UNSTOPPABLE: unremarkable but engaging

There's nothing particularly new about the plot to UNSTOPPABLE, and it certainly couldn't be accused of possessing depth or subtext but it does nonetheless offer 90 minutes of clenched fists, buttock squeezing, edge of the seat excitement.

Director Tony Scott has fashioned a rollercoaster ride out of the simple storyline of a runaway freight train and the veteran train driver (Denzel Washington) and his rookie conductor (Chris Pine) who must catch the half-mile long 'missile' and stop it before it comes off the rails in the middle of a Pennsylvania town and explodes, spraying its cargo of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.
While Scott does pause long enough to give the two leads some back story - Washington has been fired by the train company whose ass he's trying to save, and Pine's fiery temper has estranged him from his wife and daughter - all that is irrelevant to the action that unfolds as the two trains barrel through the Pennsylvania countryside.
The climax is entirely predictable but that doesn't detract from the enjoyment to be had from the various distractions and mini-climaxes Scott sets up along the way, and the relationship that develops between the two main characters.
Suspend your disbelief, switch your critical faculties to the 'off' position, then sit back and enjoy the ride. UNSTOPPABLE is brainless entertainment at its best.

RABBIT HOLE: grown up storytelling at its best

RABBIT HOLE is a gutwrenchingly sad experience.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart give such powerful and compelling performances as a couple struggling to cope with the death of their young son in a road accident that it's impossible not to be drawn into their world of inconsolable pain.
Eckhart wants to let it all out while Kidman insists on keeping everything bottled up. It's a recipe for relationship disaster as both turn to people and pursuits outside of their marriage to help them get through the nightmare that their life has become.
It's obviously impossible to imagine what it must be like to face the loss of a young son or daughter but RABBIT HOLE gives us a pretty good idea.

THE TOWN: revisting a familiar neighborhood

Crime thriller THE TOWN comes off like Martin Scorsese-lite.
Set in the rough, apparently crime-riddled Boston neighborhood of Charlestown and populated by characters doing their damndest to get that distinctive Bohwston accent just right the film reminded me of a stripped down version of 'The Departed."
Writer-director-star Ben Affleck has gone for a much simpler take on the familiar cops and robbers genre. There's much less depth to the characters, their back stories and the plot than Scorsese achieved with his multiple Oscar winner.
And that's why 'The Departed' has stuck in my mind for years while THE TOWN is already a fading memory less than 24 hours after I watched it.

BLACK SWAN: look beneath the glossy surface

If BLACK SWAN sweeps the board in the upcoming awards season a terrible injustice will have been done.
Because this film is only half as fabulous as its supporters like to make out.
I don't blame them. It's easy to be taken in.
Firstly there's the reputation of the director, Darren Aronofsky. His impressive, if short, resume ("Requiem for a Dream", "The Fountain", "The Wrestler") has endowed him with the reputation of a stylish arthouse director, and he certainly has an engaging way of telling the story of characters who are chasing a dream.
Then there's the subject matter. Aronosky's succeeded in making the rarefied and most definitely artsy world of ballet interesting and accessible to a multiplex audience.. There's not been this much buzz about ballet on the big screen since Powell and Pressburger's 'The Red Shoes' way back in 1948.
And then there's Natalie Portman's performance as Nina Sayers - the ballerina who loses her mind in pursuit of perfection.
It all adds up to a mesmerizingly shiny surface which can blind one to the reality beneath. 
And the reality is that - at best - this is a good film but it's certainly not one of the great movies of 2010.
The idea of an artist striving too hard for perfection and finding themselves taken over by the character they're interpreting on stage is nothing new. Ronald Colman won the Best Actor Oscar in 1947 for doing something very similar in 'A Double Life.' The big difference now is that technology and a lack of censorship allows Aronofsky to create images that Colman could only dream about.
What did impress me about BLACK SWAN was Portman's performance. Her portrayal of the timid, virginal and repressed dancer who has the technique but not the passion to become a great ballerina is sensational. Her descent into darkness is genuinely disturbing, as she pushes herself beyond what she's capable of, constantly harangued by sadistic ballet company director Vincent Cassel, bullied by her domineering mother Barbara Hershey, and tormented  by the imagined rivalry with sexy uninhibited fellow dancer Mila Kunis.
If anyone connected with this project is deserving of awards it's Natalie Portman. BLACK SWAN is good but she is great.

MONKEY BUSINESS: a superstar just having fun

MONKEY BUSINESS is fun - lots of very silly fun - and the main reason for that is Cary Grant.
He's clearly having a ball playing a rather stodgy middle-aged research scientist who 'discovers' a fountain of youth elixir that causes him to behave like a teenager.

What makes this 1952 comedy so enjoyable is that the 48 year old Grant's impression of an 18 year old is just that - an impression. His teenager bears not the slightest resemblance to James Dean's tortured teen in 1955's 'Rebel Without a Cause.' It's a caricature of a stereotype that probably only ever existed in Hollywood films.
But let's face it. If Grant were going for authenticity he'd have essayed some Dean-like character and we'd have had a drama devoid of any belly laughs.
Grant's a gas and he's got some great support - from Charles Coburn as his exasperated boss with an eye for a pretty young lady; from a pre-superstar Marilyn Monroe as the pretty young thing who's not as ditzy as her boss would like; and from a chimp who follows direction so perfectly you'll be convinced it must be a midget in a monkey suit. The only square in this board of otherwise round pegs is Ginger Rogers as Grant's long suffering wife. When she finally chugs some of the magic water her transformation into an oversize kid is considerably more broad than it is amusing.
MONKEY BUSINESS reunites Grant with director Howard Hawks for the first time since the latter directed the former in the strained and not very funny 'I Was a Male War Bride' and the difference is like night and day.
If you're looking for proof that a film comedy can be genuinely funny without resorting to swearing, nudity, gratuitous violence, or gross-out stunts let me offer MONKEY BUSINESS as exhibit A. It's as silly as the title suggests.

CYRUS: not what you think but better

What I liked most about CYRUS is that it didn't do what I expected it to do.

Consider the facts. The film stars two comedians - John C.Reilly and Jonah Hill - in a story about John (Reilly), a middle aged loser in love who miraculously attracts an attractive single woman, Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. She falls hard and heavy for him and everything goes swimmingly until he discovers her guilty secret. She has a 21 year old son, Cyrus (Hill) still living at home and the two are - well - unnaturally close to one another. And Cyrus doesn't appreciate the new man in his mom's life.
It sounds like the perfect set up for a film full of slapstick comedy and gross-out incest jokes with John and Cyrus getting ever more physically violent with one another as they battle for Molly's affections. But that's not exactly what happens.
Directors Mark and Jay Duplass have created that rarest of creatures - a dramedy that keeps the viewer constantly off-balance by refusing to deliver what's expected of this scenario and offers up instead something entirely more satisfying.
I don't mean by this that the story veers off on some bizarre tangent because it doesn't. It really never strays from the straight and narrow, yet it remains unexpectedly fresh and subtly surprising. Both Reilly and Hill demonstrate a depth and restraint in their performances which allows us to believe in them as credible characters rather than simply comic creations. Neither of them exist just to get a laugh. Tomei also surprises as the mom who finds herself torn between her son and her beau. She resolutely refuses to do the things that mom's do when they find themselves in this situation in a Hollywood drama.
In short, nothing about CYRUS is predictable. If you're expecting a wacky comedy you'll be sorely disappointed, but if you're looking for a comedic breath of fresh air this is most definitely the film for you.

THE OTHER GUYS: overwhelmingly underwhelmed again

It's rare to find genuinely ad-libbed genuinely funny comedy in the movies.
Film making generally doesn't lend itself to making it up as you go along. So much needs to be locked down in terms of dialogue and movement before the camera rolls to ensure the director gets exactly the shot they need, and the actors say the lines they're required to say to advance the story.

Robin Williams used to be a rare exception. Supposedly a great deal of his dialogue in "Good Morning Vietnam" was improvised and much of it is damned funny. Will Ferrell is not an exception yet directors continue to allow him to riff on a theme while the camera's rolling despite the evidence of his recent films - "Land of the Lost", "Step Brothers", "Semi Pro" and "Blades of Glory." THE OTHER GUYS just adds to this list of shame.
I've got no solid proof but it seems to me very probable that Ferrell is improvising the dialogue in many of the scenes of this overblown and spectacularly unfunny mismatched buddies cop caper. Why? Well he's paired with a straight co-star, Mark Wahlberg, who's eager to please and happy to react to whatever Ferrell throws at him, hoping that some of that comedy gold will rub off on him (it doesn't), and their characters are placed in one set-up after another which just shriek "here's the premise. Now run with it!" to a star of Will's stature and proclivities.
And if my feeling about this film isn't good enough for you just stick around until the very end of the final credits. There's a scene cut from the main movie in which Ferrell is very obviously and un-amusingly riffing on the lines Wahlberg is feeding him.
The alternative to my improvisation abortion theory is almost too horrible to contemplate - that all the dialogue has been scripted and Ferrell is simply repeating his lines as written. For humour this lame to have been written and revised before director Adam McKay called "action!" verges on criminal. At the very least it opens the door to a charge of taking money under false pretences on behalf of all those who bought cinema tickets or the DVD believing they were paying to see a comedy.
For the sake of his reputation Ferrell should step away from the cameras and wait for a genuinely funny script to come along. If he continues on this current course of believing he's talented enough to make a silk purse out of any sow's ear that lands in his lap he'll wind up as the next Eddie Murphy.

EASY A: I give it a B-

It's probably not the done thing these days to heap any kind of praise on actress turned professional wild child Lindsay Lohan but I reckon she would have made EASY A into a much better film than Emma Stone does.

Stone plays Olive Penderghast, a southern California high school student who takes her literature class's study of "The Scarlet Letter" too much to heart and invents a slutty sex life for herself.
Her initial intention is simply to help out a friend but the scheme rapidly spirals out of control as reports of her numerous (fabricated) one night stands spread through the school like wildfire. Olive finds herself the object of the entire school's contempt and admiration, and nothing she can say will persuade them that none of the gossip is true.
In the hands of Lohan Olive would probably have come across as smart, funny, vulnerable and lonely, hiding a big heart beneath a tough shell. In other words she'd have been likeable and I could have empathized with her situation. As played by Stone she's a smug, snarky,smart-alec who's so disdainful of everything around her that's it's difficult to feel anything remotely positive for her or her self-induced predicament.
However it's not Lindsey Lohan that director Will Gluck is reaching for but legendary 80s writer-director John Hughes. The film makes several references to "Pretty in Pink", "The Breakfast Club", "16 Candles" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" accompanied by brief clips from those now classic coming of age movies, and it's not clear what message Gluck intends to convey by doing this. Is he suggesting that EASY A is the modern day equivalent of these beautifully crafted tales of teenage angst - in which case he's deluding himself - or is Olive drawing parallels between her predicament and those endured by the characters in Hughes' films and wishing her life was like theirs - in which case she's deluding herself?
Either way, the fulsome tribute to Hughes doesn't work. Rather than adding much needed lustre to Gluck's pedestrian project it made me want to stop the film and slide "Pretty in Pink" into the DVD player in its place.
Despite the criticism I'm giving EASY A a B minus because of the supporting cast. What induced them to work on this film is beyond me but for the brief time that Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson are on screen as Olive's 'cool' parents the story is worth caring about. They bring a lightness and sparkle to the script which makes it sound for more entertaining than it really is.
An eminently forgettable viewing experience.

CHARADE: Cary's lost his sparkle

Much has been written in the decades since it happened about Cary Grant's decision to retire from acting in 1966. Despite his assertion that he was too old to continue playing the leading man convincingly many of his fans insist Grant could have gone on romancing ladies half his age for many more years to come.
On the evidence of CHARADE I believe Grant made the right decision.

He was all of 59 when this comedy-thriller was released in 1963 which is certainly not old, but he looks tired. The sparkle that made Cary Grant 'Cary Grant' is missing and he plods through the film with the air of a man who's getting "too old for this shit." There's no sense of enjoyment in his performance even though Audrey Hepburn's character makes it quite clear to him that she's his for the taking.
While in real life Grant was attracted to younger women he apparently felt it unseemly to be seen pursuing ladies young enough to be his daughter on screen and perhaps he allowed this discomfort to influence his performance, even though the script had been changed to make him the pursued party.
Whatever the real reason the result is disappointing. CHARADE never comes to life in the way that "To Catch a Thief" or "North by Northwest" did a few years earlier, The blame is not entirely Grant's. While Walter Matthau is impressively understated, George Kennedy and James Coburn play their parts too broadly to be convincing heavies and Hepburn is (ironically) starting to look a little too grown up to be entirely plausible as the naif.
Grant's talent, even when not firing on all cylinders, was considerably superior to may other lesser stars on their best day, so CHARADE is nothing to be embarrassed about and the film did respectable business at the box office on its original release.Grant though, was reportedly stung by the reviews which focused more on the age gap than the acting and he would make just two more movies before calling it quits.

CASH ON DEMAND: a thriller that's tight and to the point

This tight little British thriller from 1961 feels so much like an extended episode of 'The Twilight Zone' that I expected Rod Serling to appear and deliver a closing homily as the story wrapped up.

CASH ON DEMAND is a B-movie from Hammer studios about a rigid, mean-spirited and unlikeable bank manager, Fordyce (Peter Cushing), who gets his comeuppance on the eve of Christmas Eve when his bank is robbed by a charming but ruthless crook, Hepburn (Andre Morell), posing as a representative of the company which insures his bank against loss.
The story's based on a play and it shows. Almost all of the action takes place within the confines of the bank's front office and the manager's office but what stops it feeling claustrophobic or stage-bound are the fine performances by the two lead actors.
Cushing's tight pinched features and fussy, buttoned down demeanor bring credibility to the part of the bloodless and prissy Fordyce, while Morell endows Hepburn with a smug swagger and air of superiority which never veers into caricature.
With a tight 80 minute running time every moment has to count and director Quentin Lawrence sets up the story perfectly,subtly offering up a great deal of information in the first few minutes that proves important later on. Suspenseful and deceptively straightforward with a completely unexpected twist in the tale, CASH ON DEMAND is living proof that big stars, a bloated budget, colour and car chases are not essential to create an effective thriller.

ECLIPSE: dear god will this never end?!!

Question: how do you stretch 10 minutes of plot into a two hour film?
Answer: by having the main characters talk endlessly and repetitively about the same damn thing!
I should have learnt my lesson after suffering through the snoozefest that was 'New Moon' but this third installment in the apparently interminable 'Twilight' saga is even worse.
Almost nothing of any consequence happens as Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) carry on like a pair of lovesick pups, and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) tries to insert his ridiculously overdeveloped pecs between them.
There are well written and entertaining dramas about teenage love (think of almost anything by John Hughes in his prime) and then there's this tortuously sappy teen angst fest which does nothing but revisit the lack of action in part two.

WINNEBAGO MAN: cussing his way to internet immortality

Documentary films used to be the preserve of the famous - famous people, famous places and famous events, and if they weren't famous they were special or inspiring (see my earlier review of 'Best Boy'). Maybe it's the fault of The History Channel and the A & E Channel but it seems these days precious few film makers are interested in creating documentaries on worthy subjects. The focus has switched to mining pop culture's rich seam for subjects with instant name recognition, even if we don't actually know their name.

WINNEBAGO MAN is a perfect example.Director Ben Steinbauer sets out to find Jack Rebney, better known as 'Winnebago Man' or 'The world's angriest man' following his appearance in a compilation of outtakes from a late 1980s promotional video for Winnebago's RVs. The clips showing Rebney repeatedly losing his temper and swearing profusely as he forgets his lines made the rounds for years on VHS and then beame an internet sensation thanks to YouTube, but he appears to have vanished from the face of the Earth.
Steinbauer wants to discover what Rebney thinks of his internet notoriety and whether he's even aware of it. It's a thin premise for a 90 minute film but Steinbauer succeeds in stretching it out by creating drama where there really isn't any and endowing Rebney with far more meaning than he deserves.
Rebney's a cantakerous old coot living alone in a cabin in rural northern California. He's still got his foul mouth and short temper but he's not the cult figure that Steinbauer's so eager to paint him as. There's a couple of half-hearted attempts to launch him as a kind of video-blogging Howard Beale who's "mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore" but it's clear that beyond a general dislike of the Bush-Cheney administration Rebney has no organised philosophy or message.
What's also very clear is that despite his often contemptuous attitude towards Steinbauer and the fans of his Winnebago outtakes, Rebney loves the attention and can't resist playing up to the camera. The real Rebney is finally forced out into the open when he attends a film festival in San Francisco celebrating the world of weird and wacky videos and comes face to face with his admirers. He turns into a gruff but sappy teddybear who has nothing but smiles, compliments and thank yous for those who've paid money to meet him.

It's not that his anger and profanity in those 1989 outtakes was an act, it's more that 20 years later he's not that same man however much he tries to turn back the clock for Steinbauer's camera. And while it might appear that it's the director manipulating his subject in an effort to create a story that fits his initial premise, the reality is that they're both using each other.
The result is a series of events that feel more staged than organic, and while it's certainly interesting to discover more about the star of this viral video sensation, WINNEBAGO MAN also destroys the magic. Just like in 'The Wizard of Oz' the man behind the curtain isn't half as fascinating as his public image.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK: how to become popular without being likeable

It's easy to forget that Facebook is a relatively new creation. It's had such an incredible impact on the way we communicate and interact with one another that it's difficult to remember a time without it, yet when I joined a little over four years ago a .edu email address was still required for membership, which meant that many of the friends I wanted to talk to online were excluded from sharing in the fascinating moment by moment updates on my life.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK is an absorbing account of how this social media behemoth came to be and it's not a happy tale. There's enough business skullduggery here to grace the boardroom of a long established multi-national conglomerate. At the centre of the storm is Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), the Harvard student and computer programming genius who invents - or steals depending on your viewpoint - the website which exploded into the global social phenomenon called Facebook.
To fellow undergrads Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss he's a thief. They hire him to build their concept for a Harvard-only online social networking site and can't believe it when he launches "The Facebook" a few months later and insists it's all his own idea. To best friend Eduardo Savarin, who bankrolls the fledgling project, he's a cold-hearted bastard who tricks him out of his rightful place in the business once it starts to take off.   
Zuckerberg is not an easy character to like. In addition to his questionable business ethics, he's introverted, socially graceless, arrogant, aggressive, inept with girls, and a perennial outsider. This man doesn't just have a chip on his shoulder, he's got a 5 pound sack of potatoes, and while the film never explicitly says so it's difficult not to be left with the feeling that part of what motivated Zuckerberg was a desire to show those on 'the inside' that he was better than them.
His computer programming skills are undeniably impressive. The idea of watching a guy typing code onto a screen is not something that fills me with excitement but screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher succeed in making the actual donkey work of creating Facebook into a process that holds the attention. They wisely sidestep the tired visual cliche of computer screens reflecting on faces to focus on the enthusiasm and anticipation of those doing the programming.

Zuckerberg's partner in engineering Facebook's ascent to world domination is Sean Parker, the teenage creator of Napster. As played by Justin Timberlake in serious actor mode, Parker comes off as only marginally less unlikeable than Zuckerberg. He sees in Facebook an even bigger opportunity than Napster offered (and fraught with far fewer legal headaches) and he seizes it, playing on Zuckerberg's idolising of him to force Savarin from the company and take control of its future direction.
There's a couple of messages to take away from THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Never go into business with a friend who's more talented than you, and don't blame Zuckerberg for Facebook's ubiquitous presence. It's that big because we made it that big. No one held a gun to our head and made us friend people we barely knew and then immerse ourselves in the minutae of their lives.
 THE SOCIAL NETWORK clocks in at just over 2 hours but doesn't feel a moment too long. The use of flashbacks to describe how Zuckerberg and his creation got to where they are today keeps us constantly wanting to know more. I enjoyed this film much more than I expected to. It's well written, well acted and should be required viewing for everyone of the 500 million of us who just can't get through the day without a fix of Facebook.

SALT: rubbed into wounds and every other place

In attempting to describe this atrocious Angelina Jolie spy thriller I'm thinking of a four letter word which also begins with the letter S and ends with the letter T.
This word is often preceded by the word 'horse.'

BEST BOY: mum's the word

This 1980 Oscar winner for Best Documentary follows three years in the life of mentally disabled middle aged Phillip Wohl - Philly - as he takes his first steps towards a more independent existence after a lifetime of care and protection by his now elderly parents.

Philly is also the cousin of writer-director Ira Wohl which gave him unique access to his subject, and it shows in the relaxed way that Philly and his parents, Max and Pearl, interact with the camera, despite the cramped conditions at their apartment in Queens.
Philly's enthusiastic and affectionate and he helps out with chores around the home but he's able to do very little for himself and requires attention 24-7. Max is elderly and ailing so most of the burden falls to Pearl, who's no younger than her husband but in better health.
The portrait that Wohl paints of Pearl's devotion to Philly is for me the true heart of this film. Her unconditional love for the son she calls her 'best boy' is truly inspiring and moving. She's dedicated 50 years of her life to caring for Philly while also holding her family together through some tough times. Her eldest son died of cancer two years earlier and her husband no longer has the energy to indulge Philly.
Pearl's unwavering smile is my abiding memory of this film. It falters just slightly when she accompanies Philly to his new home in an assisted living apartment, but after half a century of spending every day with him that's hardly surprising. She deserves admiration not for making the best of a bad situation or any of those other patronising and demeaning cliches that get attached to the parents of handicapped children,  but for her apparently infinite capacity to love and support those nearest to her through everything that life has thrown at her. She lives her life with no regrets and no sense of having missed out on anything. Pearl is one of those rare human beings who makes the world a better place by being in it, and, perhaps selfishly, I wanted her to go on forever. The biggest sadness is that Philly will never be able appreciate how much his mother has done for him.
Ira Wohl's directorial style is simple and straightforward although I felt on at least a couple of occasions that he was manipulating his subjects to achieve the desired result. I'd be interested to learn whether he ever felt conflicted during the three year making of the film - was he able to separate being a concerned family member from his responsibilities as writer and director focused on capturing good material for his documentary?
Those concerns aside he's created a film that will linger in the memory, and I'm particularly grateful to Wohl for giving me the opportunity to get to know the wonderful Pearl and her beautiful, life-affirming smile.

HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH: revisiting the 60s minus the rose-tinted glasses

The travails of teenagerdom and the pursuit of that elusive first shag are given a limp psychedelic twist in this British coming of age comedy-drama from 1968.

25 year old Barry Evans is physically implausible as 17 year old Jamie MacGregor who spends all his time lusting after girls and obsessing about sex and whether he's ever going to get any. He's got a real hang-up about losing his virginity which he ruminates about at length (making copious use of words like "birds" and "blokes" and "cor!") as he rides through town on his employer's delivery bicycle. 
Director Clive Donner chooses to illustrate some of Jamie's musings with short fantasy sequences shot in the style of a silent movie on speed. The effect is less than enthralling. His second 'innovation' is to switch the picture to a negative image at random moments and douse it in bright green or bright red. This clumsy effect is completely baffling since it never coincides with Jamie doing drugs, getting drunk or frugging to 'hippie' music - the three activities internationally recognised by filmmakers in the swinging 60s as warranting the use of such film processing trickery.
The explanation may lie in the film's location. Despite his affected working class accent, half hearted rebellion against his parents, and his hankering after sex without consequences, Jamie's not on the make in happening London but in the far-from-swinging Stevenage, a drab provincial town notable only for its characterless shopping precinct and housing estates. In place of drug fuelled orgies in Soho, and achingly cool fashion boutiques on Carnaby Street, he has to make do with a dance at the church hall, and an after hours party in a furniture store. In such a soul destroying environment fiddling around with the picture's colour is the only way to generate excitement. Its depressing for Jamie and depressing to watch. 
Even with the presence of The Spencer Davis Group and Traffic the film succeeds in failing to generate a decent music soundtrack, but it does offer three redeeming features. There's a thoroughly entertaining turn from Denholm Elliott as the demented wine tasting dad of one of Jamie's birds; it reminds us that Barry Evans had a career before "Mind Your Language," and it serves as a valuable time capsule illustrating that regrets over missing out on growing up in the supposedly cool Britannia of the 1960s are really not something worth losing sleep over..

LONDON RIVER: a gentle response to a terrible tragedy

To be caught up in a suicide bombing is something most of us will thankfully never experience, but that makes it difficult to get beyond the blood and fear and "there but for the grace of god..." approach to imagining how we might respond to such a situation.

In focusing in on a small personal drama rather than attempting to encompass the bigger horror of a major terrorist attack, writer-director Rachid Bouchareb has created in LONDON RIVER a story with the power to affect all of us.
The July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks on the London Underground and a bus in Tavistock Square provide the initial cause in this narrative but it is the consequences of those explosions on two strangers who weren't even in London that this story is interested in.
When Elizabeth (Brenda Blethyn) sees tv news coverage of the carnage she instinctively reaches for the phone to call her daughter Jane, who's living in London to check that she's ok. After several days with no response she starts to fear the worst and travels to the capital from her home in Guernsey to search for Jane. While distributing missing posters and doing the rounds of hospitals treating those injured in the bombings she encounters Ousmane, an African Muslim immigrant from France who is similarly searching for his son. 
Elizabeth is initially unable to overcome her prejudice against this man who represents the unknown 'other' to her, and work with him to find their children. But she's forced to reassess her attitude when they discover that her daughter has been dating his son.
What makes LONDON RIVER so much more than just another polemic about bigotry and ignorance are the extraordinary performances by Blethyn and Malian actor Sotigui Kouyate. Where Elizabeth is emotional and judgmental Kouyate as Ousmane is dignified, restrained and resigned. He gives no indication of taking offence at Elizabeth's rudeness, and never attempts to force the issue, choosing instead to give her the space to come around to him in her own time. As she nears the point of emotional exhaustion his inner calm gives her the strength to keep going.
Low key yet immensely powerful and affecting, LONDON RIVER is contemporary cinema at it's best. Quite why this film has not been showered with awards is beyond me.

THE AMERICAN: King Clooney the magnificent!

With THE AMERICAN George Clooney demonstrates yet again that defying expectation by  choosing parts that interest him rather than guarantee big returns at the box office is anything but film star hubris.
He's played unlikeable characters before but none as unsympathetic or unknowable as Jack,  the American of the title. About the only thing we know about Jack apart from his nationality is that he's an assassin, killing people on behalf of an unnamed and unidentified organisation, and hunted by other unidentified assassins.
His nationality is an issue because the action is set in Italy, among winding roads and isolated villages in the foothills of the Alps, where Jack is very noticeably the only foreigner.
Action may be too strong a word to use in the context of this story. There are some moments of extreme and graphic violence, and even a car chase of sorts, but mostly this is a story about an assassin's life between these brief bursts of lethal activity. Everyday life for Jack consists of exercising, sleeping, and constant vigilance, waiting for an unknown enemy to track him down to the remote village where he's gone into hiding.  His only respites from the solitude are guarded conversations with Father Benedotto, the parish priest, and trips to the local whorehouse where he finds himself increasingly drawn to Clara, one of the prostitutes.
The loneliness of Jack's existence is emphasized by the camerawork. Huge sweeping vistas of valleys and mountains disappearing into the clouds reduce Jack and his car to a small insignificant dot on the landscape. And the convoluted relationships and loyalties of his profession find their echo in the winding roads which fold back on themselves, and the many twisty passageways and alleys of his village hideout. 
Jack navigates them all with apparent ease but there's a nagging sense of imminent danger which neither he nor we can shake. Too often there's a sense of the camera watching him from another, unseen, character's point of view.
THE AMERICAN is a European film not just in its setting but also its sensibility. Events play out at a leisurely pace which belies the tension pushing to burst free from the picture's frame. Viewers hoping for a Jason Bourne-style narrative will be sorely disappointed. This is a character study with the focus as much on the inner workings of Jack as his exterior behaviour, and it's a testament to Clooney's enormous talent that he makes it utterly absorbing. He doesn't quite hit the highs of "Michael Clayton" but he comes mighty close.
THE AMERICAN is a film which rewards the viewer who comes to it with an open mind and an appreciation for an actor who refuses to conform to expectations. And I promise you that, when the end comes, you'll surprise yourself with your reaction.

NEVER TAKE SWEETS FROM A STRANGER: does exactly what it says on the tin

NEVER TAKE SWEETS FROM A STRANGER is an interesting blend of exploitation and drama which genuinely surprised me by the frankness with which it addressed its subject matter.
Set in Canada but very obviously filmed within a stone's throw of the Buckinghamshire studios of Hammer Productions in the UK, the story tackles the issue of pedophilia head-on, but without ever using the p-word.
Granite jawed Patrick Allen moves to an isolated and close-knit town to take up his new job as headmaster of the local high school, bringing with him his awfully prim and proper British wife Gwen Watford and their unfeasibly well-spoken 9 year old daughter Jean. They've barely finished unpacking when Jean comes home and tells them that she and a friend have stripped naked and danced for an old man who gave them sweets as a reward.
Their outrage turns to disbelief when they're advised by the local police chief not to press charges because the accused is patriarch of the wealthy and powerful Oldeberry family which has deep roots in the community.  When the parents insist on taking the case to court they discover just how ruthless the Oldeberrys are prepared to be to protect their reputation.
Director Cyril Frankel takes his cue from the film's no nonsense title and lays out the narrative in a very straightforward style where A leads to B leads to C, but he also resists the temptation to sensationalize the distasteful subject matter. Even Jean's understandably distressed and angry father acknowledges that pedophilia is an illness requiring treatment, and the story never so much as hints at the notion of vigilante style retribution as the solution.
About as close as the film gets to taking a tabloid approach to the issue is in its portrayal of the accused. Old man Oldeberry is presented as a slimmed-down, silent and senile Sydney Greenstreet-like figure, clad in a rumpled white linen suit lurching through the woods clutching a grubby paper bag of candy. His obvious difference makes it somehow easier to accept him as a child molester.
So why exactly was I so surprised by all this? NEVER TAKE SWEETS FROM A STRANGER was first released fifty years ago at a time when the public attitude towards such an issue was far from well-informed or enlightened, and it was made by a studio - Hammer - better known for technicolour horror movies than serious social commentary.
In light of this it's not surprising that the film was not well received by audiences in 1960, but it's worth checking out as an example of mainstream cinema trying something different rather than simply pandering to the lowest common denominator.

THE STERILE CUCKOO: more nutty than kookie and definitely dull

I understand that love means never having to say you're sorry. I'm ok with that. But I do have a problem when love means permission to inflict almost two hours of young love cliches and boredom on the unsuspecting reviewer.
From the sappy harmonies of The Sandpipers warbling "Come Saturday Morning" over and over again, to the long shots of the two star-crossed lovers flying a kite, and rolling in each others' arms on a sandy beach, 1969's THE STERILE CUCKOO serves as a case study in everything that's wrong with late 60s - early 70s Hollywood dramas about young love. By the midway point I was pining wistfully for the originality and stiff upper lip of "Love Story."

The problem here is not just director Alan J Pakula's unimaginative handling of the subject matter but also the main characters lack of appeal. In her second big screen role a young Liza Minnelli attacks the part of lonely misfit Pookie Adams with such gusto that she comes off as a mentally ill stalker rather than a kookie young woman we can empathize with. 
The object of her attentions, Jerry Payne, is such an empty vessel that it's difficult to understand how even someone several sandwiches short of a full picnic could become so obsessed with him. In his screen debut Wendell Corey is reasonably successful in portraying his character's nervousness at the prospect of making the beast with two backs with Pookie for the first time, but beyond that he's just dull and nerdy.
Teenagers today watching this film will find it completely unimaginable that first love could be conducted without the aid of cellphones, texting, Facebook and the internet. In that respect THE STERILE CUCKOO serves as a window on a recent past that now seems simpler and gentler. But with the story being so dull and unabsorbing the chances are they won't sit still long enough to find that out.

RED: better dead than red

Thanksgiving has come early this year thanks to this butter-basted over-ready turkey and it's left me with a severe case of indigestion. 
RED is an acronym for Retired Extremely Dangerous but it could equally well stand for Really Extremely Dire because it is. 

Really Excessively Deluded works equally well. Stars Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman and director Robert Schwentke labor under the misapprehension that they're making a comedy spy thriller in the mold of "Burn After Reading" rather than a complete mess, which this film also is.
What is intended to be an off-beat quirky, slight left-field romp comes off as a project that was put into production before the script was finished. The entire story feels disjointed, sketchy and, even by the 'suspend your disbelief' standards of comedy thrillers, nonsensical and implausible. 
Other than an oversize paycheck it's very difficult to discern what induced otherwise level headed actors like Brian Cox, Helen Mirren,  Mary-Louise Parker, and 93 year old Ernest Borgnine to get involved in this fiasco. 

THE PROWLER: corrosive corruption of the soul

THE PROWLER is one of the best film noir you've probably never seen.
I first discovered it more than 25 years ago on late night tv in the UK (those were the days when the BBC still screened old movies) and it hooked me right away. The story of illicit passion and murder exuded an incredibly compelling sense of suffocating claustrophobia and barely suppressed tension, and that memory's stuck with me for the ensuing quarter century.

So when I was finally able to get my hands on a VHS copy my concern was that the reality wouldn't live up to the memory, and I'd be left wondering what on earth is was I ever saw in the film.
I watched THE PROWLER again last night all my worries were put to rest. This 1951 film is a five star classic.
Van Heflin stars as Webb Garwood, a police patrolman in an upscale neighborhood in Los Angeles. One night he and his dull as ditchwater partner, Bud Crocker, are called to investigate a prowler at one of the big houses on their beat. They find an attractive young woman, Susan Gilvray, home alone and Webb takes an instant liking to her. Even though she's married and initially resists his advances, Webb determines to seduce her and use her to get what he wants out of life.
Heflin's masterful performance is a major factor in this film's effectiveness. As an actor he often played characters who exuded a certain vulnerability borne of physical or moral weakness, but here he turns it into a strength. Garwood's moral compass has been so eroded by the acidic bitterness of failed dreams that he's no longer restrained by any sense of right and wrong. He targets Susan like a tiger stalking its prey. His cynical and unscrupulous manipulation of her undermines everything that his police uniform represents. 
In the hands of Evelyn Keyes, Susan is a not entirely unwilling victim. Looking and acting like a bargain basement Lana Turner, she comes across as only slightly less untrustworthy than her seducer. Trapped in a loveless and controlling marriage to a much older man, she wants to believe that Webb is the solution to her unhappy existence, and at times it's difficult to determine just who is manipulating who.
On a larger scale THE PROWLER is an unsettling indictment of the corrupting influence of materialism on the American Dream. Webb bitterly resents his inability to get ahead yet he's unwilling to put in the honest toil required to bring even his modest ambition of running a motel within his grasp. Susan has more than Webb can ever aspire to yet she lives the life of a bird trapped in a gilded cage, paid for by her husband's syrupy, insincere shilling for the sponsors of his late-night radio show.  

What is perhaps most depressing is the lack of viable alternatives offered up by the story. A man in Webb's situation, it says, has no choice but to act boldly and disregard accepted norms of behaviour if he's to avoid being crushed by conformity. The best that the American Dream can offer is the life of mind-numbing soul destroying tedium embodied by Webb's middle-aged partner Bud. The biggest kick in Bud's life is showing off his collection of rocks amassed during his annual vacation to the California desert.
Reportedly shot in just 17 days on a budget of $700,000 THE PROWLER offers up more food for thought than any of the bloated, special effects engorged thrillers which pass for cinematic entertainment these days. 
Beg, borrow, buy or steal a copy of this film. It will stay with you for life.

GET HIM TO THE GREEK: let's hear it for the geek!

GET HIM TO THE GREEK is a far better film than I expected. It's certainly not high art or even high brow but it is fun and that's due in large part to Jonah Hill. He was the nerdy roly-poly one in 2007's "Superbad" and he plays a pretty similar role here albeit a few years older and slightly more successful with women.
His Aaron Green is a geeky intern at an LA record label run by the foul-mouthed meglomaniac Sergio Roma (a fine performance from Sean 'P Diddy' Combs). In the opportunity of a lifetime Aaron is sent to London to collect out-of-control British rock star Aldous Snow and escort him to LA in time to perform a money-making comeback concert at the Greek Theater. It sounds like a simple enough assignment except that Snow's not a man given to doing what he's told or following a timetable.  
What ensues are the three most exhilarating, terrifying and challenging days in Aaron's entire life as he attempts to cajole, persuade and drag an increasingly distracted music legend from the UK to the West Coast.
It's Brand who has the showy part in this story and he succeeds in portraying Snow as extravagant, eccentric, willful, unpredictable and mildly self destructive without ever going over the top, but Hill still manages to steal the film from him.His reactions to the excesses and indignities heaped upon him by Snow are priceless and, perhaps most importantly, he's likable where Snow isn't. Snow is what we Brits would call "a bit of a wanker." He's entertaining enough to be around (providing you're not in his firing line) but he'll screw you over in a heartbeat if the mood takes him.

GET HIM TO THE GREEK is not the first film to set itself in the world of rock star excesses but it is perhaps the first to present it in a disapproving light right from the get-go. There is nothing attractive or appealing about Snow or his lifestyle, and it doesn't take more than five minutes for Aaron's illusions about his music idol to be shattered.
Producer Judd Apatow has carved a niche for himself as Hollywood's premier purveyor of overage man-child comedies ("Anchorman", "The 40 Year Old Virgin", "Knocked Up", "Superbad" etc) and while this latest addition doesn't break the mold it does succeed in feeling fresh and funny. 

FOLLOW THE BOYS: it's not what you think

What was his agent thinking?! 
Movie tough guy George Raft starring in a film called FOLLOW THE BOYS? 
What's that going to do to his image as a snarling, cold blooded gangster? 
Chances are Raft believed that signing on for the film would do his image nothing but good. 

Despite the rather misleading title FOLLOW THE BOYS is actually a red, white and blue flagwaving all-star tribute to the boys in uniform who were fighting and dying to defend democracy from the fascist regimes of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.
The film would also have appealed to Raft because it only required him to play a fictionalised version of himself. He wouldn't have to travel very far to get into character which was a blessing because Raft had what is politely described as "a limited range" as an actor. Whether he was emoting crazy mad with anger or crazy mad in love.he tended to employ the same expression and tone of voice. 
He plays hoofer Tony West who dances his way from vaudeville to Hollywood and marriage to musical star Gloria Vance (Vera Zorina). They're the Fred and Ginger of emotionless dancing until the Japs bomb Pearl Harbor and Tony's turned down by the Army because of a bum knee (seems it's ok to dance on but not march on). So he pours all his energy into drafting his fellow showbiz stars to entertain the troops, traveling the world to put on shows just behind the front-line. But all this war work leaves him no time for Gloria and a series of misunderstandings on both sides tears them apart. 
The marriage split is a less than subtle effort to convince the audience that big stars understood and shared in the real life misery of separation from loved ones being experienced by millions of couples because of the war. It's a persuasive argument if you ignore the fact that Tony and Vera's separation is caused by both of them failing to take five minutes to listen to one another, rather than by Uncle Sam sending the husband off to war and possible death in a distant corner of the planet.
But, coded messages apart, the primary aim of FOLLOW THE BOYS is to show the stars doing their bit to support the men in uniform. Orson Welles saws Marlene Dietrich in half, WC Fields performs a billiards routine using a trick table, Dinah Shore and The Andrews Sisters sing, Jeanette McDonald trills, Sophie Tucker talk-sings, Artur Rubenstein adds gravitas with a piece on the piano, and there's tricks from a  bunch of trained dogs in costume.
Compared to Warner Brothers two star studded morale boosters "Thank Your Lucky Stars" (1943) and 1944's "Hollywood Canteen", and MGM's "Thousands Cheer" also from 1944, this contribution from Universal is bargain basement stuff. It's not just Raft's monotone performance and Zorina's lack of charisma, it's the sense of disconnection between the various star turns, it's the shoddy editing between long shots of actual performances at army camps and studio based recreations in close-up, and it's the dearth of real stars. With the exception of Welles and Dietrich the wattage is determinedly B-list.
As a curio piece - and for the opportunity to see Raft hoofing on a flatbed truck in a rainstorm - FOLLOW THE BOYS is definitely worth seeing, but as a morale booster it's decidedly depressing.

CADDYSHACK: one big yawn

My god is CADDYSHACK a huge waste of space!

For a film touted as one of the 1980s more memorable comedies it's unbelievably devoid of laughs.
Bill Murray's slack-jawed grounds keeper, locked in a life or death feud with a pesky gopher,  is self indulgently stupid, Rodney Dangerfield over-acts appallingly, while Chevy Chase sleepwalks through the film offering not a shred of evidence to justify his reputation as one of America's top funny men of the period.All three stars are comprehensively outperformed by the gopher and he's nothing more than a mechanically operated prop.
CADDYSHACK is just the kind of film we Brits offer in evidence when making the case that Americans have a weird sense of humour, and by weird we mean a propensity to laugh at material that's just not funny.
Nothing that's actually funny happens in CADDYSHACK. There's plenty of scenes and characters with comic potential if only someone had remembered to write some genuine humour into the script rather than settle for a ragbag of half-finished routines and one dimensional characters. There are too many set-ups which simply peter out before they reach the punchline. Even the grand climax - the thing the whole story's been building up to - falls flat.
I've got nothing against American comedy - I'm a big fan of Woody Allen, Groucho Marx, Laurel and Hardy, David Letterman, Larry Sanders, and Jack Benny  among others - nor do I dislike low brow humour. It can be the funniest comedy in the world if it's done right, But I do object to a bunch of over-rated 'comedians' who've so bought into their own inflated reputation that they believe absolutely anything they do must be funny simply because they're doing it. Today we call it 'Will Ferrell syndrome' and there's really only one cure for it. Make these people earn the title of 'funnyman' instead of just bestowing it on them because they tell us they're funny.

GEORGY GIRL: it's the heart not the looks that really count

It's got the catchiest theme song ever to adorn the opening titles of a 60s movie. "Hey there Georgy Girl" by The Seekers will stick in your head for days afterwards. 
But not only is it infectious it also sets out in plain unambiguous English the premise for the story about to unfold. And just in case you are having trouble understanding the lyrics director Silvio Narizzano helpful matches up the words with images of Georgy "swinging down the (high) street (in London) so fancy free."
"You're always window shopping but never stopping to buy" warble The Seekers at the exact moment that Georgy pauses to look at the clothes in a shop window. 
GEORGY GIRL is not a subtle film. There's nothing here to interpret or decode. What you see is what you get. 

And what you get is a fascinating time capsule - a window on the working class end of the swinging 60s as they probably never existed but were purveyed by British movies of the time. Lynn Redgrave is Georgy, overweight, fat faced and ugly (her words) and longing for a boyfriend, a love life and a future not spent on her own. James Mason plays Mr Leamington,  a wealthy dirty old man who lusts after Georgy, and Alan Bates is Jos, the hedonistic, immature and dashingly handsome boyfriend of Georgy's beautiful flatmate Meredith, played by Charlotte Rampling.
Georgy is out of place not only because of her appearance but also because she doesn't subscribe to the live for today ethos which has infected everyone around her. She's an old fashioned girl with a heart of gold  looking for someone worthy of sharing her love with. 
GEORGY GIRL is not quite the story of the ugly duckling who blossoms into a gorgeous swan; it's more of a voyage of self-discovery filled with bittersweet moments on the way to a surprising conclusion.
Redgrave is magnificent as Georgy. Self deprecating and brutally honest about her shortcomings, there's not a trace of ego in her performance. Mason is superb as her oily benefactor while Bates is just about bearable in his hyper-exuberant interpretation of the swinging 60s made flesh.
Had Bates dialed down his performance a couple of notches and  events unfolded at a slightly less frantic pace it's possible that a more serious and meaningful film would have emerged. As it is the moral of the story gets buried under the film's brash, slick exterior and its focus on playing almost everything for laughs.

MIAMI VICE: what a crock(ett)!

Director Michael Mann's 2006 big screen version of the 80s smash hit tv show is a bloated empty hulk devoid of interest or entertainment.

No amount of snappy editing and flashy camerawork can conceal the fact that there's absolutely nothing worth watching going on here. The action is framed with all the style and grace of a fidgety kid with way too much energy, presumably in the mistaken belief that a multitude of movement will somehow distract from the lack of meaningful story.
Colin Farrell as Sonny Crockett and Jamie Foxx as Ricardo Tubbs are little more than ciphers - one dimensional characters going through the motions of being cardboard cops chasing a bunch of stereotyped, foreign accented drug dealers back and forth across the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. 
But MIAMI VICE isn't just boring, it's also largely unintelligible. When Tubbs and Crockett aren't muttering to each other they're mumbling, and Farrell's dreadful attempt at an American accent doesn't help matters. Quite why Mann felt an Irish actor was the only man capable of taking on the part made famous by Don Johnson is a mystery. Beyond a droopy moustache and appallingly awful haircut Farrell brings nothing memorable to the part.
Foxx's greatest achievement, meanwhile, is in making his interpretation of Ricardo Tubbs even less memorable than that of Philip Michael Thomas.
This is a surprisingly misstep for Mann who's work on "Heat", "Collateral" and "The Insider" has earned him a reputation as one of the most distinctive and stylish directors currently working. MIAMI VICE shares many of his trademark touches but in this case they just don't add up to anything worth investing 2 and a quarter hours of your life in.

AFTER LIFE: more questions asked than answered

There's no escape from bureaucracy even after death if AFTER LIFE is to be believed.
Rather than shuffling off this mortal coil and straight through the doorway to either heaven or hell there's a waiting room in a drab school building, an interview and some homework to be navigated first.
This low budget 1998 Japanese drama, shot in a semi-documentary style, follows a group of recently deceased people as they pass through this nondescript way station en route to eternity. Each of them is assigned to a caseworker who, after notifying them officially that they are dead, asks them to choose one memory from their life to take with them into the here-after.

Once selected, the caseworker and his colleagues will recreate the memory in a short film to be screened to the deceased before every other memory is erased from their mind and they're sent on their way.
For some it's an easy decision while others struggle to recall anything meaningful or worthwhile despite encouragement and gentle guidance from their caseworker.
AFTER LIFE's concept of an afterworld run by civil servants through which the newly dead are forced to transit is nothing new. I was reminded of the 1944 Warner Brothers drama "Between Two Worlds" with the wonderful Sydney Greenstreet as the white suited celestial examiner whose stamp of approval was required to pass through the Pearly Gates.
But in director Hirokazu Koreeda's imagining we are not judged for our actions on Earth nor asked to justify our behaviour. The task of the caseworkers here is not to determine who is worthy of heaven and who should be damned to hell. In fact it's made clear early on that these alternatives don't even exist. Their job is to encourage each of the deceased to review the entire span of their life and come to a thoughtful decision on which moment of it was really most important to them. Which one memory will keep them happy through all eternity.
There's much here to engage our curiosity, from the participants' complete lack of distress at being dead, to grappling with the idea of being burdened with just one memory for the rest of time and beyond. Surely even the happiest recollection will eventually drive you mad if it's the replayed over and over with no ability to switch it off.
AFTER LIFE also leaves the notion of the ultimate hereafter to our imagination. No one expresses any interest in their final destination and no information is offered. Perhaps the dead are too engrossed in appraising their past to wonder about the future.
What I found most disconcerting is that this after life appears to exist on the same plane as life as we know it now. Traffic passes by on the street beyond the school and, in one sequence, a young caseworker walks into the city centre and looks in shop windows as the yet-to-be-deceased pass her by without reaction. She is a ghost in their midst, visible yet unseen.
This all adds up to a story that will frustrate those who insist on a strong degree of closure at the end of their films. The relentless focus on the everyday, sometimes mundane, activities of the caseworkers and their clients leaves no time for exploration of metaphysical ideas of life after death. 
That's not a criticism it's a compliment because it leaves us space for our imagination to roam. Thought-provoking and tender yet unsentimental, AFTER LIFE will definitely provoke reflection and debate.

BEING THERE: thought provoking brilliance

If Peter Sellers is remembered at all today, it is for the series of ‘Pink Panther’ films he made in the 1960s and 1970s as the comically inept Inspector Clouseau.
But even that is a fading memory, as a new generation of moviegoers grows up believing Steve Martin created the character in 2006’s abominable retread of ‘The Pink Panther.’
Much like Martin, Sellers also squandered his talent and tainted his reputation with a series of mediocre and painfully unfunny films but, similarly, he was also capable of brilliance.
BEING THERE is a stunning example of the British comedian’s talent when he chose the right material. He displays a depth and maturity he had rarely if ever shown before, and hints at what more he could have done had he lived.
Sellers spent almost a decade trying to persuade a studio to make the film. It finally went before the cameras in 1979, just a year before his untimely death from a heart attack.
The result is one of my top three all-time favourite films.
Sellers plays Chance, a fifty-something year old man-child who’s lived his whole life in the confines of a Washington DC townhouse, tending to the garden, and protected by a wealthy and kindly benefactor.
When he isn’t gardening he is watching television. As he’s never left the house his only knowledge of the outside world comes from what he has seen on tv.
When his benefactor dies, the lawyers throw Chance out onto the street, leaving him helpless in an unfriendly and unsupportive world that is totally beyond his limited powers of comprehension.
Fortunately a traffic accident brings him into contact with Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine), the young wife of the elderly, sick, and incredibly wealthy industrialist and political powerbroker Benjamin Rand (played by veteran Hollywood leading man Melvyn Douglas).
Fearful of a lawsuit, she takes Chance back to the Rand mansion where Rand warms to the younger man, mistaking his simple-minded references to gardening for profound political observations.
Before long and completely without his doing, the people around him have transformed Chance the Gardener into Chauncey Gardiner, a mysterious and influential political advisor with the ear of the US President (Jack Warden), and the one man that everyone who’s anyone in DC wants to meet.
On one level BEING THERE is a critique of the cultural impact of television on the United States. Chance relates everything in the outside world to what he’s seen on tv, and one of the film’s most intriguing aspects is director Hal Ashby’s choice of real television clips from the era. Anyone who grew up in 1970s America will find much that they recognize, but its meaning in the context of the story is less clear.
Despite repeated viewing I’m still trying to fully understand the message of this film, and that’s what makes me keep on coming back to it. Each time I watch it I’m left with something new to think about.

BEING THERE is also a sharp and very black satire on the inability or refusal of America’s political elite to accept people at face value, preferring instead to project their own interpretation onto the actions and behaviour of others, to create meaning and significance which just doesn’t exist.
Chance remains totally oblivious to the misunderstandings of those around him. He is the same mild mannered, simple minded man at the story’s end as he is at the beginning. What has changed are the people around him. Those who protected him from the harsh realities of the world have been supplanted by ruthless political operators who see in him their best chance to attain their selfish objectives.
Sellers was deservedly Oscar nominated for his performance, while Douglas won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The whole film is beautifully cast and directed, and the Rand mansion (actually the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina) where much of the film is set is particularly atmospheric.
Satirical, funny, dramatic, subtle, and thought provoking, BEING THERE is a neglected masterpiece of 70s cinema. Do your bit to restore it to its rightful place in cinema history. Watch it.

ECLIPSE:overwhelmed by inertia

Michelangelo Antonioni's ECLIPSE is a masterpiece of hypnotic boredom. To describe it as languid would be to grossly insult things generally considered to move at a slow pace - like snails and tress.
Even the word meandering suggests something able to generate faster forward motion than the narrative of this 1962 film.

ECLIPSE is hynotically boring because it drains the viewer of the willpower to look away and indulge in a more stimulating activity such as blinking while breathing.
I knew within minutes that this film was going to be more boring than a roomful of accountants discussing socks yet I found myself totally unable to do anything about it. ECLIPSE sedated me to the point where it became too much effort to stop watching.
And now that the experience is over and I've regained the use of my free will I find I'm troubled by the cinematic equivalent of post traumatic stress disorder.I'm having these terrible flashbacks to Monica Vitti's really unconvincing interpretation of the emotional torment when a relationship ends.
Please... somebody, make her blank-faced acting go away........ 

PULP FICTION: it's just so 1994

Last night I watched PULP FICTION again for the first time since it's original cinema release back in 1994.
As the story unspooled whole scenes and chunks of dialogue came flooding back to me. Not because I was one of those Quentin Tarantino anoraks who memorised every frame and every line of the script but because so many others did and then talked about them - on tv, on the radio, in print, and in everyday life. 

Anyone who was around in 1994 would be hard-pressed to forget John Travolta's description of the French version of the McDonald's Quarter Pounder with cheese, or Samuel L.Jackson's expletive laden recitation of Ezekiel 25:17, or Christopher Walken recounting how one of his prisoner of war comrades hid a wristwatch in his ass to keep it safe from his North Vietnamese guards..
This hip, irreverent, pop-culture laden dialogue was writer-director Quentin Tarantino's trademark. It had been perfected in his directorial debut "Reservoir Dogs" two years earlier, and that film's incredible success had made him the hottest property in Hollywood. Stars queued up for the chance to work with him have a little of that coolness rub off on them and their career. PULP FICTION brought John Travolta back from the dead and confirmed Jackson as the hippest actor in town.
But what appeared so exciting, fresh and original 16 years ago felt contrived and tedious upon second viewing last night. The plot repeatedly ground to a halt while Jackson and Travolta spewed minute after minute of mostly pointless dialogue. If I met either of these characters in real life they'd have to hold their gun to my head to compel to listen to their self-indulgent ramblings.
The fault for this lies less with Tarantino than with popular culture (in the form of the tabloid media, manufacturers of pop culture posters and postcards, and those sad mo-fos who deludedly believed that memorising chunks of film dialogue would make them 'cool') which elevated everything about PULP FICTION to such unrealistic heights of adulation that a fall was inevitable. 
For me this film has not stood the test of time. What had been fresh, funny and original in 1994 is now tiresomely annoying and an ordeal which (for academic reasons) had to be endured.