THIS IS 40: This is awful

Self-indulgent, flabby, unfunny and interminably long, this Judd Apatow written and directed 'comedy' is what it must feel like to be sentenced to life in prison without hope of parole. 
The only end in sight is death.
Scene after scene of characters screaming at one another, and spouting improvised lines which do everything except wave large red flags to attract attention to their supposed hilariousness sapped my will to live.
I wasted 2 and a quarter hours watching this junk and I refuse to waste a minute more writing about it.

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD: this is what a multiple Oscar winner looks like

Let me save the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences a whole bunch of money on postage.
Don't bother mailing out all those nomination ballots this year. Just etch the title BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD on the Oscars for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress and be done with all the speculation.
BEASTS is not a film you just watch - it's an incredibly powerful, all senses fully engaged cinematic experience!

It's so much more than simply the story of a young girl and her father battling to preserve their own lives and way of life in a coastal Louisiana bayou swamped by a Katrina-like tropical storm, but that's a good place to start.
In her film debut, six year old Quvenzhane Wallis gives the kind of performance many adult actors strive all their professional life to get close to. To describe it as stunning and sensational is grossly inadequate. She displays a naturalism and innate understanding of her character that seems impossible to achieve in one so young and inexperienced. Kids playing themselves in fly-on-the-wall documentaries aren't this convincing!
Wallis is Hushpuppy, a six year old girl living with her unpredictable and unreliable father, Wink (Dwight Henry) in a couple of dilapidated shacks on an isolated bayou island called the Bathtub, cut off from the rest of 21st century America by an imposing levee. Hushpuppy has the kind of freedom most kids her age can only dream of but what she longs for more than anything is to find her mother. It's not clear from Wink's vague explanation whether she's dead or simply deserted them but Hushpuppy won't rest until she's made every effort to find her.
She's presented with an unexpected opportunity when a huge storm floods the Bathtub, destroying the homes and way of life of the small, resilient community who've chosen this edge-of-the-world existence over the bland and sterile life of those living the other side of the levee.

While Hushpuppy's quest to find her mother provides the thread which pulls the pieces of the story together there is, as I mentioned earlier, so much more to BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD. The film is an unapologetic celebration of life on the fringe where friendships, rituals and community as a tribe are more important than money and possessions. Director Benh Zeitlin's handheld camera is in constant motion, bringing a splendor and romanticism to daily life which transcends the reality of the poverty and squalor.
The story also blends fantasy and reality in musing on man's place in and responsibility to the planet. How have events stretching back as far as the Ice Age, and the time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, impacted on our present existence and at what cost do we ignore a planet in constant evolution? Hushpuppy, at age six, has more insight into her place and importance in the grand scheme of things than any of the adults around her, and eloquently expresses her understanding in a series of voice-overs scattered through the story.
Emotionally engaging, entrancing and visually spectacular BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD is a remarkable experience. I'm not going to pretend I've seen every film released this year but even if I had I don't imagine I would change my opinion that BEASTS should - if there's any justice - clean up at next February's Oscars ceremony.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER: formulaic yet fresh and funny

High School can be a hellish experience if you're not one of the in-crowd.
And, cinematically speaking, John Hughes wrote the book on that subject in the 1980s with 'The Breakfast Club' and 'Pretty in Pink.'
'Heathers' and 'Mean Girls' were notable subsequent additions to the canon, but there have also been dozens of other - lesser - efforts on the same general theme resulting in a pretty crowded field.

It will therefore take a singular creative talent to find something new to say on the topic and THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER writer-director David Chbosky is not that man. But he's done the next best thing. With this big screen adaptation of his own novel he's created a story that is warm and engaging and peopled by characters we can believe in, even as they adhere closely to the stereotypes so often found in this particular vein of coming-of-age stories.
There's Charlie (Logan Lerman), the titular wallflower, anxiously counting down the days until he can graduate and escape the waking nightmare that is high school. He's definitely not a jock but neither is he a nerd. Charlie exists in that nebulous space between the two extremes where a reasonably enjoyable school experience is possible for sociable types, but he isn't. Charlie's not anti-social but there's something preventing him from developing regular friendships, so when he spots an opening with an older student who's as much of an outsider as he is he grasps it with the fervor of a drowning man thrown a lifebelt.
Patrick (Ezra Miller) is the consummate high school outsider. Loudly and proudly gay he has no time for school rules or peer pressure, but - of course - that outward display of confidence masks troubling inner turmoil.
Patrick's best friend Sam (Emily Watson) is similarly conflicted. Charlie finds himself immediately drawn to her but has no clue how to express his true feelings. He can only watch helplessly as she invests her emotions in men he knows are no good for her.
The pressures on and within all three build to the inevitable explosive release and - in one  case - the disturbing exposure of a long repressed secret.
Although Watson is the star name, we watch events unfold from Charlie's point of view, and director Chbosky's careful to give all three characters equal weight. Charlie, Sam and Patrick are indispensable to each other and to the effective telling of the story. Relegate any one of them to a supporting role and it just doesn't work.

And while Watson proves there's so much more to her than just Hermione Granger, it's Lerman and Miller that are the real revelations. Both actors have been around for the best part of decade but have not yet attained real name or face recognition.Their performances in THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER will change that. Miller succeeds in making Patrick a credible, three-dimensional character despite hewing pretty closely to the checklist of traits required cinematically of a gay high school teenager. Lerman's success, meanwhile, is in making Charlie a believable young man without resort to any of the cinematic stereotypes. He's not weird, goofy, strangely dressed, obsessed with computers or some other nerdy hobby, or from a single parent household. He even subverts the cliche of the beautiful girl's asexual best friend.
In addition to the performances I also very much appreciated the setting. The film's not explicit about the timeframe (and the soundtrack doesn't help as most of the songs are not contemporary) but it's most likely the early 1990s, a period that was still largely pre-internet and pre-cell phones. The absence of this technology meant people still had to interact on a face to face basis. Charlie can't use emails and text messages to express to Sam the feelings that he's too shy to tell her in person. Vinyl records, paper based books and cassette-recorded mixtapes are all integral parts of their world along with hanging out in person. It's a window on a forgotten world that will generate a warm glow of nostalgia (and perhaps embarrassment too) in viewers of a certain age.
Charming, engaging, funny and heartbreaking, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER is one of those rare works of fiction that feels like a true story. And it's definitely one of my favourite films of 2012.

GHOST TOWN: dentist in distress comedy loses its bite

British comedian Ricky Gervais seized hold of his first starring role in an American movie with the same assuredness that marked Steve Martin’s early film roles.

There’s edginess to both men’s humour which marked them out as more than just another comedian transitioning from small screen to big. Where Martin was wild and crazy, Gervais is sarcastic and low key. He’s an accomplished stand-up and tv comedian who exudes a clear confidence in his ability to be funny. There’s no sense of “please like me” pleading in his screen persona.

But while it took several movies for Martin’s edge to blunt and middle-aged, family friendly smugness to set in, it’s possible to see the sharp edges on Gervais start to dull over the course of this one film.

GHOST TOWN sets out encouragingly enough with Gervais as Bertram Pincus, a British born Manhattan dentist and world class misanthrope.  A major reason why he loves his job so much is that he’s able to stop his patients talking to him by shoving instruments and cotton swabs into their mouth.

Bertram is at his happiest ignoring people and if they persist in being pleasant to him he’s an Olympic gold medallist at cutting them dead with a few well chosen sarcastic and very funny words. So it’s beyond his worst imaginable nightmare when he comes round following a routine surgery to discover there’s a whole other world of people who want his attention.

A mishap during the operation has left him with the unique power to see dead people and New York City is full of ghosts with unfinished business. None of them can pass over to the other side unless they can persuade Bertram to help them. One recently deceased man, Frank (Greg Kinnear), is particularly persistent. He insists that Bertram do something to stop his widow Gwen (Tea Leoni), from making a huge mistake by marrying a “sleazeball” lawyer.

So far, so good. But here’s where the rot starts to set in. As Bertram very slowly warms to his task and develops a crush on Gwen he goes from all sharp acerbic edges to dangerously warm and cuddly. He starts to like people, to be concerned for the others, and to try and become a better person himself to prove he’s worthy of Gwen’s affections.

The transformation is not quite as soul-destroying as watching Steve Martin in “The Jerk” followed by “Cheaper by the Dozen” but a few more storylines like this and Gervais could find himself in a similar place. GHOST TOWN’s early promise has largely dissipated by the film’s midway point and from thereon it coasts, not unpleasantly, to a standard Hollywood finish where everyone gets what they deserve.

Gervais made his name as the creator and star of the original British version of “The Office” (which, by the way, is considerably funnier and less contrived than the US remake) and it may be that he’s better suited to tv projects where he has total artistic control. “The Office” and his follow-up show “Extras” gave Gervais the freedom to showcase his unique sense of humour without the compromises required of a Hollywood romantic comedy.

It’s not that he’s wrong for GHOST TOWN – his performance is very assured – it’s more that the film is not quite right for him. However I recognise that this perception is based on my prior knowledge of his work on British tv and probably won’t be shared by many American viewers.

Although it ultimately fails to deliver all the goods GHOST TOWN is nevertheless a likeable and reasonably entertaining viewing experience and definitely worth the investment of a couple of hours of your time.

BODY OF LIES: the two faces of America's war on terror

The phrase “truth is the first casualty of war” has become something of a cliché.

But that doesn’t stop BODY OF LIES from banging home the message with all the subtlety of a hammer smashing down on a man’s fingers - which is what happens to Leonardo DiCaprio in one particularly wince-inducing scene of this war-on-terror thriller.

Leo, as CIA station chief Roger Ferris, really only has himself to blame for his predicament. It’s the end result of his being less than candid with his boss Ed Hoffman(Russell Crowe), his Jordanian hosts, and his Iranian girlfriend about his work even though they’re all supposedly working on the same side.

BODY OF LIES takes us inside the secret, dirty, merciless war that’s being fought against the Islamic extremists bent on bringing death and destruction to those they perceive as their mortal enemies.

To borrow another cliché, it’s a story ripped from today’s headlines, complete with bombings of soft civilian targets, home-grown British-born terrorists, a charismatic and elusive mullah, and the “enhanced interrogation” of Moslem suspects.

Ferris and Hoffman personify the CIA’s rather schizophrenic response to the danger. The former is an Arab specialist. He understands the culture and he speaks the language. The latter has none of these skills and sees no reason to acquire them. For him the natural superiority that comes with being American is enough.

Hoffman is an armchair general, running the war from his cellphone while taking the kids to school, eating lunch on the Mall in Washington DC, or ensconced in his hi-tec lair at Langley. For him the battle is something he watches on his big screen tv courtesy of the many US spy satellites circling the globe. He has no interest in the reality of Ferris’s experiences on the ground.

But if BODY OF LIES is intended as a condemnation of American foreign policy in recent years it’s somewhat undermined by Crowe’s unconvincing performance.

This is his fourth collaboration with director Ridley Scott (“Gladiator”, “A Good Year” and “American Gangster”) and it’s easily his least effective. Hoffman is an unpleasant, arrogant racist but he’s not a plausible character. Crowe’s endowed him with just two traits - a less than convincing South Carolina accent and a tendency to tilt his head down and look over the top of his glasses when he talks.

That’s it; there’s nothing else. He’s so one dimensional that it’s not even possible to dislike him.

DiCaprio is considerably more credible as the CIA operative attempting to straddle two cultures and serve two masters, but for me the real star is Mark Strong as Hani Salam, the Jordanian head of intelligence. Salam is ostensibly one of the “good” guys but Strong plays the part as just this side of a James Bond villain and we’re never sure just which side he is really on.

Scott directs with his customary energy. His camera swoops into the crowded streets of Amman, across the empty desert spaces of Syria and between the towering skyscrapers of Qatar, emphasising the restless nature of the Middle East. It’s a region in perpetual motion and not all of it is forward. But he can’t resist coating everything with a patina of Hollywood gloss. He even succeeds in putting a shine on the squalor of the shanty towns land this detracts from the reality of the story he’s telling.

Sprawling and overlong with a conclusion that succeeds in being both implausible and disappointingly formulaic, BODY OF LIES is reasonably exciting but far from outstanding entertainment.Watch is once and you'll never be troubled by the urge to see it again.