ANNIE (2014)

I love big Hollywood musicals - everything from the deeply sinister OKLAHOMA! to the modern glitz of CHICAGO via the genius that is CABARET.   I have a fundamental respect for hoofers - old fashioned song and dance entertainers right back to Vaudeville.  Nothing pleases me more than seeing a musical theatre artist in their prime - not least Ann Reinking in pretty much everything she did, and Liza Minelli in Cabaret.  So despite my reverence for the original 1982 John Huston ANNIE - I was really looking forward to this remake. I didn't quite see the point of it, but I figured the original Strouse-Charmin-Meehan musical could take the reinterpretation. All the best texts can.

I guess I realised something was off with this new movie with the opening number - now, as then, "Maybe" - a song that should be poignant and emotional.  Instead it was delivered by a bunch of apparently well-fed and well-dressed kids doing this kind of finger-snap dance ripping off the "Cups" song from PITCH PERFECT.  Worst of all, I'm not sure if I'm right, but it felt like the lead actress Quvenzhané Wallis didn't have a strong voice and/or was being heavily auto-tuned.  Worse still, her lip-synching was off.  Things got worse with Cameron Diaz' outsized but somehow messy performance as the modern-day Miss Hannigan - now a drunken foster mom - and the STOMP rip-off choreography for "Hard Knock Life."

SEX TAPE

Jake Kasdan directed BAD TEACHER starring Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz and it was a genuinely wickedly funny, subversive movie. So why is SEX TAPE, directed by and starring the same actors, so painfully unfunny?  I mean, seriously, I did not laugh once for the entire running time of the film. I didn't even do that inward smile thing. It's not that it was even awkward, what will all the sex-talk.  It was just banal and so at pains to be earnest and good-hearted.  It also features the most absurdly in-your-face and annoying product placement. 

The plot is simple. Diaz and Segel play a happily married couple who realise that they just don't have enough good sex. So one night they get drunk and make a sex tape which the husband is meant to erase from his iPad but doesn't. Worse, it gets synched to all the people who he have his old iPads too, because in the most unbelievably contrived plot necessity, he's a DJ who gives people iPads but doesn't let them resynch them to their own accounts because that would rob them off his awesome playlists.   

Obviously if the film were funnier, the threadbare premise would bother us less. But it isn't witty and the physical humour is just juvenile.  This is most evident in the extended scene where the couple go to the house of the businessman who is on the verge of buying Diaz' website. He espouses family value but is a cokehead.  So while Diaz snorts coke to distract him (how we laughed! not) Segel runs through his mansion chased by a vicious guard-dog. I mean, really?

The whole film is basically just a banal and dull watch where sex is the preserve of well-meaning earnest couples and even pornographers have hearts.  Pass the sick-bucket.

SEX TAPE has a running time of 94 minutes and is rated R.  The movie is on global release.

THE OTHER WOMAN

THE OTHER WOMAN is basically a remake of the teen revenge comedy JOHN TUCKER MUST DIE for the forty-something set.  Cameron Diaz plays a power lawyer called Carly who's met a guy so perfect she wants to introduce him to her dad (Don Johnson).  But when Carly discovers that Mark (Nikolai Coster-Waldau - GAME OF THONES) is married to ditzy squeaky stay-at-home wife  Kate (Leslie Mann - THIS IS FORTY) the two women strike up an unlikely friendship.  But what starts of as Carly helping Kate to get a decent divorce settlement plan turns into a full on revenge-plot when they realise that Mark is also dating hot model Kate Upton, and using his wife to front a series of dodgy off-shore companies with which he's defrauding his clients.

When the movie works it works best as a buddy comedy and there's a genuine if cliched connection between the cynical Carly and the flakey Kate.   Carly comments once or twice that she doesn't quite know what skill-set Kate Upton's character is bringing to the revenge plot and I'd have to agree - this seems like stunt casting at its most pointless and vapid.  By contrast, I was pleasantly surprised by Nicki Minaj as Carly's secretary - she actually delivered her lines with some sass.  The real problem with the film is Nikolai Coster-Waldau. He's certainly good-looking and charming enough to convince as a thieving lothario, but he really cannot do physical comedy and this script demands that of him again and again.  It's just awkward.  If done well, a simple comedy based on a much-worn concept can still be fun.  But mis-casting is the fatal flaw of THE OTHER WOMAN.

THE OTHER WOMAN has a running time of 109 minutes and is rated PG-13.  THE OTHER WOMAN is on global release.

THE COUNSELOR

THE COUNSELOR has been comprehensively drubbed by the film reviewing community, recalling Roger Ebert's seminal review of Vincent Gallo's THE BROWN BUNNY, along the lines of "I've had colonoscopies that were more funny."  And just as I really liked THAT film, I actually rather like THE COUNSELOR. Or rather, I should say that I'm fascinated by why people are so horrified by it.  It's not that I enjoyed watching it so much as I enjoyed all the provocations it presented as I watched it.  

The movie opens with and maintains a rather opaque narrative style - a mash-up of abstruse conversations in beautifully designed international locales inter-cut with grungy Mexican drug runners pushing a truck full of cocaine disguised as human shit over the US border.  The Counselor of the title is a naive but greedy lawyer (Michael Fassbender) who is defined his love of the equally naive Laura (Penelope Cruz).  The Counselor works for Reiner - a flamboyant drug dealer and club owner played by Javier Bardem as a cross between Brian Grazer and Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys. Which is weird because Brad Pitt also stars in the film as a kind of a redneck magus, who tries to wise the Counselor up, but to little avail. The plot, such as it is, sees someone hijack the drug shipment and pin it on our crew, which violent and grim consequences.

Bardem does Grazer's fright wig

The moral of the story, is that there are no morals. There's just the hunt. This is a fascist world in which weakness, and flamboyance, and hubris are brought low in a manner that is so foul and evil as to be shocking.  The moral is that you should not be shocked.  There is a brutal simplicity and fascination in seeing faceless men pull off brutal procedural heists. But also something bewildering about seeing actors such as Toby Kebbell and Natalie Dormer pop up in small roles that hint at something more fascinating that isn't given a chance to develop. 

Anyone looking for the redemptive final act of Cormac McCarthy's sublime novel, The Road, is looking in vain.  And critics who have panned the film have typically blamed McCarthy for forcing this word-heavy, abstract, opaque script on a high quality cast and director.  I disagree.  This is like a sleazy B-movie filtered through an art-house lens -  as grungy and elliptical as Raymond Chandler - as absurd and meaningless and provocative.  As an example, I'd give you the notorious scene in which Reiner's wonderfully unapologetic and spiky girlfriend Malkina fucks a car.  This is as shocking as Chandler's depiction of the nympho Carmen Sternwood would've been in THE BIG SLEEP.  But what is the movie really focussed on? Not her sexual act - she is confident, unapologetic and uncaring about what you or I or Reiner might make of it.  The movie focusses on the reaction of the men in the picture - their horror, fear, inability to process.  In fact, I would argue that THE COUNSELOR is a shocking and reviled movie because it's so radical.  No-one's a good guy.  The bad guys are pussies.  And the bad girl doesn't care what you think.

THE COUNSELOR has a running time of 117 minutes and is rated R in the USA.

THE COUNSELOR is on release almost everywhere except Taiwan where it will be released on December 6th and in Italy where it will be released on January 30th 2014.

London Film Fest 2012 Day 10 - A LIAR'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3D

A LIAR'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY is a wonderful, intimate, irreverant animated biopic of Graham Chapman, member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and perhaps most famous for portraying Brian in THE LIFE OF BRIAN.  He was a complicated character - a grammar school boy who did good, studying medicine at Cambridge, where he joined the Footlights, met the bright young things of comedy of his generation, and eventually made his way to Python.  He was a bundle of contradictions - contradictions that he himself struggles to grapple with in his slippery, brilliant autobiography with its caveat emptor title.  A pipe smoking, tweed wearing rugby player, he came out at a time when that was a very brave thing to do.  Openly gay, he remained a closet alcoholic - perhaps surprisingly, an addiction picked up while a medical student, rather than in the supersonic rise to fame as a Python.  This led to him becoming, eventually, a bit of a liability on set, but he carried out until the Pythons retired and he, tragically, died before his 50th birthday of cancer. 

The marvellous thing about the movie is that you can tell it's made by people who care - not just about Graham but about respecting his memory by being - well, disrespectful!  It's a movie that honours his style and humour while also being honest about the elusive nature of his character.  Maybe that reflects the fact that it's made people who are evidently fans - or colleagues - or relations of colleagues.  The remaining Pythons all voice the animation and one of  the three directors (Bill Jones, Jeff Simpson and Ben Trimlett) is the son of a Python.  The real genius is to make an animated film rather than a conventional documentary splicing vintage film and interviews with the Pythons.  Moreover, to create a patchwork quilt of different animation styles using many many different animators.  It gives the movie a unique beauty while also conveying something of the gonzo patchwork nature of Chapman's life and character. There are genius moves - like stunt casting Cameron Diaz as Freud - and lots of Python in-jokes.  For instance, in an early scene, where Chapman's father locks his book in a glove compartment we see a can of spam inside.  A passing building is graffiti'd "Romanus eunt domus". 

My suspicion is that this densely packed humour and deep love for Chapman makes this movie one for hardcore Python fans alone, rather than a wider public. That said, fans of animation, rather than Python, should check it out purely for the bravura display of styles. 

Director Bill Jones and Pythons, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

A LIAR'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3D played Toronto and London 2012 and will be shown on US TV on November 2nd. The running time is 82 minutes.

BAD TEACHER - by far not subversive enough

Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, the screen-writers who brought us the piss-poor alleged comedy, YEAR ONE, markedly improve with their new comedy, BAD TEACHER, but still have a long way to go. Cameron Diaz is deliciously scabrous as the cynical gold-digging teacher, Elizabeth Halsey. She spends most of the movie scamming her way to the cash-prize for highest student test score results - money she needs to fund a boob job, that will help her snag a rich football player, or at a pinch her flaky but rich co-worker Scott, played by Justin Timberlake. Problem is that the goody-goody co-worker is falling for the irritatingly up-beat, not to mention suspicious, Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch). And poor Jason Segel has to look on as warm-hearted gym teacher, Russell, killing time for the third act redemption scene.

The resulting film is an entirely predictable, and pretty banal rom-com. Its virtue is that it's short (under 90 minutes sans credits), and while never as subversive as its name-sake BAD SANTA, it has enough comedy-cameos to propel it forward. Lucy Punch is turning into a regular scene-stealer with her pitch-perfect performance as Miss Squirrel, and I also really like The Office's Phyllis Smith as Elizabeth's dopey friend and fellow-teacher Lynn. Do I need to see this film again, ever? Nope. Did it have me laughing out loud? Nope. But it was a perfectly fun way to spend an hour and a half, and it reminded me just how good Cameron Diaz is at comedy.

BAD TEACHER is on release in the UK and Ireland. It goes on release on June 23rd in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the US and Sweden. It opens on July 7th in Argentina, on July 27th in France, and on July 28th in the Czech Republic. It opens on August 6th in Japan, on August 12th in Lithuania, on August 18th in Greece and Hungary and on August 25th in Singapore. It opens on September 1st in Hong Kong, on September 2nd in Italy, on September 23rd in Colombia and on October 20th in Malaysia.

Random DVD Round-Up 1 - SHREK FOREVER AFTER

SHREK THE THIRD was a desperate movie - a commercial enterprise designed to squeeze every last buck from a franchise, no matter that the plot was confused and cobbled together. I barely sat through it, and hated every moment. When the franchise began, Mike Myers's Shrek was a loveable anti-hero subverting our idea of a fairytale Prince into a farting ogre and Cameron Diaz' Princess Fiona wasn't just a passive pretty girl waiting to be rescued but a feisty, whip-smart woman whose true self was fat and happy. The joy of those films was to see unlikely friendships form between Shrek, Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss In Boots (Antonio Banderas), and to see Shrek and Fiona fall in love. To be sure, the humour was subversive of the Disney myth, but it was always warm-hearted, and after a pretty straight-forward adventure our anti-heroes would always emerge triumphant and true to themselves.

By contrast, by SHREK THE THIRD, Shrek had turned into a whiny little bitch, and the humour was particularly snarky and mean - coming in the form of cheap, lazy Exorcist spoofs of ROSEMARY'S BABY and teen-rom-coms. Fiona was less feisty woman that put-upon wife, and the whole thing had a rather mean-spirited, vulgar feel. So, when SHREK FOREVER AFTER rolled into our cinemas, complete with that ultimate commercial shake-down - 3D - I decided to give it a miss. Imagine, then, my surprise to discover that SHREK FOREVER AFTER isn't have bad at all!

The good news is that the writers have decided to focus on just one idea - and the big grand concept is that Shrek is so peeved with being a harassed father that he allows Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohm) to trick him into signing a contract in which he never existed. What then follows is a sort of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE meets STAR WARS movie, in which Shrek sees what would have happened if he hadn't existed, and must get Fiona to give him "true love's kiss" in order to get back to normal. Donkey blanks him; Puss In Boots has become fat and lazy; Far Far Away is ruled by a tyrannical Stiltskin, and Fiona, having rescued herself, has become a Rebel Leader leading her fellow ogres in arms against Vader, sorry, Stiltskin! The great thing about this conceit, is that we get to see Fiona back to being feisty, and we get to relive what was wonderful in the first films - seeing Shrek and Fiona fall for each other again, and seeing Shrek and Donkey and Puss become friends again. It's as though the film-makers didn't want the franchise to end on the downer of Part Three and so restored us to the feel-good feeling of Part One. SHREK FOREVER AFTER is, then, a pleasingly good watch. Not as brilliant as Part One, partly because we can't get back that initial surprise, but good fun nonetheless. Hopefully, the film-makers will have the good grace to end it here.

SHREK FOREVER AFTER was released in summer 2010 and is now available to rent and buy.

THE GREEN HORNET - in which Hollywood pisses on my eiderdown once more

I am HUGELY disappointed by THE GREEN HORNET. I know it had a "troubled" journey to our screens, with Kevin Smith's scripts hacked and directors dropping out like so many milk-teeth. But when it got to the final credit list, I was full of anticipation. After all, this was a superhero movie that was going to be set square in the tradition of fond mockery - the tradition that produced the brilliantly funny KICK-ASS and genre-pastiches like PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. And who better to mock fondly than director Michel Gondry - the guy behind the wonderfully sweet, adorably goofy BE KIND, REWIND, not to mention quirkier, stranger, more brilliantly crazy THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP. The cast looked fly too - the newly trim Seth Rogen - hilarious in PINEAPPLE EXPRESS was going to bring that child-like enthusiasm and general all-round good-egg persona to the role of Britt Reid/The Green Hornet, playboy millionaire turned masked-crime-fighter. Cameron Diaz - always willing to take the piss out of herself - was going to play the love interest, Lenore Case. We had the promise of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS' Chrisoph Waltz as the evil villain Chudnofsky. And best of all for Battlestar Galactica geeks, we had Edward James "Adama" Olmos as the editor of the Daily Sentinel. Okay, so I'd never heard of the Jay Chou, guy who plays The Hornet's sidekick, Kato, but I was willing to roll with it. So there it was - I was all ready for a superhero pastiche/homage full of good jokes, ridonkulous super-weapons and a general good-time.

But what did I get? Joke-free boredom. And without jokes, all this movie becomes is a Batman/Superman knock-off. Derivative, predictable, silly, emotionally involving, and absolutely no stakes. And when the jokes don't work you have to blame either the script or the actors or, in the case of physical humour, the director. So, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz, Christoph Waltz, Michel Gondry, I know want you to go and stand in the corner and think VERY carefully about what you've done. Especially Gondry. I mean, I am genuinely amazed that Gondry even knows how to direct something this banal.

Evidently, somewhere in Hollywood, in some drawer, there is a Kevin Smith script for THE GREEN HORNET that is frackin' amazing. Somewhere, years ago, in some producer's office, there was a dream of a brilliantly witty, action-filled movie. The dream, ladies and gentlemen, is dead.

P.S. I got so angry when I was writing this review that I forgot to mention the biggest insult of all! This movie has been retro-fitted with 3D after principal photography was completed. The result is a film that costs an extra few pounds to see, and where the only material impact of 3D is that it looks several shades more dull than if you were watching it without the glasses.  There are no cool action shots that are enhanced by it. There's no immersive, subtle enhancement of depth of field. Just cynical commercial decision-making at its most brazen.

THE GREEN HORNET is on release in Belgium, Chile, Egypt, France, Belgium, Chile, Egypt, France, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Estonia, India, Spain, the UK, the USA and Venezuela. It opens next weekend in Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Japan. It opens on the 28th January in Greece, Singapore and Italy. It opens on February 3rd in Russia.

MY SISTER'S KEEPER - slippery

Not having read Jodi Picoult's book, and going purely by the trailers, I had thought that MY SISTER'S KEEPER would be a provocative courtroom drama examining the moral and legal issues around "savior siblings" - that is, children conceived in order to provide perfect match organs to their cancer-ridden siblings. But MY SISTER'S KEEPER isn't actually interested in the legal dilemma but the simpler story of a family under extraordinary emotional pressure. Yes, the other siblings may be taken for granted by their parents, but it isn't really the issue of organ-harvesting but a wider issue of just spending time with them. And the movie isn't so much about the ethics of taking organs from children who cannot consent, but about coming to terms with the fact that people die and not all battles can be won. In other words, this is a Weepie rather than an intellectual film.

To the extent that this movie wasn't a courtroom drama, I was disappointed. And I was rather annoyed at the slippery way in which this aspect of the movie was derailed. But then again, how credible was a courtroom drama really going to be given that Cameron Diaz is cast as the aggressively pro-organ donation lawyer-mother - a role beyond her ability - and Alec Baldwin (a prisoner of his 30 ROCK persona) was cast as opposing council. Only Joan Cusack, as a grieving mother and presiding Judge, adds any emotional weight and credibility to those scenes.

So how did the resulting emotional drama hold up? I didn't like a lot of the stylistic choices - particularly the voice-overs from the different characters explaining their points of view. (Although this is apparently a feature of the book). I especially didn't like the happy-family sunlit montages set to schmaltzy music. Jason Patric as the passive father looked mostly bored. Cameron Diaz as the aggressive mother looked mostly hysterical. Aunt Kelly looked entirely redundant. Ignored younger brother Jesse just looked mopey and is it me, or is Abigail Breslin just acting the same in all her films.? I feel she is over-exposed. The only thing that saved the story was the luminous lead performance from Sofia Vassilieva as the cancer-ridden teen, the touching evocation of her first and only romance with a fellow patient, and the realistic portrayal of her illness. This girl is definitely one to watch. I also applaud the writer-director for creating an ending that is, apparently, more realistic than that in the original novel.

MY SISTER'S KEEPER is on release in the UK, USA, Canada and Mexico. It opens next week in Iceland and Greece. It opens on July 30th in Australia and New Zealand; on August 6th in Slovakia; on August 13th in Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan; on August 21st in Romania, on August 27th in the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria; on September 4th in Italy and Norway; on September August 9th in September; on September 17th in Portugal; on September 23rd in Belgium, Argentina, Brazil and Sweden; and on December 4th in Finland.

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS - you'd better make sure you're sitting down for this one....

So I was expecting to really hate the new Cameron Diaz-Ashton Kutcher rom-com WHATEVER HAPPENS IN VEGAS. For a start, I really hate films that have plots so contrived they make Jordan's tits look natural. We're meant to believe that someone as beautiful as Cameron Diaz would seriously be insecure in her relationship with a schlub investment wanker, and that he would have the temerity to dump her. Further, we're meant to believe that Cameron's character - an up-tight successful Wall St trader - would seriously go to Vegas, get drunk, and get married to a newly unemployed slob played by Ashton Kutcher. Once again, we're meant to believe that despite his good looks and magentic personality, Kutcher's character really has depth, and insecurities, because his daddy doesn't give him any credit. Awwwww!

Yes, yes, I was basically on the verge of vomit for the first twenty minutes of this film. But them something amazing happened. Cameron and Ashton are just so dang charming and goofy that I couldn't help laughing - and the movie is just so dang sweet that I couldn't help being swept up by it!

So, in the most shocking result since Pakistan and India were both knocked out in the group stages of the 2007 Cricket World Cup, Bina007 gives two enthusiastic thumbs up to WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS.

And yes, I know, I am already standing in the corner, thinking very carefull about what I've just done......

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS is on global release.

SHREK THE THIRD - Pop will eat itself

SHREK THE THIRD is about as funny as its lame tagline, "the wait is ogre". The screenwriters simply cannibalise the fun characters and gags from the first two flicks, but without the novelty the impact is attenuated. And as for the oh-so-clever pop-cultural references, the lunatics have taken over the asylum. SHREK used to be a clever kids flick with the odd gag for the old folk. Now it's a whole-sale satire. Watching horror spoof turn into teen-comedy spoof turn into whiny Zach Braff spoof turn into musical-spoof, I couldn't help hankering for the old days. You know, when a SHREK movie had proper messages for the young'uns: it's character rather than superficial appearance that matters; and hey, women don't have to be passive princesses rescued by swashbuckling princes. By contrast, SHREK THE THIRD is as whiny and over-long as your standard whiny indie thirty-something drama.

We find Shrek reluctant to inherit the throne of Far-Far Away and become a dad. He wanders off to find the next in line to the throne - a whiny young teenager called Arthur. (Do you detect a theme?) But in his absence, the previously thwarted Prince Charming has staged a coup and is going to kill Shrek by singing Andrew Lloyd-Webber songs. (Scary). That's pretty much it. Mike Myers voices Shrek with a diminished Scottish accent - a sop to global audiences perhaps? Rupert Everett plays his role as evil Spidey, sorry, Prince Charming, with some elan. Eric Idle has a passably funny cameo as Merlin. But all the other voice cast are on auto-pilot. And are Led Zep handing out music rights to any old rubbish, now?

SHREK THE THIRD is on release in Russia, the Philippines and the US. It opens in Malaysia and Singapore next weekend. It opens in Egpt, Slovenia, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, Latvia, Turkey on June 8th; in France, Argentina, Hungary, Slovakia, Brazil, Mexico, Taiwan on June 14th; in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Iceland and Spain on June 22nd; in Hong Kong, Israel, Austria, the UK and Japan on June 29th; in Poland on July 6th; and in Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway and Sweden on August 31st.

THE HOLIDAY - much too much, much too long

THE HOLIDAY is billed as a romantic-comedy by the woman who brought us WHAT WOMEN WANT and SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE: Nancy Meyers. I rather liked the former and really enjoyed the latter. Sadly, THE HOLIDAY amps up the formula too far - and believe me, it ain't rocket science they're using. Instead of one star-crossed Hollywood-gorgeous couple, we have two! Ta-da!

Two girls are getting out of rubbish relationships. One is an English chick called Iris (Kate Winslet) and the other is a high-powered LA chick called Amanda (Cameron Diaz). They decide to swap houses for the Christmas vacation and lick their wounds in private. Diaz' character immediately gets her groove on with Iris' brother Graham (Jude Law). They have what they hope is a drunken fling before love and history complicate things. Despite the obligatory super-sweet ending (there ain't no plot to spoil in such a slavishly formulaic movie), Meyers never really resolves this story. She creates an obstacle so insuperable in their career and family commitments that I never really bought it. Meanwhile, in LA, Winslet's character is hanging out with her cool elderly neighbour - a retired famous screen-writer - and slowly falling for Jack Black's movie composer.

The first hour of this two hour movie really drags. It's not bad in itself: there's just too much of it. Too much time is taken in establishing why each girl is miserable and getting them to their respective romantic encounters. This just feels like bad editing, and I wonder if the reluctance to trim it down springs from pressure from the sponsors - a lot of the product placement is in this segment. Despite this weak beginning, the second hour of the movie is an enjoyable if completely unmemorable ride. Cameron Diaz' innate charm and her ability to carry ditzy humour compensates for the fairly lacklustre dialogue. And in the LA segment, it's great to see Jack Black playing a more buttoned down character - it makes you enjoy the occasional slice of craziness all the more. Eli Wallach is also really touching as the veteran screen-writer. However, Poor Jude Law and Kate Winslet are stuck with playing characters that are drawn as too good to be true. They have no dark side - no depth. They're just super-nice people who have been trampled on by life and who deserve a break. That's just not interesting to me.

One final note. I really enjoyed the character of the ageing Hollywood pro but I find it disingenuous to have a film that rages against modern Hollywood's obsession with opening weekends, product placement and special effects, and yet is itself a purveyor of crass commercialism. These guys are begging so badly for a big opening weekend that instead of casting one big-name leading couple, they cast two! You can just see the producers thinking - let's cast Jack Black - that'll open up the target demographic! Furthermore, with its intertwining romances set partly in the sort of England where it snows at Christmas and people say "shag" a lot, this feels like a shameless cash-in on the Richard Curtis oeuvre. Added to this, the product placement is so full-on in the first hour - especially in reference to a particularly nasty British newspaper - that it makes CASINO ROYALE look demure. And finally, before we rail against special effects, let's just take another look at all that CGI snow falling in Surrey!

Shameless.

THE HOLIDAY opens in Spain, Denmark, Iceland, the UK and the US this Friday. It opens in Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, Estonia, Norway and Sweden on December 15th. It opens in Belgium, Brazil, Finland and Mexico on the 22nd and in Australia, France and Turkey between Christmas and New Year. It opens in Argentina on January 11th, Bulgaria on January 19th, Italy on February 9th and Japan on March 10th.

IN HER SHOES – mis-marketed but remarkably good

IN HER SHOES is one of the most mis-marketed movies I have ever come across. The PR seems to imply that it is going to be your usual air-head chick flick. Cute girl falls for wrong guy but nice guy is waiting in the wings or variations thereupon. Some laughs, some tears, then we all go home and forget about it. And I suppose, that one plot strand of IN HER SHOES confirms to this pattern. However, there is a lot more to the film. Indeed, IN HER SHOES is a thoughtful and perceptive drama about family. It focuses on the relationship between two sisters. The elder, Rose, is a successful lawyer who has always perceived herself to be less attractive than her younger sister. The younger sister, Maggie, is a ditzy blonde who can’t hold down a job. Although Rose’ life work has been looking out for her sister, one day Maggie does something unforgivable leading to a huge rift and some serious self-examination for each of them. Rose is brought back to life by a wonderful man; Maggie by a shrewd grandmother.

The movie is directed by Curtis Hanson, the man who brought us L.A. Confidential and 8 Mile. Hanson is a director I really admire, but in retrospect. What I mean by that is that I don’t immediately recognise a film as one of his. There is no obvious visual style or thematic tic. However, he does seem to have a talent for taking apparently straightforward genre movies and making them seem fresh and credible. If you don’t believe me, compare the taught and compelling dramatic arc of 8 MILE with the ludicrous hagiography of GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’. Hanson manages to work that magic again with IN HER SHOES. He keeps all the insights of the novel and brings them to the screen at a pace wherein the transformation of the central characters seems neither forced nor unrealistic. He brings a lightness of touch to some very profound and difficult subject matter – mental illness, learning difficulties, sexual politics in the workplace – ultimately reconciliation with oneself and one’s family. In this endeavour, we have to thank the screenwriter but especially three very strong central performances from Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz and Shirley Maclaine. I have to say here, that I reject the criticism from some viewers that Toni Collette is too pretty to play Rose. I agree that Toni is very attractive but the point is that she is also, to my mind, highly successful in portraying someone who perceives themselves as being unattractive.

So, I strongly recommend IN HER SHOES to all of you, especially the girls. But this isn’t a disposable chick flick or date movie: it is a well-crafted drama and deserves respect as such.

IN HER SHOES is on release in the US, Germany, Austria and the UK and hits France next week.