THE LADY IN THE VAN - Crimbo Binge-watch #1

THE LADY IN THE VAN is the very funny, rather moving true story of an old homeless lady - Mrs Fletcher - who was taken in by the famous writer Alan Bennett.  Maybe "taken in" is too strong.  She lived in a ramshackle van, had no bathing facilities, and sold small items for money.  She parked up her van outside various houses in a street in Camden until Bennett took pity on her and let her live in his driveway and use his lavatory.   What begins as a kind of bizarre fascination turns into an odd sort of friendship, sustained over decades, culminating in an understanding of what drove her to madness, and a play, then film, for the author. 

The result is a film that is - typically Bennett!  Wry in its observations of English class niceties - the tolerance of a homeless woman by middle-class pretentious people who think they are somehow being charitable in their condescension - and yet that odd way into which English people will transform something unpleasant into a national treasure. And let's be clear about how unpleasant Mrs Fletcher's hygiene and habits could be!  

In front of the lens, Alex Jennings is superb as not just one Bennett, but two - as the author turns into his own interlocutor - a fantastic conceit that avoids the dreaded voiceover. Maggie Smith gives Fletcher more than just the Dowager Duchess' acerbic wit but also real pathos. And occasionally there's some provocative stuff about the demands that religion makes of us.  This film is both intelligent and moving - a real delight. 

THE LADY IN THE VAN is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 104 minutes. It was released in 2015.

BRIDGET JONES'S BABY

BRIDGET JONES'S BABY  is the latest instalment in the romantic-comedy franchise centred on the chubby klutzy Londoner (Renee Zellweger) trying to hook up with her real-life earnest Mr Darcy.  In this film, Bridget is 43 and has finally got her life in order - she has a great job, she's hit goal weight and she's quit smoking.  But after a one-night stand at a music festival with a billionaire dating app creator called Jack (Patrick Dempsey) and then with her former boyfriend Darcy (Colin Firth) she finds herself up the junction with no idea who the father is.  So follows a chamber comedy with both men turning up to sonograms and ante-natal classes, and the viewer waiting for the last act reveal of who the father is and who Bridg will end up marrying.

On the plus side, the movie is pretty harmless and contains enough laugh out loud moments to get you through the over-long two hour run-time.  Zellweger sells the physical comedy of being the relentlessly clumsy and awkward Bridget and Emma Thompson as her doctor provides the best laconic one-liners and disapproving looks.

But there are plenty of negatives too.  First off, there's a sub-plot about Bridget and her old-school journo chums being under threat from pretentious millennial hipsters who think old journalism is irrelevant. It's a strong story but goes nowhere. At no point is Bridget's job under threat from her being pregnant - at no point does she worry about what taking a year out of work will do to her career.  But of course she's not worried because - and this is the second point - this movie is deeply conservative and also, therefore, out of step with our times.  Because both of Bridget's potential partners are rich, well-educated, tall dark handsome men who will provide her with a house and financial support.  You can sense Emma Thompson's dissatisfaction with this as she inserts the only line regarding potentially raising the kid on her own - but that's all we get. There is no doubting the fact that we are going to end up at the altar, and that this is the appropriate aim for a single woman with a kid. 

The third problem with the film is Renee Zellweger's face. This has been much written about and is a controversial point - would a man face such a raft of negative press over bad plastic surgery and fillers? Maybe not.  But I wouldn't be giving an honest review if I didn't say that her face is distracting - especially given the fact that the movie chooses to show Renee as a younger less-interfered with woman in flashback scenes.  I spent to much time in the slower middle of this film trying to figure out what she'd done to herself and why. Contrast this with Emma Thompson who is ageing elegantly and beautifully. 

Despite my deep philosophical issues with this film, I did still have a good enough time watching it. But I'd suggest it as a dinner and DVD night film rather than something you have to rush to the cinema to see.

BRIDGET JONES'S BABY has a running time of 123 minutes and is rated R.  The movie is on global release.

EDDIE THE EAGLE

I think all of us who watched the 1988 Winter Olympics were shocked and amazed that Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards was a) selected as a competitor and b) made it out alive.  But you couldn't deny that this geeky unlikely zany English ski-jumper turned a niche dull TV spectacle into something entertaining.  A true underdog story come to life.  Almost as unlikely as Eddie's Olympic appearance is the fact that his story has now been made into a movie!  And weirder still is the fact that this movie contains almost ZERO truth of Eddie's life while somehow capturing 100% the basic struggle he faced. It's a movie starring a very pretty young kid wearing national health specs who looks nothing like the guy he's meant to be playing.  It's also a movie that's so transparently hokey and creaky and manipulative you can see it coming a mile-off.  And yet for all its faults, it somehow works! And I don't mind admitting the sheer exhilaration I felt watching Eddie successfully complete his ski-jump and that it got a little dusty in the theatre at its jubilant finale. 

BROOKLYN - BFI London Film Festival 2015 - Day Seven

You can listen to a podcast review of this film here or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

BROOKLYN is a big fat chocolate eclair of a film. It's a little obvious and predictable and it goes down a treat but it's not filling at all.  In a sense, it's just a very polished version of one of those big fat doorstop historical romance - a romantic drama from Barbara Taylor Bradford or an afternoon TV costume drama.  It's been cast and dressed above its station but really, that's all it is.

Saoirse Ronan (HANNA) plays a young Irish girl called Eilis who leaves a small  1950s Irish town with few opportunities for a new life in Brooklyn. She rooms with an hilarious lady played by Julie Walters with a host of giggling housemates, and with the help of a kind priest (Jim Broadbent) soon finds her feet.  She also finds love in the shape of a sweet Italian plumber called Tony (Emory Cohen - THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES).  The problem is that on her first trip home, Eilis is greeted by a quite different set of opportunities and yet the same small time gossip.  The question is whether she will remain or return to her new life armed with this new perspective. 

THE HARRY HILL MOVIE

Harry Hill is a British comedy institution - with his big glasses, tall white collars, and surreal, puppet-laden, humour.  His new movie makes no compromises - it contains all the absurdity, outlandishness and brilliance of his TV movie except stretched out over 90 minutes and with lots of movie spoofs as a nod to the big screen.  I think you'll know if you love this film from the opening credits, where Harry and his nan, played by Julie Walters, have a pant-wettingly funny mobility scooter chase through suburban streets.  This is rapidly followed by a a World War Two era gunfight between Harry and his chickens.  

We're then into Plot.  Harry's pet hamster Abu is gravely ill, as diagnosed by a vet played by THE INBETWEENERS' Simon Bird. So Harry and his Nan decide to take him to Blackpool for a final holiday.  Cue the inevitable comedy song and dance routine and you remember just why Julie Walters is a comedy genius. Meanwhile, we've been told by Nan that Harry actually has a long-adopted secret evil twin called Otto, played by Matt Lucas who has hired the evil vet to capture Abu. And as a sub-plot, Harry is trying to persuade his Nan to go into a retirement home.

I was just about losing patience for the silliness - which really does work better in the small doses of a TV sketch show - when Sheridan Smith appeared with Harry to perform an under-sea dance routine, but even after that I was getting a little restless.  All of which is to say that even confirmed fans are probably better of watching this film in smaller chunks over successive nights on DVD.

THE HARRY HILL MOVIE has a running time of 88 minutes and is rated PG for mild comic violence and threat, sex references and innuendo.

FILTH

Irvine Welsh's Filth was a novel of characteristic brutality and dark humour - depicting corruption, drug abuse, sexual perversion and decadence in contemporary Scotland with an unflinching stare and a complex prose style.  Notoriously, part of the novel was narrated by the tapeworm living inside of police officer Bruce Robertson's abused gut.  Hilariously, the tapeworm later becomes sentient and helps us diagnose the true root of Bruce's current emotional breakdown.

Writer-director John S Baird's approach to the novel is one of courage in taking on the grim subject matter, with barely any concessions to the censors, as well as a pragmatic and inventive approach to solving the tapeworm problem. Rather than trying to do some kind of bizarre POV a la Terry Gilliam, he's given Bruce a nutty psychiatrist, Dr Rossi, who in surreal nightmarish visions does much of the work the tapeworm did, with some nice visual pointers for the book fans.  The result is a movie that is loyal to the spirit of the novel but understands that to make a coherent film you sometimes have to make drastic changes.

So, on to the meat of the film.  Bruce Robertson (James McAvoy) is a nasty corrupt drug-addled cop determined to screw over every departmental colleague in his mission to get promoted. That said, his sense of dark mischief doesn't extend to making trouble for some concrete end - he'll happily taunt his best friend's wife with sexually harassing phone calls, or spike said friend's drinks with drugs and leave him freaking out in a hotel room, for no reason at all.  As the movie progresses, we realise that there is some cause to this malevolence - or perhaps causes - rooted in an unhappy home life in the past and present (isn't it always!)  Thank god the movie makes all of that sound far less hackneyed than the description just sounded.  And even when the movie introduces a character explicitly designed to make Bruce question his morality, it doesn't give him an easy out.  

The framing device for the film is the investigation of the murder of a kid by a group of nasty violent teens in an underpass.  The irony is that despite his deeply unethical methods, Bruce is actually apparently fairly good at investigating the murder - apparently.   But let's be honest, that's not what this movie is really about. It's a character study - or a study of Bruce's psychosis - a study of just how far a human being will descend into mayhem in order to avoid the truth.   And in amidst all that, we have lurid, sleazy, darkly funny visuals and cameos - John Sessions as the homophobic head of department who dreams of writing screenplays - Shirley Henderson as the deliciously sex-starved middle-class wife throwing herself at her phone stalker - and of course Eddie Marsan as her husband, the repressed accountant.   But really, this movie belongs to James McAvoy who throws himself into an incredibly challenging and provocative role and is utterly compelling throughout.  It's his real emotional trauma that keeps us anchored in a movie that would otherwise be a confusing and alienating mess of nastiness.

FILTH has a running time of 97 minutes.

FILTH opened earlier this year in the UK, Hungary, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Serbia, Slovenia, Finland and Japan. It opened last weekend in Australia and New Zealand. It opens in Lithuania on December 6th, in Estonia on December 13th and in the USA in 2014.

THE IRON LADY

Cards on the table. I grew up in Thatcher's Britain and I am a Thatcherite.  To my mind, she transformed a country that was bankrupt (the IMF had been called in) and crippled by the unions, hamstrung by high inflation and generally down on its heels.  She created an environment in which the ambitious could work hard and prosper, revitalised industry, and won so many of the ideological battles that are now taken for granted in a political system where even the left acknowledges the victory of capitalism over socialism.  That is not to say that Thatcher was faultless.  She also created an atmosphere in the UK which was absolutely poisonous - the early 80s were a godawful time to live in Britain where political battles spilled out onto the streets.  Those of who grew up against a background of the Brixton Riots and the Miners Strike can only look at last summer's riots and find them quaint.  Moreover, the fighting qualities that enabled her to triumph over vested interests in her party and in the country, when fuelled by the adrenaline of her third election victory, led to a kind of hubristic, roughshod rule that allowed the massive miscalculation of the Poll Tax.  And if she was right in criticising the wets, and that treacherous little shit, Geoffrey Howe, she was wrong in underestimating their desire to unseat her.  Still, for all that, Thatcher remains a Prime Minister undefeated in a General Election; a woman who did what she thought was right, not what the focus groups said would be popular; and who left the country prosperous rather than bankrupt.   

What was her record as a wife and mother? Frankly I didn't care.  Nor did I view it as something upon which any outsider should be invited to pass judgement. I suppose that, when forced to take a stance, my view of Denis Thatcher is that, much like Prince Philip, he was probably a lot smarter than the Private Eye spoof "Dear Bill" would have him.  And I think the tragically risible public persona of Carol Thatcher, and the nefarious but incompetent activities of Mark Thatcher, say more than anything how neglected and coddled they were respectively. But in all honesty, why does any of this matter?  I was on holiday in Dubai recently and saw an advert for a news programme on BBC World. It roughly went along the lines of "Uprisings in some far away place - George Aligayah will explain what it means to YOU!"  The implication was that in this new post-modern world of "feelings" rather than "thinking" the news only had merit and relevance if it had an impact on MY life. Whatever happened to the idea that great events deserved my attention because they are important, irrespective of whether they affect ME?  When did narcissism and solipsism become the only virtues? 

Now, if you've seen the movie THE IRON LADY, and trawled through the previous two paragraphs, you'll see why I despise and discard it.  Screenwriter Abi Morgan (SHAME, BRICK LANE) and director Phyllida Lloyd (MAMMA MIA!) have utterly squandered their opportunity to use Meryl Streep's pitch-perfect impersonation of Thatcher in a movie that shows us "feelings" where it could have given us "ideas" - a movie that shows us a rather anonymous picture of an old lady struggling against senile dementia, when it could've given us a hard-nosed political biography. Whether or  not you love or hate Margaret Thatcher's politics, you cannot but admit that she radically altered the face of Britain, nor that she deserves a serious, cogent and considered evaluation.  But this is a movie about a politician that seems oddly uninterested in her politics. That, of course, is the charitable reading.  One could argue that the movie is too stupid to make an evaluation - too gutless to come down in favour or against - too commercially minded to risk alienating any part of the audience.  As a result, it condemns itself to an alternative purpose - to show the tragedy of an old woman losing her grasp on reality - an altogether more banal enterprise, and one that hardly needs the services of Meryl Streep.

Let me essay briefly how the politics is betrayed. There is no real Edward Heath.  There is no Neil Kinnock. No Gorbachev.  No Nigel Lawson!  Heseltine is a caricature pantomime villain - Richard E Grant is only allowed enough room to characterise him with a badly dyed blonde haircut.  Howe (Anthony Head) is seen as a victim of Thatcher's brutality - but one doesn't come away understanding that it was policy toward Europe that did for him and her - a policy which contemporary events show us was exactly right!  Major events - the Brixton riots, the Falklands, the poll tax - are shown as video montages - there is no colour, no insight.  And the Brighton bombing is used as a tool to show us that Thatcher loved Denis - not as a tool to show us Thatcher's particular reaction to terrorism.  What politics is shown, is the politics of feminism. Again and again, the film wants us to see Thatcher succeeding despite her sex and class. But this is a complete misreading. Thatcher was no feminist.  She did not promote women and far preferred the company of men.  She succeeded because she was talented and expected other women to do the same. 

Can one make a good film about Thatcher that has nothing to do with politics? Should one allow for a film to be entertaining even if it utterly betrays the politics of its purported subject? Perhaps. Meryl Streep certainly does a good impression of Margaret, and her ability to convey the younger and older Thatcher is impressive.  Oscar-worthy? Maybe not. I very much liked Alexandra Roach and Harry Lloyd (Viserys in GAME OF THRONES) as the young Margaret and Denis.  And in the later years, Olivia Colman is sympathetic as Carol Thatcher. But these good performances are under-cut by utterly ham-fisted direction. Phyllida Lloyd betrays her origin in directing musicals and opera in how she arranges her characters on screen and where she places her camera.  There are too many shots of people shuffling into parliament, or walking down stairs in parliament, or walking into ornate dining halls, with Thatcher the only woman among a sea of dark suits. Yes, we get it.  Now, move on.  Even better, jog on.  Make room for a better director, one who has the balls to grasp Thatcher's legacy by the throat, and give us the movie we, and she, deserves.

THE IRON LADY is on release in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Ireland and in New York and LA. It goes on wide release in the US on January 13th, as well as in Greece, the Netherlands, Canada and Turkey. It opens on January 27th in Finland and Italy; on February 3rd in Hungary, Sweden and Norway; on February 10th in Portugal and Poland; on February 16th in Belgium, France, Singapore and Lithuania; on March 1st in Germany and on March 8th in Denmark and Hong Kong.

London Film Fest 2010 Day 6 - ANOTHER YEAR

Mike Leigh returns to the Festival with a typical Mike Leigh product: heightened social realism mixing comedy and tragedy - finely observed, and improvised by the actors he often works with. The resulting film is a quality product if less memorable than, say, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, and less scarring than SECRETS AND LIES.

The movie is set around a couple called Tom and Jerry (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) - solidly middle-class, nice, cheerful, and happily married. They have a 30 year old son called Joe (Oliver Maltman) who through the course of the year finds a cheerful Poppy-lite girlfriend called Katie (Karina Fernandez). They all get on really well. This stands in sharp contrast with the people who surround them and who are, by turns, taken under their wing. As the movie opens we see Jerry, a counsellor, deal with a depressed woman called Janet (a cameo from Imelda Staunton). And then, the person who really anchors the work is Lesley Manville, playing a lonely middle-aged woman called Mary, who consoles herself by drinking too much and constructing an unrealistic fantasy that Joe will ask her out. Finally, we meet Tom's elder brother Ronnie (David Bradley), recently bereaved, living numb in a grey house.

As we pass through the year, we see that Tom and Jerry are kind and sociable and create a lot of fun around them. They are constantly telling people to sit down and have a cup of tea and asking them if they are okay. But, in essence, the people who surround them aren't okay - they are miserable - miserable and pretending, badly, not to be. This is best shown by a superb little end-scene for the character Jack, played by Phil Davis. His wife is ill. Jerry asks if he's okay and he says "Well we try not to let it get us down", but then looks to the ground forlorn.  So, how far is the friendship of Terry and June enabling that delusion, by blithely making cups of tea - and how far is it making it worse by presenting these poor folk with an image of smug domestic bliss? To that end, I found ANOTHER YEAR problematic, but I think I was meant to. I also found it, despite the laughs, a profoundly depressing, if well-made, film.

Additional tags: Michele Austin, Karina Fernandez, Martin Savage, David Bradley, Oliver Maltman, Gary Yershon

ANOTHER YEAR played Cannes and Toronto 2010 and opens in the UK on November 5th. It opens in the Netherlands on November 11th; in France on December 22nd; in the US on December 31st and in Germany on January 27th 2011.

HARRY POTTER & THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE - bland

The sixth installment of the HARRY POTTER saga is a perfectly serviceable and enjoyable addition to the franchise. The movie wastes no time in establishing the characters and the story so far - so neither will I. After all, how can you spoil a movie when everyone's read the books? Technically, the film works fine. Steve Kloves has done a good job of condensing the material without being too slavish and Bruno Delbonnel has filmed it in the same warm, dark tones as A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT. The special effects and production design are top-notch. The performances are particularly strong - all the regulars do well, with Daniel Radcliffe given a chance to play some comedy, rather than just look put-upon. Among the new-comers, Jessie Cave plays comedy brilliantly as Ron Weasley's first girlfriend and Evanna Lynch steals every scene as Luna Lovegood.

For all that, I did have two problems with the film. Not big enough to kill my enjoyment, but flaws nonetheless. First, the movie lacks any real inventiveness or directorial stamp, in the manner of Alfonso Cuarón's AZKABAN. Second, the film is too biased in favour of the teen rom-com material in the novel at the expense of properly developing the serious material concerning Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, horcruxes, Snape and Malfoy. The films have been getting progressively darker and more emotionally satisfying. The last movie featured a genuinely scary scene with Ralph Fieenes. But this movie went for the easy laughs. And in doing so, the film-makers dropped the ball. Take, for example, the limited screen-time and development of Draco Malfoy. That's an emotional struggle to get your teeth into, but his final confrontation with Dumbledore is very brief. And what about the identity of the Half Blood Prince? That's revealed almost as an aside!

So, top marks for light laughs: but they dropped the ball on the darker content.

HARRY POTTER & THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE is on global release.

THE DAMNED UNITED - hubris, nemesis, half-time oranges

Peter Morgan specialises in well-crafted but slightly obvious and simplistic screenplays that efficiently capture British cultural figures - Queen Elizabeth II, Tony Blair, Henry VIII, David Frost and now Brian Clough. Once again, Morgan turns in a solid script that takes David Peace's savage biography and creates a more even-handed treatment of "the greatest England football manager we never had". The resulting film is an entertaining and very well-acted biopic that works as a relationship drama whether or not you know or care about The Beautiful Game. (I don't: my family support Spurs, so maybe I'm just bitter.)

The key dynamic is between Brian Clough (Michael Sheen), a cocky, mouthy Northern twat but also a genius football manager, and his Assistant Manager, Scout and professional wife, Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall). Clough had the ambition; Taylor the better temper: together took a piss-poor club called Derby County from the bottom of the second division to the top of the first division in just two seasons. It all went wrong when Clough took Taylor for granted and took their jobs at Derby for granted too. Having bad-mouthed the directors in public one too many times, Clough and Taylor were effectively sacked. Worse still, while Taylor wanted to see through their commitment to third division nobodies Brighton and Hove, Clough wanted to knive Brighton in the back and take up the better offer of managing Leeds United.

I say "better offer" but it wasn't really. Clough had spent his professional life very publicly slagging off the Leeds players and their manager Don Revie (Colm Meaney). Leeds were the best club in the country, chock-full of Internationals, and that no doubt invoked Clough's jealousy. But he had a substantive reason to be pissed off too: why did such a talented club insist on playing such filthy football? So when Revie was bumped up to England manager and Leeds offered Clough Revie's old job he took it, even though it meant parting ways with Taylor. The Leeds players hated him. The fans hated him. Taylor hated him. Within 44 days he was sacked. (Although as we know, he had the last laugh. Today, Clough is remembered as the only British manager to win the European championship twice, while Revie fell into disrepute.)

The Clough-Revie relationship is up there with Mozart-Salieri for poisonous professional jealousy and sheer viciousness. And Michael Sheen and Colm Meaney are superb in these roles. Timothy Spall and Jim Broadbent are also strong as Taylor and Derby Chairman Sam Longsonn respectively. In general, the film does well to focus on the friendships and rivalries and to skip over matchplay, which, let's face it, has never been done well on film. I guess my only niggle is that feeling of samey-ness and polystyrene efficiency that all Peter Morgan scripts have. Did we really need another drunken midnight phonecall between antagonists?

But this is a small quibble. Clough is a brilliant character - witty, cocky, a real showman - and his story is entertaining. Non soccer-fans shouldn't be put off by his job title. The subject matter transcends the game.

THE DAMNED UNITED is on release in the UK. It opens in Australia on August 13th; in France on September 9th and in Sweden on September 11th.

THE YOUNG VICTORIA - all this useless beauty

THE YOUNG VICTORIA is a luscious-looking film in which two rather beautiful, warm-hearted people - Queen Victoria and the future Prince Albert - meet and almost instantly realise that they will be in love for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, this happens in the first thirty minutes of the movie, and isn't enough to hold our attention for the next seventy minutes. So a lot of time is spent watching a cast of supporting characters harrumph about the lavish sets kicking over pot plants and shout like sulky teenagers* - everyone from the then Princess Victoria's uncle, the King (Jim Broadbent), to her mother's controlling adviser (Mark Strong) to Queen Victoria's slipper adviser, Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany). Poor screenwriter Julian Fellowes even resorts to throwing in a rather ridiculous act of heroism to add to the stakes, but this is all stuff and nonsense. He knows it and we know it. The simple facts are these: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert fell in love and were deeply devoted to each other, spawning nine children who went on to rule Europe. It's enough to warm the cockles of your heart, but not enough to fill a feature film. All the beauty, all the perfectly serviceable performances, are thus rather wasted. Although I must say that I was rather impressed by Rupert Friend for the first time.

(*Maybe not coincidentally, as this was a major component of director Jean-Luc Vallee's previous film, CRAZY.)

THE YOUNG VICTORIA is on release in the UK. It opens in Israel on April 2nd; in the Netherlands on April 23rd; in Russia on April 30th; in Belgium on May 6th; and in Norway on September 11th.

INKHEART - disappointingly dull

Bookish Mortimer Folchart (Brendan Fraser) and his teenage daughter Meggie (Eliza Bennett) have a rare gift. They are "Silvertongues". When they read a book aloud the characters come to life. Indeed, they can be "read out" into the real world. The only catch is that someone from the real world has to be "read in" to take their place. Ten years ago, Mortimer discovered this gift when he read a rare book called Inkheart. By mistake, he read out a thug called Capricorn (Andy Serkis) and read in his wife (Sienna Guillory). Now a confrontation beckons. Capricorn wants Mortimer to read out The Shadow - an evil power who will help Capricorn dominate the world: meanwhile Mortimer wants to read out his wife......

Thus we have the perfect set-up for a children's adventure story full of magic, wonder, peril, daring escapes and true love. But INKHEART feels heavy and lacks momentum. Instead of Matthew Vaughn's dazzling colour, wit and pace in STARDUST, Iain Softley's direction is as turgid as his grey brown colour palette. Moreover, the narrative structure has too much scampering about Italy after things or people that could easily have been condensed. But clunky direction aside, the fundamental problem is that the narrative is far more concerned with ideas than action - and action is subordinated to making a point. Author Cornelia Funke asks us whether, to quote Thomas Hardy, "character is fate"? If an author has written a character as a self-interested, callow man, can he triumph over this? 

So, in this film, a relatively straightforward rescue narrative becomes a rather back-and-forth affair. We get to Capricorn's castle early on and are set for a big show-down. But a fascinating character called Dustfinger (Paul Bettany) throws the movie off track with a petty, self-interested and all too human evasion. Dustfinger wants to be read back into the book, and he desperately wants to prove to the author of Inkheart (Jim Broadbent) that he can be better than his written character. Bettany's performance is heart-breaking and stands in sharp contrast to the leaden performances from Fraser (whom I normally love) and the camp performances from Serkis, Mirren and Broadbent.The problem is that this very cerebral, very philosophical sub-plot leeches energy from the main storyline and distracts attention. Worse still, it raises expectations that it cannot satisfy given the constraints of the genre.

I am rather disappointed in this movie. Softley has directed movies with real panache and intellectual bite - notably THE WINGS OF THE DOVE. I very much enjoyed THE THIEF LORD - another Cornelia Funke adaptation. And I also very much like Brendan Fraser in his family adventure movies. But Fraser is done a disservice by material that is fundamentally not about adventure at all, but about self-reflection.

INKHEART is on release in Germany and the UK. It opens in Brazil on Christmas Day. It opens in Italy on January 9th and in Taiwan, Turkey and the US on January 23rd and in France on January 28th It opens in Argentina on February 5th, in the Netherlands on February 12th, in Russia on March 19th and in Finland on April 3rd.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL - in which Indy jumps the shark

Like Michael Jackson, I'm a lover, not a fighter, so I'm going to start by telling you about all the cool stuff in the new Indiana Jones movie. All the stuff we know and love is there in spades: Indy's hat and whip; nods to Marcus and Henry Jones Senior; cosy University lecture theatres; and that little red line running across the map when Indy gets into a plane. Better still, the writers have done absolutely the right thing in acknowledging Indy's age: there are lots of great jokes about how he's not as young as he used to be, and lots of dialogue filling in the gaps between Holy Grail and Crystal Skull. Turns out Indy was a wartime spy, and since then he has spied on the Communists. I also love that they brought back Indy's feisty sweetheart from Raiders - Marion Ravenwood. And credit where it's due, Shia LaBoeuf brings his A-game as their son, Mutt. Shia and Harrison Ford make a great comedy double-act, and beyond that, when Shia needs to convey vulnerability and emotion, he does really well.

Now to the hater stuff. The problem with Indy 4 is neither the acting, nor the dialogue but the MacGuffin - the crazy-cool doo-dad that provokes all the running around in jungles and whatnot. In Raiders, Temple and Grail the MacGuffin always had a spiritual, mythical dimension, but Spielberg wisely kept that stuff to a minimum. The MacGuffins were enigmatic - had a touch of glamour - but didn't swamp the more earth-bound action adventure. In other words, we only had to stretch our credulity in the final reel. By contrast, Crystal Skull is incredible, ludicrous, absurd from the get-go. It's all Area 51, Aliens, paranormal nonsense and Cate Blanchett in a silly wig and a terrible accent camping it up. Basically, Indy has jumped the shark. He's jumped from action-adventure with a dash of pizazz to sci-fi idiocy with a few car chases (And don't even get me started on the obvious CGI in the car chases. The one with Indy and Mutt early on with the motorcycles through campus - old school fun and japes. The one with Mutt sword-fighting with a Communist standing on the edge of a moving truck while cactuses belt him in the crotch - ludicrous, fake, annoying....)

So, yes, I left twenty minutes before the end. So those twenty minutes may have been so unbelievably amazing as to compensate for the tame action sequences, thin humour and stupid plot concept.......Somehow, I doubt it.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL is released this weekend in Belgium, Egypt, France, Morocco, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the UK, the US, Venezuela, Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, Latvia and Turkey. It opens on June 21st in Japan.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL - unspeakably bad

The new Indy movie sucks so bad, I've not even seen it, and I know it sucks.

It was so bad that Bina007, our intrepid movie reviewer and huge Indy fan, couldn't make it through the whole movie. In fact, she was so upset about Crystal Skull's rape of her childhood that she couldn't bring herself to write the review.

So she called me, described how bad it was, and asked me to warn you all. So you've been warned - while the acting was passable, and the script was okay, the whole concept lurched from unspeakably boring to painfully unrealistic Spiderman-3-styley.

If you're a fan of Indiana Jones, don't go see it. It's an execrable effort that is not deserving of the franchise.

Even if you're not a fan, and have a tenner spare, you'd be better just leaving your cash on the street and walking away. A beggar might make good use of it. Or they might just buy a quart of vodka. Either way, it'll be money better spent than a ticket for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Avoid.

Thanks

Nikolai, on behalf of Bina007

AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? is too thin for its run-time and performances

AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? is a low-budget British film based on an autobiography by poet Blake Morrison, adapted for the screen by David Nicholls of STARTER FOR TEN infamy. I'm sad to say that this movie is another rung in the downward trajectory of director Anand Tucker's career. I think this is because with every film he narrows his view-finder. In HILLARY AND JACKIE he had a story so twisted, iconic and passionate that it stood up to outstanding performances from Emily Watson, Rachel Griffiths, David Morrissey and James Frain. SHOPGIRL was beautifully shot and acted but felt very slight and narcissistic. And here we have another ninety minute film that is beautiful shot and (with the exception of the immobile Colin Firth) handsomely acted but still feels as if it has been stretched beyond its natural life.

Colin Firth plays a middle-aged man who has to confront his difficult relationship with his dying father, played by Jim Broadbent. The dad is a fantastic character: he's one of those larger than life characters that are fun to be around but sometimes crowd out a genuinely close emotional relationship. Jim Broadbent is an absolute joy to watch in the role. Juliet Stevenson plays his loving but sometimes ill-used wife and gives another great performance. There is a scene where she learns of her husband's death where we see her shaking with grief, her back to us, and it's simply brilliant. Colin Firth is passive and unresponsive as the son - a real hole in the middle of the film. As a result, I found myself empathising more with the teenage Blake Morrison of the extensive flashbacks, played with sensitivity by Matthew Beard.

Overall, this isn't a bad film. Apart from anything, it's lovely to see such sombre material leavened with some wicked black humour. I just thought that it could've done with a shorter run-time and a little less forced profundity. Fundamentally, your own childhood memories, much like your own dreams, are of interest to no-one but yourself.

AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? played Toronto 2007 and is currently on release in the UK. It opens in the US in February 2008.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE - "Welcome to the SUCK"

When I went to the first instalment of The Chronicles of Narnia last night, one of the trailers was for the Gulf War flick, Jarhead. In the trailer, a character said to a new recruit, "Welcome to the suck." It's not a particularly witty line, but it worked all too well as a prelude to one of the most disappointing blockbusters of the year. However, before I go on with my review let me, in fairness, point out that I seem to be in the minority. All the famous critics have given it two enthusiastic thumbs up. 

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE is based upon the famous novel by C.S. Lewis. It tells the story of four children who are evacuated from London during the Second World War. While playing a game of hide and seek in their new country home, they stumble through the back of a wardrobe into another world called Narnia. Narnia is governed by the evil White Witch who has made it permanently winter, but never Christmas. The children go into battle against her aided by the rightful king of Narnia, the aforementioned lion, Aslan. 

So what's there to like? The child actors are all decent and the youngest is almost winning. Their English middle-class reaction to the bizarre events is very funny. When told he must lead an army into battle, the eldest child, Peter, points out that they "aren't heroes." His sister Susan follows up, "we're from Finchley". Similarly, the children are helped out by a very funny married couple who happen to be beavers. (I kid you not.) Mr. Beaver is a perfectly rendered Cockney cab driver. Superbly funny, but one wonders how far this humour will travel outside of England. 

Unfortunately, the Suckfest begins where the intentional humour ends. Where to begin? The set design looks clunky and has none of the depth of design as those used in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Everything is rendered in simplistic primary colours and looks like drawings out of a colouring book. This serves to undermine the emotions we are meant to feel in the battle scenes. How can I take seriously the possibility that the kids might die in battle when they are walking around in ten-dollar rented knight costumes? In the final scene where we see the kids grown-up, the costume designer has seen fit to give the lads bouffant 1970s Bee-Gee hair-dos and droopy moustaches. This, as well as the surfer-dude Californians accents used by the talking horses, raised a mocking titter from the London audience.

The special effects are also distinctly poor, not least when you consider that Disney spent $150m on the film. At one point, as the kids stand against a background of a country scene, you can see them outlined in black where the foreground images have been "cut and pasted" onto the background. The score is also mis-judged. Instead of a traditional orchestra-based score we get some new-fangled semi-Enya semi-club music score that jars horribly. The costumes are also pretty crappy. 

The more well-known actors are are mishandled. The usually brilliant Jim Broadbent as Professor Kirke (kirke=church, geddit?!) has little scope to impress given the script-limitations and largely sleep-walks through his part. Worst of all, Tilda Swinton is not at all awe-inpiring as the White Witch. She is neither fearsome in battle nor charming in seduction. What a waste. The only vaguely interesting portrayal is given by James McAvoy as Mr Tumnus. 

However, the biggest problem with this movie has nothing to do with errors in the cinematic process but derives from the source material. The kicker to the Narnia stories is that much of this boys-own adventure material is a clunky allegory for the New Testament story. To be sure, Disney has played this aspect up for all it's worth in its effort to target the American fundamentalist segment of the market, but the fault lies squarely in the source material. Don't get me wrong. I have no objection to religious themes and concepts in film, but in this film the blindingly obvious symbolism suffocates any enjoyment one might have taken from the whimsical fantasy world. The cinema audience wants to feel out the story for itself, not have the Giant Director in the Sky join the dots for them.

The more I think about this movie the more angry I get at Hollywood's seeming inability to move off-formula and finance some interesting cinema. This flick is nothing more than a shameless attempt to cash in on the religious market in the wake of the huge success of Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST and the fantasy market on the back of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The fact that such a formulaic, derivative piece of crap was directed by the guy who made SHREK is even more lamentable. The sad part is that the studio will no doubt be proved right. The reviews are fantastic and we await the opening weekend gross with interest. Is this the movie that saves Disney from a year of flops? You, the cash-paying cinema-goer can decide.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE goes on general release in the US, UK, Germany and Austria today. It opens in France on the 21st December 2005.