AIRPORT 79 THE CONCORDE: a decade-long franchise crashes and burns

No guns are ever shown and the word is never spoken but there's definitely a hijacking taking place in AIRPORT 79 THE CONCORDE.
And this act of air piracy is committed by a most unlikely character.
Joe Patroni had served this 70s disaster franchise faithfully since it's original departure in 1970 with

the star-studded 'Airport.' As played by George Kennedy, Patroni was the only original character to re-appear in the subsequent three installments, although by 'Airport 77' he had been reduced to little more than a walk-on for old times' sake.
So when producer Jennings Lang came knocking at Mr Kennedy's door asking him to reprise Patroni for a fourth time in AIRPORT 79 THE CONCORDE I get the impression that old George played hardball. I've no documentary evidence to back-up this assertion, but Patroni's part is so grotesquely enlarged compared to his role in the previous 3 films that it just makes sense that Kennedy demanded and got a whole lot more airtime in return for chomping down on that soggy cigar for a fourth time.
He hijacked the story.
And, like most hijackings, it's not a very pleasant experience for anyone involved - fellow cast members or viewers.
Patroni was originally a subsidiary character, played by an actor whose name very properly remained below the title, especially when rubbing shoulders with stars of the calibre of Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin and Helen Hayes. In 'Airport 75' he got a boost, but still played second fiddle to Charlton Heston, Karen Black and Myrna Loy. His 'Airport 77' role was, as I've already mentioned, little more than an obligatory nod to the episodes that had come before. So it makes no sense, other than my hijacking theory, to then cast him in such a central role in what turned out to be the final 'Airport' outing 2 years later.
Patroni's aviation skills had always been tied to the Boeing aircraft company. He was never explicitly described as a Boeing employee but his intimate knowledge of the inner workings and handling characteristics of the 707 ('Airport') and 747 ('Airport 75' and 'Airport 77') had been essential in averting disaster. Suddenly in 1979 he's promoted to Captain and fully qualified to pilot the supersonic Concorde, which was a joint venture by British and French aerospace companies.
So now he's front and centre of the airborne action that unfolds as the Concorde comes under attack from a sophisticated missile launched by a rich and unscrupulous arms dealer who's determined to destroy some incriminating evidence in the possession of one of the passengers. And - by George! - if

Patroni is not more than equal to the task of swerving Concorde through the skies like a jet fighter while shouting out the handling characteristics of the pursuing missile (which he's successfully identified while traveling in excess of Mach 1 with the missile positioned behind the plane) to his bemused co-pilot, Alain Delon, who clearly thought he was the star of this film.
But fighter pilot heroics are not enough for Patroni. He also wants the lions' share of the action on the ground, and that means the infliction of some disturbingly inappropriate scenes with Kennedy making love to a high class Parisian hooker on a bearskin in front of a roaring fire. Once again, Delon can only look on helplessly as his own romance with a resolutely clothed Sylvia Kristel (the original 'Emmanuelle') is effectively extinguished by the competition.
The insistence on putting Patroni at the forefront of the action merely serves to highlight how far the franchise had fallen by 1979. Kennedy was not leading man material and Patroni is a coarse and unlikeable character. But he's not the only element weighing down proceedings. Sure, it's got the sleek and sexy Concorde, but the ridiculous plot, comic book characters, inane dialogue, half-assed special effects, B/C-list cast, even the font used in the opening titles, all contribute to the sense of a shoddily-constructed tv movie trying unsuccessfully to punch above its weight.

ICE FOLLIES OF 1939: frozen in horror

Good God! What were they thinking?
And, more pertinently, was anybody actually thinking?
It's almost beyond belief that the Hollywood studio renowned for its taste and style and lustrous reputation could countenance the creation of such of cinematic monstrosity. 
But that is exactly what MGM did in 1939 and, more than 70 years later ICE FOLLIES OF 1939 still stinks worse than a cow that's been lying dead in the African sun for three days.
The film is so bad my first thought was that its stars, Joan Crawford and James Stewart, had been forced to appear in it as punishment for some offence they must have caused to MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer. The story is so stupid, so cliche-riddled and generally implausible that it seems equally implausible that a huge star like Crawford would voluntarily agree to demean herself by appearing in such tripe. Stewart was still on his way up so I can understand he probably had little choice but to do what he was told, and co-star Lew Ayres was on the slide so he too had little choice in the matter. A job is a job and "we all like to work" as Timothy Dalton once snippily told me after I had the effrontery to asked him what had induced him to play the love interest to an 87 year-old Mae West in 'Sextette.'
The plot for ICE FOLLIES could have been constructed by a 10 year-old who'd overdosed on Norma Shearer movies. Stewart and Crawford are Larry and Mary, an ice-skating couple performing dance-routines on ice-rinks during intermissions in shows. What kind of shows is never indicated, but since an ice rink is not the kind of thing you can set up and tear down in 5 minutes, presumably these are ice skating shows, which begs the question why aren't Larry and Mary appearing in the main show especially since he is described at one point as 'Gable on ice' ?
Anyway business ain't so good and by a contrived set of circumstances and the most ridiculously unlikely audition ever Mary becomes a film star in the space of a month leaving Larry at home to fret and feel emasculated. Unable to cope with the notion of his wife as the breadwinner he vows not to see her again until he's made a success of himself which - surprise surprise - he succeeds in doing within the space of a couple of months with his own Ice Follies spectacular.
At this point the hackneyed plot grinds to a halt to allow director Reinhold Schunzel to present several lengthy ice-dancing routines shot in an impressively unimaginative style and completely devoid of audience reaction even though it's a live show. The absence of gasps of admiration or even a ripple of light applause makes more sense once you realise that the bulk of the audience have actually been very inexpertly painted onto the scenery in an effort to save money on live extras.
But all this is only the half of the awfulness.
The real kicker is that neither Stewart, Ayres nor Crawford actually skate at any point in the film.

This is a story about three professional ice-skaters - one of whom, don't forget, is acclaimed as 'Gable on ice' - yet none of them ever sets a skate on the ice! For all the talk about Stewart and Ayres' brilliance as a team (before Stewart was sidetracked by Crawford) they never once perform in the Follies, even though the show is founded on their reputation. Stewart spends all his time barking directions from the control box, while Ayres is perpetually in the process of getting into his costume without ever quite finishing getting dressed.
It's just rubbish.
The one small glimmer of light is the final 10 - 15 minutes of the film which is shot in sumptuous Technicolor and gave audiences the first chance to see Crawford in colour. However the novelty is not enough to sustain interest in the sequence which features yet more ice-skating routines, this time in a film directed by Larry and starring his wife.
MGM may have displayed stunningly poor judgment in greenlighting ICE FOLLIES OF 1939 but at they were consistent. They maintained the same high level of implausibility all the way through to the bitter, boring end.

SNAKES ON A PLANE: silly fun

Imagine “Anaconda” meets “Airport 75” with Samuel L. Jackson and “ER’s” Julianna Marguiles replacing the cast of old time movie stars and you’ll have a good idea what to expect from SNAKES ON A PLANE.

This is a product that does exactly what it says on the tin - “it is what it is” says director David Ellis on the DVD commentary track. The story opens in Hawaii with surfer dude Sean Jones, played by Nathan Phillips, witnessing the murder of an LA based prosecutor by notorious gang boss Eddie Kim. Jackson is Neville Flynn, the FBI agent tasked with getting Jones safely back to Los Angeles aboard South Pacific Airways flight 121 so he can testify against Kim. But Kim has an ingenious plan to prevent that happening. He fills the hold of the jumbo jet with boxes of poisonous snakes. The boxes will open at thirty five thousand feet, filling the plane with angry snakes that will kill everyone on board, leaving the plane to crash into the Pacific. The only thing Kim hasn’t factored into his plan is Agent Flynn.

Even if you didn’t catch this movie at the cinema (and many didn’t) the plot may well sound familiar, and that’s because SNAKES ON A PLANE became an internet phenomenon which generated an enormous amount of media hype months before it ever hit the big screen.

The silly but simple concept hit a nerve with movie geeks, and spawned a myriad of websites dedicated to production gossip, parodies, tributes, and even suggestions for scenes and dialogue that should be included in the script. Rather than sending in the lawyers to close down all the unauthorised activity, the film’s producers recognised the value of this free, fan generated publicity and encouraged it, even reshooting certain scenes to incorporate some of the fans’ ideas. All this was picked up by the mainstream media and reported on extensively, so by the time of the film’s release in the summer of 2006 expectations were so high that they really had nowhere to go but down, and that’s exactly where they went. The film did just average box office business, and now it resides in the memory as a passing fad if – indeed - it resides there at all.

It’s not difficult to work out why the film fell below expectations. It wants to be a combination of airborne terror, horror, thrills and campy comedy, but lacks the imagination to make the mix work. The writers and director have filled the plane with the sort of stock characters that aficionados of mid air disaster movies have come to expect (single mom with baby, honeymooning couple, unaccompanied minors, old woman, stewardess making her final flight etc), but forgotten to give them anything interesting to do. It’s a sad commentary on the quality of contemporary pop culture that the only two passengers with any kind of depth to their character are a Paris Hilton-like airhead blonde with a miniature dog, and an egotistical hip hop star who might possibly be modelled on P.Diddy.

Ranking the odds of survival for each of the passengers is one of the fun aspects of watching this

film. Even before they’ve fastened their seatbelt it’s not too difficult to identify those likely to make it to the end of the film, and those who are shortly going to become snake food, but what would have made it more entertaining is to have done something a little different with them. Why not confound our expectations and feed the cute kid to the snakes while making the obnoxious businessman the only passenger who can fly the plane? And it would have been great to have included a cameo appearance from one of the stars of previous midair disaster movies - maybe Peter Graves from “Airplane!” or George Kennedy, the only actor to appear in all 4 “Airport” movies.

If it wasn’t a lack of imagination then perhaps the reason why these options weren’t explored is that they would have detracted from Samuel L.Jackson. This is his film and he’s not going to compete for attention with anyone or anything else, even the snakes. Jackson makes his passion for the project very clear on the DVD commentary track, describing it as “entertainment and movie making at its best!”, but that enthusiasm doesn’t translate into a particularly impressive performance. His kick-ass FBI Agent Flynn comes across as a watered down cartoon retread of John Shaft.

There’s also another way to look at this film, and it’s summed up by director David Ellis. He says that SNAKES ON A PLANE “never pretended to be anything but a great fun summer movie” and he’s right, at least about the fun part. This is not highbrow art house cinema; it’s ninety-nine minutes of silly, gory, violent and sometimes smutty nonsense that will make you laugh and make you jump.

THE MAN WHO WATCHED TRAINS GO BY: a masterclass in a minor movie

This 1952 crime drama is worth reviewing for the title alone, but there's actually a lot more to it than just the quirky name. In particular there's the entrancing performance from Claude Rains, demonstrating once again his impressive range as an actor.
Assets though they undoubtedly were, his face and his voice could easily have typecast him as a

suave, sophisticated, slightly world weary middle-class man of reasonable means and, indeed, his enduring fame rests almost entirely on playing just such a character, Vichy Police Chief Captain Louis Renault in 'Casablanca', but he could also subvert those expectations on occasion, and one of them is THE MAN WHO WATCHED TRAINS GO BY.
He plays Kees Popinga, the meek and fastidious head clerk at a small manufacturing company in Holland whose entire identity is tied up in the meticulous books he's kept for the past 18 years. Kees is solid, dependable and dull; a man who's a spectator not a participant in his own life. But he harbors secret dreams of breaking free from the strictures of small town life and boarding one of the trans-European trains which hurtle through his town every day heading for exotic destinations like Paris.
Then one day his chance comes most unexpectedly when he discovers his boss has been looting the company, leaving it teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and wiping out Kees' life savings. During an angry confrontation Kees apparently kills his boss and makes off for Paris by train, clutching a suitcase stuffed with money.
Once in the French capital, Kees stands out like the proverbial sore thumb, with his small-town dress sense, wide-eyed wonder, and the tatty suitcase that he clutches to his chest, but he manages to track down his boss's mistress, Michele (a gorgeously sultry Marta Toren) with the ill-thought-out idea that he can use the money to persuade her to run away with him.
Despite that debonair voice and face, Rains is never less than convincing as the timid, mouse-like, imitation of a man behind whose bland exterior lurks an ill-formed calculating mind. Kees knows he's an innocent abroad, who must constantly be on his guard against those who will take advantage of

him, even as he's helplessly drawn to Michele and her ruthless accomplices who will stop at nothing to separate Kees from his money. Toren is equally impressive as the down-market femme fatale whose drop-dead gorgeous face and flawless skin conceal a corrupted and completely amoral soul.
The film's beautifully deep and lush colour only heightens Michele's beauty, contrasting her dark hair and eyes with her creamy skin and Kees grey, washed-out look.
The film itself is nothing special, despite a script by Paul Jarrico based on the original novel by the great French writer Georges Simenon. It's Rains, in a rare leading role, that makes THE MAN WHO WATCHED TRAINS GO BY well worth the investment of 80 minutes of your time.

THE ILLUSIONIST: Seeing is believing - or is it?

THE ILLUSIONIST will have you doubting the evidence of your own eyes. Only too late will you realise that nothing is what it seems to be; that no one is to be trusted, and everything must be questioned.

This is a film that requires a second viewing to really get to grips with the story. The first time around you’ll find yourself to be little more than a passenger on a brightly coloured ride that is entrancing and engaging but moving so quickly that it gives no time to properly absorb all that you are seeing.

Set in Vienna in the late 1800s, the film stars Edward Norton as Eisenheim the Illusionist. He is the David Copperfield of his day, and his stage show is the hottest ticket in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He can make a human soul appear, he can separate a person from their reflection in the mirror, and he can grow an orange tree from a pip in seconds flat. To call them mere magic tricks is to grossly belittle his talent.

These breathtaking illusions attract the attention of Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), heir to the throne and engaged to be married to Sophie, the Duchess von Teschen, played by a cast against type Jessica Biel. She just happens to be Eisenheim’s long lost childhood sweetheart, and they resume their romance, unaware that they are being spied on by Chief Inspector Walter Uhl (Paul Giamatti).

He reports everything he sees to the Crown Prince. Leopold is a man used to getting what he wants and orders the Chief Inspector to destroy Eisenheim. But Uhl wavers in the task, torn between his duty to his political patron and his fascination for Eisenheim’s illusions. A battle of wills develops between the three men which leads to murder and a shocking revenge.

THE ILLUSIONIST is a beautiful looking film. Every frame is infused with a golden glow, giving it the feel of one of those big budget hand-tinted silent movie spectaculars that Hollywood used to turn out in the 1920s. This glow washes over the wonderfully preserved buildings and streets of Prague (standing in for 1890s Vienna) to give the story an impressively authentic feel.

The beauty of the visuals is complemented by an understated yet classy music soundtrack, written by renowned composer Philip Glass.

This film’s other two big plus points are its stars. Edward Norton is the Robert de Niro of his

generation. He is a similarly chameleon-like actor, immersing himself completely in the part of Eisenheim, while Giamatti is undoubtedly one of Hollywood’s most talented character stars. This is certainly not the best film either of them has ever appeared in, but it is a much better movie because of their presence in it.

THE ILLUSIONIST has a lot going for it but, unfortunately, the sum of the parts does not add up to a satisfying whole. While the ambiguity in the story is acceptable – are we really seeing what we think we are seeing? – the implausibility of the plot is harder to swallow. Much of this is masked on first viewing by the speed at which the story unfolds, but even then chances are that you will be left with a faint feeling of dissatisfaction that you can’t quite put your finger on.

Ultimately, THE ILLUSIONIST’s most effective illusion is the movie itself. By lavishing so much attention on the look of the film, Director Neil Burger has created a story that appears to be more entertaining and carefully constructed than it actually is. THE ILLUSIONIST is certainly not a bad film, but if more care had been paid to the content of the story it could have been a so much more satisfying a viewing experience.

ANOTHER TIME ANOTHER PLACE: and another godawful melodrama

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what is the most ridiculous thing about this 1958 Paramount melodrama - Sean Connery's spectacular eyebrows or the notion of Lana Turner as an ace war correspondent.
She plays Sara Scott, one of those movie journalists who remains gainfully employed despite never

letting work get in the way of their personal life. She swans around wartime London in a fur coat, perfectly coiffed and oblivious to the realities of modern warfare although, to be fair, it's not difficult for her not to notice when director Lewis Allen has chosen to mostly omit it from the mise-en-scene. Other than a sequence showing sappers defusing an unexploded V2 rocket, and Scott's hired help making a passing reference to rationing, there's no indication that this is a city that's been at war for nearly 6 years. There's no bombed out buildings, no indication of food, gas or clothing shortages, and barely anyone in uniform on the streets.
As a peroxide blonde society lady who spends her time lunching, loving and shopping on 5th Avenue, Turner is entirely convincing. As a highly rated journalist ready to fly off at a moment's notice to whichever battle front her editor deems her presence and writing talents to be essential, she's somewhat less plausible than Steven Seagal tackling Shakespeare.
Which brings us to Mr Connery's eyebrows. They are both a wonder and a mystery and put Robert Pattinson's brow hair to shame. His are wider but inexpressive and just sit there above his eyes. Connery's, in contrast, are longer and undulate like two strips of dark brown deep shag carpeting strapped to the back of a couple of adult earthworms. They're so impressive they actually distract attention from his luxuriant head of hair which to anyone used to the older, more follically challenged Connery, is a talking point in itself.
ANOTHER TIME ANOTHER PLACE was not the 28 year old's first movie but it was the first time his name had been billed in such close proximity to the film's stars, and clearly no one had considered that a little personal grooming might be in order to reflect his new status as love interest to a bona fide Hollywood star. His agent might also have found a tactful way to suggest that having Connery's character, with his distinct Scottish accent, wax lyrical at great length about his idyllic home town on the coast of Cornwall, might not be the most convincing.
But even shifting location and pruning his eyebrows would not have prevented this turgid drama from dissolving into a pool of smelly sludge. Nothing about it rings true and no one does anything to evince our interest or sympathy. It's just a bust.

MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES: at least five hundred of them in shadow

When James Cagney was cast as legendary silent film star Lon Chaney in 1957 he was 58 years old. That made him 11 years old than Chaney when he died of cancer in 1930.
Which posed a formidable challenge - how to make a very middle-aged Cagney look credible when portraying Chaney as a young man.
Director Joseph Pevney's solution was to shoot Cagney almost exclusively in long-shot for three quarters of the movie and also in shadow. Not artistically lit or subtle shadow, mind you. These shadows are big and black and blot out Cagney's face. They're the kind of obscuring shadows that would have the director screaming "cut! cut! CUT!!" on any other film and then chewing out the cameraman in front of the whole crew for lighting the scene so ineptly.
There is no reason for these shadows other than to obscure Cagney's features. They do nothing to create or enhance mood, or convey a message. These are shadows that put the worst of film noir to shame.
On the couple of occasions when Pevney attempts something resembling a medium close-up he overlights Cagney's face, clumsily but effectively burning out any detail including his wrinkles.
But Pevney's not simply a two or even three trick pony when it comes to concealing the ravages of time. He also has Cagney play several scenes in thick clown face make-up - because that's what we remember Chaney for. You might think that a biopic of Hollywood's first great horror actor might focus the bulk of its attention on recreating those years and films, but MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES spends an inordinate amount of its overlong running time bringing us up to speed on Chaney's vaudeville career. I'm not
doubting that it was an important training ground but do we really need to see the dancing clown routine more than once?
Actually, if it weren't for Pevney's hamfisted efforts to obscure Cagney's inappropriateness for the part, this film would have very little to recommend it. If writer Ralph Wheelwright's account is to believed (and from some sources I've read it might not be), Chaney's personal life was a little on the turbulent side, but the way it plays out here is so flat, unimaginative and uninspired that it's a chore to stick with it.
Within the limitations previously discussed, Cagney gives a good account of himself,  demonstrating his versatility as an actor and a hoofer while suppressing most of the Cagneyisms that characterized many of his performances. But not for one moment did he lose himself in the part, and that meant I never shook the feeling that I was watching him playing a part rather than watching him become the part.

THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL: and they made Claude look very very silly

Plenty has been written about Warner Bros' 1939 release THEY MADE ME IN CRIMINAL in the context of what it did for the young John Garfield's fledgling film career. But considerably less attention has been paid to the monumental miscasting of one of his more established co-stars.
I refer to the suave, silken-voiced Claude Rains.

Unlike Garfield, Rains was by 1939 a known quantity to Warner Bros and cinemagoers. He'd made an immediate impact 6 years earlier in the title role of 'The Invisible Man' where his distinctive, British-accented, voice had been used to great effect in the many scenes where Rains was present but not seen due to his invisibility. Since that debut Rains had played Frenchmen ('Hearts Divided'), Russians ('Stolen Holiday') and Italians ('Anthony Adverse') all to reasonable effect and, indeed, he was destined to secure his place in movie history playing French police officer Captain Louis Renault in 'Casablanca', but the one part that was most definitely not within his range was that of a New York City born and bred cop.
What on earth director Busby Berkeley and Warner Bros were thinking when they cast Rains as Detective Phelan remains a mystery but they clearly were not thinking straight. They had a studio full of character actors capable of playing the part so why did they give it to the most unsuitable man on the lot?!
Rains, puffing furiously on a limp cigarette, tries his best with the colloquial, slangy, tough-guy dialogue but never gets anywhere close to halfway convincing. Lines like "That makes no difference to me - see - I'm a cop. I gotta do me duty whether I like it or not" and "That's a swell looking dame you're leaving behind kid. I feel kinda sorry for you" fall so unnaturally and uncomfortably from his lips that it's embarrassing to witness.
The Rains casting fiasco aside, THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL is a solid, production and a fine example of Warners scrappy 1930s house style. In only his second film, the 26 year old Garfield radiates star quality as Johnnie Bradfield, a young boxer who goes on the run in the mistaken belief

that he's killed a man in a drunken brawl. If you're not familiar with Garfield's work this film is a fine place to start. All the elements that contributed to his 40s screen persona are already present - the tough, cocky, streetwise underdog battling against the fate that society and his own impulsiveness has preordained for him.
The film also showcases Ann Sheridan, another rising Warner Brothers' star, and she succeeds in grabbing our attention with the brief amount of screen time she's allowed. In hindsight it would have made more sense for her to have switched roles with Gloria Dickson, but perhaps the smaller (though more prominently billed) part was the only way she could cram THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL into her schedule of six films in 1939. May Robson is also a delight as the salt of the earth Grandma Rafferty who's foster-mom to a bunch of transplanting teenage New York delinquents, played by the Dead End Kids, although their bickering, head slapping and shoving shtick was already starting to grate a little.
Not quite an A movie but considerably more than just another run of the mill Warner Bros B movie, it's Garfield's magnetic presence that makes this film a must-see for anyone seriously interested in 1930s and 40s Hollywood cinema.

NAKED ALIBI: caution - film may not deliver on promises inherent in title

I'm not sure how Universal slipped this one past the Bureau of Consumer Protection, but they did.
Despite the title's bold claim, this 1954 crime drama features absolutely no nudity or alibis - clothed or unclothed.

On the plus side, it does co-star the deliciously sexy Gloria Grahame, but on the minus side it's a very poorly written part which does nothing to showcase her particular talents.
She plays Marianna, a saloon singer in a sleazy town on the US side of the Mexican border, who manages to get herself involved with both an ex-cop (Sterling Hayden) and the suspected cop-killer (Gene Barry) he is obsessively pursuing.
Even by the often convoluted standards of film noir (which this movie aspires to be) plotting, the story makes little sense, but there's little else to distract the attention. Hayden sleepwalks through his part with the air of an actor focusing on his paycheck rather than the script's obvious flaws, while Barry struggles unsuccessfully to create some sort of plausible whole out of the many inconsistencies in his character. In one scene he's a baker and family man wrongly accused by bullying detectives of murdering an officer, and in the next he's a big shot gangster (without a gang or criminal purpose) on the Mexican border, splashing the cash, roughing up the locals, and inflicting his particularly aggressive brand of lovin' on Miss Grahame.
Quite how or why he leads this double life doesn't trouble director Jerry Hopper. In fact, very little seems to bother Mr Hopper. Not the implausible plot, the waste of talent (Grahame and Hayden) or the film's slapped-together-on-a-shoestring feel. NAKED ALIBI was shot in large part on the Universal backlot and it looks it. The town square will be instantly recognisable from countless other movies made by the studio, while the border town's back alleys and loading docks are littered with those empty wooden crates one only ever sees in such large numbers in low budget movies where they're trying to fill in the space without spending money on props. Production values are so low that NAKED ALIBI plays more like a lacklustre 1950s tv drama than a big screen entertainment.
If Hopper thought he was contributing to the often stylish and memorable canon of low-budget film noir thrillers which many studios turned out in the early 1950s he was wrong. The confused plot, unimaginative camera-work and cast going through the motions put paid to that. For the Gloria Grahame completists among us this is a must-see, for everyone else there's plenty of other, much more rewarding things, you could be doing with your time.

WE'RE THE MILLERS: that's absolutely nothing to brag about

REALLY?!
Jason Sudekis quit Saturday Night Live for a career making garbage like WE'RE THE MILLERS?
This film is so godawfully unfunny it makes SNL look like an episode of Frasier or Friends or Seinfeld or ..... well, you know, one of those genuinely laugh-out-loud funny tv comedies.
The red flags were clearly visible long before Sudekis stepped before the cameras for the first time.
Even if he hadn't read the script he would have known he would be co-starring alongside Jennifer
Aniston, and who among us is old enough to recall the last time she starred in a film that left you feeling like you'd got your money's worth?
All that pre-release hullabaloo about Aniston playing a stripper who actually strips down, says dirty words, and gives her pretend son a lap dance was just so much pr baloney. Sure she strips down to

lacy underwear which reveals precisely nothing (and looks especially un-alluring in the process), but she's no longer the adorable young Rachel Green of 'Friends' fame. She's kept herself fit but she can't disguise that weird heads grows larger thing that tends to happen to people when they reach middle-age, and a definite whiff of desperation clings to her performance.
Sudekis is adequate at best but lacks the comedy chops to wring anything memorable or truly amusing out of a lame script which makes barely a token effort at creating anything resembling a coherent storyline.
As I write this WE'RE THE MILLERS has just passed the $100 million dollar mark at the US box office. This sorry state of affairs suggests one of two things - either US audiences are so starved of quality comedy entertainment that they'll grab at anything that's put in front of them, or - sadly what's more likely - Hollywood has finally attained its ultimate goal - achieved thru years of churning out increasingly bland Aniston rom-coms - of so lowering audience expectations that they no longer have any memory left of what a really, genuinely good and funny comedy actually looks like.

KILLING SEASON: deadly dull

Presumably the intention of casting two heavyweight - and expensive - Hollywood stars in a film is to double the number of bums on seats. It creates an event, attracting not only fans of each of the two stars but also those interested in seeing the two working together - in this case for the first time.
Remember how much extra publicity the pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino generated for 'Heat'?
Well, KILLING SEASON is nothing like 'Heat.' It doesn't even rise to the level of 'Righteous Kill'

which was the disastrous attempt to capitalize on the buzz generated by 'Heat' by reuniting De Niro and Pacino and putting them together in practically every scene. It was just unfortunate that every scene stank.
KILLING SEASON gives us the first on-screen pairing of De Niro and John Travolta but completely fails to capitalize on their presence. The film is a total non-event, and the only thing that'll keep you from nodding off is the grating sound of Travolta's ridiculous attempt at a Serbian accent.
But, in retrospect, I really shouldn't have been surprised.
DeNiro's been turning in cruise and collect performances for years (with the notable exception of last year's 'Silver Linings Playbook') while Travolta's been milking his 'Pulp Fiction' rebirth for even longer (with the notable exception of 'Hairspray').
Rarely have two such big names contributed so little to a film, other than the further tarnishing of their reputation.

WHITE HOUSE DOWN: make that Shite House Down

Merely suspending your disbelief won't cut it. Even suspending, hanging, drawing and quartering it doesn't help.
WHITE HOUSE DOWN is so shouting at the screen in anger bad that no amount of withdrawal from the real world will allow you to experience anything remotely approximating escapist pleasure. Director Roland Emmerich's sole purpose is to blow up as much as possible of one of America's most iconic landmarks while ensuring there's not a hair out of place on the head of cinema's latest Bruce Willis self-effacing action hero wannabe, Tatum Channing.

He plays Capitol Hill cop John Cale who just happens to be on a tour of the White House with his young, politics-crazy daughter, Emily, when a bunch of terrorists masquerading as home theater technicians seize control of the mansion and take the President (Jamie Foxx) hostage.  Having just moments earlier been rejected for a job with the Secret Service because he's unreliable and doesn't follow orders, Cale now finds himself the President's sole hope of survival and the world's only defense against the outbreak of nuclear war.
As a ridiculously well informed news media covers every nail biting moment from ridiculously close to the scene of the action, the big question is - can Cale rise to the occasion or will he screw it up?
What do you think?
For all Emmerich's efforts to create a sense of uncertainty, the end result is never in doubt and the only real question is how much of the White House will be left standing by the time Cale's through proving to Secret Service Special Agent Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal) that she made a big mistake when she turned him down.
Despite being grotesquely outgunned by terrorists who've managed to smuggle a veritable arsenal of weapons into the most closely guarded government building in the world, Cale clearly has a whole gang of angels watching over him. How else to explain the terrorists complete inability to hit him with a single bullet despite firing hundreds at him and their marksmanship in taking out dozens of highly trained police and secret service agents with a single shot?
WHITE HOUSE DOWN is not the first action thriller to pit a lone individual against a gang of well armed, fanatical crack shots but it is the first one I can think of to represent the US government as both benign and totally incompetent at protecting itself from such a small-sized threat. Every single

security system it has in place to protect the President and the White House and the Capitol Building and Air Force One fails, at the same time as the scores of supposedly highly trained Secret Service agents and police demonstrate their total unpreparedness to respond to a surprise attack - which is presumably what all that training was intended to prepare them for.
Seen in this light WHITE HOUSE DOWN is actually a deeply disturbing critique of the current political-military obsession with security and secrecy, dressed up as a celebration of the enduring belief in the power of the individual to make a difference. We should be out in the streets protesting en masse at the continuing surrender of our rights and personal freedoms in the name of protecting our security! And maybe we would be if enough of us had actually gone to see the film but - sadly (or not) - at the time of writing the film has yet to recoup even half of it's estimated $150 million dollar budget at the box office.
I'm not surprised at the failure to capture the public's imagination. Despite the similarities with, and references to, Emmerich's 1996 box office smash 'Independence Day', WHITE HOUSE DOWN doesn't come close to recapturing that magic and, at times, it veers dangerously close to an unamusing parody of that earlier blockbuster. Tatum makes a bland and unmemorable leading man, while Foxx carries too much baggage as an action star to be plausible as an ultra-liberal, cerebral, never-handled-a-gun chief executive who's more than happy to defer to Cale when it comes to defending himself from the bad guys. The producers could not have made a worse choice had they cast Wesley Snipes in the part (his disagreements with the US government over taxation policy aside)!
Contrived, implausible, cliched, predictable and just plain stupid, WHITE HOUSE DOWN features everything I hate about summer blockbusters. Bring on the fall and a return to something close to more intelligent filmmaking.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS: the bravery, horror, confusion and deceit of war

When six GIs were photographed raising the American flag over the Japanese island of Iwo Jima on 23 February 1945 they had no idea it would change their lives forever.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is the true story of how that one black and white picture helped win

World War Two. It’s also the story of how it was misrepresented and the soldiers featured in it manipulated to serve a greater cause.

 One of them was Navy corpsman John “Doc” Bradley (Ryan Phillippe). Afterwards he would never talk about his wartime experiences, so following his death his son sets out on a journey across the USA to interview the last survivors of that bloody battle, in an attempt to discover the truth of what happened.

The reality he uncovers reveals how a legend is created, and how that process distorts and rewrites the truth to suit a different purpose. The flag raising photo was one of many taken that February day by a journalist accompanying the troops, but it seized the imagination of a war weary nation. To them it represented victory. The fact that it actually happened just five days into a thirty five day battle for control of the island when the outcome was still far from certain, was immaterial.

The US government was quick to recognise the propaganda value of the picture. After more than three years of fighting the United States was almost broke, and there was a real fear that they would be forced to negotiate a peace treaty with the Japanese because they could no longer afford to pay for guns and bullets.

The photo became the focal point of a new campaign to raise desperately needed funds by persuading the American public to buy more war bonds. The order went out for the soldiers in the picture to be brought home to front the campaign, touring the country and speaking at rallies where their presence as real life heroes would encourage people to open their wallets.

There were just two problems. All the soldiers in the photo had their back to the camera and no one could remember for certain who they all were. Some of them were already dead, killed in the fierce fighting. The other problem was that the photo actually captured a second flag raising. A different group of soldiers had already planted Old Glory on the top of the mountain. This was just a replacement, and on neither occasion was it raised in the heat of battle.

For the US government and military however, the symbolic value was too important to let the facts get in the way, and the three somewhat bewildered surviving soldiers were brought home to do their patriotic duty. Of the three it is Private Ira Hayes, played by Adam Beach, who has the hardest time dealing with the deceit. The film charts his mental disintegration as he turns to alcohol, unable to cope with being labelled “a hero” by the same people who patronisingly call him “chief” and treat him as a second class citizen because he’s American Indian. Today, we would also recognise him as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

But it’s wrong to assume FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is an anti-American film. Director Clint Eastwood’s aim in telling this story is not to denigrate the myth, mock the patriotism or belittle the achievements and sacrifices of the men involved. What he does is return the flag raising event to its proper context, portraying it as an event performed by a group of men who gave it little thought at the

time because their energy was focused on capturing the island. They were true heroes not for planting a flag on top of a mountain, but for the incredible bravery they displayed in taking on an enemy which was prepared to literally fight to the death.

The camera doesn’t flinch in showing us the full bloody horror and confusion of war, and how thousands of young men died fighting for each other. They weren’t thinking of the Stars and Stripes or abstract notions of patriotism and heroism when they charged towards Japanese machine gun nests. They were trying to save their own life and the lives of their buddies. The battlefield sequences are nightmarish scenes of graphic carnage, made disturbingly real by Eastwood’s decision to drain them of colour, giving them the look of genuine World War 2 newsreel footage.

The message to take away from this film is that, despite the official manipulation and dishonesty, the flag raising photo stands as a symbol of the heroism displayed by thousands of GIs on the battlefield, rather than a heroic act in itself, and therefore still has value. But it must also be remembered that these men were real people with families waiting for them back home, and those that survived were haunted by their experience for the rest of their lives.

This is not the easiest film to get into. The first thirty minutes are very disorienting with the story jumping around in time, from the battle on the beaches at Iwo Jima, to the present day, to the war bonds tour across the USA. This lack of a stable storyline creates the same kind of confusion that happens in war. We are not really sure what is going on because we cannot see the full picture. It is in exactly this kind of situation that an event can be taken out of context by people not in full command of the facts and used to promote a message not anticipated by those involved in the original event.

THE DEPARTED: savoring Nicholson at the top of his game

Watching Jack Nicholson ply his craft when he’s firing on all cylinders is one of cinema’s great experiences. It’s something we’ve been deprived of since 2006 and his ‘no-one can top me’ performance as Boston Irish Mafia boss Frank Costello in THE DEPARTED.

Frank’s a man obsessed with uncovering the rat in his organisation, but Jack’s the one chewing at the scenery. Costello is a uniquely Nicholson creation. When he speaks the film’s opening line, “I don’t want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me” it can be taken both as Costello wanting to shape the world he lives in, and Nicholson dominating the film he’s acting in.

He draws on his decades of experience and legend building to create a character that – until the Whitey Bulger trial – most of us non-Bostonians believed could only exist in a film. Costello’s evilness is operatic in scale and appearance. It’s a mark of his acting brilliance that he manages to go over-the-top without taking it too far. When he’s on-screen it’s like he’s in Technicolor and everyone else is black and white.

And it’s to the immense credit of director Martin Scorsese that Jack gets the space to be Jack without overwhelming the story to the detriment of the rest of the cast. Costello is the most colourful character but he gives his co-stars plenty of room to do their thing.

This story of lies, betrayal, and sacrifice was a welcome return to form for Scorsese, reminding us of the storytelling skills which earned him the title of “world’s greatest living director” in the 1970s and 80s, and winning him the Oscar for Best Director (the film also picked up Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay). It’s a title I believe he fully deserves, but it’s also been a burden because everything he’s produced in the decades since has been measured against those earlier works. THE DEPARTED is not in the same category as “Taxi Driver”, “Raging Bull” or “Goodfellas” but it comes close. It certainly deserves to rank alongside “Casino.”

Matt Damon is Colin Sullivan, an arrogantly cocky and ambitious Massachusetts State Police officer with seriously divided loyalties. Growing up, his surrogate father was Costello, so when Sullivan gets into the force it’s natural that he keeps Sullivan informed of law enforcement’s attempts to build a case against Boston’s number one criminal.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Billy Costigan, a fellow Massachusetts State Police officer who goes

undercover as a member of Costello’s gang to help build that case. It soon becomes clear to Costello and the police that each has a traitor in their midst, and Costigan and Sullivan are tasked with discovering the identity of the rat.

Damon is icily impressive as the cold, devious and manipulative cop who’s completely unable to feel any genuine human emotions, while DiCaprio’s greatest achievement is to make you forget you’re watching tabloid tv’s favourite pretty boy superstar heart throb, and instead appreciate him as a serious actor totally dedicated to his work.

THE DEPARTED returns to one of Scorsese’s favourite themes – the family. There are repeated references to the importance of knowing where a person comes from and who his people are, when deciding whether or not they are trustworthy. Sullivan stands out in having no discernible family history, and he makes it clear in one scene with his girlfriend that he wants no childhood photos on display in their apartment.

The irony is that for all the talk about the importance of family in judging character, no one has what could be described as an ideal family. The only effectively functioning family are the tribal ones – the Irish, and the police. Senior figures within each fulfill the role of father figure; Costello for the gangsters, and Captain Oliver Queenan (Martin Sheen) for the police.

The three big names aside, there are so many other superb performances to savor in this film. Alec Baldwin, Ray Winstone, and Mark Wahlberg, who bagged himself a best supporting actor Oscar nomination, are all class acts. The one weak link in the project is Madolyn, the police psychiatrist, played by Vera Farmiga. She’s so flaky and unstable that she falls apart at the first hint of conflict or resistance. She’s just not credible as a professional whose job it is to counsel hardened police officers and offenders on probation.

Madolyn is thankfully a minor irritation in what is otherwise a masterful and exciting drama which building to a bloody and shocking climax. Scorsese finally got his hands on the best director Oscar in 2007 after 5 previous nominations not because the Academy felt guilty for having passed him over so many times in the past, but because he richly deserved it.

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE: Homer's overhyped and underperforming

Two minutes into THE SIMPSONS MOVIE Homer stands up and announces “I can’t believe we’re paying to see something we get on tv for free. If you ask me everybody in this theatre is a giant sucker – especially you!”

And with that he points his finger directly at the viewer. It’s a joke by the film’s makers at their own expense, anticipating criticism of this big screen adaptation of the smash hit Fox tv cartoon as somehow cashing in on and selling out fans of the show.

Eighty five minutes later, as the final credits roll, the joke doesn’t seem half as funny. Chances are we will be feeling like we’ve been suckered into shelling out $15 for the DVD of a film which is – at best – no more than averagely entertaining.

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE was one of the most eagerly anticipated films of 2007. Simpsons creator Matt Groening and his team had been talking for years about making a big screen version of the show, and they whetted our appetite for its arrival with a series of trailers which promised great – and most importantly – funny things for the movie.

In a sense, there was no way that they could live up to the hype. Die-hard Simpsons fans (and I’m one) hoped and expected that the film would mark a return to the glory days of seasons six to eight in the mid 1990s when it was undoubtedly the sharpest, most irreverent and funniest show on television.

Why we would think this I’m not quite sure since many of the writers responsible for making those episodes so funny are no longer with the show. It was much more likely that the film would reflect the most recent seasons of ‘The Simpsons;’ seasons which have become so lame and unfunny that they are practically unwatchable.

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE doesn’t quite plumb those depths but it comes perilously close. The film has a running time equivalent to four of the twenty two minute tv shows but that doesn’t translate to four episodes worth of great gags and storylines.

The action has been slowed down and the jokes scattered across the film’s eighty seven minute running time to ensure neither runs out before we get to the end of the story. As a result there are long stretches where nothing very funny happens, and a comedy which fails to make its audience laugh just isn’t doing its job.

What makes the very best episodes of ‘The Simpsons’ worthy of the description “comedy classics” is their ability to veer off at crazy tangents without warning, inserting the characters into increasingly ridiculous and surreal situations which poke fun at popular culture. These situations didn't need to have a point to them. It is enough that they are laugh out loud funny.

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE has no such flexibility because it sets itself the goal of telling a story

which has a definite beginning, middle and end. Therefore everything which happens within the film has to relate in some way to this template. Unfettered creativity, and the behaviour of the characters, must yield to the demands of the plot.

The plot concerns the efforts of Marge, Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie to save Springfield from destruction after Homer’s thoughtless dumping of a silo of pig droppings in the local lake results in the town being labelled “the most polluted in the history of the planet” by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Practically every character that ever graced an episode of ‘The Simpsons’ (with the exception of Patti and Selma) is given a few seconds of screen time, although the downside of this is that there is no time for any of them to really shine. Mr Burns, Dr Hibbert, Krusty, Grandpa Simpson et al are reduced to making cameos in their own show while too much time is given over to a rather annoying Ned Flanders.

Among the DVD extras there’s a choice of two commentaries; one is by the film’s directors while the other features Matt Groening, Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer), and Yeardley Smith (who voices Lisa) among others.

The latter is great if you enjoy listening to the sound of a bunch of guys laughing at their own jokes, but it’s not hugely enlightening. There’s no hidden gems among the deleted scenes, and the ‘special stuff’ (which includes The Simpsons as judges on ‘American Idol’ and Homer doing the monologue on’The Tonight Show’) is not the kind of stuff worth watching more than once.

BABEL: Big Oscar Loser is a Real Winner

Babel, according to the story in the Bible, is the place where Noah’s descendants tried to build a tower up to heaven. God did not look kindly on this display of human arrogance and punished the builders by causing each of them speak in a different language. This created confusion and brought an end to the building project. It also scattered and disconnected the people across the planet.

It’s the confusion and disconnect caused by language that lies at the heart of BABEL. Even when the characters are speaking the same language they still fail to communicate because they don’t listen to one another.

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has crafted a complex narrative out of four separate story threads, each set in a different part of the world. The film jumps with unsettling abruptness between the Moroccan desert, the suburbs of San Diego, Baja California in Mexico, and the urban jungle of central Tokyo, and each location is apparently unconnected to all the others.

Not only are they all separated by space, but also by time. The perception that all the stories are running in parallel to one another comes under increasing challenge as the story lines unfold. No sooner are we able to begin making tentative connections between them than we are forced to reassess what we think we know because it is not at all clear when these events are occurring in relation to each other.

It’s a device that Inarritu used to brilliant effect in his previous film “21 Grams.” And BABEL similarly demands your full attention.

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett provide the anchor for these seemingly disparate storylines. They play Richard and Susan Jones, travelling with a busload of British and French tourists through the barren valleys and mountains of Morocco.

It soon becomes clear that they are a couple in crisis although the cause of their problems is unclear. They allude to it without really talking about it. She is unable to articulate her anger, and he can’t explain why he did whatever it was that he did which has made her so upset.

While we are trying to understand the dynamics of their relationship we are also attempting to establish their connection to a couple of young Moroccan boys tending their family’s herd of goats on an inhospitable desert mountainside, and playing with their father’s newly acquired high powered rifle.

And how do these two story strands connect with Amelia (a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominated Adriana Barraza), a middle aged Mexican woman and live-in nanny for a young American brother and sister? She’s trying unsuccessfully to find someone to take them for her so her nephew Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal) can drive her back into Mexico to attend her son’s wedding?

Most confusingly of all – what could possibly be the connection between these three strands and Cheiko, (Rinko Kikucki, also nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar) a teenage deaf mute volleyball player, living with her father in a high rise apartment building in Tokyo, and mourning the mysterious death of her mother?

To reveal anymore of the plot would be to spoil what is a compelling and complex web of relationships.

Pitt and Blanchett are the names above the title, but their performances are more than equalled by their lesser known co-stars. Barraza and Kikucki are outstanding in their portrayal of women driven to desperation by their circumstances. It was only the fierceness of the competition in their category

which denied one of them the gold statuette on Oscar night.

BABEL was up for seven Academy Awards at the 2007 ceremony but took home only one, for Best Original Score. Director Inarritu was unfortunate in being nominated for Best Director in the same year that Martin Scorcese was also up for the award for directing his best piece of work in years.

Inarritu’s intricate and thought provoking tapestry of situations and people forces us to recognise the narrow, fragile rail upon which each of our lives runs, and how it can so easily be derailed by the random and unthinking action of another.  

It also challenges our expectation that if our well ordered life is suddenly thrown into chaos, we will be able to rely on those around us to help, whether that’s our spouse, our parents, our friends, our government, or simply our fellow human beings. Are we right to expect more from those with whom we share a language and a culture, and less from those we regard as foreign?

The answers BABEL offers are unexpected and sometimes disturbing, but always thought provoking. This is a film whose images and characters will stay with you long after the final credits have rolled.

FOUR MEN AND A PRAYER: a prayer won't cut it, this film needs divine intervention!

This 1938 misfire from the usually dependable John Ford is best enjoyed if viewed as a live-action cartoon rather than the adventure mystery it's intended to be.
I found that watching it as if it were a big budget condensed version of one of those Saturday morning serials put out by Republic in the 1930s and 40s made it easier to tolerate the caricature characters, ethnic stereotypes and ridiculous plot.
A very young David Niven, George Sanders, Richard Greene and William Henry are the titular four men although, in truth, Greene looks so young that Three Men and a Youth might be a more honest title. He looks even younger than Henry who's playing his kid brother, and certainly not old enough to have obtained employment as a diplomat at the British Embassy in Washington DC. As for saddling him with responsibility for playing Loretta Young's love interest, let's just say 'Three Men, a Youth, and a Cradle Snatcher' would have made for an even more honest title. Miss Young's game attempts to appear besotted by Greene's pre-manly charms are considerably less than convincing.
Other than servicing 20th Century Fox's efforts to build Greene as a romantic leading man, she's pretty much superfluous to the story. She's not even effective as the love interest since Greene's character spends most of the movie rebuffing her amorous advances with the intensity of a 19th
century student at Oxford whose stroll to the crease, cricket bat in hand, is interrupted by a flighty young thing wanting to give him a kiss for luck.
The film starts out promisingly enough, with the court martial of Colonel Loring Leigh of the British Indian Army for a military blunder that's cost the lives of 90 soldiers. As Leigh is played by

C.Aubrey Smith he obviously can't be guilty. With his ramrod posture, stiff upper lip and British integrity oozing from every pore, Smith only ever portrayed characters of the highest moral fibre, so clearly there's something fishy going on. When, shortly afterwards he's found dead from an apparent suicide it's left to his four sons to solve the mystery and clear his name.
Which is where it all starts getting very silly and slapdash.
The sons split up to search for witnesses, with two heading back to India and the other two taking the boat to South America. Now 1930s Hollywood was never going to win any awards for accuracy in its representation of other countries and other cultures, but the stereotyping here is particularly lazy and offensive. According to 20th Century Fox's worldview, India and South America are indistinguishable from North Africa and both are peopled entirely by swarthy, shifty, pidgin-English speaking natives harboring murderous intentions towards the white man.

Naturally, Sanders, Niven, Greene and Henry, being products of the British Empire, have no truck with such misguided prejudices and simply breeze through everything the locals can throw or fire at them while barely raising a sweat.  Their simplistic, faulty and primitive powers of detection and logic are blithely overlooked in the interests of moving them onward through one implausible scenario after another to the inevitable conclusion.
FOUR MEN AND A PRAYER is so bad it's enough to make one reassess Ford's standing as a legendary director. It doesn't do anything for the reputation of his cast either. Sanders gives no indication of the talent that was about to make him a star, Young is just embarrassing, Greene's shortcomings have already been discussed, and it's just bizarre watching Niven mugging away as the dimwitted comic relief. Who would have pegged him as a romantic leading man after a performance like that?   At least Smith had the good sense to die 15 minutes into the story and minimise his involvement with the whole misguided affair.
To put it kindly, the whole thing is a mess, a sloppy, contrived, cliched and disjointed mess completely lacking in the self-awareness to recognise its own awfulness.

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE: Oscar winning indie comedy brightened my day

A motivational speaker stands on a spot lit stage, presenting his 9-step “Refuse to Lose” program to an unseen audience in the darkness.

A little girl sits in the family room repeatedly watching and rewinding a videotape recording of the climax of a Miss America contest.

A teenage boy works out in his bedroom, lifting weights and doing press-ups. There’s a half opened parachute hanging from the ceiling. An enormous portrait of the philosopher Neitszche, painted onto a bedsheet, is pinned to one wall.

An old man snorts heroin off a small mirror in a locked bathroom.

A woman talks on a cell phone as she drives her car. She has a cigarette in one hand, and is telling the person the phone that “of course I’m not smoking!”

A suicidally depressed looking bearded man sits motionless in a wheelchair in a hospital room, attached to a drip, as the film’s title LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE appears on screen.

Welcome to the dysfunctional Hoover family of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Over the course of the next one hundred minutes we will become so attached to these characters that there will be a sense of genuine sadness when we are forced to say goodbye as the screen fades to black for the final time.

The motivational speaker is Richard Hoover, played by Greg Kinnear. Olive (Abigail Breslin) is his 7 year old daughter, sitting at home in front of the tv absolutely entranced by the emotional reaction of the contestant to being named Miss America. Her older brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) is pumping iron in his bedroom, getting himself fit for his dream future as an Air Force pilot.

It’s their grandpa, Richard’s dad, played by Alan Arkin, we see snorting drugs in the bathroom of their suburban home. Their mom, Sheryl (Toni Collette) is the woman in the car. She’s driving to the hospital to collect her brother Frank (Steve Carell).

As is revealed shortly afterwards in an embarrassingly inappropriate conversation at the family dinner table, Uncle Frank was in hospital because he’d tried to kill himself over an unrequited love affair with one of his adult male students.

This is not a group of people who should spend any length of time together in a confined space, but that is exactly what happens when Olive gets a last minute call-up to compete in the “Little Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant in Redondo Beach, California.

They all pile into their ancient bright yellow VW bus for the 800 mile road trip west. The two day journey swiftly turns into a survival test for the Hoovers as they’re forced to confront disappointment and death. Will the six of them manage to keep it together as a family or will the group implode under the pressure?

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is a comedy about characters not action. The focus is on how they cope with each other rather than external events that happen to them as a group. Fans of “Lost in Translation,” “Garden State” and “Sideways” will love this family.

The film’s Oscar nomination for Best Picture Best Supporting Actress (Breslin) and wins for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Arkin) are richly deserved. It’s a wonderful example of independent cinema’s ability to offer an accessible alternative to mainstream Hollywood’s staple diet of special effects laden blockbusters. Arkin is laugh-out-loud funny as the foul mouthed grandfather

who’s devoted to his granddaughter; while 10 year old Abigail Breslin’s adorable and totally natural performance forms the heart of the story.

These two were singled out by the Academy, but the whole cast is superb. They are totally convincing as real people we can identify with, rather than simply characters in a film. They bicker with each other, and they push against the constraints of the family unit while also recognising that they need each other.

The fact that LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is the first feature film from husband and wife co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris makes their achievement all the more impressive. On one of the two director’s commentaries that accompany this DVD, they reveal it took them almost six years to get the project from the drawing board to the big screen. When they finally received the green light they were given just thirty days and a small budget to shoot it.

Funny, touching and – above all – believable, fans of all that is great about American independent cinema will want to make this film a permanent part of their DVD collection.

THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY: it's enough to turn you atheist

THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY gives disco music a bad name.
Released in 1978, when the world was knee deep in great disco tunes, this film manages to avoid acknowledging almost all of them.

From the anemic, barely audible theme song over the opening titles, accompanied by a montage of 'typical' LA teenagers getting ready for Friday night, it's obvious that this is going to be little more than a feeble West Coast copy of the previous year's Brooklyn based blockbuster (and classic disco song drenched) 'Saturday Night Fever.'
Where SNF had an incredible soundtrack, strong storyline and a charismatic leading character who lives to dance, TGIF features a parade of bland, generic teenagers dancing to bland generic and anonymous disco tracks on a distinctly unmemorable Friday night at The Zoo, a disco in downtown Los Angeles.
There's two young guys out on the pull, two young girls hoping to be pulled, two even younger girls (including a pre-Doris from 'Fame' Valerie Landsburg) hoping their fake ID is good enough to get them in the joint so they can participate in the dance contest, an Hispanic guy dressed in leather who lives to dance, a straight-laced middle class couple taking a walk on the wild side (well, he is an accountant), Jeff Goldblum as the oily, lecherous and cadaverous disco owner, and Donna Summer as an aspiring disco diva who gets her big break singing the film's only decent song 'Last Dance.'
Throw in The Commodores making a guest appearance at the club, and acres of polyester, wing collar shirts and bell-bottom pants and the result is distinctly yawn-inducing.
Despite the proliferation of young people and (supposedly) multiple-beats-per-minute music the film
lacks any sense of energy or vibrancy. It's late 70s youth culture with the sound turned down to avoid annoying anyone.
What's really shocking is that two powerhouse music labels are responsible for this lethargic mess. THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY is a co-production of Casablanca Filmworks and Motown Productions. Casablanca was home to Donna Summer, Parliament, Village People, Georgio Moroder and KISS amongst others in the later 70s, while Motown had been a hit machine since the early 1960s yet both labels seemed reluctant (Summer and The Commodores aside) to use the film to showcase their artists. It's just another example of director Robert Klane's determination to ride the coattails of 'Saturday Night Fever' without understanding anything about what made that film such a smash hit.
Equally surprising is the willingness of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to acknowledge the existence of THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY despite it's solid gold awfulness, and award 'Last Dance' the Oscar for Best Song.
Rarely has a less deserving film been so honoured.