattery and Terence Stamp as the adjustors. There are a few hiccups along the way - some of the attempts to avoid using religious language - "the Chairman", etc... - feel rather clunky. But in general, this is an engaging and entertaining movie with a bit of intelligence which sets itself up nicely for the final act. The final act doesn't exactly disappoint, but is more flawed. Firstly, having set up the chase so well, you can't help feeling that its all over rather too quickly without fully utilising the potential of its ideas. Secondly, I'm not sure I totally buy Elise's motivation to run off with Norris on her wedding day under the circumstances. And finally, the conclusion is actually one of the most cliched of all rom-com cliches - the run for love. They just about get away with the final point because the whole is so entertaining and engaging.

Overall - 7/10 A beautifully realised and engaging film slightly let down by a rushed and weaker final act.

I Am Number Four

2011-03-06T19:11:00.000Z

Hollywood is still desperately searching for the next big teen sci-fi/fantasy franchise to take over from Harry Potter. I Am Number Four, based on the novel by Pittacus Lore (the first of six proposed) is the latest attempt. And that is its main drawback - it feels too much like it is trying to set up a franchise rather than telling a story in its own right. Thus we get too much introduction, too many alien artifacts which are never really used or explained and characters who are glimpsed (like Theresa Palmer's Number 6) before swinging into action in the final moments to show us all what we've been missing.

The plot follows alien teenager (Alex Pettyfer, Stormbreaker) who is hiding as a human on earth from evil other aliens who want to kill him and generally trying to contain his super-powers at High School whilst romancing a human girl. Anybody hearing echoes of TV series Roswell here is not without justification. The parallels stretch right down to the fact that the High School sports star/bully is the son of the local sheriff and has had a past relationship with the lead alien's crush. In many ways, Roswell had more engaging characters and action. Here we get Timothy Olyphant in strangely reined-in mode when the film could have done with him letting loose. We also get a voice-over introduction about Mogordorians or something like that - never a promising sign in a film like this.

Despite all that, there is potential here - Pettyfer has clearly developed as an actor since Stormbreaker. The bad guys are rather fun (if a bit stereotypically so) and when things do finally take off in the last twenty minutes there are signs of something that could work. Then just as its getting going, the credits roll.

Overall - 5.5/10 Plays more like a pilot for a re-boot of Roswell than a stand alone film, but not without its potential and pleasures.

Drive Angry

2011-03-06T18:21:00.000Z

Drive Angry could have been a fun, guilty pleasure kind of B-movie. It's got Nicolas Cage as a man who breaks out of hell in order to save his baby grand-daughter from a cult. It could have been, but it's not.

For the most part, it takes itself far too seriously. It pinches ideas liberally from the likes of Shoot Em Up and does them less well. But the main drawback is Cage himself, who after something of a renaissance last year (Kick Ass, Bad Lieutenant) is back on sleep-walking to the paycheque form here (as he was in Season of the Witch). He is comprehensively out-acted by his co-star Amber Heard, mainly because she actually looks like she gives a damn. Regretably as the bad guy cult leader Billy Burke is also a disappointment, lacking in both charisma and menace.

On the positive side, the 3D is not the worst there's been and there are a few sharp lines (mainly in the trailer). However, the main plus here is the excellent William Fichtner as The Accountant, sent to bring Cage back. He brings some style, wit and humour to proceedings, but unfortunately there's far too little of him in the film.

Overall - 5/10 Could have been fun, but Fichtner apart, isn't.

Animal Kingdom

2011-03-05T16:10:00.000Z

Animal Kingdom is an Australian gangster movie, but don't give up on it yet. It is told largely through the eyes of young "J" (James Frecheville), who after the death of his mother, moves to stay with his grandmother "Smurf" (Oscar nominated Jackie Weaver) and falls in with his three bank robbing uncles.

Where the film works well is in creating an underlying sense of tension at all times. Even in seemingly happy family times when other films might relax the tension, there remains an underlying sense of menace and threat which keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. This is added to by the fact that the police seem no better than the villains they're chasing. Even with Guy Pierce's seemingly sympathetically copper we're never really quite sure whether he is genuinely trying to help J or to manipulate him to get at his family. This creates a film where you are genuinely unsure quite what is going to happen at times and who will make it through to te closing credits.

Weaver's performance is more subtle than might at first appear and justifies her nomination. It is only in the closing stages when we see the lengths she will go to for her family and against those who cross her, that we see the real steel and control in the character. Frecheville has an equally hard task - not unlike the lead in Neds he has to hint at an inner world that is hidden behind a necessary protective facade of blankness. That this works is either down to his skill as an actor or because he is enough of a blank canvass for the viewer to project their own reactions onto.

The downside of this is that there isn't enough here to lend credibillity to J's final act character arc when he is transformed from passive survivor to controlling string-puller. Whilst you might be rooting for him, he no longer feels quite believable.

Overall - 7.5/10 A strong but flawed film that nonetheless grips.

UKIP victory in Barnsley

2011-03-04T20:34:00.000Z

Of course, they didn't actually take the seat (by a long way) but compared to expectations they must be the most delighted with their performance in the Barnsley Central by-election yesterday. So here are my idiosyncratic placings for how I think the parties did compared to expectations yesterday:

1. UKIP placed 2nd (their best ever result in Westminster poll), beating not only the Lib Dems, but also the Tories and not only saving their deposit but almost trebling their share of the vote to 12.2%

2. Tony Devoy (Independant) He had stood last May and got around 1.6%. Yesterday he increased that 5.2%, beating the Lib Dems and saving his deposit in the process and independants usually do badly in by-elections where the big parties can devote all their energy to it.

3. Labour They won the seat very comfortably (as they were always going to) and their share of the vote (Around 60%) is around par for the course under the circumstances - well up on last May, around back to 2005 levels, but well down on what they have achieved here in the past.

4. English Democrats 2.2% from not standing before is a decent performance (especially in a crowded populist right-wing field) and they managed to beat the Loonies this time.

5. BNP Disappointingly held their deposit and came fourth (ahead of the Lib Dems), but encouragingly their share of the vote still fell by almost a third since last May.

6. Official Monster Raving Loony Party For the second by-election in a row they avoided the wooden spoon.

7. Michael Val Davies (Independant) An independant from Devon standing in Yorkshire was always a bizarre idea, so 60 votes and last place is about what could be expected.

8. Conservatives The collapse in the Lib Dem vote was predictable, the Tory collapse was less so. On the one hand they stayed in third place, on the other hand their share of the vote halved to a lower level than it was during the 1997 Labour landslide.

9. Liberal Democrats 6th place and a lost deposit is one of the worst Lib-Dem by-election performances ever. Disastous. Their candidate (who stood in Barking against Nick Griffin last May) seems to specialise in telling people not to vote BNP rather than getting them to vote for him (Labour must love him).

So, overall, a good night for UKIP but whether that can be turned into seats at any level remains to be seen. A bad night for both the coalition partners, but in an election in which neither were ever in contention, I doubt that they will be too worried... yet.

My Annual Oscar Rant

2011-03-04T19:56:00.000Z

OK, so it wasn't that bad this year. Grudgingly I'll admit that the Academy achieved at least pass marks this year and there wasn't anything to really jump up and down about in absolute disbelief. They could hardly go wrong with the actor and actress prizes and Christian Bale was a deserving winner in Supporting Actor. It was also good to see Aaron Sorkin winning Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network - deserved recognition for one of the best in the business. As to Best Picture, well it was a fairly even field and if The King's Speech just pipped The Social Network nobody's going to complain.

But its no fun to just congratulate, so here's where I think they got it wrong:

Best Supporting Actress Melissa Leo is a fine actress - she was superb in Frozen River (for which she was deservingly nominated) but her performance in The Fighter (hampered by a dreadful caricature of a character) was not the best in the field. Heck, it wasn't even the best in The Fighter. In fact, she was probably the poorest of the five nominees.

Best Director The King's Speech is a fine film, brilliantly acted, well written, but I can't help feeling that Tom Hooper has got the Oscar based on the other elements of the film. In terms of direction you would be hard pressed to argue that he did a better job than Fincher (The Social Network), Aronofsky (Black Swan) or The Coen Brothers (True Grit). An example a film getting a bit of a bandwagon momentum and sweeping awards it maybe didn't deserve.

Cinematography - OK - both Inception and True Grit would have been worthy winners, but this means that Roger Deakins (one of the very best in the business ever - look at the man's CV for a list of some of the most beautifully shot films of the last two decades) has now been nominated 9 times and never won! It also meant that whilst Inception and The King's Speech got 4 statues a piece, The Fighter and Toy Story 3 got 2 each and Black Swan got one, the really good True Grit left empty-handed. Heck, Alice in Wonderland got 2 Oscars and Wolfman 1, but nothing for True Grit???????????

True Grit

2011-02-26T23:22:00.000Z

I approached True Grit with a certain amount of eager anticipation - it's the Coen brothers doing a Western, it's Jeff Bridges, it's Matt Damon. And for once a film turned out to be pretty much what you'd expect - and that's pretty darn good.

Of course, there are some for whom the very idea of a new version of True Grit (and this is a new adaptation of the book, not a re-make of the John Wayne version - important distinction) is sacrilege. But despite the fact that it was the film that Wayne won an Oscar for, it wasn't the classic that it would be made out to be and can't hold a candle to true Wayne classics, like The Searchers. So there is room for improvement, and True Grit Coen-style delivers.

The script not sparkles with their usual wit, but also displays their customary ear for unusual speech patterns and period phraseology. The film looks beautiful, with Roger Deakins adding his usual beautiful touch to the cinematography, aided by some stunning landscape. Of the cast, Bridges has a ball as the drunk marshall Rooster Cogburn and Damon shows a deft comic touch as the Texas ranger version of Monty Python's "When I were a lad...", but the film really belongs to newcomer Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, the young girl who hires Cogburn to catch her father's killer. Despite her nomination for Best Supporting Actress, she is the real lead here and gives an amazing debut performance. Elsewhere there is good support from the likes of Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper as the movie's villains.

Its not a perfect movie - the snake pit sequence after the ostensible climax of the film seems slightly misplaced, but overall its a hugely entertaining and well-made film.

Overall - 8.5/10 Definitely recommended - a film that delivers what you'd expect and hope for.

Paul

2011-02-25T18:06:00.000Z

Paul is the latest offering from lovable Brit-com duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (this time without writer-director Edgar Wright, who was presumably too busy off helping Scott Pilgrim take on the world). Pegg And Frost star as, well as themselves really - a couple of British Sci-Fi geeks on a roadtrip round the US's top alien sites when they pick up the eponymous alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) who is trying to get home.

As a comedy, its a slow starter - the initial Comic Con scenes feel too much like a love letter to the fans and as such lack any real bite (Jeffrey Tambor's bitter comic book writer has potential, but is underused), whilst the repeated running gag about people thinking they are a gay couple feels tired and overused on its first appearence, let alone repeated outings. Its only when get out on the road and meet Paul himself does the film really take off. To be fair, even then its never quite reaches the comic heights of either Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead, but rather like Pegg and Frost themselves, its rather charming and hard to dislike. Rogen hasn't been this funny in ages, probably since Knocked Up and he's joined by a host of other familiar faces - Jason Bateman gives good value as the Man in Black in hot pursuit, Kirsten Wiig is Pegg's disllusioned creationist romantic interest and Sigourney Weaver has fun as the big bad boss, amongst others.

Director Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland) creates a good-looking film whose Spielberg references (both visual and verbal) successfully tread a fine line between homage and pastiche.

Overall - 7/10 It never threatens greatness, but is a charmingly funny and entertaining film.

The AV Referendum - why I will be voting yes.

2011-02-23T21:01:00.000Z

The legislation has finally made it through the House of Lords fillibusting and we will have a referendum on 5th May. Both the Yes and No campaigns are kicking off and, to be honest, they're both talking nonsense so far.

The No campaign seems to be centring around nonsensical posters about needing maternity units and bullet proof armour rather than a new voting system. This is nonsense not only because on May 5th voters won't be given the choice of AV or a new maternity unit, but its also nonsense because the figure they are quoting £250 million has actually been plucked out of thin air and it has no bearing to any costs that anybody who knows anything about things has come up with.

Other stupid arguments against AV - its too complicated - no actually I think most of the UK electorate can cope with ranking things in order of preference. Also, there have been arguments that AV is more likely to produce hung parliaments (if that is a bad thing) - there is little evidence of that, it is, after all, not a proportional system and in 1997 would have produced an even larger Labour majority. As to the idea advanced by some (not the actual No campaign, but some Labour supporters) that we should vote No to punish Nick Clegg - that's just ridiculous. One way or another Clegg will be gone in a few elections, we may have the electoral system we vote for for some time.

That said, the Yes camp are hardly doing much better:
AV is fairer votes - not necessarily - see above about 1997 - it is not a proportional system and can disproportionately exaggerate big swings.
It will ensure that MPs are elected with 50% of the vote - no it won't as it won't be compulsory to rank all candidates (it is in Australia, I think) so some (in some cases many votes) will not transfer, meaning that candidates can still get elected with less than 50% of the vote.
Every vote will count/it will do away with safe seats - not true and not true. Strictly every vote counts under First Past the Post (or alternatively only votes for the winning candidate count) - I don't understand what difference AV will make). As to safe seats, in most safe seats the winning candidate (the monkey in the blue/red rosette) will get over 50% on first preferences anyway, so AV will make no difference.

However, I will be voting Yes on 5th May for two main reasons:

1. A No vote probably spells the end to electoral reform for another generation - that would be a shame. Personally I would have preferred that they had started with reforming the House of Lords (an elected house using STV) but lets not give up now.
2. The preferential system of voting actually suits the way I approach things - I'm not rabidly pro-any party to the extent that I would say them and nobody else. I am probably more along the lines of being 70% in favour of one party, 60% in agreement with another. AV allows me to express this better - to say I want him, but if not him then her. For example, at the last election my preference would have been Green, with a second preference for Lib-Dem. I ended up voting Lib-Dem as I felt that under FPTP a Green vote would have no impact. Under AV I have more room to express a more nuanced opinion.

Of course, AV is not totally new to the UK. Scottish local councils are elected using STV, but when there is a by-election for just one seat, STV becomes by default an AV system. The results can be quite interesting - for one thing, the transfers do tend to go all over the place and not just in the directions you might expect. There have been 4 Scottish local by-elections since the last general election. 2 were safe Labour holds, although interestingly they failed to get over 50% despite polling over 40% on first preferences. The other two should have been SNP wins, but the transfers saw independant candidates take the seats despite trailing on 1st preferences. Its a different kind of democracy, but not necessarily a worse one.

Barnsley Central

2011-02-23T19:59:00.000Z

The second by-election of the parliament takes place next week in Barnsley Central following the conviction of sitting Labour MP Eric Illsey for expenses fraud. Despite the reasons for the election, there is absolutely no way that Labour will lose the seat. They had a majority of 30% in May last year and that was a very poor result for them. This is ultra-safe Labour territory.

That said here's a guide to what the parties will be looking for.

Labour (May 2010: 47.26%). We shouldn't judge Labour's expectations by the result in May. As mentioned above, Labour have previously polled 77% in this constituency. Now they are in opposition with both the other main parties in a coalition which I can't exactly see going down a storm in this part of the world, I would say that anything under 60% would be a disappointing result for them.

The Coalition parties were neck-a-neck here last May, just 6 votes between them. Both will be heading backwards. I would expect the Tory vote to hold up a little better here than the Lib-Dem one - those who voted Tory (rightly or wrongly) will probably be less unhappy about the government they have ended up with. For the Libs it might be a struggle to stay in double figures percentage-wise.

BNP (May: 8.94%) The BNP almost doubled their vote here last May and comfortably saved their deposit. Again, I would expect them to be heading backwards - the likes of the BNP traditionally do better under a Labour government than a Tory one, the party is in something of a mess nationally and they no longer have the angle of being a protest against the government here - it being a safe opposition seat. In their favour, they have a female candidate, and women are supposed to do better than men in by-elections for some inexplicable reason. They will be hoping to save their deposit again and stay ahead of the other right of tory parties. Lets hope they do neither.

The other right of Tory parties. UKIP almost saved their deposit in May and will be hoping to break that 5% barrier this time with the only other female candidate out of 9. The English Democrats have no track record in the constituency, so its hard to call, but they will at least be hoping to beat the Loonies this time (unlike Oldham East and Saddleworth). Personally I think they will struggle to make ground against the higher profile parties in a crowded right field.

Official Monster Raving Loony Party will be hoping not to come last (which would make it two in a row avoiding the wooden spoon)

Independants - there are two independants - one Tony Devoy is local and stood here in May and got 1.6%. He describes himself as True Labour. As with the BNP - he's lost the protest against the Labour government angle - protesting against a Labour opposition is less effective, so will probably be heading backwards. The other indy is from Devon and is probably on a hiding to nothing here.

So my prediction:

Lab 65.2%
Con 12.6
LD 9.3
UKIP 5.6
BNP 5.1
Local Indy 1.0
Eng Dem 0.7
OMRLP 0.4
Indy from Devon 0.1

Never Let Me Go

2011-02-20T21:05:00.001Z

Amongst the many films currently showing with Oscar and Bafta hype, this has been strangely overlooked, failing to garner a single major nomination. I say surprisingly as it is an adaptation of an award-winning novel by Kazuo Ishiguro and stars two previously nominated actresses in the leads. It's also a much better film than many which have been nominated.

The story follows three children: Tommy, Ruth and Cathy (who narrates) growing up at Hailsham, a rather unusual boarding school. Its obvious from the opening captions that this is not quite the world as we know it and that these children do not have quite a normal life. The film is hard to define genre-wise, the source novel won sci-fi awards, but that might be doing it a disservice.

Tommy, Ruth and Cathy (who grow up to be Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan respectively) share an unusual fate, a path already marked out for them. What is so effective here is that as it becomes clear what is going on, there is no great attempt to escape but rather the lostness of three youngsters trying to understand their existence and what is happening around them. Indeed, one of the more chilling aspects of this film is how little, other than the bracelets they wear to register in and out of buildings, this brave new world seems to be policed.

The acting is good - Garfield is solid, Knightley does well in bringing a fragile, human side to what could have easily been a dislikeable character. But this is really Mulligan's film and she does a superb job of anchoring the movie. Director Mark Romanek (whose previous feature One Hour Photo I really didn't like despite the critical acclaim) does a fine job as well - the film is beautifully shot and makes great use of its location. The overall feel is a melancholic, almost elegaic one, aided in no small part by Rachel Portman's beautiful score.

The end result is a thought-provoking rather than action packed drama. Two moments in particular are worthy of further reflection - the scene where Tommy and Cathy seek a deferment and are told about asking questions nobody wants an answer to and Cathy's poignant closing reflections.

Overall - 8.5/10 Highly recommended, beautiful, poignant, intelligent and thought-provoking drama.

The Fighter

2011-02-18T19:49:00.000Z

The Fighter is a movie that comes with multiple award nominations and rather a lot of hype. Having seen it, I'd have to say that some of it is deserved and some not - if this walks away with the Best Picture prize at the Oscars it will be one of the biggest of numerous big Oscar travesties over the years.

What The Fighter is at root is a very cliched sports movie which ticks all the boxes -hero from a difficult background, initial defeat, gradual overcoming of adversity to eventual triumph snatching unlikely victory from the jaws of defeat. There's nothing particularly new or surprising here. The boxing scenes themselves are generally pretty well handled with the clanging exception of one awful montage scene.

What does raise this above the average are the performances and a script that peppers the true story with enough humour and pathos to keep it going. Christian Bale is garnering all the plaudits for his transformation into Dicky Ecklund (crack-addicted, former boxer, older brother of the hero) and now seems a likely winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar (in reality the part os almost co-lead). He's a hard character to like and can come across as rather irritating. Its only in the closing credits that you realise how close he comes to the original. Mark Wahlberg's much quieter performance as the true lead has been much less heralded but is no less good.

As to the women, Melissa Leo has been picking up the awards as the matriarchal head of this highly dysfunctional family. Leo is an actress I highly rate (see Frozen River for evidence), but her character here is litttle more than caricature in leopard skin and bouffant hair-do. Amy Adams (also nominated) is better as Wahlberg's barmaid girlfriend, but still doesn't have a whole character to work with. Neither should win the Supporting Actress oscar - one of them probably will.

That said what The Fighter is is a well made, entertaining and, at times, moving film. Its just not all that its cracked up to be.

Overall - 7/10 Underneath the hype is a solid, effective movie lifted by some great performances.

Putting the Cat Amongst the Pigeons

2011-02-17T22:52:00.000Z

In the run up to this year's Scottish election, there is currently a deart of good polling as to what is happening. The trend in what polling there has been has been to show Labour moving ahead and seeming certain to regain control at Holyrood. A poll last month by TNS had them on a massive 49% on the constituency vote to the SNP's 33%. Speculation seemed to be limited to how close Labour would get to an overall majority.

And then MORI come out with a poll this week out of the blue which has the SNP marginally ahead in both votes, which would really stir things up heading into the campaign. But which poll should we be listening too?

Well, actually, to me, both look rather suspect - firstly the TNS poll puts all the other parties (except SNP/Lab/LD/Tory) at about 4% combined for the regional list. This is a slump from well over 10% for small parties last time (and last time there was a squeeze on them) - doesn't quite seem believable. Then there's that 49% figure which seems just slightly too high even for a phenomenal Labour performance and Labour are still a party in recovery, not riding the crest of a wave.

That said MORI has the SNP on 37% which is more than they've ever got in any election ever with no obvious reason for this high water mark. MORI also has the Lib Dems actually increasing their regional list vote compared to 2007, against a backdrop of them being in virtual free-fall since last year's General Election.

So with both polls seeming rather suspect and no other companies (as yet) interested in this election, the only safe conclusion is that things may be closer than we thought and we don't really know how its likely to play out yet.

Gnomeo and Juliet

2011-02-17T22:32:00.000Z

The story of unlikely pairing coming together against all obstacles. And that's just the uniting of Dame Maggie Smith and Ozzy Osbourne in the same cast list. I can't imagine many people predicting in the heydays of Black Sabbath that Ozzy would one day be voicing an animated fawn for Elton John.

This film brings together the music of Elton John, the story of Romeo and Juliet and animated garden gnomes. Added to the mix is a hugely impressive array of British vocal talent from established thesps - Smith, Walters, Caine, Patrick Stewart, Richard Wilson - to the new stars (McAvoy and Blunt) and the comedy talents of Stephen Marchant, Matt Lucas and Ashley Jensen. And of course Osbourne and Jason Statham, who are both surprisingly funny.

The story is familiar to all (as the film acknowledges), but this puts a fresh spin on it. It looks good, is consistently funny, the songs more or less work. And yet it never quite takes off as it threatens to do - its funny, but never hilarious. So what you're left with is a solid animated film with lots of inventiveness but never quite achieves that something.

Overall - 6.5/10 An inventively solid and consistently funny film that falls a little short of what you feel it could have been.

Tangled

2011-02-09T21:01:00.000Z

Last year's big Disney offering was a return to traditional hand-drawn animation, but with a take on The Princess and the Frog that was anything but traditional. The reviews were rather better than the audience figures and this year we're back to state of the art CGi animation and a story that (despite all the spin to the contrary) is very traditional Disney fairy-tale. You know how its going to go from moment to moment.

But familiarity is not always a big barrier. On the plus side the film looks good, with the effects for light and hair working very well. This being a version of Rapunzel, those are rather important elements. It also has a good sense of fun to it. It may be predictable, but its also funny and likeable. It has a good villain, who comes across more human than many of Disney's wicked witches, but is maybe more creepy for it.

I'm not sure whether we really needed too comedy animal sidekicks, though. Both have good moments, especially Maximus, the horse who thinks he's a bloodhound, but both tend to get lost towards the end of the action. Similarly the thug chorus are fun, but on screen too briefly for individual characters to really stand out. The songs are also decidedly average and unmemorable - Mother Knows Best being by far and away the pick of the bunch. But none of that amounts to a huge problem in a Disney movie.

Overall - 7/10 It won't live with the best efforts of either Disney golden age, but is a decent second rank effort which gives you what you expect from Disney.

Morning Glory (and The Mechanic)

2011-02-03T17:31:00.000Z

Morning Glory is a film set in the world of Breakfast Television and is, in many ways, like its subject matter. Its light and breezy, nothing too heavy, flirts with the odd serious idea, but never develops them and is occasionally funny. Actually, to be fair, its more than occasionally funny.

Rachel McAdams plays a TV producer, impssibly chirpy, borderline ADHD, who is given the job of turning round a flagging Breakfast TV show. Her first step is to fire one of the hosts and coerce serious newsman Harrison Ford to become co-host (alongside Diane Keaton). Meanwhile Patrick Wilson is thrown into the mix to give the girls something nice to look at (because, lets face it, Harrison is past his best) and add a half-baked romantic subplot. The film does briefly flirt with ideas of news/information vs entertainment, before decidind to sit firmly on the fence and go nowhere with them.

So its lightweight - one might even say "fluffy" - but crucially (and unlike many other recent comedies) its both fun and funny! That and the fact that Ford hasn't looked this bothered in a movie for years. In the meantime he appears to have taken a class at the Clint Eastwood school of talking in a growly whisper, but he seems to relish the chance to play the curmudgeonly old anchor and there is a real delight in hearing him bark out lines like "I mopped Mother Theresa's brow during a cholera outbreak".

Overall - 6.5/10 Its lightweight fluff, but a whole lot funnier than many so-called comedies.

Also seen this week, but neither good nor bad nor interesting enough to merit its own post:

The Mechanic Jason Statham as a professional hitman, tricked into killing his mentor (Donald Sutherland) and out for revenge alongside the slightly psychotic son (Ben Foster) of said mentor. The opening sequence is well done and rather fun. Thereafter the movie is decent enough, Statham handles the action well and even at times does something approaching acting. The bad guy is a bit of a colourless non-event and the ending is one predictable twist too far. The set pieces work on the whole. All in all, its a solid action flick which probably takes itself a tad too seriously and is not as much fun as the trailer hinted at. 5.5/10

Black Swan

2011-01-30T18:47:00.000Z

Black Swan will not be to everybody's taste - its mixture of ballet, pyscholigical thriller and body horror is a challenging mix. It has been compared more to director Darren Aronofsky's last film The Wrestler than to other classic ballet films such as The Red Shoes, but whilst it does share some DNA with The Wrestler (like a fascination with the physical lengths performers will go to for their art) it is actually a very different feeling film, a more challenging one and quite possibly a better one. Whilst The Wrestler was in many respects a social film, built around a structure of failed, tentative and re-launched relationships, Black Swan is more inward looking. The drama is largely contained in the head of techinically gifted but repressed dancer Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) who after being cast in the lead in Swan Lake, struggles to get in touch with her darker side in order to play the titular Black Swan.

Nina is surrounded by an over-bearing mother (Barbara Hershey), a manipulative director (Vincent Cassell), a bitter former lead (Winona Ryder) and a fellow dancer who may or may not be after her role (Mila Kunis). Portman is superb and will probably deservedly head a strong field to take the Best Actress oscar for a role which sees her move from timid and reserved to dangerously unloosed.

My other Oscar tip for this film is Aronofsky for Best Director. As has been much commented on, rather than viewing the dancing from the usual audience perspective, he places the camera right in the thick of it, capturing all the strain and effort involved. Amazingly this adds to rather than distracts from the beauty of the ballet. His other main strength is to capture the paranoid insecurity of his lead - this is a film where much is contained (or possibly not) in half-heard whispers and brief glimpses as the pressure starts to get to Nina and, to be cliched, the boundary between what is real and what is happening in Nina's head get increasingly blurred.

Not everything works - Ryder's role in particular feels like a badly written (and underwritten) cliche. I'm also slightly unsure about the ending, but as in The Wrestler it provides an odd mixture of triumph and tragedy that will at least get you thinking.

Overall - 8.5/10 Thought-provoking, challenging and, at times, surprisingly beautiful.

Some thoughts on the Oscar nominations - part 2

2011-01-29T20:33:00.000Z

Ok - continuing the earlier post we move onto to consder Best Picture and Best Director. The nominees are:

Best Picture
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids are Alright
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky Black Swan
David O Russell The Fighter
Tom Hooper The King's Speech
David Fincher The Social Network
Joel and Ethan Coen True Grit.

There has been a tendancy to see this year's Oscar as The King's Speech vs True Grit just as last year was Avatar vs The Hurt Locker, but I have a feeling that neither will walk away with either of the biggest prizes. It has been a long, long time since the winning Best Picture wasn't also nominated for Best Editing, which would count True Grit out. Similarly, you would expect the Best Film to also be nominated for best director, which would count out Winters Bone (which is too small a film to win anyway), The Kids are Alright (too lightweight), Toy Story 3 (too animated); 127 Hours (not quite good enough this time by Boyle) and Inception (too much of a Blockbuster, although Christopher Nolan really should at least be nominated for Director!). Of the remaining ones, The Fighter is probably the outsider, although don't rule it out for Best Picture and I don't fancy The King's Speech to get either award, which leaves us with Black Swan vs The Social Network. I wouldn't be surprised to see them split the awards this year with The Social Network getting Best Picture and Aronofsky getting Best Director.

Screenplays:
Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours
Toy Story 3
The Social Network
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Best Original Screenplay
Another Year
The Fighter
Inception
The Kings Speech
The Kids are Alright

The inclusion of 127 Hours and Toy Story 3 is really quite mystifying here. Its nice to see Another Year getting a nod as it really is a very good film. The Adapted Screenplay will almost certainly be between True Grit and The Social Network. As a fan of The West Wing, it would be nice to see Aaron Sorkin win for the latter, but if True Grit does miss out on the other big awards I could see it picking this up as a consolation. Original Screenplay is more open, but if I had to guess I would think it might be one for The King's Speech.

Other Categories.

Elsewhere, I'd expect Inception to do well in effects and other technical categories and Biutiful to win Best Foreign Language film, although that's often a hard one to predict.

Some thoughts on the Oscar Nominations - part 1

2011-01-29T19:25:00.000Z

So the nominations for the Oscars were announced at the beginning of the week and here are some thoughts on who's on the list, who should have been on the list and who's likely to win in the main categories:

Best Actor
Javier Baardem (Biutiful)
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)
The only real surprise on the list is Franco, whilst Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine) and Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter) are by all accounts unlucky to miss out. Maybe Franco gets a complementary nod for being the host (but then why no nod for his perhaps more deserving co-host, Anne Hathaway). I've not seen Biutiful or True Grit yet, but Baardem is one of the best in the business at the moment and will undountedly deserve the nod. However, as last year the contest is seen as being Bridges vs Firth and as Oscar likes to even things up, Firth is probably a fairly good bet. If there was to be an upset, Eisenberg would be the dark horse in the pack and more recognition would not be undeserved.

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale (The Fighter)
John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids are Alright)
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)
The selections here seem about right. The most notable absentee is probably Andrew Garfield for The Social Network who I would probably have picked ahead of Ruffalo (who is a fine actor, but hardly stretching himself in this particular role). Given that the academy sometimes use the supporting categories to recognise films that otherwise don't quite get the praise they should, Hawkes shouldn't be ruled out, but in all probability this will come down to Bale vs Rush. I'd like to see Rush make it a double with Firth for The Kings Speech, but have a feeling the academy might go with Bale in what is, rather incredibly, his first nomination.

Best Actress
Annete Benning (The Kids are Alright)
Nicole Kidman (The Rabbit Hole)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
A much stronger field than it is some years. Julianne Moore can feel a bit unlucky to miss out as she was every bit as good as Benning in The Kids are Alright. Williams is already starting to get the sense that she must win one sometime soon, but this won't be her year. Lawrence is deservedly recognised and Kidman can never be discounted, but favourite has got to be Portman who does seem that little bit ahead of the field.

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The Kings Speech)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)
Difficult to comment much as The Kings Speech is the only one of these films that I've seen yet. Techinically speaking Steinfeld shouldn't be in this category as hers is clearly a leading role, but that's studio politics pushing into the wrong categories in order to get a nomination. Given that its Adams' third nomination in five years, I have this feeling that she might get the prize this time.

Best Animated Film
Toy Story 3
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Interesting side-fact - the Academy were limited to three nominees as only 15 eligible films were out forward, if there had been an extra one, there would have been 5 nominees, with probably Tangled and Despicable Me added to the list. As it is, I think they've got the right three. Toy Story 3 will almost certainly win for two reasons - 1, its also nominated for Best Film (take the hint); 2, its's made by Pixar and you have to go back to 2006 for a year when Pixar failed to win (the Academy inexplicably gave the statue to Happy Feet). However, The Illusionist would be a worthy winner should they decide to stick up for hand-drawn illustrations.

The Next Three Days

2011-01-29T18:27:00.000Z

The Next Three Days is a remake of French thriller Pour Elle (Anything for Her). I don't usually rate Hollywood re-makes of European films and true to form this has worse reviews than its Gallic original. However in this case, I haven't actually seen the original yet (although Lovefilm are just about to send it me, so will have a point of comparison very soon) and that might work in The Next Three Days favour as I found myself enjoying it more than I expected.

Russell Crowe plays John, an ordinary college lecturer whose wife Lara (Elizabeth Banks) is arrested over breakfast one morning for murdering her boss. Three years later, every appeal has failed and Lara is starting to show signs that she's not going to make it through, so John decideds that he has to break her out of jail, as you do. There is some questionable logic involved, as well as some questionable parenting, but as a thriller it works.

The first two-thirds of the film take their time. Director Paul Haggis (Crash) refuses to rush things, allowing you to get to know the principle characters and drawing you into the finer details of the preparation. This pays off with added tension in the final third as John and Lara try and evade the chasing police. None of the elements are totally original, and the film has echoes of many past thrillers, but its well enough handled by Haggis to keep you interested and engaged. They also managed to keep the question of Lara's guilt or innocence open longer than many smiliar films would have done.

Crowe is good in the lead and is that rare Hollywood star who can convince as an ordinary man. However, some of the themes could have been explored a bit more. Lara's despair, which is supposed to be John's main motivating factor is shown by a suicide attempt, but we get little sense of it elsewhere. Similarly, there is a pleasing ambiguity to the ending - can they still be happy together after the changes he has had to undergo in order to save her, but this theme could have been mined further.

Overall 7/10 Its not quite a first-rate thriller and most of the tricks will seem familiar, but its carried out with enough skill to make it an engaging and tense watch.

The Dilemma

2011-01-28T19:19:00.000Z

The open scene of The Dilemma is reminiscent of some of the earlier Vince Vaughn films, when he was still displaying some edge, humour and charm. Unfortunately its downhill all the way from there on. The set-up might have made a decent comedy or farce in the past - a guy thinks his best friend's wife is cheating on him and doesn't know how to handle, his own girlfriend thinks he has re-succumbed to his gambling addiction because he's so distracted. Of course, if it had been made a few years ago, it would probably have turned out to be a misunderstanding in the end. Here of course, it is all very real. When you add to that Vaughn's character ends up going to places not just beyond all reason, but beyond all likeability - his speech at his girlfriend's parents' anniversary party is just awful and not in a funny way. So you end up with a film that is too dark to work as rom-com type effort, too shallow to have any emotional weight and too unlikeable to be worth bothering to define any further.

And if Vaughn's character becomes unlikeable, the women in the film come off even worse - Winona Ryder plays an obnoxious harridan of a wife, Queen Latifah has some of most excruciating dialogue ever - trust me, I never want to hear the phrase "lady wood" again. Jennifer Connelly's character is at least likeable, but under-developed and what on earth she is doing with Vaughn is a mystery. The whole sub-plot idea of trying to design an electric car to feel like a gas guzzling US classic is just stupid.

I'm about to write something i never thought I would and probably never will again - the film's main redeeming feature is Channing Tatum, who is surprisingly funny as Ryder's lover. He has most of the few genuinely funny moments in the film. There are also a few nice touches with imagined images changing as Vaughn tries to invent stories to cover his tracks, but all in all its really not worth it.

Overall - 4.5/10 It's not as bad as Little Fockers, but comes close. Vaughn should probably go to therapy rather than trying to work things out through film.

Book Plug #2

2011-01-26T22:10:00.000Z

OK - keeping up with my New Year's resolution to introduce a vaguely literary element to this blog. This is what I'm reading at the moment:

"It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit, and ended up with me being eaten by a carnivorous plant". Thus begins Shadesof Grey by Jasper Fforde, set in a future Britain not quite our own where society is ordered by the level of colour perception people have. Its possibly slightly less immediately accessible than the Thursday Next or Nursery Crime Division novels as the establishing of the world takes a little time, but its none the worse for that and might prove to offer something a bit deeper at the end of the day. That said Fforde still displays his usual inventiveness, wit and fun and this a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable read and I'm loving it.

Still to come on the blog when I get some time to catch up - reviews of The Dilemma, The Next Three Days and some thoughts on the Oscar nominations, together with some thoughts on why I won't be voting SNP in May.

The Green Hornet

2011-01-26T21:59:00.000Z

Seth Rogen as a superhero in a movie directed by the guy behind indie weirdness like The Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It could have been a stroke of genius, it could have been a disaster - in the end its neither, but unfortunately steers rather closer to the latter than the former.

In some ways its unfortunate that this comes after Kick Ass which has rather stolen its thunder and one of its punchlines - what happens if a ordinary guy (albeit a fabulously rich one) tries to be a superhero. The other main punchline - that its the sidekick Kato (Jay Chou) who's the one who actually does all the crime-fighting. He's the one with the martial arts moves and the one who invents all the gadgets and Jay Chou could easily have been the break out star of this movie. At least he could have been if director Michel Gondry hadn't shown himself to be the wrong man for the job. He puts in some nice touches - like the multiplying split-screen effect as news of a bounty on the Green Hornet spreads - but he handles the action sequences (which are pretty vital) poorly and thus Chou's moves are lost in a confusion of messy direction.

Elsewhere the mismatched buddy element between Rogen and Chou has some funny moments, but becomes irritating too quickly. Tom Wilkinson is utterly wasted as Rogen's dad. Ditto Cameron Diaz in a poorly defined role that tries to be pseudo-romantic interest and the brains of the outfit, but ends up being nothing much at all.

Therefore its left to Inglorious Basterds Christoph Waltz as the bad guy with an image-inferiority complex to lift matters. He's the only one who manages to inject the necessary amount of fun into proceedings and his early showdown with an uncredited James Franco is probably the standout scene of the film.

Oh, and of all the nonsense in this film possibly the most unbelievable part is that Rogen's dad amassed his vast fortunes in a media empire by showing integrity and honesty. Hmmm....

Overall - 5.5/10 It has promise that it doesn't quite deliver on - its not as bad as you might fear, but its nothing particularly special either. Waltz is the only element that really stands out from the confusion.

So is Gerry Adams still an MP or not?

2011-01-26T20:35:00.000Z

Oh what a farce! Only in Britain could this happen. You see Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein MP for West Belfast) wants to resign his position so he can stand for the parliament in the Irish Republic instead. Only the problem is the British MPs can't just resign. Traditionally this is because being an MP is thought of as a serious office that shouldn't just be chucked away lightly. Therefore, if a British MP wants to resign he needs to apply for an office of profit under the Crown (either Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds or Baron of the Manor of Northstead.

Unfortunately for Mr Adams, a staunch Irish Republican accepting a job from the British Crown would be completely unacceptable. Thus he just wrote a letter to the Speaker resigning. However, in order to maintain tradition this has been interpreted in Whitehall as a request for one of the said offices and Mr Adams has been duly appointed to the Crown Office of Baron of the Manor of Northstead. Duly appointed, that is, without his knowledge until David Cameron stood up in the Commons and announced he'd accepted the office. There followed hasty denials of any such acceptance by Sinn Fein and here we are at a very British impasse with nobody really sure whether Belfast West techinically has an MP or not. It really is quite hilarious in its own way.

One possible way forward would be for Mr Adams to do something in order to get himself expelled from the Commons (actually, just speaking in the House would technically be enough, as not having taking the oath he is barred from speaking despite being an MP). However, this would require him setting foot in Westminster something he has steadfastly refused to do in 23 years as an MP. And so the saga rolls on...

Neds

2011-01-21T19:42:00.000Z

The film is called Neds (Non-Educated Delinquents), its directed by Peter Mullan (master of the gritty) and set in 70s Glasgow Housing Schemes. You know its not going to be a barrel laughs.

Actually, the story really feels rather familiar. John McGill (Conor McCarron) is a bright boy with the potential to do well. He also has an alcoholic father (Mullan) and a big brother who is never out of trouble. John does well at school, despite the hostility/brutality of the establishment, until his well-to-do friend disowns him and he starts to slide into the same gang culture that has absorbed his brother.

Its familiar, but on the whole it works, there is real tension in the gang confrontations and, especially, in the scenes where his dad is drunk. The school scenes work and aren't overused and Mullan has a real sense of period and place in the setting. McCarron also manages to just about hold together the film, pulling off a performance that, paradoxically but reallistically, relies on communicating alot through blankness.

There are misjudged moments, where the imagery overwhelms both character and plot - the hallucinatory scene where Jesus descends from the Cross and tries to strangle John works neither dramatically nor comically. The ending is also a bit on the bizarre side - is it a kind of atonement, heavy symbolism or just an absence of a clue how to wrap things up. And I guess at the end of the day, that is part of the challenge of the movie - Mullan has produced something which should leave you with questions. After all this is a film about Non-educated delinquents where the main character is a high achiever at school.

Overall - 7/10 Not totally original, not totally successful, but gritty, powerful, at times brutal and definitely challenging.

The King's Speech

2011-01-21T19:16:00.000Z

Finally managed to catch it this week, having been wanting to see it for a few weeks. Of course, there's always the danger with such a wait that the film wouldn't live up to expectations, or rather like The Queen, that it would be an OK British costume drama which failed to live up to all the hype. Actually, The Queen is an interesting point of comparison as it touches on some of the same issues - the place of the royal family in a world changing through technology, duty and private life, etc... However, whilst The Queen was essentially one good performance surrounded by a lot of hype and some crude caricatures, The King's Speech is a truly good film, which has more humour, more feeling and more depth.

The performances are every bit as strong as Helen Mirren's. Colin Firth has been gathering all the attention as he probably heads towards the Oscar he should have won last year for A Single Man as the stuttering prince/king facing up to his responsibilities. But the film wouldn't work unless he was equally matched on either side in both of the key relationships - on the one-side Geoffrey Rush provides a great foil as the Australian speech therapist/aspiring actor who gradually helps Bertie become King George. Less noticed, but no less crucial is Helena Bonham-Carter's turn as Firth's supportive wife (who in real-life would become the Queen Mother). Her evident, but understated affection and support adds a quiet element of subtle love story, which is actually much more moving than the more traditionally romantic Edward and Mrs Simpson (who do not emerge from this film very well (which is maybe a more historically accurate way of looking at things - even Edward's Nazi sympathies are alluded to). Even the supporting cast are excellent from Michael Gambon as the old king, to a twinkle-eyed turn from Timothy Spall as Churchill.

Structurally, the film suffers very slightly from a double climax - it builds toward a personal emotional climax about halfway through in a very touching scene between Firth and Rush, but then dips ever so slightly before building again towards the more historical climax in ascension to the throne, the onset of war and that speech. The film also has a rich vein of humour - the infamous swearing scene is actually very funny - but never at the expense of the difficulties of the protagonist. In fact, in the opening scene, you can't help but feel his excuciating discomfort.

Overall - 9/10 Funny, moving, rich in historical detail and full of amazing performances. Best film of the year so far, by some distance.

The Way Back

2011-01-16T18:31:00.000Z

Director Peter Weir's first movie in 7 years (his last was Master and Commander) is an adaptation of the disputedly "true"* book The Long Walk Back by Slavomir Rawicz, who claimed to have, with others, escaped from a Siberian gulag in 1941 and walked South via Lake Baikal, Mongolia, China and Tibet across the Himalayas into India. (He also claimed to have seen 2 yetis whilst crossing the Himalayas, but mercifully this is left out of the film).

As you might expect from Weir (especially when making a film sponsored by National Geographic) the film looks gorgeous as the cast traverse through some gorgeous locations (even if they aren't all what they claim to be - Bulgaria standing in for Siberia and Morocco for the Gobi desert). Its also well acted on whole - Jim Sturgess makes a watchable lead (a Polish officer trying to get back to his wife), Colin Farrel has the most fun as a Russian criminal and Ed Harris shines as the slightly mysterious Mr Smith.

However, despite that it remains a curiously unsatisfying film at times. What incident there is in the journey either happens off screen (the actual escape, crossing the guarded railway line) or is rushed through so quickly (an encounter with Mongolian horsemen, crossing a frozen river) that it actually loses much impact. Curiously this doesn't lead to a greater depth of characterisation either - most of the party are left as a one line character description (cooks and draws pictures, etc...) rather than fully fleshed characters. Mark Strong's character is possibly one of the most interesting, but departs the film relatively early. So its left to Sturgess and Harris to carry the film, but even then its only in the latter stages of the journey that we actually get any sense of depth to either man or the relationship between them.

Overall - 6.5/10 A solid piece of film-making, but given the talent involved you can't help feeling that it should be better than it is

* Since the book's publication many have cast doubt on its authenticity and BBC research into Russian records would indicate it to be untrue. However, there is evidence from a British officer in India who remembered interviewing three emaciated men who had crossed the Himalayas and claimed to have escaped from a Siberian gulag. We'll probably never know for sure.

Oldham East and Saddleworth - the Verdict

2011-01-14T16:09:00.000Z

So the results are in and to nobody's great surprise (and my disappointment) Labour held the seat quite comfortably. So, what does it tell us? Not much really, but here are my thoughts on how each party will be feeling - ranked not according to where they finished, but how happy they will be with it:

1. Labour 42.1% (+10.2) A solid win, an increased majority - its hard to see them losing this seat at the next election now. So basically they've got away with Woolas' dirty tactics.

2. UKIP 5.8% (+1.9) A solid increase in their vote, they beat the BNP into 4th and saved their deposit (a rare achievement in a by-election). They should be very happy with that.

3. Lib-Dems 31.9% (+0.3) They failed to take the seat, but did increase their vote share despite their woeful current standing in the national polls and the fact that, contrary to previous ideas, Tories clearly do sometimes vote tactically might offer them some hope in other areas.

4. Official Monster Raving Loonie Party 0.4% (+0.4%) They didn't finish in the bottom three. Must be happy with that.

5. Green Party 1.5% (+1.5%) 6th place was the best they could hope for realistically, its an Ok performance in an area they have no track record and apparently their candidate did very well at the hustings, which might stand him on good stead for a run in more favourable territory.

6. Pirate 0.3% (+0.3%) Didn't come last.

7. Bus Pass Elvis 0.2% (+0.2%) Did come last, but probably expected little else.

8. BNP 4.5% (-1.2%) Worst ever result in the seat, lost their deposit and finished behind UKIP (which they hate) who should no go on to establish themselves as the right-wing protest party of choice in the area.

9. Conservatives 12.8% (-13.6%) Lost over half their support and are now no longer in a position where they could realistically argue they could challenge for the seat. Dropped to about 13% in an area where half the seat had a Tory MP until 1995. However Cameron might be quite pleased that the result will shore up Clegg for a while. The local party will be less impressed.

10. English Democrats 0.4% (+0.4%) Not too good to finish behind the Loonies and well behind the other right-wing protest parties.

Next-up will probably be Barnsley Central following the Labour MP pleading guilty to expenses fraud. Should be another comfortable Labour hold despite the former MP's corruption. Its another area where the BNP performed well in May last year, so will be interesting to see if they fall back again. There will also be an election in Belfast West as soon as the Irish general election is called as Gerry Adams will be standing down to contest South of the border. He had 55% majority in May, so difficult to see that being anything other than a Sinn Fein hold.

127 Hours

2011-01-14T15:45:00.000Z

Danny Boyle's latest is one of those films where the story (based on true events) is now so well known - man gets trapped whilst out canyoning and after 127 hours eventually manages to free himself by breaking his own arm and cutting it off with a blunt penknife - that the appeal of the film is not so much in what happens, but how we get there.

In the lead, James Franco has to do the tough job of carrying the film almost without another actor to play-off, and whilst he maybe comes some way short of Tom Hanks in Cast Away, he manages to pull it off (no pun intended).

Meanwhile, Boyle manages to add surprising moments of both beauty (the first sunrise) and humour (see the moment when Franco as Aaron Ralston is forced to drink his own urine for the first time). That said, he also succeeds to creating the feeling that the audience is there in the canyon with his star and things do become gradually more disorientating as Ralston's health declines and edges between reality and his hallucinations blur. So, we end up feeling the huge sense of relief when Ralston does indeed free himself. Not all aspects are quite so successful - Ralston's premonition of having a son, which seemingly prompts his arm-cutting escape, is handled without much conviction and feels slightly out of place despite the post-escape coda.

Overall - 7.5/10 This is not Boyle's best, but is still a powerful, raw film - just not one I think I'd like to see again.

Love and Other Drugs

2011-01-14T15:33:00.000Z

The makers of Love and Other Drugs are eager to point out that its not a Rom-Com, they prefer the term emotional comedy (or emoti-com). The marketing campaign, however, has definitely been appealling to a rom-com audience. As it turns out, both are right.

For the first two thirds of the film, there is a subtle blend of satire (on the drug and health industry in America) and emotional drama and comedy. As such, it probably treads a line closer to Up in the Air than a traditional rom-com. Although its not as good as that movie, its still a very stong film. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a young, ambitious drug-rep who ends up falling for a woman with early onset Parkinson's (Anne Hathaway). Gyllenhaal and Hathaway have a very easy chemistry and there is some sharp dialogue as they cut through each others bullshit - these are two broken people, looking for escape and finding something more. It is also very funny, both in their blossoming relationship and in Gyllenhaal's attempts to market his drugs.

He is better in these sections and tends to coast a bit through the more emotional sections. Hathaway meanwhile is excellent throughout, giving a thoroughly human and believable portrayal of a woman trying to come to terms with her condition. There is also excellent support from the dependable Oliver Platt and Hank Azaria. That these first sections are handled with a lightness of touch and subtlety is all the more pleasantly surprising as director Edward Zwick (Glory, The Last Samurai, Defiance) is a man more noted for spectacle than subtlety.

It then appears that the film totally loses confidence in itself and retreats into rom-com cliche and an easy happy-ending. The second act raises big emotional questions with real weight, the last act then papers over them with platitudes and hopes you won't notice. Hathaway deserves some credit for still managing to find some real feeling amidst the cliches, but both she and the film deserve better.

Overall - 7/10 A great performance by Hathaway and what could have been a very good film are both betrayed by a formulaic artificial happy ending, but the first two thirds are well worth watching.

Season of the Witch

2011-01-09T17:59:00.000Z

Season of the Witch follows closely in the footsteps of last year's Solomon Kane - its Medieval Europe Hollywood-style. The recipe is quite simple - start with lots of mud and dirt, mist works well too. A few monks, a few knights and lots of dirty peasants, add in some bleak scenery and a stunning castle. Then you need to find a way to factor in some combination of the Crusades, the Plague and witchcraft - because those were really the only things that happened in Europe for about 400 years (Season of the Witch should be applauded for managing all three). Add in a mix of different European accents, apart from for the hero(es) who for no accountable reason will speak perfect American. All that this film really misses out on is an appearance by Max Von Sydow, but almost makes up for this with a Christopher Lee cameo.

The story follows knightly Nicolas Cage (sporting yet another dodgy hairdo) and best pal Ron Perlman who give up serving the church after the atrocities of the crusades, but are "persuaded" to do one last job, transporting an accused witch many miles to a monastery for trial, accompanied by a priest (The History Boys' Stephen Campbell Moore), another knight, a young wannabe and a swindler as a guide. The journey is utterly predictable and you can't help feeling that the film tips its hand as to whether the girl really is a witch rather too early. Still the action is competently handled and Ron Perlman is an old-hand at this kind of nonsense. Nicolas Cage enjoyed something of a renaissance last year with Kick Ass and Bad Lieutenant, but is back on going through the motions and surprisingly subdued form here (although this is his fourth leading role in little over 9 months, so maybe he was just plain tired!). The script is laughable, often quite literally and there's actually a certain amount of guilty pleasure in lines such as "we're going to need more holy water!". Its generally much better when it realises its own nonsense and doesn't take itself too seriously rather than the odd moment that it strays into worthiness and pontificating about the abuses of the church.

Overall - 5/10 Its nonsense and generally it knows it is, but is quite entertaining nonsense most of the time.

Gulliver's Travels

2011-01-06T19:51:00.000Z

This is not Gulliver's Travels in the sense that any fan of Jonathan Swift's satiric masterpiece would recognise. For starters, you only really get the first (of four) of Gulliver's voyages, with a brief reference to the second, and even that is only really referenced in the fact that there is a land full of very small people called Lilliput and Gulliver puts out a fire in the Palace by urinating on it (yes, that was in the book) and drives away the navy of an invading rival. Thereafter pretty much all similarities with the book cease and what you get instead is a stream of pop culture references and Jack Black being, well, Jack Black-ish.

Having said that, and getting off my English Lit Graduate high-horse for a minute, its not actually as bad as I was expecting. Black manages to slightly tone down his Black-ishness enough to make his character bearable, even approaching likeable at time. And if its not exactly hilarious fun, it does at least have some energy, enthusiasm and inventiveness enough to make it watchable. Of the rest of the cast, Billy Connolly and Catherine Tate are definitely short-changed, but Jason Segal manages to make a likeable character out of what is essentially Black's foil. The stand-outs here though are Chris O'Dowd making a good villain and Emily Blunt, whose mannered performance is initially off-putting, but when you see what she's actually doing, she just about steals the whole movie. The awkwardness of the scheduled courtship between Blunt and O'Dowd providing many of the few genuinely funny moments here.

Overall - 5.5/10 It's not Swift and it's not a masterpiece, but it is at least watchable and largely inoffensive with a few laughs, which is more than you can say for certain other so-called comedies out at the moment.

Little Fockers

2011-01-06T19:29:00.000Z

To start the new cinema year on a particularly low note - not a film I was particularly enthusiastic about seeing, but I was outvoted. I really enjoyed Meet the Parents, but Meet the Fockers was dreadfully unfunny. No matter how bad this is, I thought, surely it will have more laughs than that. How wrong can I be! This is lazy, cynical, unfunny film-making at its worst. So here are my notes to Hollywood on how to avoid this kind of travesty in the future:

Jokes that were funny first time round, but not the second, don't suddenly become funny because you try them a third time. Even the stars seem to have stop believing in the material and not even the thought of a big fat paycheck can muster any enthusiasm from messers Stiller and De Niro, let alone anything resembling actual acting as they lazily coast through the same routines again without any effort.
More stars do not necessarily make a better picture. Jessica Alba and Harvey Keitel are added to the mix this time round. Keitel is presumably thrown in as somebody thought it would be "funny" to have him square off with De Niro - its not, just a reminder of much better films where they had some decent material to work with and could be bothered. Meanwhile Dustin Hoffman lazily dances his way to the bank having done not very much at all.
There is a difference between funny and irritating. It is possible to make irritating funny - Owen Wilson can do it (with decent material to work with), but here he's just plain irritating. Whilst Jessica Alba trying to talk all dope and down with it has got to be one of the most annoying characters ever committed to celluloid.
A man injecting adrenalin into his father-in-law's penis to remedy an excess of viagra is just not funny. I don't think I need to stay more.
Genuine humour doesn't need signposting in advance to let you know you should laugh soon whereas this telegraphs every joke with huge neon signs well before they actually arrive.

To be fair - there is one decent joke in the whole thing, when De Niro tries to contact his old CIA employers for info only to be told he can probably get what he's looking for on Google. There might also be a couple of mildly amusing segments - a play on Jaws in the ball pool and a pastiche of the classic spy tailing somebody on a train. There, I've saved you the bother of actually having to watch the film - believe me, you'll thank me for it.

Overall - 3.5/10 Unfunny, lazy, cynical, cringeworthy. From here the only way is up for the year.

Political Predictions for 2011.

2011-01-05T15:17:00.000Z

Just for a bit of fun at the start of the year, I'm going to share some thoughts on how things may go at the polls this year.

The first major test for the big parties will of course be the

Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election.
Having previously said that I could see any of the big three parties winning this, I now think that things are (unfortunately) leaning towards a Labour win. I say unfortunately not for party political reasons, but because I would like to see the electorate punish the party and not just the individual for the types of wrongdoing that Mr Woolas perpetrated. However, it looks like Labour will get away with it, probably with an increased majority. With the current state of the polls (Lib-Dems possibly down to around 8% nationally (depending on polling company)), the Conservatives being slightly less than whole-hearted in their campaigning and the final weeks of the campaign likely to be dominated by the VAT rise and George Osborne, there is little playing in the Coalition parties favour here.

Almost as interesting as the main battle, will be the performance of the minor parties. With 7 other candidates standing it will be hard for any to save their deposit (5% of the vote required). I wouldn't expect the Greens to do well - this is not their area. Anything much above 1.5% for them will be a good result (and undoubtedly bad for the Lib-Dems as it would probably mean a significant loss of disaffected yellows). The BNP probably stand the best chance of saving their deposit - they polled 11% here in 2001 and saved their deposit at last year's general election. However, support for UKIP has been growing in the area and they stand a chance of pipping Griffin's racists for 4th place. I'm not usually one to cheer on UKIP, but in this particular case, I'll make an exception. In fact it would be nice to see the BNP come behind the Loonies, but it ain't going to happen. My prediction of the result (offered elsewhere) is:

Labour 35.2%
LD 29.8%
Con 22.8%
BNP 4.7%
UKIP 3.5%
English Democrats 1.6%
Green 1.2%
Official Monster Raving Loony Party 0.7%
Pirate 0.3%
Church of the Militant Elvis 0.2%

Local Elections in May
The local elections will probably be more good news for Labour, but Ed Milliband shouldn't get too excited just yet. MOst seats up for grabs this year were last contested in 2007 which was very bad year for Labour. The kind of year where an unpopular government loses council seats that under more normal circumstances they would hold quite easily. Therefore it would only be natural to expect that now, with Labour in opposition, many hundreds of those seats will be won back from the Tories and Lib-Dems. For the Lib-Dems it might be a particularly grim night. They might hold up, or even make some progress against the Tories in the rural South and South-West, but in the North and especially the urban areas like Liverpool and Newcastle, where they had been making inroads for the last decade or so, Lib-Dem councillors will fall in large numbers.

Welsh Assembly
Wales is also likely to be grim for the Lib-Dems in May. Latest opinion polls show that they may be reduced to just one or two assembly seats. In fact, the last poll would have them coming behind the Communist party in one of the regional lists! Labour will make gains, plaid will stand still, The Tories might go either up or down but not hugely, and there is a slim chance that UKIP might just gain their first ever AM. At the end of the day, I reckon Labour will either just achieve or just fall short of an overall majority. Either way I would expect them to go it alone in government rather than continuing the present coalition with Plaid.

Sottish Parliament
Labour should also again become the largest party in the Scottish parliament. This isn't saying much as they require only a swing of 1 seat from the results of a bad year. I would expect them to finish 10-20 seats ahead of the SNP this time. The Tories might lose a seat or two, but I would expect generally they will lose a few constituencies but make it up on the list vote and finish just down on the current levels. The Lib-Dems will also be reduced, but not as badly as Wales (their strength in some parts is, I reckon, too historically entrenched) and they may finish with about 10 seats or so. The Greens will pick up a few extra, probably finihing with 4-5, maybe even up to 6 or 7. Again, I would expect Labour to try and govern as a minority, but it would certainly be in the Lib-Dems interests to make them a coalition offer they couldn't refuse.

The AV Referendum
Tough one to predict this - if Labour take the lead in the yes campaign they may just swing it against a Tory no campaign, but Labour are from united behind AV, so at the moment I'm predicting this might a narrow No vote, which in itself I wouldn't be too bothered about, except that I think it will mean the end of any prospect of electoral reform for Westminster for at least another 10-15 years and that would be a shame and an opportunity missed.

New Year's Resolution and Book Plug No. 1

2011-01-05T10:52:00.000Z

Happy New Year to you all. For me 2011 arrived in good company with champagne in Paris, which is a promising start. I've got to admit that I'm not a great one for New Year's Resolutions, but this year I've decided that I want to get back into reading more. In addition to trying to work my way through the backlog of books building up on my shelves, I'm intending to occasionally put on here plugs for good books I'm reading when I come across.

So first up is one of those book's that I've been meaning to get round to for a while: The Five People You Will Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. I started it on the plane back from Paris two days ago and am already well-over halfway through it and thoroughly enjoying it. Its quite a light read and very accessible, but at the same time rather thought-provoking.

"This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It might seem strange to start with an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time".

"No life is a waste... The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone"

Review of the Cinema Year - the best.

2010-12-27T23:18:00.000Z

So following on from yesterday's post, here's my views on the best films that I've seen this year:

Honourable mentions go to Shutter Island, Four Lions, Crazy Heart, The Heartbreaker and The Princess and the Frog which all just missed out on a place in the top 25:

25. Monsters Intelligent and engaging low-budget indie sci-fi which blends several genres effectively.

24. The Kids Are Alright Smart, funny and moving relationship drama anchored by great performances from Annette Benning and Julianne Moore.

23. How to Train your Dragon Dreamwork's best film since the original Shrek. Beautifully animated and for once with a story and script to match.

22. The Town Ben Affleck's sophomore effort as director proves he's got the talent behind the lense. Hard-hitting crime drama given depth by a sense of place and character.

21. The Last Station. Helen Mirren and James McAvoy, quality drama and the story of Tolstoy's last days. Thought-provoking too.

20. The Boys are Back Clive Owen is surprsisingly good here as the bereaved dad trying to bring his sons up by himself. Moving and surprisingly funny.

19. The Road Slow and sombre drama with Viggo Mortensen walking a post-apocalyptic journey. Slightly disappointed on initial viewing as I had high hopes for this film, but it does stay with you. A slow burner.

18. Micmacs Jean-Pierre Jeunet's latest slice of French quirkiness had mixed reviews. I loved it.

17. Rare Exports Delightfully inventive Finnish film based around a gem of an idea of an alternative take on Santa Claus.

16. The Illusionist beautifully drawn animated film with a slice of melancholy charm. A glimpse into a bygone Edinburgh.

15. A Single Man Colin Firth should have won an Oscar for this - its a better performance and a better film than Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart. Fashion designer Tom Ford takes the director's chair and whilst a bit too stylistically showy at times, still delivers a quality film.

14. Lebanon Claustrophobic Israeli war film all from the inside of a tank on the first day of the Lebanon war.

13. The Lovely Bones The critics didn't warm to this, I thought Peter Jackson produced something different and great - visually arresting and tense. Also featured a great turn from Stanley Tucci as the killer.
12. Scott Pilgrim vs the World Extremely funny and wonderfully inventive, no mean feat for a film that is essentially structured around a series of fights and wonderful cameos. Edgar Wright's American debut (following Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) is one of the funniest films of the year.

11. A Prophet This French prison drama is not for the faint-hearted, but adds something to the genre and features an amazng debut performance by Tahar Rahim.

10. The Hedgehog You could argue that this one is a bit of a cheat, as its not had a UK release yet ( I saw it in the French film festival) but its one of the best, most subtle, funny and moving films I've seen this year, so in it goes.

9. Avatar Another slight cheat, as it came out at the end of last year, but I saw it this, so in it goes. The story's a bit weak, but James Cameron does succeed in creating a very immersive world and the big battles are probably the best since Lord of the Rings.

8. Green Zone Greengrass and Damon re-team, the results aren't quite Bourne and the subject feels a bit like yesterday's news, but its still a superior thriller with raw, visceral excitement.

7. Winter's Bone I've seen this film described as "feminist redneck noir", which is a description I can't beat. Sustained tension and a sense of threat, a real sense of place and an amazing performance in the lead by Jennifer Lawrence make this utterly gripping.

6. Kick Ass The film that may have re-invented the superhero film, rejuvenated Nicolas Cage's career and launched a new star in Chloe Moretz. Killer idea brilliantly executed.

5. Up in the Air is a difficult film to categorise - its not exactly a comedy, a drama or a romance although it has elements of all three. Its funny, intelligent, emotional, original and thought-provoking. Has a central trio of great performances, including an on-top-of-his-game Clooney in a part you can't imagine anyone else pulling off.

4. The Social Network Smart script by The west Wing's Aaron Sorkin, smart direction by David Fincher and great performances from the young cast make the story of Facebook one of the films of the year.

3. Another Year A film in which nothing very much happens and the central couple are pretty sorted, but this could well be Mike Leigh's masterpiece through acute observation and real heart. A very human film.

2. Toy Story 3 It would have been so horrendous if they had messed this up. Thankfully they didn't. A fitting end to the trilogy.

1. Inception Stunning visually, some wonderful ideas, universally strong performances. Again Christopher Nolan has made an intelligent, sophisticated thriller and turned it into a huge blockbuster success.

Well, that's my choices. Feel free to disagree. The links should take you to trailers for the films on Youtube. Let me know if they don't work.

Hope you all had a good Christmas and have a wonderful start to 2011.

Review of the Cinema Year 2010 - the bad.

2010-12-26T15:56:00.000Z

So the year is drawing to a close. 2010 has been a year when a random trip to the cinema could have you thinking that you had fallen into a time-warp back to the Eighties, with The A Team. Wall Street, The Karate Kid and Tron all on the big screen, together with Stallone and Lundgren headlining a major summer blockbuster. Some trips down 80s memory lane have been more successful than others.

In general, of course, there have been some ups and downs, some surprising delights and some crashing disappointments. Nicolas Cage finally rediscovered his Mojo, but Robert Downey Jr apparrently lost his. Over a couple of posts i'm going to present my views of the best and worst films I've seen this year, starting here with the 10 worst, in descending order of naffness.

There have probably been much worse films released this year, but the likes of Vampires Suck or Fred the movie couldn't even get me past the doors. These ones did out of false hope, blind optimism, desparation or sheer boredom and are presented here with a warning not to bother, even if they're on TV and nothing else is on, these really aren't worth it.

Dishonourable Mentions: Just missing out on the bottom 10, but still to be avoided - Clash of the Titans and The Wolfman were big budget, effects heavy and pretty dire, but still had some limited entertainment value, whilst Valentine's Day was overcrowded, superficial and largely untouching, but not without a few redeeming features.

10. It's A Wonderful Afterlife. This British-Indian black comedy had a few really hilarious moments that saved it from coming lower down, but when it wasn't funny it was pretty dire.

9 Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps There were probably worse films released this year, but few as disappointing and the betrayal of one of cinema's great villains is unforgiveable.

8 Machete Robert Rodriguez' mexploitation B-flick messily sailed well wide of the mark. Nowhere near as much fun as it should have been.

7 Legion For a film which supposedly dealt with the end of the world this was rather too small and limited and took itself far too seriously.

6 Skyline - There were some good low budget sci-fi films this year. This wasn't one of them - the savings were clearly made in the script and casting departments, but its more difficult to see where they actually spent the money.

5 All About Steve Lame Sandra Bullock rom-com in questionable taste. For a Rom-com it helps if at least one of the central characters is vaguely likeable. In fact, it actually takes some skill to take two actors as likeable as Bullock and Bradley Cooper and produce such a charmless film.

4 The last Airbender Confirmation that M Might Shyamalan has lost it (at least for the moment) - over-reliance on special effects, dreadfully wooden acting and awful script. What was he thinking?

3 Due Date Offensively bad attempt at new Planes, Trains and Automobiles featuring Robert Downey Jr's worst screen turn for a long time (possibly ever). Only a few funny moments save this from coming even lower.

2 Our Family Wedding Competely unfunny culture clash wedding film and the low point of Forest Whitakker's career. I think its officially classed as a comedy - still trying to work out why.

1 Get Him to the Greek When Russell Brand is the main star of a film and not the worst thing about it, then you're in trouble. Jonah Hill somewhat reprieved himself with Cyrus, but this was just unfunny and obnoxious.

Would the Telegraph please just stop it.

2010-12-24T19:44:00.000Z

The Daily Torygraph has clearly not forgiven David Cameron for not winning an overall majority or the Lib Dems for going into coalition with them and are now using undercover reporting to trap Lib-Dem ministers into saying "sensational" things. The ministers in question have undoubtedly been a bit unwise, but these conversation were had in the context of surgeries with constituents where a certain amount of confidentiality should be in place.

Ethically, I have questions about the use of this kind of undercover reporting not to expose serious wrongdoing, but an uncomfortableness about some of the compromises involved in coalition. I means lets face it - the revelations so far have hardly been spectacular -George Osborne can get up your nose a bit - no kidding, David Cameron is not suddenly a cosy liberal - gee, who'd have thought it, Lib-Dems are uncomfortable with the compromises they had to make on tuition fees - go figure! Next week's revelations will probably include somebody saying Theresa May is a bit right-wing, isn't she? and Iain Duncan-Smith doesn't have much hair. I'm sure if they had been so inclined, they could just as easily have trapped tories saying similar things about the Lib-Dems and the compromises that they have had to make.

Leaving aside the ethical considerations, the whole thing seems to show a lack of understanding of the way coalitions work. Two parties who fought the election on different platforms aren't suddenly going to agree on everything and there will be people who they find it difficult to work with. I'm sure there are many Tories who find it hard to work with the likes of Osborne and Fox. But they are still managing to work together and govern the country together, for better or worse.

You also wonder if the Telegraph has thought through the possible consequences. The strengthening of Murdoch's empire by the removal of Cable from the case is definitely an own-goal. But putting pressure on the coalition can't be in the Tory interests at the moment. Yes, they would probably pick up seats from the Lib-Dems at the moment, but the collapse of the Lib-dem vote in Tory-Labour contests could quite easily see them lose more - Labour currently lead in most polls. So a new election now would likely produce either another hung parliament or a Labour majority.

So, all in all, its all a bit stupid on every possible level. So just stop it now and get back to do something like proper journalism.

Some belated thoughts on Tuition Fees

2010-12-24T19:15:00.000Z

I haven't really had time to get down my thoughts on this issue over the last few weeks, so thought I'd take this opportunity of a break over the festive season to offer some musings. Firstly I must say that I still believe that a university education should be provided free for all students. Whilst, its been the Lib-Dems who have been in the firing line for their u-turn, we shouldn't forget that none of the parties have managed to maintain a consistent line:

Party Inconsistency?
The 2005 Conservative manifesto (written by one D. Cameron) promised to abolish fees and now they are raising them. As for Labour, its very hard to take them seriously on the issue - they promised not to introduce fees and then did, they promised not to introduce top-up fees and then did. They commissioned the report that recommended that fees should not only be tripled but completely uncapped and there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't implement those recommendations. Whilst in office they completely dismissed the idea of a graduate tax (the NUS favoured option) but are now supporting it in a cynical ploy to make political hay out of the issue. Their opportunism on this issue is far more cynical than anything the Lib-Dems have done.

Meanwhile in Scotland (where we have free tuition), the SNP are coming up with all sorts of unworkable solutions in order to delay their own u-turn on the issue until after the elections next May.

The only parties who are maintaining a consistent anti-fees line on the issue are the Greens and UKIP (now there's an unlikely alliance).

As for the Lib-Dems. They officially remain committed to abolishing fees and I think would genuinely like to see this happen. We will never know whether they could have negotiated greater concessions on the area in the coaltion agreement, but in coalition you do need to compromise on certain issues and they knew before the election that they wouldn't get anywhere on the issue with either Tories or Labour in a coalition and would have to put it onto the back-burner. The question then arises, knowing this, whether they should have signed the NUS pledge? Probably not, but then how would it have looked if they tried to say we believe in abolishing fees, but won't pledge not to increase them - its certainly a more honest position, but one that would not stand up in an election campaign in our current soundbite political culture, which has no room for nuance or complexity.

The Details

And in that culture, what we get in the media is that tuition fees are to triple for everybody. Which isn't the case. Firstly, in order to triple, rather than double fees, universities will have to do quite a lot to increase access to university for students from more deprived backgrounds.

Secondly, under the current proposals, the 25% of graduates with the lowest incomes after completing their courses (there's nothing to pay up front) will actually pay less than they do currently. Added to that, it is calculated that around 50% will never pay back the full amount in the 30 year timespan. So far from all students three times as much as currently, much fewer than half will actually pay that, and only when they are earning enough to be able to afford it. Somebody who averages £30,000 pa for the thirty years after graduation will end up paying just £2000 more in total, which works out at £67 per year more.

Taking all this, I think that is what is being suggested is probably more fair than what is currently in place. In fact in practice it doesn't work out all that different from the graduate tax the NUS advocates, except that theoretically you could have a graduate tax and still maintain you're sticking to the principle of free university education. Personally, I think that's a bit of a fudge and would prefer no fees and higher education funded by the use of the taxes that already exist, but I'm not sure if I would prioritise it over funding on healthcare or schools, for example.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

2010-12-24T00:35:00.000Z

Usually every year we get at least one or two dreadful Christmas movies - unfunny Hollywood comedies, etc.. - to fill up the cinema through December. This year there has been nothing that I can think of. Instead we get this delightfully different take of the story of Santa Claus from Finland. You see the idea we have of Santa is a lie spread by Coca-Cola and the truth is that he was a rather vicious creature, more interested in punishing naughty children than giving presents to nice ones.

A bumbling group of Americans dig up the original Santa buried in the ice beneath and unleash something on the nearby Sami community. Only bookish Pietari is clued into what is really going wrong. To be honest, for much of the time it plays like a standard creature feature, and none of the scares are particularly original of themselves, but this is lifted well above the average by a number of strengths. Firstly, the filmakers are confident in the genius of their idea that they downplay rather than overplay the horror and gore (none of the locals are killed off). Secondly there is a very real sense of place in the depiction of the Sami community, which is never romanticised or patronised. Thirdly and most importantly, there is real depth in the relationship between Pietari and his father. Finally, the film maintains a really funny sense of dry humour throughout, both in some good dialogue and in the execution of the central idea which sees Santa as an old man/creature running about naked in the icy landscape. There's also a great conclusion where the resourceful locals triumph.

Overall - 8/10 Original, inventive and funny alternative take on Santa.

Somewhere

2010-12-23T23:41:00.000Z

Somewhere is a very Sofia Coppola film and whether or not you will warm to it might well depend on how you generally take to her work. After the critical lashing for Marie-Antoinette, she returns to territory more familiar from Lost in Translation. Stephen Dorff is movie-star Johnny Marco, living out of a hotel and drifting along until he is forced to look after his 11 year old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) for a while.

It is actually a hard movie to love, but in its own rather challenging way, will stay with you. The themes are not new to Coppola, even if the Hollywood setting is, and there are echoes of Lost in Translation in Dorff's isolation and alienation (notice the way that at times the camera won't keep hom shot) with his various encounters with the women who throw themselves at him only serve to highlight his ultimate lack of connection. Cleo thus represents his best shot at redemption. Their relationship is subtly drawn by Coppola, without major drama or histionics, aided by a couple of reallt strong performances. The ending is ambiguous to say the least and will probably infuriate many.

Overall - 7/10 Its an intelligent and slightly challenging film, but that's no bad thing.

Tron: Legacy

2010-12-19T13:54:00.000Z

For a film that wasn't much of a commercial success, Tron was hugely influential. No Tron, then no Pixar, no Toy Story, etc... and the development of computer generated imagery in movies would probably have been slower and different. I remember watching the original film when I was much younger, but can't say it made much of an impression on me beyond the iconic light-cycle battles.

Now comes the sequel, 28 years later, in which Jeff Bridges' Kevin Flynnn (the hero of the original) disappeared some 20 years ago and his son (Garrett Hedlund, ends up in the digital world where he has been trapped after investigating a mysterious page from him. This world is now ruled by the programme Clu (a digitally re-youthed Bridges) who is following his own plan.

Story was never the main strength of the original and there's little improvement here. The plot is adequate, but the real world sequences actually feel far more interesting and engaging than the digital world where most of the action is set. The father-son issues feel standard and cliched. You also feel there's some lazy scripting which fails to cover over holes in the plot - the appearance of the Isos - some kind of poorly explained spontaneous digital lifeform is just "miraculous" - no ther explanation is given. And why, if Bridges' Flynn has the almost god-like powers he displays at the end, why hasn't he sorted out this whole mess long ago?

The cast on the whole is good, although Bridges seems to have almost turned Flynn into the Dude. Hedlund makes a solid lead, but the breakout turn is from Olivia Wilde, as Quorra (the last surviving Iso) who fittingly manages to combine confident action with a childlike wonder and innocence. The less said about Michael Sheen's performance the better - its a serious rival to Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter as the most irritating and misplaced performance of the year.

Visually it works as an updating of the original - the fans' favourites like the light cycles are back, updated and looking great. That similar duels now also happens aerially with planes as well is a good addition. All in all, it feels like a faithful updating from the original and that is both a weakness and a strength. There is a paradoxical truth that nothing dates as quickly as science fiction, and the ideas of technology here still feel somewhat rooted in 80s ideas and aesthetics. So apart from a not so sly dig at Microsoft in the opening sequence, this all feels rather divorced from the world social networking and actual virtual reality that has developed since 1982.

The one unqualified success of the movie is probably the score by Daft Punk, who also feature in the night club scene.

Overall - 6/10 It's a competent belated sequel to the original which will probably keep fans happy, but falls a long way short of greatness and manages to feel strangely dated.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

2010-12-17T11:16:00.000Z

So far The Chronicles of Narnia films have been fairly middle of the road - decent enough without being great, close enough to the books to be recognisable without being close enough to please the purists. The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe was slightly better than the disappointing Prince Caspian.

The good news is that The Dawn Treader is probably the best of the lot so far as a film. The bad news is that the improvement isn't huge and the straying from the book might not please the Lewis fans.

So on the plus side, its the best looking of the films so far. The Dawn Treader itself looking beautifully done. Its also helped in this respect in that it isn't trying to stage epic battles for the fate of the world with a cast of about 50, which always looked less impressive than it should have. The acting is also better than in previous films, with Son of Rambow's Will Poulter a good addition as Edmund and Lucy's cousin Eustace.

On the negative side, the final act descends into a mess of (literally) flashy special effects that are unnecessary and a wee but confusing. Also the replacement of Eddie Izzard (one of the few highlights of Prince Caspian) for Simon Pegg as the voice of Reepicheep is a definite backward step

As far as faithfulness to the book goes - all the books story elements are there, but are added to. In some cases, (the extra real-world details at the start) this works well in adding depth to the characters and the period. Most controversial will be the decision to add an over-arching battle against a vaguely defined force of evil on top of the quest to find the seven lords. I can see why they did it - it gives the story a more over-arching, less episodic structure, but it still feels unnecessary and actually detracts from the final scene with Aslan at the edge of the world, with now feels like an epilogue rather than the climax of the story. Its also a shame that along the way we lose some details like the reason Eustace ceases to be a dragon.

Overall - 6.5/10 As a film, its a slight improvement and solid mid-range family entertainment. As an adaptation of Lewis' book, it leaves something to be desired.

The Tourist

2010-12-12T17:27:00.000Z

The Tourist is a lesson in how you can take a decent script, two of the world's biggest stars and a director whose last film (The Lives of Others) was simply brilliant and come up with not very much at all.

Angelina Jolie plays Elise Ward, who is being trailed by the police (Paul Bettany in particular) who are trying to track down her former lover, Alexander Pearce, who owes about £750 million in unpaid taxes after stealing billions from his gangster boss (Steven Berkoff). Matters are complicated by the fact that nobody seems to know what Alexander looks like following plastic surgery. Acting on instructions in a note from Alexander, Jolie joins up with a random tourist, Johnny Depp, on a train to Venice. There follows many twists and turns and much canal based action before the final act twist is revealed.

The script is smart enough and has some great lines. The plot is good enough for the type of fun action this aims to be, although there are undoubtedly holes if you stop and try and work out exactly what Alexander was actually planning from the start. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck handles the action sequences well and there's good use of the stylish Venice locations and the two major twists work more than they don't. Furthermore Bettany is good as the not so nice cop and Timothy Dalton even better as his boss.

So where does it go wrong? Berkoff makes for a bland villain where the film cries out for him to be chewing up the scenery. Jolie manages a perfect crisp English accent, but apparrently puts so much into it that she at times fails to act - we're used to much better from her. However the main problem is the complete and total lack of chemistry between Depp and Jolie. They are two of the most attractive and talented of the current A-list, but here they totally fail to spark off each other. Depp is good when by himself and has greater chemistry in the scenes he shares with Bettany than with Jolie. Unfortunately, ultimately the film stands or falls on the relationship between Depp and Jolie and thus it falls. The scenes between them feel flat and limp when the should zip with electricity and tension.

Things do pick up towards the end and the last act is engaging, but overall The Tourist leaves you with the feeling that it should be great entertainment, but is decidedly ordinary.

Overall - 6/10 Its not a bad film, but it should be so much better than it is. A damp squib of a movie sunk by a lack of chemistry.

Unstoppable

2010-12-09T19:28:00.000Z

Unstoppable is neither a subtle nor a complicated film. In fact, its recipe is rather simple and well-used: first take one destructive force, say an out of control, unmanned train. Then have it smash things at regular intervals to show its threat, throw in its path some complicating factors and something to be threatened - say a cargo of deadly chemicals, a large population area and a a trainload of schoolkids heading the other way. Next add a load of corporate suits to make all the wrong decisions whilst worrying about the stock-price and throw in some failed attempts to stop. Finally have a couple of heroes, preferrably from the mismatched buddy tradition, to save the day. How about one knowledgeable, proud veteran who's training a new recruit (who will need to have his own issues) to take his place as he's forced into early retirement. And that is pretty much it as far as this movie goes.

Except that even the most familiar recipe can be a tasty treat if you use the best ingredients. For example, you could pick a director like Tony Scott, the man behind Top Gun, Crimson Tide and Man on Fire, to name few. Subtlety is not his forte, but he certainly knows how to handle action and tension, pitching the camera and the audience right into the thick of things and really gets the adrenalin pumping. He also likes blowing stuff up almost as much as Michael Bay, including at one point flipping a police car for no apparent reason, but on the whole this works to serve the story rather than distract here.

Next you pick your stars carefully. For a figure of experienced, proud blue-collar America could you get a better fit than Denzel Washington. This is Washington's fifth collaboration with Scott, following on from the disappointing but similarly train-themed The Taking of Pelham 123, and to be honest its the kind of role that Washington can sleep walk through, and yet he is never less than a compelling presence here in every utterance and gesture. As for the younger star, you could do worse than the man who managed to successfully re-invent Captain Kirk. Chris Pine is an actor whose good looks probably count against him sometimes, distracting from some genuine talent and versatility. He may never match Washington's career achievements, but he's a good match for him here, creating a believable and not overdone relationship between then two men.

Finally and most crucially, don't overcook it or throw in too many unnecessary twists and turns. At just over and a half, this movie is probably about its perfect length to keep you gripped and engaged without having to throw in too many distractions that would act against the main story.

Overall - 7.5/10 Don't expect to see any of the cast or crew on the stage picking up Oscars, but its an extremely well -done, thrill-packed, exciting, adrenaline-fuelled ride that will suck you in despite yourself.

Monsters

2010-12-07T16:09:00.000Z

Monsters proves what Skyline comprehensively failed to - that low budget sci-fi really can work. This was shot with minimal crew, a cast of two with all other roles being filled in by locals met on the journey through Central America and all the special effects added in director Gareth Edwards' laptop.

The story follows photographer Andrew (In Search of a Midnight Kiss' Scoot McNairy) who is ordered by his boss to make sure the boss' daughter Samantha (Whitney Able) gets back to America safely through the infected zone (an area of Northern Mexico inhabited by strange giant squid like creatures following the crash of a space probe bringing samples back from another planet). Director Edwards has described it as an action movie for girls or a romance for boys or a road trip movie for monsters. All of these descriptions fit. Real-life couple McNairy and Able have a natural chemistry and their gradual falling for each other in underplayed and utterly believable. The main characters are largely on the periphery of what action there is happening, but when it does happen it is extremely effective.

There's also some intelligent and thought-provoking dialogue - look out for the discussion about the relative price for a photo of a dead child and a happy smiling child and what happens when the situation arises for real. The film also implies a certain ambiguity to its title - we never see an unprovoked attack by the creatures and a final act scene at a gas station is amazingly beautiful. So is the the problem here the creatures or the militaristic response to them?

The film is not a total success - some of the supporting parts are notably amateurish and a circular structure is a gimmick that adds little and detracts somewhat from the ending. However, these are minor quibbles.

Overall - 7.5/10 A remarkable piece of ambitious, intelligent film-making on a limited budget.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1

2010-12-01T22:35:00.000Z

With The Order of the Phoenix, David Yates managed to turn the stodgiest of all the Potter novels into the most spectacular of the films. In light of this, The Half-Blood Prince was something of a disappointment, lacking in tension and energy. Therefore, it is with some relief that we can say that the first part of The Deathly Hallows marks something of a return to form.

The weaknesses of the film come not so much from poor execution as from the nature of being only the first half of a story. Thus the film is almost continually setting things up, but only reaching the odd small climactic moment along the way. It also has to contend with the weight of having to set up not just one, but two sets of McGuffins (the horcruxes and the deathly hallows) - the tension between these will hopefully pay dramatic dividends in the second half, but here it adds alot of exposition and a slight lack of focus. The other drawback being that for much of the first half of the novel, the main characters are somewhat stuck in their quest, stuck in a tent in remote parts of the country rather than having fun at Hogwarts with lots of other characters to interact with.

Bearing that in mind, Yates keeps the action moving remarkably well and will whisk you along to the end without your really noticing that two and a quarter hours have just passed on the journey. His three young leads have now totally grown into their roles and give good solid performances whilst a who's who of characters from the previous films come and go rather quickly - blink and you might miss Alan Rickman or John Hurt here. Only Helena Bonham-Carter of the adults really gets any dramatic moments to play with.

What works and works really well, is the sense of tension that Yates creates - this is now a threatening world that our young heroes inhabit and it starts to show. Visually it is also spectacular - most notably in Yates' depiction of the Ministry of Magic, which has now become a kind of Orwellian nightmare and is the setting for the most stunning sequence in the film. There are other successses - the animated sequence for the tale of the three brothers is an original touch that works wonderfully and the loss of a character in the final act is genuinely moving.

All of this bodes well for part 2 next June, which should start with the raid on Gringotts bank and finish with the battle of Hogwarts.

Overall - 7/10 It can never quite escape the fact that it is only half a film, so its slightly unfair to rate it by itself, but it does its job entertainingly well and sets the scene for what should be a truly spectacular finale.

Another Year

2010-11-29T16:26:00.000Z

Another Year is one of those film where not much really happens, but you come out feeling like you could quite happily sit through another two hours of it. It also might be director Mike Leigh's greatest achievements to date.

Leigh's method of making films, gathering a cast who improvise in rehearsals and generate script and characters between them, here creates a reality and depth to the relationships that really works. Leigh also takes the unusual step of having a central couple with effectively no problems or issues. Jim Broadbent's Tom and Ruth Sheen's Gerri are a couple in later middle age, happy with each other and fairly sorted. There is little in the way of character development. Gathered round about them are a range of the more damaged and lonely - notably Lesley Manville's Mary, slowly realising her dependance on Tom and Gerri.

Leigh is a very human director, and whilst he's not blind to his characters foibles, nor does he miss the opportunity to bring humour out of their situations, he never allows things to descend into mockery or caricature. There is almost an affection, for even his most ridiculous characters that allows both humour and feeling to co-exist quite comfortably. He also has a keen eye for the awkwardness of much human interaction, especially in one scene where Mary turns up at the house to find only Tom's recently bereaved brother at home.

Leigh is helped by an excellent ensemble performance by a superb cast. Manville grabs the attention with the showiest part and deserves plaudits for making Mary a very real person, rather than an alcoholic caricature. However, the strength of Broadbent's and Sheen's quieter turns shouldn't be overlooked, lovely understated turns with the power to convey much by a single look. Kudos also to Imelda Staunton's not perfect cameo early in the film.

Overall - 9/10 This might be Leigh's best ever film. Melancholic at times, but warm and funny and above all, very human. One of the films of the year.

Chico & Rita

2010-11-29T15:25:00.000Z

Chico and Rita is, in many ways, an animated Buena Vista Social Club with added romance and a dash of Captain Corelli's Mandolin (the book, not the film - there's a crucial difference that has echoes here).

Chico is a piano player, Rita is a singer. They meet and fall in love, despite complications, in Havana and then proceed to lose and find each other again across many decades and two continents as events and their own mistakes intervene.

Despite the scale, it never feels epic, but a personal and often quite initimate film, helped by some beautiful handr-drawn animation. This a gently, romantic film whose characters feel more human and fallible, rather than heroic. That said, there's enough action in the story to keep you entertained, and if that fails there's always the music.

Overall - 7.5/10 An animated film that makes a refreshing change from talking animals/toys/aliens, etc... A very human tale, lovingly drawn and told.

Burke & Hare

2010-11-25T22:34:00.000Z

The film of Burke and Hare is something of a mystery. The decision to tell the story as a black comedy could have resulted in many things - it could have produced, given the talent involved (the director responsible for The Blues Brothers and Animal House and veritable who's who of British comic actors), a superior dark comedy with a touch of satire, it could have produced something overly puerile with an excess of gross-out gags, it could have produced something overly gory. All of those would have been more likely than what was actually the result. Thus it is something of a mystery how you can take an engaging story, a talented director returning from a long absence, a talented and likeable cast, a plot that has all the right elements and mix it all together to produce something so completely bland.

Its difficult to put your finger on exactly where things go wrong. There are a few funny moments. The plot has a few ridiculous stretches - like the all-woman production of Macbeth and Burke supposedly doing it all for love - but there are better films with much sillier plots. One or two of the accents are a bit a stretch, but even Isla Fischer's scottish beats Mel Gibson's. The Michael Winner cameo is cut mercifully short by a long drop of a cliff. The performances (Ronnie Corbett aside) are generally decent and Tom Wilkinson, as ever, excels and Andy Serkis and Simon Pegg make invlolving enough leads. Landis handles the action well enough and the setting has enough period detail and atmosphere.

And yet the whole feels somewhat less than the sum of the parts. The gags just feel a bit too familiar. What could be sharp satire about the rich and powerful getting away with their involvement feels blunted.

Overall - 5.5/10 There are many worse films around at the moment, many more offensive films. This isn't bad, there's just nothing particularly good about it either and you can't help feeling their should be.

The Hedgehog

2010-11-17T22:16:00.000Z

I saw this film during the French Film Festival - as yet it has no general release in the UK, which is a shame, as its a great film.

Adapted from Muriel Barbery's novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog, the story concerns three characters living in the same apartment building - 11 year old Paloma, who is a bright observant girl who sees much that the adults miss, but is convinced that she wants to avoid life in the goldfish bowl and is counting down the days until she plans to kill herself. Then there is the building's concierge, Renee, who hides her passions for books and Japanese films behind the stereotypical image of what is expected of a concierge. Finally, there is the new resident, the widower Mr Ozu, who sees them both more clearly than others and forms a friendship with both.

The three central performances are superb, especially the two adults, creating believable and engaging characters, despite minimal backstory, through understated gestures and nice character touches. Togo Igawa Mr Ozu) has a real quiet sparking presence about him, whilst Josianne Balasko is amazing as Renee gradually emerging from her hiding place. She is the emotional heart of the story, whilst Paloma as the observer, expounds its key themes of life and death and hiddeness.

"What matters isn't the fact of dying or when you die. It's what you're doing at that precise moment."

The direction, too, is understated, but beautifully handled, bringing humour and feeling together with some wonderful grace notes.

Overall - 8.5/10 Superbly acted and put together, funny and moving. If it does come to a cinema or DVD store near you in the future, its well worth checking out.

Despicable Me

2010-11-17T21:39:00.000Z

Despicable Me is, in some ways, the evil twin to The Incredibles, showing a world where super-villains are normal - they even have their own bank (formerly Lehman brothers!) and lairs that Bond villains could only dream about.

One such villain is Gru (voiced by Steve Carrell), who in order to hatch one of his plots, needs to adopt three orphans as part of the plan. Needless to say, this being a family friendly animation, the girls soon start to melt his hard heart (not to mention those of his army of yellow minions).

It never quite achieve Pixar levels either in visual beauty, depth or emotion or story-telling, but is certainly among the better of the second division efforts. The action is entertaining for both young and old, there are some good gags both visually and verbally and a healthy dose of inventiveness. And whilst that is going on, it does manage to sneak in some heart without it becoming overly sentimental. Oh, and the minions are both funny and adorable. (Plus the film shows that Russell Brand is much more bearable in cinema as an animated old man than in person).

Overall - 7/10 Good solid entertainment for the family.

Due Date

2010-11-17T21:15:00.000Z

Director Todd Phillips last film, The Hangover, had broad humour that might not have been to everybody's taste, but it had a sense of fun, originality and energy that was quite infectious and was frequently very funny.

The follow-up, Due Date, is allegedly a more mature film, although what exactly mature means here I'm not totally certain. The humour is often more puerile and the heart is completely missing.

The plot is in many respects a re-hash of the John Hughes classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles with the birth of a first child substituted for Thanksgiving as the reason for the trip. Robert Downey Jr takes the Steve Martin role and Zach Galifianakis taking the John Candy role. As a comedy its hit and miss - more miss than hit, but in a few of the moments when it does hit, it is genuinely funny.

However, unfortunately most of the time it mistakes being shocking for being funny and lumbers of with two main characters who are just unlikeable. Galifianakis is in danger of being typecast as the odd loser, but here is missing something likeable that makes you realise just how much both Hughes and Candy are missed. But the real bum-note comes from Downey Jr, spectacularly breaking his recent almost infallible run. His is supposed to be the normal character, the one we're supposed to relate to, but is just plain unlikeable for most of the film. He also displays such extreme anger-management issues, one must question whether he is fit to be a father at all. So, we're supposed to laugh as he punches a small child hard in the stomach or spits on a dog?

Its also difficult to buy his eventual warming to his travelling companion as being lasting or either of them having learnt anything, coming as it does under the influence of large quantities of drugs.

Overall - 4/10 Fitfully funny, but that really doesn't make sitting through the rest of the film worthwhile

Skyline

2010-11-17T20:50:00.000Z

Firstly, apologies - not had the chance to update for a wee while, so a few things to catch up on. Let's start with one of the most recent.

Skyline is the first of a wave of alien invasion movies to be hitting our screens soon. Its directed by the Brothers Strause who have quite an impressive track record in visual effects, but in direction their previous effort, Aliens vs Predator Requiem, hardly inspires confidence.

It starts boldly enough - jumping straight into the moment the aliens arrive without any preamble. Then it winds back 15 hours, presumably to allow you to get to know the characters. This might be worthwhile if there was anything remotely likeable or engaging about any of them - stock characters played by supporting actors from TV shows (24, Scrubs, Dexter, etc...). Instead by the time the aliens show up for the first time (again!) you'll be praying that the first one they zap is the scriptwriter.

From here onwards it plays like a mash up of other, better films. You have the plot of War of the Worlds, in the style of Cloverfield with leftover special effects from The Matrix. All the while the cast run around a luxury apartment building doing all the brain-numbingly stupid things you might expect in this kind of film. To be fair, if you want to check your brain in at the door, most of the action and tension are well enough handled and on the whole it looks quite good.

Then it reaches the point where it really should finish, but instead launches into a final act of such mind-numbing daftness (not to mention yuckiness) that it almost takes your breath away. You can't help thinking that there was some poor misguided attempt to rip off District 9 in there somewhere, but it misses the mark by a long, long way.

Overall - 4.5/10 There are some really good movies around at the moment - this isn't one of them.

Too Soon

2010-11-16T12:19:00.000Z

I was taking a coffee break in a cafe last Monday (which would have been only the 8th November). I'm ashamed to admit that it was one of the big chains - Starbucks in this case - and was horrified that not only did they have all their Christmas merchandise out, but that they were already playing Christmas music - horrible, tacky, sickly sweet (a bit like their cream-laced fancy drinks) versions of well known tracks at that. Too soon, too soon!

Now I can put up with cards and wrapping paper and decorations appearing in shops earlier in the year - there are even some good reasons for this to enable people to plan ahead for posting overseas, etc... I'm not in favour of decorations and lights appearing in November, especially early November, but its a bit easier to ignore that. There is something horribly invasive about music that worms its way into your consciousness evenly if you're not consciously listening (and believe me with this music, why would you?). My tolerance for this kind of music stretches to a few weeks right before Christmas at most. The start of NOvember is way too early, with the smell of bonfires still in the air. Enough, Starbucks, enough - leave us in peace at least until the start of advent, please....

The Kids are All Right

2010-11-06T19:42:00.000Z

Julianne Moore and Annette Benning play a couple who both have children from the same sperm donor. When the oldest of the children, Mia Wachowski (Alice in Wonderland) turns 18, she follows her younger brother's (Josh Hutcherson) request to contact their biological father, Mark Ruffalo, who then proceeds to form relationships with different members of the family.

This low-key indie drama/comedy works well by not making too much out of the unusualness of the family, but rather from nicely observed moments that they share in common with most families - the tensions between parents, the desire of children for their independance, etc... The performances are good and understated - Ruffalo does well to convey the confusion of his character and the gradual realisation that he does want a family. It is somewhat unfortunate that his character arc gets a bit lost at the end, but ultimately he is the interloper in the central focus which is on the relationship between Moore and Benning, who make a very convincing couple.

Some moments are funny, some uncomfortable and some moving. There is the odd moment that drags a wee bit, but generally it is a engaging look at family life.

Overall - 7/10 A gentle, low-key but acutely observed look at family life

The Social Network

2010-11-06T18:00:00.000Z

A movie about Facebook, whatever next? When first announced, this sounded like a horrendous attempt to cash-in on the internet phenomenon, but when you started to look at the talent getting involved - David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac, Benjamin Button) as director, Aaron 'The West Wing' Sorkin as scriptwriter and you began to realise that there's something more going on here.

The film is a suppositional account (most of the key-players remain rather tight-lipped about what actually happened) of how Facebook was created and went from a tool for Harvard students to being a global phenomenon. It tells the story through the two law-suits that creator Mark Zuckerberg ended up defending (one from two rich twins who claim he stole their idea, and one from his former business partner who claimed he had been wrongfully forced out of his share of the company). What emerges is a completely compelling movie.

It has many strengths - the script from Sorkin is sharp and funny, whilst not missing the emotionals beats, as fans of The West Wing would expect. Right from the opening scene of Zuckerberg getting dumped in a bar the dialogue flies thick and fast and positively crackles at time. Fincher handles the action well and together they wisely make the decision not to answer the rights and wrongs of the various lawsuits and disputes, but to leave all the characters in a morally grey area that makes for a far more interesting film.

The cast is strong too. Andrew Garfield provides perhaps the most sympathetic route into the story as Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg's friend and business partner who becomes jealous and gradually eased out of the way by Zuckerberg's growing friendship with Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake - again proving he is one singer who can act well). Meanwhile Arnie Hammer and Josh Pence's privileged Winklevoss twins provide more in the way of comic relief as the Olympian rowers who think they came up with the idea in the first place.

However centre stage goes to the breakout performance of Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland, Adventureland) as Zuckerberg himself. The casting is perfect and not just down to certain physical resemblance. Eisenberg convinces as the geeky, super-intelligent creator, whilst also being able to bring a hardness to the role that, say, Michael Cera wouldn't have been able to manage. This is crucial to the ambiguity that the film maintains towards its central character. Zuckerberg is often not very likeable - he starts out out of drunken revenge after being dumped by his girlfriend and comes across in some of the lawsuit scenes as completely arrogant. However, he is never quite a hard-headed monster. Whilst refusing to definitively answer any questions, the abiding impression of the man who created the world's biggest social network is of a lonely man, uncomfortable in social situations (maybe even with Aspergers tendancies). He is always on the outside of parties and the final shot of him is him continually hitting refresh, waiting for his ex-girlfriend to accept his friend request. How close is this to the real Zuckerberg, we may never know, but Eisenberg creates a compelling character.

Overall - 8.5/10 A fascinating and compelling take on a modern phenomenon.

Woolas vs Watkins the verdict.

2010-11-06T17:12:00.000Z

I must admit to be surprised at the verdict handed down yesterday in the appeal of the Oldham East and Saddleworth General Election result. Along with a lot of people, I had assumed that Phil Woolas would get a slap on the wrist and sent back to the Commons being told not to be a naughty boy again. However, it comes as a pleasant surprise to see the judges decide to stand up for some level of standards in campaigning and I wholeheartedly welcome the decision.

Whilst standards in campaigning generally have been pretty low and all parties have been guilty of some pretty nasty leaflets and campaigns in recent years, Mr Woolas' campaign was particularly distasteful. For the immigration minister to be so blatantly playing the race card in an area which has, in the not too distant past, had race riots is just unacceptable and parliament will be a better place without him. His statement after the verdict that parliamentary candidates need to be open to question from their opponents and voices should not be gagged, etc... is absolutely irrelevant - there is a huge difference between candidates being open to fair and honest questioning and them being subject to unsubstantiated libel posted to voters.

Which leaves the parties to try and deal with the fallout. Hopefully this verdict will be a warning shot across the bows of all parties to clean up their act. IT will also inevitably call into question the judgement of Ed Milliband as the new Labour leader, who appointed mr Woolas to a front bench position whilst he was under investigation for his campaign. Although the Labour party has quickly moved to expel Mr Woolas, some damage will already have been done.

And then we will have the by-election (probably early-ish next year). It will be an interesting election. In theory the three main parties could finish in any order, having finished fairly close together in May. Under different circumstances, I’d say the Lib-dems were out of it given their current unpopularity, but Watkins standing as the victim of these accusations might just stand a chance. Similarly, if there is a backlash against Labour, the Tories vould come through the middle (especially if they keep the same candidate).

I would make Labour favourites, as I don’t imagine the CSR plays well in this area, but they will have a selection dilemma. Pick somebody local and they could be tarred by the previous campaign. Parachute somebody in and it might not go down too well either.

I suspect that the campagn itself will come down to a past vs present focus. The Conservatives and Lib-Dems will both want to focus on the previous Labour campaign and Labour's failures in government. Labour will choose to focus on the present and future cuts to services under the coalition.

An early prediction, Labour will hold on with an increased majority, but Mr Woolas won't be missed at Westminster.

Easy A

2010-10-29T15:32:00.000Z

Good teen comedies are not all that easy to find and some of the bad ones can be really bad, so it was rather refreshing when, every few years, a really good one comes along. Easy A is not quite as good as the best of the genre (Heathers, Ferris Bueller, etc...) but it comfortably lives with the good films on the second rung of the genre (the likes of Clueless; 10 Things I hate about You; Mean Girls). Its not as dark as Heathers, nor quite as caustic as Mean Girls, but has a bit more bite than the likes of Clueless.

Like many successful teen comedies the ultimate source is literary (here The Scarlet Letter), although there are also knowing references to classic 80s John Hughes movies. You'll feel like you've seen most of the characters before, even Amanda Bynes' christian uber-bitch is rather similar to Mandy Moore's character in Saved! and its easy to see where this is going from the start.

However, none of that really matters, because where the film succeeds is in being genuinely likeable and funny. There are real laughs to be had in the sharp script and they are got by a talented cast led by a breakout turn from Emma Stone, confirming the promise she showed in Zombieland. She's backed up by some good adult performances, especially from Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as the funniest movie parents in a long time.

Overall - 7/10 Not quite in the top draw, but a very entertaining and funny second-tier effort

The Town

2010-10-29T15:04:00.000Z

Ben Affleck is starting to emerge as the frontrunner to be the unlikely successor to Clint Eastwood as the actor who wins critical acclaim as a director. This follow-up to Gone Baby Gone is probably not quite as accomplished film as his debut, but is nonetheless an extremely accomplished sophomore effort.

One of the things that aids Affleck is that he has a strong sense of place for his native Boston, which becomes almost an extra-character in the film. Another Affleck strength is that he is clearly an actor's director, marshalling strong performances from a very strong cast (albeit one lacking real star names). He chips in himself with one of his best turns for a while, but is ably supported by Rebecca Hall, Mad Men's Jon Hamm and The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner, with great support even in the minor roles coming from the likes of Chris Cooper and Pete Postlethwaite.

The story is nothing all that new - skilled bank-robber (Affleck) wanting out of the game after meeting a girl from a different background (Hall) (albeit having met whilst abducting her during a bank raid), but persuaded to carry that one last job with a friend who's a bit of a liability (Renner), being pursued by the relentless cop (Hamm). But although he handles the action deftly, Affleck never lets this become another heist movie or loses sight of character or relationship in the mix.

Overall - 8/10 The material is decidedly genre-typical, but the performances and direction lift this into something far better and more engaging.

Some thoughts on Housing Benefit.

2010-10-29T14:38:00.000Z

Whilst I've not yet got my head round all the details of the Comprehensive Spending Review, I thought I'd share some thoughts on the proposed changes to Housing Benefit as this is shaping up nicely to be the first major argument within the coalition.

There are three areas in particular that seem to be causing controversy:

1) The move to reduce the maximum amounts of housing benefit payable for private sector rents. The most often quoted figure is £400 per week for a 4 bedroom house. In general, I would support the reduction of maximum levels, however, I think applying the same figure across the country despite wildly differing housing costs is a mistake. Hence the attention being paid to London and brewing spat between best chums Boris and Dave. (That sais talk of social cleansing and Kosovo by Boris and Labour politicians is offensive and should be avoided at all costs). Part of the problem here is that across the country there is a real shortage of larger social housing properties, following years of under-investment in housing by both previous goverments. Thus larger families are forced to seek homes through the private sector and pay private rents. Therefore maximum limits need to take into account market rental prices in the area (not averaged across the whole country).

2) The move to reduce Housing Benefit by 10% for those who've been on Job Seekers Allowance for more than a year. This is a move which, in my opinion, is wholly without justification. It is draconian, punitive and stigmatising and should be opposed and dropped. Especially in the current economic climate, being unemployed for a year is not a sign of not trying to find work and there are already enough stick measures in the JSA system, adding another one will produce no positive results and will add further pressure on those who already under too much.

3) Allowing Housing Associations to charge close to market rents for social housing in order to pay for more house building. The aim is right, but the measure might be self-defeating in terms of reducing the welfare bill. It will make many tennants more dependant on housing benefit and needing more money from the state in order to pay their rents, thus the welfare bill will in all likelihood increase.

A Brief Aside on Child Benefit

Again, in principle, I would support the removal of child benefit from those who need it the least, but from the way I understand it the proposals, could lead to a hugely unfair situation: a couple where both work and are paid just under the higher rate tax threshold (say 42.5K each, joint income £85k) would still be entitled to child benefit, but a family where only one works but is paid just into the higher rate tax band (joint income £45k) would no longer be able to claim child benefit (if I've understood correctly). That ain't quite fair, is it.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

2010-10-27T16:15:00.000Z

I'm not a big Oliver Stone fan at the best of times, but the original Wall Street is one of the two Stone films (alongside Platoon) that I would recognise as an undisputed classic. Which makes it a hard act for a sequel over 20 years later to follow. Even given that, Money Never Sleeps is a crashing disappointment.

Michael Douglas was going through more than his fair share of problems during filming. Unfortunately, it seems to show with a performance that seems less than fully engaged and offers only a fraction of the drive that made Gordon Gecko such a memorable character.

Instead what you get is excessive focus on the young leads - Shia LaBoeuf (who after early promise in his career seems somewhat stalled and offers another performance almost identical to every other Shia LaBoeuf performance) and An Education's Carey Mulligan who struggles valiantly with an underwritten and underused character. Indeed, of the cast only Frank Langella offers any depth and he departs proceedings early. Added to this is a plot that fails to engage, other than the odd gripping boardroom scene, and an ending that seems badly tacked on and clashing with everything that went before.

But probably the film's worst failing is that the backdrop (the global financial crisis) swamps the story. So we are supposed to be bothered about Josh Brolin as the boo-hiss villain when what he was doing (although illegal) was small potatoes compared to what the whole industry was up to. You end up feeling like the target is write there in front of Stone, but he completely fails to nail it.

Overall - 5.5/10 A big disappointment, lacking any spark from Douglas, its shallow and flat and lacking in tension with an unbelievable ending.

RED

2010-10-27T16:01:00.000Z

Recently back from holiday, so have a few blogging things to catch up. Might offer some thoughts on my travels soon (possibly on a new blog), thoughts on the CSR may or may not follow, if I ever get my head around it. But for now lets think films.

RED (which stands for Retired Extremely Dangerous) is not exactly original. The idea of former spies and hard men proving their more than a match for the younger competitors has been done before. The plot, as such, holds few surprises. Most of the characters are stock characters - from Brian Cox's Russian agent (think Robbie Coltrane in the bond films) to John Malkovich's paranoiac.

However, what RED lacks in originality it makes up for in fun - lots of it. Bruce Willis stars as the ex-CIA agent who in retirement finds himself on the wrong end of a hitlist and gets the gang back together to uncover the conspiracy. But who cares about the plot - it has Helen Mirren firing machine guns! There is something rather ludicrously appealing about Dame Helen firing off heavy weaponry which sums up the appeal of the film. Willis seems much more at ease here than he did in his brief cameo in The Expendables, enjoying having people who can actually act to play off and its a delight to see Morgan Freeman still up to the action. That's before adding into the mix Richard Dreyfuss and Ernest Borgnine. Karl Urban is also a surprisingly strong presence as the CIA agent on Willis' trail.

Not that the film is perfect by any means - Malkovich comes close to overbalancing it at times, some of the effects (especially one really bad shot of Willis stepping out of a spinning car, shooting a gun) really fail to convince and not even the excellent Mary Louise Parker can sell the romance with Willis. That said, the script is strong and witty, the action generally well handled and the gags well delivered.

Overall - 7/10 It won't be troubling the academy come Oscar night, but for a fun, action packed night out, it doesn't go far wrong and shows how a cast can have great fun and still make it fun for the viewer too.

The Hole in 3D

2010-10-01T17:09:00.000Z

In the 80s, Director Joe Dante gave us some of the most fondly remembered films of the decade with the likes of Gremlins and its sequel and Inner Space. From there on it was downhill and The Hole marks his first cinema release since 2003's rather less fondly remembered Looney Tunes Back in Action.

Its the kind of child-friendly horror that should be just right for him and whilst it maybe lacks something of the anarchic fun and genius of Gremlins, its good enough to make it a welcome return.

The plot has a lot of familiar elements - single parent family move to a new house, where the children discover something mysterious (in this case a seemingly bottomless hole in the basement floor) and when they leave it open, strange things start to appear. Rather than running screaming back to the big city, like normal kids might, movie kids, of course, decide to explore things further.

The three kids (Nathan Gamble, Chris Massoglia and Hayley Bennett as the neighbour) all do a solid enough job without a breakout turn. (It is a sign of how things have moved on from the 80s that the girl is often the one who takes the lead (at least until the end sequence)and is least phased by things - a refreshing absence of screaming). That said, Bruce Dern can teach them all a thing or two with his crazy old man act. The effects are well done, although the 3D yet again fails to add much. There are some real jumps and scares pitched at just the right level to frighten children (as they want to be frightened0 but not enough to give them nightmares. It also goes to a pleasingly surrealist places in the final act when they enter the hole.

A word of warning - if you really do have a phobia of clowns, you're best avoiding.

Overall - 6.5/10 A solid family-friendly horror, lifted by a more interesting ending

Our oil addiction.

2010-10-01T16:49:00.000Z

Today the UK government decided to allow oil company Chevron to carry out deepwater drilling for oil in the sea west of Shetland.

This decision was made in spite of the following factors:

- yesterday the EU is planning a moratorium on all deepwater drilling for oil in light of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. (Hence, one suspects, the rusging through of this decision).

- Enquiries into the Horizon disaster are still ongoing, which means that new drilling off Shetland will be carried out with the same exacting safety standards as were in place there. The industry is as yet offering no further reassurances or safeguards. Meanwhile, the environmental cost in the Gulf can still not be measured as damage is still being done.

- If the world's existing supplies of oil and gas were used up, the world would still exceed targets set for reducing emissions and climate targets the UK (and Scottish) government claims to be committed too. Surely efforts should now be put into the development of greener technologies to help the world when fossil fuels run out, rather than looking for more oil. We need to plan for this change now.

This is also an issue where Alex Salmond finds himself in bed with the coalition. When pressed yesterday he refused to back the EU moratorium, preferring to leave the door open to deepwater drilling. This despite his recent trumpeting of Scotland becoming 100% renewable. I suspect that at the end of the day the SNP needs the oil industry too much in order to make the economic case for independance and that will stop them ever fully embracing an environmental agenda.