SHE SAID - BFI London Film Festival 2022 - Day 10

SHE SAID is a Tab A into Slot B journo-procedural that's basically a worthy TV movie.  It stars Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan as the real-life New York Times investigative reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal by convincing some of his victims to bravely go on the record.  This in turn helped trigger the Me Too movement.  Their story is clearly important, and this film straightforwardly shows the tenacity and courage - not to mention supportive husbands/fathers - needed expose a powerful rapist.

The question is whether a feature film is the right format to tell this story. Or whether THIS feature film made by this director and writer. My view is that Maria Schrader's direction is so workmanlike as to be banal, and uses a script from Rebecca Lenkiewicz that is faithful to the book, but is never gripping and doesn't move. In fact, the only truly moving part of the whole film is when they use actual real life audio of a very frightened young woman being goaded and harrassed by Harvey Weinstein into an entering a room with him even after he acknowledges that she feels uncomfortable that he touched her breast the day before. That is absolutely chilling and says more about this scandal than any re-enactment. Having seen it, I became convinced that this story would have been better told as a documentary.

As it is, we have a film that will educate those that did not read the original reporting or the book, and that has value I suppose. But this is NOT an award-worthy film except if virtue-signalling.  It's very much a made-for-TV film.

SHE SAID is rated R and has a running time of 128 minutes. It will be released in the USA on November 18th and in the UK on November 25th.

THE PARTY - Day 9 - BFI London Film Festival 2017

THE PARTY is a brilliantly observed, nastily witty laugh-out loud dark comedy from writer director Sally Potter.  Filmed almost as a chamber comedy in one apartment, the entire 70 minute movie takes places over an aborted dinner party. It has been convened to celebrate the fact that Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas) has just become Shadow Health Minister, much to the delight of her scabrously rational realist best friend April (Patricia Clarkson).  But, rather bizarrely, her husband (Timothy Spall) is apparently depressed if not borderline potty.  This is somewhat overshadowed in the early scenes by the totally bizarre behaviour of the strung out city banker Tom (Cillian Murphy).  The remainder of the guests are April's new age hippie boyfriend Gottfired (Bruno Ganz), brilliantly mocked by April - as well as a lesbian couple expecting triplets, Martha (Cherry Jones) and Jinny (Emily Mortimer).

It would be unfair to reveal the plot twists and dramatic turns that propel this short film toward its dramatic conclusion. I was utterly surprised by all of them - particularly the last.  But it felt to me that this film had it all - properly funny, but also with moments of real relationship trauma and deeply felt distress. In particular, the reaction of Martha to learning she's co-parenting triplets felt very raw and credible.  The acting is also universally good, with Patricia Clarkson stealing the show with her nasty put-downs.  I also loved Aleksei Rodionov's cinematography - effectively using lighting to create stark black and white contrast, and with a mobility and fluidity that kept this one-room drama feeling exciting and pacy. The music choices are also used to great effect - in one scene of near-death, the use of Dido's Lament had me corpsing too.

In the words of Meester Phil, this is a frankly delightful film. It's an unhinged expose of the middle class English suburban family and purported intellectuals. 

THE PARTY has a running time of 71 minutes. The movie played Berlin, Seoul, Sydney, New Zealand, Melbourne and London 2017.  It was released earlier this year in Germany and France. 

HOUSE OF CARDS S5 E13 CHAPTER 65 - Plot summary and comments

PLOT SUMMARY: In the pre-credits sequence, President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) blackmails Congressman Romero to drop the congressional investigation.

In private, Vice President Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) is angry with Frank for not sharing his gameplan.  He tells her that his resignation was not a last minute decision but part of a long-run plan since Elysian Fields. He has realised that the real power is not in the White House but in the powerful forces who control it. Therefore the most powerful combination is for Frank to control the private sector influence on the WH and for Claire to be running it. She resents him telling her that he made her the President and tells her she has to pardon him for all his crimes once she's President.  She says she could be impeached for it.  Frank also reveals that he was the leak all along via his Chief of Staff Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly). She tells him to shut down the surveillance and that she killed her ex-lover Tom Yates.  He tells her he'll do that as soon as she pardons him and that she'll have to pardon Doug too at a later date.

Claire then tells Special Adviser Mark Usher (Campbell Scott) about the death of Tom Yates in his house.  

HOUSE OF CARDS S5 E12 CHAPTER 64 - Plot summary and comments

PLOT SUMMARY: In the pre-credits sequence, President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) pushes Secretary of State Cathy Durant into a serious fall to prevent her testifying against him.  The Underwoods' Special Adviser Mark Usher (Campbell Scott) learns that the House is preparing to impeach Frank.

Vice President Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) receives a note from her ex-lover Tom Yates (Paul Sparks).  Jane Davies (Patricia Clarkson) gives her a herbal remedy for her migraine but says Claire needs to be careful with the dosing.

Ex campaign manager Leann Harvey (Neve Campbell) tells Frank about Aidan McAllan and is rewarded with a job.  Frank reveals to his Chief of Staff Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) that he doesn't fully trust Leann. Later Jane Davies asks her to hand over the evidence Aidan gave her but she refuses. 

HOUSE OF CARDS S5 E11 CHAPTER 63 - Plot summary and comments

PLOT SUMMARY: In the pre-credits sequence, journalist Tom Hammserschmidt (Boris McGiver) and press secretary Seth Grayson (Derek Cecil) debate the impact of ex President Walker's testimony to Congress. Hammerschmidt claims that President and Vice President Underwood (Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright) are close to impeachment.  After the credits we see Secretary of State Cathy Durant discussing immunity with her lawyer over lunch before being joined by Jane Davies (Patricia Clarkson).  Jane makes overtures and asks Cathy if Claire could survive and become President.  

Meanwhile the Underwoods decide to attack Walker's credibility.  But the stress causes Frank to lash out at Claire who has more chance of survival.  Radically, she then breaks the fourth wall for the first time in the series and explains that she knew the audience was there the whole time but feels ambivalent about it.  The Underwoods then tell Usher that Frank is willing to accept Censure. Claire also tells Usher that she won't stay out of it, but will support Frank.

Claire asks her lover Tom Yates (Paul Sparks) to leave the White House.  Frank's creepy ex-personal trainer Eric declares his love for Frank.

Alex Romero tells the Underwoods special adviser Mark Usher (Campbell Scott) that he has become an Independent and is now sitting on the Congressional Committee investigating Frank.

Meanwhile, ex campaign manager Leann Harvey (Neve Campbell) enquires as to whether Aidan McAllan (Damian Young)'s death was suicide or murder. 

Chief of Staff Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) discovers that it's Seth Grayson who's leaking against Frank and that Cathy Durant is loyal. He also discovers that McAllan left something for Harvey.  Stamper reveals to Claire that Frank had him follow Tom. In response she warns him off seeing Laura Moretti, the woman he has been sleeping with.  Stamper then tells Moretti he's the reason her husband was killed. But Moretti is sanguine about the news.  Stamper then goes to Leann Harvey's house to tell her he's been watching her.  She seduces him.  We realise that Frank is watching through Leann's laptop cam.

We, and Hammerschmidt, learn that although seemingly loyal, Cathy Durant will testify against the Underwoods. Moreover, he is sent an anonymous thumb drive - perhaps from McAllan?

Finally, Stamper and Frank share their concerns about Claire's loyalty. 

COMMENTS: The shifting power is indicated by Claire breaking the fourth wall. I'm still ambivalent about this. I also feel that the odds are so stacked against the Underwoods that it would be incredible for them to survive. 

HOUSE OF CARDS S5 E10 CHAPTER 62 - Plot summary and comments

PLOT SUMMARY: President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) discusses Congressman Romero's Declaration of War Committee with Special Adviser  Mark Usher (Campbell Scott) and Chief of Staff Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly).  Usher uses a press leak to get Jackie Sharp not plead the fifth. 

Jane Davies (Patricia Clarkson) tells the Underwoods that IT specialist Aidan McAllan (Damian Young) is being interrogated in Jordan but has not given up any information.  Jane then meets former Underwood campaign manager Leann Harvey (Neve Campbell) and tells her that he's alive but being held for information.  Leann then goes straight to Claire and tells her what Jane said in order to curry favour.  Claire confronts Jane who retains her cool. Jane also tips the President to an attack on Homs, suggests he draw a "line in the sand" before it, to justify a massive troop invasion afterward. This would also distract the Declaration of War Committee.

The Underwoods ask both Usher and Davies for their opinions on each other and both are negative. It emerges that Usher was also backing Romero as a future GOP Presidential candidate and the Underwoods demand he declare his loyalty to them.  Frank then meets with ex President Walker against Claire's advice and Walker straight up accuses Frank of stealing the Presidency.  He then throws Frank under the bus in the Congressional committee.


Doug tracks down the junkie that journalist Tom Hammserschmidt (Boris McGiver) was speaking to and sends a message to Rachel to come home.

Claire confesses to her lover Tom Yates (Paul Sparks) that Frank killed Zoe Barnes.

Aidan McAllan (Damian Young) meets Leann Harvey (Neve Campbell) in a parking garage and once more asks her to leave with him. She refuses but gives him a gun. Later she gets an email indicating that he's dead with a link to some files.  He has been shot in the eye. 

COMMENTS: It's hard to see how Frank gets out of Walker's testimony but they always do. It's also hard to believe that Claire has really fallen for Tom to the extent that she confesses to him. This is the jump the shark moment for me.

HOUSE OF CARDS S5 E9 CHAPTER 61 - Plot summary and comments

PLOT SUMMARY: The election is finally over.  President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) won Ohio and thus the election against Republican candidate Will Conway (Joel Kinnaman).  Conway's old campaign manager Mark Usher (Campbell Scott) is appointed Special Advisor to the President replacing the Underwoods' former campaign manager Leann Harvey (Neve Campbell). The Vice President Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) sacks speechwriter Tom Yates (Paul Sparks) but still wants to see him.  The Underwoods are using Jane Davis (Patricia Clarkson) to assassinate IT specialist Aidan McAllan (Damian Young) and know this will put them in her debt.  Journalist Kate Baldwin (Kim Dickens) goes to Russia to interview Aidan and tells him that Leann has been forced out of power.  He calls her and tries to persuade her to come to Russia but she refuses and tells her people are coming to assassinate him.  However, Jane and the Underwoods are actually taking him to Jordan to be interrogated. 

As they are about to attend the White House Inaugural Ball, Frank's creepy personal trainer Eric makes a move on him and Frank quasi-threatens him in return.  Chief of Staff Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) escorts him from the ball. Separately, a scorned congressman says he's going to attempt to resurrect the Republican's investigations into the Underwoods.  Frank warns Tom Yates not to cheat on his wife. 

White House Press Secretary Seth Grayson (Derek Cecil) tries to contact Tom Hammerschmidt (Boris McGiver) but fails. Tom now has the video tape of the moment Frank killed Zoe Barnes in a metro station but the evidence is inconclusive. Tom calls Zoe's father but he doesn't want to get involved before turning up at Tom's office. 

COMMENTS: A holding episode at best. It's hard to ignore the suspicion that it exists merely so that series creator and episode writer Beau Willimon could give Frank a breaking the fourth wall speech chiding the American voters for electing Trump. Otherwise, from a narrative pacing point of view one would've picked up a few months into the new administration.

HOUSE OF CARDS S5 E8 CHAPTER 60 - Plot summary and comments

PLOT SUMMARY: Former  President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) attends a cultish private gentleman's club called Elysian Fields to influence the vote in Ohio.  It turns out that Republican presidential candidate Will Conway's (Joel Kinnaman) campaign manager Mark Usher (Campbell Scott) is present but not Conway.  Usher clearly states that Veep hopeful General Brockaw is the better politician than Conway. Frank impresses the Elysian members and humbles Brockaw with his rhetoric.  

A Russian boat looking for oil in Antartica is in trouble. The US is in a position to help and Claire tries to do this in exchange for IT specialist Aidan McAllan (Damian Young).  The Chinese tell Jane Davis (Patricia Clarkson) that there's an American on board the boat.  Davis tries to broker a deal to save the boat, but Claire refuses to acquiesce to the Chinese demands. The Chinese eventually save the boat. Jane reveals that both the Russians and Chinese wanted the American who was on the boat. 

Frank gets out of the Elysian retreat and he and Claire listen to the audio of Conway threatening the pilot. They reach out to Mark Usher to lure him away from Conway. 

Meanwhile, speechwriter Tom Yates (Paul Sparks) tells Claire he loves her and she says he might love him back.  Doug and Frank plan Conway's downfall. 

COMMENTS: "I work with everybody." So Jane Davies remains fascinating. But ask yourself - if Tom Yates were written out of this season would it make any difference? And how on earth can Claire like him at all. This has to be an act!

HOUSE OF CARDS S5 E7 CHAPTER 59 - Plot summary and comments

PLOT SUMMARY: In private, Acting President Claire Underwood and former  President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) argue about the best strategy to defeat Conway. In front of the Joint Chiefs, they once again argue about taking out a suspected terrorist. 

Republican presidential candidate Will Conway (Joel Kinnaman) looks fragile. His campaign manager Mark Usher (Campbell Scott) is protecting him from appearances.  Conway's wife suspects that Usher really favours the VP candidate Brockaw.

Leann Harvey (Neve Campbell) speaks with Secretary of State Catherine Durant  about Aidan McAllan (Damian Young) and Cathy suspects that Aidan has dirt on the Underwoods. Cathy then introduces Leann to Jane Davies (Patricia Clarkson) the deputy secretary for commerce. Almost immediately, the President and Acting President, Cathy and Jane are put under lockdown because of a missing truck carrying nuclear waste i.e. a dirty bomb.  As a result, the two state election is postponed without the press being informed why.  Jane offers to ask her contacts about the bomb.  Claire is suspicious as to her level of security clearance. Jane then makes a phone call in private in Arabic and appears to offer Claire the terrorist.   Frank gets out of the bunker and confronts one of the Generals who chose to stay above ground. He accuses her of being involved in a coup and faking the terror threat.  Immediately, Claire gets a call saying the truck has been found and it was simply an accident.  Later, Frank is given photographs of speechwriter Tom Yates (Paul Sparks) having sex with the White House tour guide in the press room.

Meanwhile Tom Hammerschmidt's sidekick starts interviewing the woman Chief of Staff Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) is sleeping with, while Tom (Boris McGiver) follows up other leads. Doug realises the investigation has resumed. 

Finally the Underwoods meet with Mark Usher.  Realising his part in the attempted coup given his ties to Vice Presidential candidate Brockaw, they play him a recording of Brockaw apparently saying he would not obey an order from President Underwood to put soldiers on the ground.

COMMENTS: Well it appears that Patricia Clarkson is the hinge upon which this series turns.  At last, a potentially interesting, powerful and slippery antagonist for the Underwoods.  Also we get a great Underwood victory in the final scene.  Bravo!

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."

THE MAZE RUNNER

THE MAZE RUNNER is the latest in a series of dystopian action films aimed at the teenage market and adapted from successful Young Adult fiction franchises.  As with HUNGER GAMES and DIVERGENT we find ourselves in a post apocalyptic America where teenagers are pitted against each other in a kind of mad game, society riven by factions and controlled by some kind of overlord.  In this case, the protagonist isn't a girl but a boy, Thomas (Teen Wolf's Dylan O'Brien) who wakes up to find himself inside a Glade enclosed by the Maze.  A society of Lost Boys explains the rules to him - each person has a role in society, and the runners get to go inside the Maze and find food, although to be trapped overnight is to be killed by the Grievers.  A girl called Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) is sent into the mix with two vials of anti-venom and a jolting Big Reveal in the final 30 minutes of the film.  Be assured that if you're familiar with the genre, it won't be a big surprise.

What the plot lacks in originality or genuine scares, it makes up for in good acting. The mostly British lead cast sport know how to sell the complex emotions of abandonment, brute cruelty, camaraderie and mistrust.  Thomas Brodie Sangster (GAME OF THRONES) is very sympathetic as one of the Glade's leaders, and Will Poulter is, as ever, the most captivating of the actors in a tricky unsympathetic role. The movie has a far lower budget than HUNGER GAMES or DIVERGENT but this isn't a problem. It is beautifully designed and the lack of big show piece effects focusses the audience's attention on the characters. 

Overall the familiarity of the set-up is a bit of a problem, as is the occasionally hammy dialogue. But I'm sufficiently interested to see what's next to welcome the inevitable sequel.

THE MAZE RUNNER has a running time of 113 minutes and is rated PG-13.  The movie is on global release.

iPad Round-Up 6 - EASY A

In the wake of the critical acclaim for THE HELP, it is perhaps too easy for reviewers to see EASY A as the movie in which Emma Stone - the star of both - first made an impression, and perhaps to transfer their admiration of that film to this.  To  my mind, while Stone does have a kind of winning likeability and sass so often missing from today's bland young teen stars, EASY A is far from a compelling film. It doesn't have the dark humour and danger of a film like HEATHERS. It doesn't create a modern vernacular in the way that JUNO attempted to do. And it certainly doesn't treat its literary other, Hawthorne's Scarlett Letter, with the intelligence and respect that CLUELESS treated Pride and Prejudice.  Rather, director Will Gluck (FIRED UP) and writer Bert V Royal, create a movie that attempts to be clever, contemporary, and dangerous, but ends up looking like a movie that occasionally lands a comedic punch, but as often mis-fires.  I'm also pretty tired of seeing cheap shots taken at super-religious nutters.

Stone plays Olive, a girl who masquerades as a slut to gain credibility and cash, but is really a good-hearted virgin. Her parents (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) are completely unbelievable in their willingness to go along with this ruse.  Events spiral out of control as they are wont to do in such films - largely when a nasty school counsellor (Lisa Kudrow) uses Olive to cover up an affair with a student. But all's well that end's well, in a movie that is far more conservative than it wants you to think it is.  Essentially, this is a fluffy, patchy affair, worth a DVD rental at best.

EASY A played Toronto 2010 and was released last winter. It is available to rent and own.

SHUTTER ISLAND - the auteur's B-movie

SHUTTER ISLAND is a psychological horror film directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the popular 2003 novel by Denis Lehane. This faithful adaptation is a self-consciously old-fashioned sort of an enterprise, set in a maximum security prison for the criminally insane, in 1950s America. It deals very deeply in notions of personal and national guilt – denial and repression. The protagonist is a veteran soldier turned Federal Marshall called Teddy Daniels (Leonardo di Caprio). He has been three two traumas – being present at the liberation of Dachau, and having his wife die in an arson attack on their apartment. Nominally, he has come to Shutter Island to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a female patient/prisoner called Rachel Salondo. His real agenda is to investigate the whereabouts of the man who killed his wife though - he protests – not to take revenge – and to investigate what really happens in Ward C. The central puzzle of the film is what is the agenda of the employees of Shutter Island, not least the lead psychologists (the superbly sinister Sir Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow.)

SHUTTER ISLAND is a profoundly odd film. Just as with THE SHINING it sees an A-list auteur apply his talent to a B-movie genre – the brooding psychological thriller. All the way through the movie, I found myself being brought out of the film by the sheer quality of Martin Scorsese’s framing or Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing. I was also deeply impressed by the sophistication of the intellectual material – the conflation of personal and political guilt. But somehow, the sheer quality of the thematic material and its production mitigated against the hyper-real construction of a sinister atmosphere, through Robbie Robertson’s careful use of Mahler and the fictively sombre grey clouds hanging over the eponymous prison island with its gothic central house and proto-fascist civil war prison fort. It also mitigated against my emotional involvement with the film. Thus scenes that should be downright petrifying or deeply emotionally moving were neutered by their subvention to the tricky plot.

The movie is thus, at times, deliberately bad – especially in its opening sequences – with its self-consciously over-the-top weather effects and ludicrously over-bearing score. It is also at times extremely good – so good that it breaks the B-movie veneer. In particular, I would cite the flashback scenes to Dachau, especially the mass execution, which plays like a sort of demented ballet. At other times, Scorsese seems to be reaching for something darker and more twisted than I have seen him wrestle with before, but basically fail in that task. The way in which he treats the hallucinations and warped memories of his protagonist is beautiful and bizarre. But it brings to mind comparison with BUG and David Lynch’s recent work – not least MULHOLLAND DRIVE. I couldn’t help but wonder what a less faithful and more free-wheeling treatment of the material might have looked like in the hands of someone like Lynch.

And this brings me to my final thought on SHUTTER ISLAND: it is, after all, a beautifully made but rather conventional treatment of the subject matter. Scorsese’s art is well-honed but he is somehow a prisoner of it. He hasn’t allowed himself to truly break free and show us something so unhinged as to utterly disturb us. Neither has he subverted the B-movie horror film in the way that a Quentin Tarantino did with World War Two films in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (a film which, by the way, looks better with each passing day).

SHUTTER ISLAND premiered at Berlin 2010. It was released last weekend in the US, Argentina, Argentina, Denmark, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Russia, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, Lithuania, Norway, Spain and Sweden. It is released this weekend in Belgium, France, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Israel, New Zealand, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Estonia, Iceland, Taiwan and Venezuela. It opens on March 5th in Switzerland, Hungary, Brazil and Italy. It opens on March 12th in the UK, Egypt, Mexico and Turkey. It opens on March 18th in South Korea and on March 26th in Poland. It opens in April 9th in Japan and on April 15th in Singapore.

Random DVD Round-Up - WHATEVER WORKS

WHATEVER WORKS is Woody Allen decoupage. You watch a bunch of his film and cut out and assemble the familiar characters and themes. First, you take a Woody Allen cipher, played in his younger days by Allen, and now by Larry "Curb Your Enthusiasm" David. Second, you have that character be cynical about life, and to talk about his cynicism incessantly to his friends, random strangers and, breaking the fourth wall, to the audience. Third, you have the Allen character meet and, rather improbably, have a sexual relationship with, a nubile young girl. It started with Mariel Hemingway in MANHATTAN but we now get a surprisingly charismatic and fascinating Evan Rachel Wood. Fourth, you have all the characters fall in and out of love and talk about charmingly in a series of rather lovely autumnal New York scenes. Finally, you have the cynical old know-it-all realise that the young flibbertigibbet was really on to something when she said, "you gotta have a little faith in people". The End. The only real difference in WHATEVER WORKS is that the old lech and the young idiot actually get married in an implausible turn of events that seems like a desperate plea for understanding by a writer-director who's marriage to his much younger adopted daughter has been ill-received.

Larry David is just about watchable even when he's trying to shoe-horn his schtick into the Woody Allen straitjacket. As I said, Evan Rachel Wood acts just about everyone off the screen. Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Junior are just fine as the parents who come to get their daughter back, but end up being transformed by the magical mystery powers of New York. Henry Cavill is rather flat and anonymous as the younger man. All's well that end's well, I suppose, but the whole film feels rather warmed over and re-hashed - like a Muzack cover of a Greatest Hit.

Where's the provocation of CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS? Where's the genuine heartbreak of ANNIE HALL? Where's the fizzy subversion of VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA?

Eventual tags: woody allen, comedy, evan rachel wood, larry david, harris savides, patricia clarkson, henry cavill, ed begley jr, conleth hill, michael mckean

WHATEVER WORKS was released earlier this year in the USA, Canada, France, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Australia, Hong Kong, and Finland. It is currently on release in Brazil and Estonia. It opens on November 27th in Iceland. It opens in Germany on December 3rd and in Russia on December 31st. It does not have a UK release date but is available on Region 1 DVD.

Random DVD Round-Up 2 - NO RESERVATIONS - formulaic rom-com bilge

NO RESERVATIONS is a deeply unexciting romantic comedy based on the much more nuanced German film MOSTLY MARTHA. Catherine Zeta Jones plays the highly-strung ambitious chef landed with her niece (the ubiquitous Abigail Breslin) after a family tragedy. Calculating boss Patricia Clarkson decides that CZJ can't cope with work and family and brings in boho chef Aaron Eckhart to take over. CZJ hates him. Then she loves him. And it all end schmaltzily ever after. A thousand feminists die. Philip Glass composes a typically over-bearing score.

NO RESERVATIONS squelched into theatres in summer 2007 and is available on DVD.

London Film Festival Day 11 - VICKY, CRISTINA, BARCELONA

VICKY, CRISTINA, BARCELONA is a superficial film about superficial people. It has the surface polish of all Woody Allen films - sun-dappled, beautiful people in beautiful houses - but none of the moral bite or emotional imsight of a MANHATTAN or CRIMES and MISDEMEANORS. It slips down easily thanks to the pretty faces and the witty dialogue, but frankly there is no reason for this movie to exist nor for you to waste ninety minutes on it.

The movie opens with two classic Woody Allen tony yanks arriving in Barcelona for the summer. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is Sense and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is Sensibility. Both are propositioned for a weekend of culture and casual sex by free-thinking painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). They accept - Vicky reluctantly, Cristina happil - but of course its sensible, engaged Vicky who ends up in the sack. Back in Barcelona, Cristina moves in with Juan Antonio and enters into a menage a trois with him and his dramatic ex-wife Maria-Elena (Penelope Cruz). As the summer ends, serially dissatisfied Cristina writes it all off as a phase and leaves, along with Vicky who condemns herself to a life of boring marriage to a safe investment banker.

Have we learned anything? Woody Allen is down on love. Sensible girls end up with the safe life and the cash. Flighty girls end up being disatisfied. Sexual bombshells are a complete fucking nightmare. Everyone is self-involved - everyone ends up unhappy. The fact that this is all set in beautiful, sunny Barcelona should not fool you as to the deeply nihilistic message at the core.

As to the quality of the production, certainly the film and the actors look beautiful, and even when Woody Allen isn't saying anything new or interesting, he still says it with some style. The big problem is that Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz act Scarlett Johansson off the screen. The even bigger problem is that Allen never really explores or gets under the skin of the emotional and sexual dynamics of the menage-a-trois as Christophe Honore did in LES CHANSONS D'AMOUR.

VICKY, CRISTINA, BARCELONA played Cannes and London 2008. It was released earlier this year in the US, Norway, Spain, Singapore, France, Taiwan, Italy, Israel, Belgium and Finland. It opens in December in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Russia and Australia. It opens in Argentina on February 5th.

ELEGY - intelligent, emotionally brutal drama

ELEGY is a well-made, brilliantly acted, intelligent and moving drama by Spanish director Isabel Coixet and based on a novel by Philip Roth. It stars Ben Kingsley as an ageing academic with a penchant for sleeping with his students. More seriously, he has devoted his life to becoming truly independent, at the expense of his relationship with his son and a certain loneliness. The professor starts an affair with a stunning young student (Penelope Cruz). He is mesmerised by her beauty and frightened by the fact that he will never truly possess her. His flaws are to objectify her - think of her as unknowable - and to assume that she will leave him. This last is fatal. She is, in fact, remarkably self-assured, and prepared to brave society's scorn by introducing her older lover to her conservative family. *He* is the one who lacks faith, breaking her heart in the process. This act, so true to life, comes roughly half way into the film and the remainder of the movie is about how he comes to terms with his decision, his relationship with his son, and his relationship with the girl. There are no epiphanies or neat endings, but genuine character development and brutal emotional encounters.

Ben Kingsley gives a nuanced performance and has a real rapport with his unjudgmental best friend (Dennis Hopper) and, finally, with his son (Peter Sarsgaard). But the lynchpin of the film, and the real achievement, is that the relationship between Kinglsey and Cruz is utterly believable. We believe that they both find each other attractive and have a complicated, evolving relationship, despite the age difference. Cruz, in particular is superb as the student. Watch her reaction in the key episode at the centre of the film, and feel the tragedy of a photo-shoot near the end of the film. It's an award-winning performance. In addition, I would single out Patricia Clarkson for praise in her cameo role as a self-assured business woman. It's always a pleasure to see an older woman portrayed on screen as successful and sexually attractive.

ELEGY played Berlin 2008 and was released in Spain earlier this year. It is currently on release in the UK, US and Canada and opens next weekend in Austria, Germany and Russia. It opens on August 28th in the Netherlands; on September 13th in the Czech Republic; on October 22nd in Belgium; on November 27th in Mexico; and on December 4th in Argentina.

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL - Don Quixote in Minnesota

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is an improbably wonderful drama from the director of the piss-poor Billy Bob Thornton vehicle MR WOODCOCK. It's about a young man (Ryan Gosling) who deals with stress by inventing an imaginary girlfriend in the guise of a blow-up doll. The movie challenges us not to laugh but to empathise, and even to enjoy role-playing ourselves. The small-town community in which Lars lives is a proxy for the audience. We might start off like his elder brother (Paul Schneider) - thinking it ridiculous and hoping for a quick fix. Or maybe we start off like his sweet sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer), playing along, hoping he'll work it out. But pretty soon, we're like the old women at church, the work colleagues and the friends at the mall. It's fun to play dress up with a real life doll - to cut her hair - invent social outings: the whole town falls in love with "Bianca".

With LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, Craig Gillespie has done that rare thing: he's made a romantic comedy with substance; furthermore a film that feels as credible as it does incredible. He hints at how common delusion is with his reference to Dulcinea, but more widely he shows how far the whole community enjoys Lars' delusion. Ultimately this is a profoundly uplifting film - and not in the easy, saccharine manner of films like THE BUCKET LIST. It's a film about a bunch of people doing something a little bit silly because they love someone, and believe he'll work it out. And in a cynical, busy, impersonal world, that's a wonderful thought.

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL played Toronto 2007 and was released in the USA and Singapore last year. It opened in Hungary, Italy, Israel, Greece, Belgium, Norway and Germany earlier this year. It is currently on release in South Korea, Iceland, the UK and the Netherlands. It opens in Australia and Spain in April and in Japan in June.

GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK – Hagiography makes for bad cinema

QUICK REVIEW: A sadly disappointing and un-involving film about the journalist who took on McCarthy at the height of his anti-communist witch-hunt in the 1950s and won.

LONG REVIEW: George Clooney’s father was an anchorman and his aunt was the lounge singer, Rosemary Clooney. He clearly has a great deal of nostalgia for a “better time” when men wore snappy suits, women wore pearls, couples hung out in cool lounge bars drinking cocktails, and newsreaders were journalists with integrity rather than partisan spin-doctors. This nostalgia is evidenced in his Las Vegas hotel project, which as far as I can tell, aims to re-create the vibe of The Sands in its rat-pack hey-day. It is also evidenced in the choice of subject matter for his second directorial effort: GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK. Clooney tells the story of Edward R. Murrow, CBS anchorman in the 1950s, and according to Clooney, “the high water mark of broadcast journalism.” Murrow started out broadcasting from the rooftops of London during the Blitz, hence his wish for “good luck” in his famous signing out catchphrase and had been at CBS for almost 20 years when he decided to take on Senator Joseph McCarthy. Clooney clearly believes that what the US needs today are independent journalists capable of taking on Bush, corporate malfeasance and the war in Iraq. Murrow should therefore be an icon and an inspiration.

The good stuff: The central performance by David Strathairn is outstanding. He plays Murrow as conceived by Clooney – an icon of journalistic integrity, who never doubts that he is doing the right thing and can do nothing else other than the right thing. We believe in him implicitly. Strathairn has been working for a long time and created memorable characters such as Pierce Patchett in "LA Confidential”, but it is amazing what he does when finally gets a leading role. Strathairn got the Best Actor award at Venice for this role and I will be surprised if he is not nominated for an Oscar* (although if there is any justice it will go to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote.) Secondly, Ray Wise (“Twin Peaks”) gives a superb performance as Don Hollonbeck, the CBS newsreader who is being harangued by a McCarthyite columnist for supposedly being a Communist. The music, provided by the wonderful jazz singer Diana Reeves, is also fantastic, but I cannot figure out why it is there other than to assuage Clooney’s fondness for all things Lounge.

The bad stuff: the script. Seriously, Grant Heslov, who co-wrote the script, is inexperienced and it shows. (Inexperience is not always bad, look at the genius script for upcoming “Capote” written by Dan Futterman.) Actually, scratch that, the problem is the entire conception of the movie, and the bad script is just the side-effect. Clooney holds Murrow to be an icon of all that is good and true. He resurrects this icon on screen. We are in no doubt that Murrow is an icon because we get an opening shot of Murrow receiving an industry award for being an icon. His iconic stature is hammered home by beautiful framed scenes in which the camera is in static and loving close-up. This degree of hagiography makes for incredibly un-involving cinema.

Moreover, Clooney is disingenuous about his intentions with the movie. In introducing it at the London Film Festival, he claimed that just wanted to raise questions about the role of the Fourth Estate in society. The film does not raise questions but bludgeons over the head with answers. It is not subtle, it is not hugely original, and it is not unmissable cinema. On balance, this is not a bad movie, but neither is it out-standing. It is hard to see who will gain from seeing it. Clooney isn’t telling the liberal left anything it does not already know and believe, and he is hardly likely to convert the FoxNews audience. And as Roger Ebert nicely put it, how many cinema-goers even know what habeas corpus is, let alone value having it? The fault of this movie is that if you didn’t know or care before you entered the cinema, you still won’t know or care when you leave.

GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK is already on nationwide release in the US. It goes on release in France on 5th December 2005 and in the UK on 17th February 2006. I’ll update the German release date when I have it. *This review was originally published in November 2005. I was right - Straithern was nominated for an Oscar - let's see if he gets it!