JAY KELLY**** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 3

JAY KELLY is a film with a simple and arguably trite message: those who pursue success at all costs end up not alone but lonely.  Inevitably, when it comes to movie stars, the cost is paid by wives and children.  It’s ground that we have seen trodden from 81/2 to ALL THAT JAZZ and countless films in between.  Trite, but also relatable.  Every parent who has had to take a business meeting or a business trip and missed their kid’s school concert can empathise. Everyone who has reached a certain age and looks back on decisions that seemed like they weren’t even choices at the time, but are bitterly regretted in retrospect, can sympathise. So this is a strange film that seems obvious but somehow hits home.  I laughed a lot, I rolled my eyes on occasion, but in the end the characters, and the central love story, really stuck with me.

George Clooney stars as the eponymous ageing film star whose mid-life crisis is triggered by a trio of guilt-inducing events. First off, his old mentor and movie director (Jim Broadbent) dies - a man that Kelly abandoned when he fell out of fashion.  Second, Kelly runs into an old fellow acting class student, played in youth by The House of Guinness’ Louis Partridge and as an old man by The Morning Show’s Billy Crudup.  That student had a lot of talent but ultimately was too nervous to ace the audition that Kelly ultimately won.  The resentment lingers.  Third, Kelly has to confront his woeful relationship with his two daughters when his youngest leaves for a European vacation.  The eldest (Riley Keough, superb in a cameo) feels her abandonment as a child keenly, and that relationship feels the hardest to fix.  But both young women seem refreshingly grounded.

So we think this is a movie about family, and I guess it is.  And let’s not pretend that Jay is going to fix 35 years of bad choices over a long weekend in Italy.  But the movie wants us to realise that he’s not the only one. Every member of his team, but principally his agent (Adam Sandler) and his publicist (Laura Dean), are putting their lives on hold to minister to his every need and enable his success.  One by one this movie strips him of their comforting support blanket. I am not sure if there is any major character development or revelation.  But a near-final scene of surprising tenderness between Sandler and Clooney shows the real danger of believing that you have chosen a family above your own.  The movie title tragedy is Jay’s but the real tragedy is his agent’s. 

Overall, JAY KELLY is a deceptively slow-moving gentle comedy that hits harder than you might realise on a first watch.  It does not contain the visceral anger of writer-director Noah Baumbach’s MARRIAGE STORY, but in working with debut feature writer Emily Mortimer, Baumbach has created something more melancholy and wistful, despite the brilliant cheesecake gags.

JAY KELLY is rated R and has a running time of 132 minutes. It played Venice, San Sebastian, Telluride and now London. It opens on November 14th in cinemas and on December 5th on Netflix.

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT**

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT is a deeply dull, paint-by-numbers underdog sports biopic about a working class American rowing eight than won Gold at the 1936 Olympics. We don't learn much about them, other than that they are poor and motivated. We know they are poor because is an opening scene the hero (Callum Turner with an absurd and distracting blonde dye job) is putting cardboard inside his shoe. We don't learn much about their coach (Joel Edgerton) who just looks taciturn and unknowable for the entire film. We certainly don't understand why they are so good and what he did to make them that way. And we don't really understand the stakes.   

This was the Hitler/Berlin Olympics but director George Clooney has no interest in showing the real peril of fascist Germany, just as he isn't interested in showing the real tragedy of Depression-era America. Instead, he puts a few Nazi flags up, has a few brownshirts cheer for Germany, and some guy play dress up as the Fuhrer. It's actually so trivialising it's insulting - particularly to Jesse Owens. What we learn from all this is that Clooney doesn't want to get his hands dirty in the period.  

Instead he creates a film that is book-ended by a sappy grandpa-grandson bit of nostalgia; that is forever bathed in twinkling sunlight; and where the hero's girlfriend forever has perfectly styled hair and no character or lines to speak of.  This is dull retrograde film-making of the worst kind, and all the more embarrassing because CHARIOTS OF FIRE figured out how to inject emotion, stakes and modernity forty years ago.

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 123 minutes. It was released in the USA on Christmas Day 2023, and in the UK on January 12th.

THE MIDNIGHT SKY

THE MIDNIGHT SKY is a deeply derivative, mediocre sci-fi movie that will be utterly predictable and unsatisfying to anyone even half decent with the canon. It stars and is directed by George Clooney. He plays a scientist on a future earth ravished by some kind of non-specific disaster. Naturally he's also dying because Pathos. As is the way with these sorts of film, scientific geniuses are self-involved dicks, so earlier in his life he has turned his back on the love of his life and his daughter. So when in old age this dying scientist starts seeing a young girl called Iris in his arctic base, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that he's hallucinating his little abandoned girl. Together they travel to a different arctic base to send a signal to some astronauts not to come home, but to go back to a moon that is capable of sustaining life. Why does George need to travel to another base? So that he can turn in one of those Man vs Nature performances (think Leonardo di Caprio in THE REVENANT or Tom Hanks in CAST AWAY) that Oscar voters love. Except Clooney's performance is mediocre at best and the stakes really don't seem as grave as in THE REVENANT. There is no doubt he'll survive if only to connect with the astronauts. Also it really pissed me off that Clooney as director doesn't obey the rules of hallucinated little girls. If Clooney's character can't see her, we shouldn't be able to see her. Come on Clooney you should know this - you did star in that piss awful remake of SOLARIS!

By far the more interesting part of the film takes place on the spaceship that has discovered the new life-sustaining moon, per Clooney's predictions. It's staffed by David Oyelowo and Felicity Jones as a pregnant husband and wife research team as well as sidekicks like Kyle Chandler. His character exists to show the dilemma the scientists face upon hearing Clooney's news. Do you return home to try and find and admittedly die with your family? Or do you go to the new moon and try to "do better this time"? But even in this strand it all feels like stuff we've seen before, and the way in which space and moonwalks are photographed just cannot compete with superior films like GRAVITY and FIRST MAN.

The bottom line is that you would be better off watching any of the other movies that I have referenced in this review. 

THE MIDNIGHT SKY is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 118 minutes.

SUBURBICON

SUBURBICON is a much-maligned film - so much so that I put off watching it for quite some time. I see the issue with it. Despite his earnest liberal pose, George Clooney has created a film in which the story of a black family victimised by racists in 1950s America is treated as a counter-point to the main story of a white family torn apart by lust and murder. He doesn't condescend to give his black characters names, personalities, an inner life, agency.  They are cookie-cutter martyrs.  In fact, Clooney doesn't even look that interested in what they're going through, other than that a climactic race riot can provide an opportunity for his actual protagonist to mask a murder.  One has to ask oneself how a director who is also an activist could be so tone deaf to his own implicit racism.  Maybe it's just another example of the inability of rich white old men to "get it".  

The problem is that if we write off all of SUBURBICON because of Clooney's racist mis-step, we ignore the evident artistry of its main  plot. In fact, one could imagine someone putting the film through FinalCutPro, taking out the black neighbour side-plot, and coming up with a very finely produced, nasty, subversive, little suburban thriller.  The tragedy of SUBURBICON is, then, not that it's a bad film, but that it's a good film with a side-order of tone-deaf sub-plot. 

So let's get to the main film. It's a Clooney directorial effort based on a 1980s script by the Coen Brothers, whose sensibilities he has absorbed over many years of working for them as an actor. He has reworked the script with producing partner Grant Heslov to create a dark tale of lust and greed. As the film opens, its protagonist Gardner (Matt Damon) is living with his wife and son Nicky as well as his sister-in-law (both sisters played by Julianne Moore).  In an early and tense scene of home invasion, the wife is killed, after which Gardner takes up with the sister, who creepily dies her hair to look like the dead sibling.  This - and other "red flags" raise the suspicions of an oppressively charming insurance fraud investigator played by Oscar Isaac, and we realise that Gardner is in cahoots with two mobsters.

This kind of complex caper, with crosses and double-crosses, small-time crooks and venal men, are common in Coen Brothers movies. But this is not one of their dark comedies. Rather, it's a relentlessly vicious film, centring as it does on a small kid who sees and is victimised by violence and coercion. To that end, I thought Clooney handled the tension and the violence very well - walking just the right balance of holding our gaze vs exploitation.

I also loved Clooney's visual style in this film, his scrupulous use of vintage design - not just clothes and the way the houses are dressed - but the logos on the beauty parlour window and the brochure for a military school - the deep dark oppressive browns of Gardner's office. Everything is just right.  He also knows how to frame a shot.  Matt Damon, broken nose and glasses, trying to intimidate his son, with an absurdly lit fish-tank behind him. In many ways, I think this is Clooney at his most deliberate and controlled and I loved it. And of course Julianne Moore is superb. In other words, there's a lot that's really superb in this film if - and it's a big if - you can overlook the serious political mis-step. 

SUBURBICON has a running time of 105 minutes and is rated R. It is available to rent and own.

HAIL, CAESAR!

HAIL, CAESAR! is, of all the Coen Brothers screwball comedies, the least funny and the most tedious. I say this with a heavy heart as a great fan of their work and a shared love of the old Hollywood big budget genre pics it aims to lovingly pastiche.  But the best bits really are in the trailer, and their sharp editing in that trailer gives the impression of a movie of high energy and cannon-fire wit. Sadly the real thing runs at an ambling pace, punctuated by the odd set piece, and stutters to its final close.

The movie's protagonist is studio producer and fixer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) - a man with a religious conscience - although this is not something that is explored as in their more overtly philosophical movies.  Mannix spends his days and nights getting his movie stars out of illegal problems and massaging the press all to get his movies off the ground. This is contrasted with a job offer from Lockheed - a job that is grown up and in a real industry. But even as that job offer is made we know that Mannix won't take it, because he loves the industry that he's in, for all its deception, egomania and crazy hours.

TOMORROWLAND

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

Apparently Brad Bird (THE INCREDIBLES) turned down the opportunity to direct the new STAR WARS movie to make TOMORROWLAND which shows that he's a numskull. But maybe we should all be relieved if his new clunker, TOMORROWLAND, is anything to go by.  This may well be the worst live action movie that Disney has ever made, and it's certainly one of the most expensive.  What were they thinking? Who thought George Clooney, the star of suave adult heist films was going to be a relatable anchor for a kids movie. And what made them think that Damon Lindelof, who led us all down the rabbit-hole with his TV show Lost, and then messed up the ALIEN mythos with PROMETHEUS, was going to be able to write a movie with a premise simple enough to get kids excited and on the edge of their seats?  What made them think that once Shailene Woodley had turned down the role, that charisma-free actress Britt Robertson would be able to fill her shoes?

GRAVITY - LFF 2013 - Day Three

You can listen to a podcast review of this movie below, or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

Wow.  Just wow!  GRAVITY is visual story-telling at its finest - a movie full of stunning setpieces and breathtaking space-scapes.  The technical mastery involved in creating an immersive experience of zero gravity is clear, but it's never allowed to trump the pure emotion at the movie's heart.

Sandra Bullock plays Ryan Stone, a scientist brought on her rookie space mission, helmed by veteran astronaut Mike Kowalski (George Clooney).  We get about ten minutes of funny banter between the two and their third crewmate (played rather improbably by Ronnie from Eastenders!) before a missile strike at a Russian satellite sets off a chain reaction of debris that knocks spaceships and stations out of the sky.  The movie then turns into a race against the odds thriller, as our heroine tries to get back to her ship, and then to a functioning space station with an escape pod, and somehow land on earth.  However, in contrast to CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, who tension never let up, GRAVITY is punctuated with moments of quiet, pained reflection and deeply felt emotion for which Sandra Bullock will presumably be nominated for an Oscar, going up against Cate Blanchett for BLUE JASMINE. 

What I love about Alfonso and Jonas Cuaron's screenplay is that it has the balls to be pure - not to sidetracked or to feel obliged with any audience pandering nonsense.  This is the story of a middle-aged woman, who has been beaten up by life, relying on herself to get home.  In its own quiet way, for a Hollywood film in which women are typically adjuncts of men, or falling apart in a flappy romantic way, this is rather subversive, and certainly some of the costume design hints at the strength of the Ripley.  How right they were to cast Sandra Bullock - an actress who simply drips integrity and authenticity and just makes you will her to succeed.

But really, the big story of this movie is the astounding technical achievement - led by Alfonso Cuaron and his Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki (TREE OF LIFE). I saw this film on the massive Odeon Leicester Square screen in 3D and that was immersive, but I can't wait to see it again in IMAX.  This surely has to be one of the most beautifully produced space movies of all time, and rather than wait for DVD or TV, you really must try to catch it on the biggest screen you can find. 

GRAVITY has a running time of 90 minutes and is rated PG-13 in the USA.

The movie played Venice, Telluride, Toronto and London 2013.  It opens this weekend in Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Macedonia, Russia, Canada, Estonia, India, Spain and the USA. It opens on October 10th in Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Peru, Singapore and Mexico. It opens on October 18th in Iceland; on October 25th in France, Chile, Portugal, Norway, Sweden and Turkey; on November 7th in Denmark, Finland, Greece and the UK; and on December 13th in Japan.

London Film Fest 2011 Day 8 - THE DESCENDANTS

Hawaii is the location of this drowsy family drama, Alexander Payne’s latest feature after 2004’s wonderful SIDEWAYS, and any comparison between the two movies, as far apart as they may be now, will find THE DESCENDANTS sorely wanting. George Clooney has the responsibility of a few generations here as Matt King, a landowner who must reassess the relationship he has with his two young daughters, and the property owned by his family, after his wife ends up comatose in the hospital following a boating accident. Her history is only known through the remaining characters, chiefly Clooney’s, and ultimately any grief the audience has for her loss is only as considerable as the feeling evoked by his central performance. Unfortunately, Payne’s multitude of close-ups only serve to reveal how inexpressive Clooney’s face is, and limited his talents are (beyond some hammy running), for this kind of unpolished role and the vulnerability it requires. The work that a more capable actor – Paul Giamatti, most obviously – might have achieved with the same amount of screen time ends up being a regret larger and more diverting than any other in this disappointing and needlessly lengthy story.

<< Shailene Woodley (Alexandra); Alexander Payne (Writer-Director); and George Clooney (Matt King) at the photocall for THE DESCENDANTS at the BFI London Film Festival 2011.


THE DESCENDANTS played Toronto and London 2011. It opens in the USA on November 23rd; in Germany, Ireland and the UK on January 20th; in Lithuania on January 27th; in the Netherlands and Turkey on February 3rd and in France on February 29th.

London Film Fest 2011 Day 8 - THE IDES OF MARCH

THE IDES OF MARCH is a cheap thriller full of plot holes that wants us to believe that it's an insightful, intelligent political film.  It tries to mask poor writing and construction with an all-star cast, but I'm not buying it.  This is, for all its pretensions and earnest good intentions, a bad film.  Now, I haven't seen the play on which the movie was based - Beau Willimon's Farragut North (a road on Washington DC full of political consultants).  But my friends tell me that this movie makes a departure from the closed world of that play in the final forty minutes - in other words, the movie is not content to stick with the play's obsession with the mechanics of political campaigns - and "raises the stakes" in the jargon of Screenwriting 101.  The result feels amateur and undermines the momentum and spark of the opening half hour.

As the movie opens we feel we are in good hands. The movie has pace and wit and does what a lot of great political films do - it gives us the feeling we're peeking behind the curtain at a world we're fascinated by.  We love how Stephen and Paul (Ryan Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman) intricately plot and plan Governor Mike Morris; (George Clooney) Ohio Primary Campaign. We love the Machiavellian scheming of their opposite number, Tom (Paul Giamatti).  We love the whip-smart dialogue from the pushy intern (Evan Rachel Wood) that Stephen's sleeping with.  The dialogue is almost Aaron-Sorkin-esque and the action takes place in seedy hotel rooms and cheap offices and bleak parking lots.  It all seems to be going so right!  We care about whether Morris' will cheapen himself in order to get an endorsement from sleazy Senator Thompson (Jeffrey Wright).  We care about whether he will win.

The problem is that the movie then takes a turn into nonsense.  The event upon which the action turns is that Stephen will take a meeting with Tom. This is anathema during a campaign - the press will jump on it. So why would a guy so smart for for it? OK, I thought, I'll go with it. But then Stephen needs to get just $900 petty cash to propel another key plot point. Does he just draw it from an ATM thus involving no-one else? No! He asks his sidekick to get it out of petty cash leaving no receipt in an open plan office! Not so smart! And if you don't believe Stephen is smart, you don't believe he can rescue the mess he gets himself into, other than through the divine right of the hero in  mainstream movies.

And what about the politics? THE IDES OF MARCH is not telling us anything new by "revealing" that idealistic politicians can make low deals and do bad things. We are a decade after Clinton. We know about sex scandals. It all seems rather old hat. 

So we're left with a film whether the story is simply not credible and falls from grace into cheap thriller. The only things we can cling to are superb supporting performances from Evan Rachel Wood (who manages to make a stock character sympathetic and nuanced) and the always legendary Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Where's the elegance and sophistication that coloured Clooney's earlier directorial effort, GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK?

<< Philip Seymour Hoffman (Paul Zara); Evan Rachel Wood (Molly Stearns) and George Clooney (Governor Mike Morris and Director)  at the photocall for THE IDES OF MARCH at the BFI London Film Festival.


THE IDES OF MARCH played Toronto and Venice 2011. It opens in the US on October 7th; in the Netherlands on October 20th; on October 28th in France Portugal, Ireland and the UK; on November 4th in Sweden; on November 11th in Finland; on December 22nd in Germany; on January 5th 2012 in Hungary and on February 14th in Russia.

London Film Fest 2010 Day 7 - THE AMERICAN

THE AMERICAN is a deeply disappointing film from Anton Corbijn, director of the brilliantly photographed CONTROL. The visuals here are lacklustre, the acting so-so, the plot machinations weak and predictable, and the existential angst we are meant to be exploring taken from grade-school.

George Clooney plays a bespoke weapon-maker/assassin in hiding in a small Italian town. Because, of course, you'd never go into hiding in a large anonymous metropolis. Oh no! You'd go into hiding in a small town where your presence would be conspicuous. The Clooney character is asked to manufacture a weapon by a hot female assassin - mais oui! - and while doing so falls for a hooker with a heart of gold - naturellement! Meanwhile, he has a couple of conversations with a local priest that threaten to become a serious moral conversation but never do.

The resulting film is dull, quiet, ponderous, ludicrous and predictable. This movie doesn't become edgy or interesting just because Clooney allows himself to play a man who does some pretty cold-hearted stuff.  Especially when all that is undercut in the final scenes.  I honestly have no idea what this film is doing in this festival.

THE AMERICAN is on release in most markets. It opens on the 22nd October in Iceland and on 27th October in Belgium, France, Switzerland and Hungary. It opens on November 12th in Brazil and on November 25th in Portugal, Iceland and the UK. It opens in Australia on December 16th.

London Film Fest Day 5 - UP IN THE AIR

My friends typically work for former-I-banks, private equity houses and fund managers, and travel to at least one European or long-haul destination per week. They are nice, interesting people but every time we get together the conversation at some point descends into comparing airline frequent flyer programmes, blackberries and check-listing the best restaurants and concierges in various European capitals. We are the cohort that knows exactly the quickest route through any airport and always turn left upon boarding. But that's not all there is to life. Some have kids - some an unhealthy obsession with movies. We are all aware that the big corporates target insecure over-achievers: smart young graduates who will so identify with the corporate brand that their self-esteem lies in the coolness of their new laptop and how many miles they fly per year. It's as though the apparently elite status they have been sold compensates for working insane hours. Stick with it, kid, and one day you TOO can become a Lufthansa Hons member and make Managing Director. We too were once shiny bright 23 year olds, unleashed upon the world with dreams of summer houses and Porsche Cayennes. Ten years later, the 2001 dotcom crash and the credit crunch later, heartbreak, marriages, divorces have come and gone, and we'll settle. And no, it doesn't seem like failure.

I give you this little round-up to tell you that when it comes to reviewing UP IN THE AIR - the new romantic comedy from THANK YOU FOR SMOKING director Jason Reitman, I know whereof I speak, and I know whereof he speaks. Problem is, I think he's set up a straw man. The fact that he occasionally hits the mark with some biting dialogue doesn't make up for it.

Reitman's central character is a mono-dimensional corporate man called Bingham (Clooney). He's the classic air-miles junkie, happiest in the air, avoiding a real relationship with his family or a potential girlfriend at all costs. The movie is about how he reacts when he falls for a whip-smart woman who is just as career-focused as he is (Vera Farmiga). Along the way, he realises just what a shitty profession he is in (a consultant brought in to fire people) when he sees it afresh through the eyes of the new hire (Anna Kendrick). Reitman has Bingham go through one of those classic rom-com epiphanies, where the caricatured hard-ass central character realises it might actually be nice to have a relationship with someone. (See THE PROPOSAL, THE FAMILY STONE, MANAGEMENT et hoc genus omne). It even comes complete with a running through the night to tell the one you love that you love them scene. I only just forgave Reitman for that hackneyed move. The problem is that the really interesting dynamic isn't about ultra career focused people suddenly realising they'd like a relationship. It's about people, like the new hire, who do want both, know they want both, but can't seem to make it work out. That's the rub.

Anyways, let's be generous and grant that Jason Reitman's fictive career-focused lone wolf is credible and interesting. Given that, how does the movie work out? Well, I like the overall bleak tone, especially the final act twist. Totally brought it back from the rom-com vibe I was getting in the penultimate act. I also really like the way in which Reitman plays the scene between the career woman at 23 and the career woman at 33: very psychologically accurate and superbly done. Other than that, I thought the movie contained too much dead air, and much like THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, wasn't even in tone. Ultimately, I wasn't engaged by the characters, because the central struggle didn't seem real to me, and I thought Reitman didn't really have the balls to deal with the critique implicit in his subject matter of mass lay-offs. It all felt rather exploitative.

UP IN THE AIR played Toronto 2009. It opens in November in the USA. It opens in January 2010 in Australia, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK, Russia and Denmark. It opens in February 2010 in Mexico, Turkey, Hungary and Singapore. It opens in Finland on March 19th.

London Film Fest Day 2 - FANTASTIC MR FOX - Bina007's review

Intrigued by Professor007's negative response I checked out FANTASTIC MR FOX today at the 6pm screening sans red carpet. I came to it with a different perspective, having both read the Roald Dahl short story as a child, and having seen all of Wes Anderson's movies.

The bare bones of the story are simple. Mr Fox steals chickens, cider and ham from three mean farmers in order to feed his family who live in a burrow nearby. In retaliation, the mean farmers lay siege to the fox family. Brilliantly, Mr Fox steals all their stores from under the farmers' noses, provoking the ultimate retaliation and a fantastic finish. This being Roald Dahl, the mean farmers are nasty, venal and petty, and Mr Fox is universally lauded as being clever, brave and wonderful! After all, he's forced to steal to feed his family.

Wes Anderson brings his own obsessions to the story: obsessions which at first sight were fascinating and entertaining (see my review of THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS) but which now look re-hashed and tired. The character of Mr Fox (George Clooney) is simply Royal Tenenbaum as an animated fox - he's charismatic, eloquent, charming but hey - he's just going to do what he wants to do. His wife, Mrs Fox (Meryl Streep) is the classic wise, suffering mother-figure that we see again and again in Wes Anderson films, though not played by Angelica Huston this time. Mrs Fox wants Mr Fox to settle down and be responsible. They're not starving in this version, you see. Mr Fox just steals for kicks. The classic Wes Anderson dynamic carries over to the relationship between Mr Fox and his son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) - a Chas Tenenbaum figure - desperate for his father's approval but always overlooked for another - in this case cousin Kristoffersen (Eric Chase Anderson). They even fight over a bored sounding love interest - I'm guessing an uncredited Angelica Huston.

You get the point. This isn't a faithful reworking of Dahl's Fantastic tale, but Wes Anderson goes animated.

So how does it all work? On one hand, I was utterly gobsmacked by the arrogance of Wes Anderson to basically steam-roller everything that made the original book so typically Dahl and just shoe-horn it into his tired MO. What was all this estate agent nonsense? And what on earth was Anderson doing in his pastiche of Battlestar Galactica's use of FRACK with his own word CUSS as in Cuss Off and Cluster-cuss? Mr Fox saving the starving little foxes is a film with stakes. Mr Fox pissed off because he can't flip his house for profit is banal.

On the other hand, you can't deny that, as with all Wes Anderson films, the visuals are beautifully imagined and rendered. George Clooney IS charming as Mr Fox - then again, he's had enough practice as Danny Ocean. The rest of the voice cast is good, with an especially fine turn by Schwartzman as stroppy son Ash. The visual humour works - it is fun to see a possum's hypnotized eyes, and dogs knocked out by valium laced blueberries.

Overall, I was disappointed but I didn't have a terrible time. The film isn't as unwatchable and patronising as THE DARJEELING LIMITED. But it isn't as original and moving as TENENBAUMS or BOTTLE ROCKET. It's a rehash - a re-casting - a re-working. I just wish Wes Anderson had the confidence, and indeed the respect, to have connected more with the source material. He really needs to shed some of his directorial ticks.

FANTASTIC MR FOX opened London 2009 and goes on release in the UK on October 23rd. It opens in the US on November 13th; in Singapore on Nov 19th; in Romania on Nov 20th; in the US on Nov 25th; in Italy on Nov 26th; in Brazil on Dec 4th; in France on Dec 23rd; in Sweden on Dec 25th; in Australia on Jan 7th; in Tawian on Jan 23rd; in Russia and Finland on Jan 28th; in Germany, Estonia and Norway on Feb 5th; in Belgium on Feb 10th; in the Netherlands on Feb 18th; in Argentina on March 4th and in Denmark on March 10th.

Eventual tags: children, animation, wes anderson, roald dahl, bill murray, goerge clooney, meryl streep, adrien brody, owen wilson, willem dafoe, jason schwartzman, brian cox, michael gambon, angelica huston, helen mccrory, roman coppola, garth jennings, jarvis cocker,

London Film Fest Day 2 - THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS - A Funny Idea In Search Of A Plot

From the producer of GOOD NIGHT, GOOD LUCK and the writer of SIXTY SIX, comes a directorial debut that is uneven, misguided and ultimately unengaging, despite occasionally very funny scenes indeed.

The film is about as convincing as Ewan MacGregor's dodgy American accent. He stars as a naive young journalist who goes to Iraq when his wife dumps him. He takes up with a strange man called Lyn (George Clooney in a "trying-to-be-goofy" moustache). Lyn used to be part of a secret US military programme that was training soldiers to use paranormal powers (mind-bending) and so become "Jedi". The title of the film comes from an experiment whereby the Jedi soldiers would try to kill a goat by staring at it. As the Jedi and his acolyte cross Iraq looking for the US Army psych-op/PR-op base, the movie periodically flashes back to the story of how this bunch of kooks got government funding and were ultimately taken down by a cynical soldier jealous of Lyn's power (Kevin Spacey.)

Now, given the sheer ridiculousness of the premise, we could have had a seriously wacky, funny movie. People might reference the Coen Brothers because of Clooney, but I could imagine Guy Ritchie in the old LOCK-STOCK days handling the voice-over and the freeze frames brilliantly. Sadly, director Grant Heslov has neither the flair nor the confidence to pull off the kind of bravado-film making needed to sell such a ludicrous (even if true) concept.

As for the modern day footage in Iraq, as I said before, Ewan MacGregor is mis-cast, while Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges are type-cast as the Antagonist and The Dude respectively. The plot seems to meander aimlessly, just like their journey in the desert. Worse still, when Heslov does try to show something serious - something that's meant to shock - like an IED explosion or incarcerated, tortured Iraqis - the scene is trivialised by the surrounding ludicrous material.

The upshot is that this is a movie that works neither as a comedy nor as a provocation about the war in Iraq.

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS played Venice and Toronto 2009. It will be released on November 6th in the USA: November 19th in the Netherlands; December 4th in the UK; December 24th in Slovenia; January 2010 in Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway; February 2010 in Turkey; and in March 2010 in Germany.

London Film Fest Day 1 - FANTASTIC MR FOX - Not so fantastic....

This review was written by our Austrian correspondent, Professor007

Maybe it’s my lack of familiarity with the underlying children’s story, but despite being positively biased after experiencing the star-studded line-up at the opening of the 53rd London Film Festival, the film not only left me completely cold but started to seriously annoy me towards the end.

The story is as follows: Mr. Fox (voice by George Clooney) does what foxes do, he steals and kills chickens. He does so also when meeting his lovely future wife, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), but after both get trapped during this pursuit, he promises to his wife that he would never steal chickens again and start a proper job instead – writing a column for the local newspaper. However, after 12 (fox) years living the happy, but rather average family life and raising a son (who turns out to be a bit of a loser), his old ambition for recognition and admiration overwhelms him and he decides to rob the gruesome humans Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. After some initial success, the humans decide to fight back, however, and thus starts a colossal battle between animal and human foes. Unsurprisingly, after several increasingly absurd confrontations, the Foxes win and everyone is happy.

So what made it bad? Firstly, none of the sub-plots was sufficiently developed nor particularly convincing. The supposed initial happy love story between Mr & Mrs Fox did not come across on screen, nor did the conflict that arose following his breach of his promise. The conversations between the two appeared haphazard and neither witty nor deep. Similarly, it is unclear how “ueber-foxian” Mr. Fox feels about his underachieving son: he only shows some positive emotion following a completely unexplained mega-performance during the final rescue mission. And the list goes on. Secondly, I also found the film “technologically” disappointing: the voices didn’t seem to properly match the movements of the animated figures and the detail in the graphics has been done better elsewhere.

It’s not that I don’t like animated films per se, Finding Nemo made me laugh and cry and Ratatouille was exceptionally sweet. Wes Anderson might tell me that this stop motion movie is a different kettle of fish. Maybe, but do I care?

FANTASTIC MR FOX opened London 2009 and goes on release in the UK on October 23rd. It opens in the US on November 13th; in Singapore on Nov 19th; in Romania on Nov 20th; in the US on Nov 25th; in Italy on Nov 26th; in Brazil on Dec 4th; in France on Dec 23rd; in Sweden on Dec 25th; in Australia on Jan 7th; in Tawian on Jan 23rd; in Russia and Finland on Jan 28th; in Germany, Estonia and Norway on Feb 5th; in Belgium on Feb 10th; in the Netherlands on Feb 18th; in Argentina on March 4th and in Denmark on March 10th.

Eventual tags: children, animation, wes anderson, roald dahl, bill murray, goerge clooney, meryl streep, adrien brody, owen wilson, willem dafoe, jason schwartzman, brian cox, michael gambon, angelica huston, helen mccrory, roman coppola, garth jennings, jarvis cocker,

Wes Anderson's THE FANTASTIC MR FOX to open London 2009

After the genius of BOTTLE ROCKET and THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS and the self-indulgent fiascos of THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU and THE DARJEELING LIMITED, all eyes are on Wes Anderson's next project, an animated adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic, THE FANTASTIC MR FOX. Set for release in the UK on October 23rd and in the US on November 13th, the movie will open the London Film Festival this year. Let's hope it can break the hoo-doo of recent open films which have all been picked on commercial rather than critical grounds - mediocre, solid but that's all. I give you films such as THE CONSTANT GARDENER, FROST/NIXON and oh, that awful biopic, SYLVIA. So far, things look good. We have a voice cast stuffed with Anderson regulars - Owen Wilson, Angelica Huston - but we also have top notch British characters - Michael Gambon, Helen McCrory - not to mention genuine Hollywood A-list in Meryl Streep (stepping in for Cate Blanchett as Mrs Fox). I also love that Anderson has gone back to old school stop motion animation. Sounds, if not fantastic, given his recent record, at least intriguing....

BURN AFTER READING - a bleak tragedy shoehorned into a screwball comedy format

BURN AFTER READING is a profound discussion of middle-aged angst - nihilistic, bleak, depressing - shoe-horned into the form of a typical Coen Brothers screwball comedy. It's as if the atmosphere of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN has infected THE BIG LEBOWSKI. The result is, unhappily, pretty painful to watch. It's a film in which unhappy people make bad choices, creating an mess that signifies nothing. As the lights went up, I wondered what I had just witnessed and the answer was, basically, the most wilfully mis-marketed film of the yar. Maybe that was the point - that underlying all comedy is tragedy. But, the odd laugh aside, it was neither as enjoyable as the great Coen Brothers comedies nor as profound as their best work. More superficially, without Roger Deakins at DP the film lacked visual flair - all the more noticeable since it is set in Washington DC and yet makes no use of that environment.

The plot of the movie, for what it's worth, is a caper gone wrong. Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt play gym instructors who chance upon a CD containing "CIA secret shit". They use it to blackmail John Malkovich's CIA agent. Of course, he's a mess too - an alcoholic, fired from his job, being divorced by his wife (Tilda Swinton) who's cheating on him with a marshall (George Clooney) who is also sleeping with Frances McDormand's character, and himself being divorced. George Clooney's character is also deeply tragic - an insecure man who slips from woman to woman always looking for an audience to impress and signs of adoration. Wires get crossed, people die, characters become ever more desperate for love and whatever they think will make them complete. The CIA looks on in bewilderment, shovelling all the stupidity all under a rug and closing the manilla folder. What do we learn? That disillusionment lies ahead. That most things are empty and meaningless. All of which is fine subject for a movie, but why choose the comedy-caper as the vehicle for such a message and advertise with George Clooney pulling his trademark zany face and Brad Pitt with the trademark Coen Brothers crazy hair?

BURN AFTER READING played Venice 2008. It opens in the UK on September 12th; in the US on September 12th; in the Netherlands on September 18th; in Russia on October 2nd; in Spain on October 10th; in Australia on October 16th; in Norway on October 17th; in Finland on November 21st; in Belgium and France on December 10th.

LEATHERHEADS - in which Clooney tosses up genres like so much confetti

Yet another flaccid movie squelches its way into cinemas this weekend. In another directorial effort, George Clooney unsuccessfully splices together the under-dog sports genre, the screwball comedy and the 1960s sex comedy. He chooses to set the unhappy cocktail in prohibition-era America.

Clooney plays an ageing lothario struggling to keep his pro-football team above water in the era before mega-bucks sports. He does so by hiring a fantastically popular college player, who's a war hero to boot (John Krasinski from the US version of THE OFFICE - wasted in this role.) The old hand may be resentful of the young gun's newfangled methods, but he loves the massive increase in gate receipts. Problem is that a feisty investigative reporter (Renee Zellwegger) is trying to expose "The Bullet's" impressive war record as a hoax, as well as causing romantic jealousy all round.

The sports movie component of LEATHERHEADS is fairly thin. It's basically just a wry comment on the irony of getting what you wished for. In order to survive, the team bring about a mew commercial era, but that very commercialisation means an end to the good old rough-and-tumble of the sport they loved.

As for the rom-com element, I found it pretty weak. Sorry to sound ageist, but Renee Zellwegger is simply too old for the part and partly for that reason she has no chemistry with John Krasinski. It looks like Mrs Robinson's trying to mack onto the new kid, rather than a genuine love triangle with Clooney. I'm also a little bit tired of Zellwegger trying to pull off these Doris Day sex-comedy roles. Clooney desperately wants the banter between his and Zellwegger's character to be brilliantly witty, but it's obvious and flat. And, despite her feminist aspirations, Zellwegger's character rolls over annoyingly easily.

LEATHERHEADS is on release in the USA, UK, Ukraine, Canada, Estonia and Italy. It opens on April 23rd in France; in Argentina on May 8th; in Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden on May 30th; in Germany and Spain on June 5th and in Belgium on July 2nd.

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ: LIFE THROUGH A LENS - weak doc; great career

ANNIE LEIBOWITZ: LIFE THROUGH A LENS is not a particularly well-made documentary. Film-maker and sister of the subject, Barbara Leibovitz, doesn't have much visual flair, imposes no daring structure onto the material and her editing doesn't draw out incisive comments. Nonetheless, LIFE THROUGH A LENS remains an interesting movie because it's about a fascinating and iconic photographer and features interviews with film-stars, rock musicians and famous politicians.

The documentary is basically a chronological and methodological look at Annie Leibovitz' career. By chance, Annie finds herself a student photographer in San Francisco in the 1960s - just as the cultural revolution is kicking off. She establishes her reputation with gritty photo-reportage for Rolling Stone - sitting aside the great chroniclers of that age - Hunter S Thompson and Tom Wolfe. Along with the politics, Annie also gets fantastic photos of all the great rock acts of the day by taking the time to hang out with them, put them at ease, and capture them off-guard. The downside of the frenetic lifestyle was drug addiction.

Some time around the end of the seventies, Rolling Stone "sold out" of San Francisco and moved to New York. It had grown up and gone mainstream. Annie also went mainstream. She cleaned up in rehab and went to work for Tina Brown at Vanity Fair. Her style of photography underwent two changes. First, Annie was photographing celebrities and film stars, pandering to the egos of the Trumps. Instead of capturing intimate pictures of grungy rockers, it was all about surface gloss and the "best side". Second, instead of capturing moments in reality, Annie was increasingly creating complicated story-board tableaux. These got more elaborate (and expensive) over time, and culminated in an over-dressed style that I personally find rather claustrophobic and alienating. Still, you can't deny that amid all the hoop-la there have been some iconic images - the naked pregnant Demi Moore, for example.

The documentary was a great way to devote 90 minutes to really thinking about Annie's work and to see the evolution of her style. I saw a bunch of photographs I'd never seen before as well as learning about the context of some that I was aware of. Seeing everything chronologically made me realise just how far I had become alienated from her recent work, but also made me appreciate just how much I loved those early Rolling Stone pictures.

What this movie isn't is a film about Annie Leibovitz' personal life. The drug addiction is dealt with very quickly. We do see Annie discuss her relationship with, and photographs of, Susan Sontag - but this is obviously deeply distressing and passes quickly. Some reviewers have criticised this discretion. I disagree. Leibovitz herself argues that her most important relationship has been with her work. As such, the focus of this documentary is spot on.

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ was released in the US and Spain in 2007 and opened in Japan earlier in the year. It is currently on release in the UK and opens in France in June.

MICHAEL CLAYTON - innovative, intelligent morality tale

Let me be clear: MICHAEL CLAYTON is one of the best films I have seen this year. Every facet of the film drips with quality, intelligence and integrity.

George Clooney goes into unfamiliar territory, thankfully miles away from the self-consciously cool Danny Ocean. He plays a one-time litigating attorney called Michael Clayton. Clayton now spends his time cleaning up behind big clients. He's been cleaned out by gambling debts and a restaurent project that failed. He's a divorced father and he has an uneasy relationship with his family. Indeed, in all but the denouement, Clooney spends his time looking bewildered and borderline disgusted with himself and the pathetic hoops he has to jump through. It's an impressive performance, not least in the final scene where the camera holds on a close-up of Clooney's face as he digests the events of the film. There's no dialogue and no let up: just the opening credits rolling over the end of the film.

The bones of the film concern Clooneey's character dealing with a leading litigator who's seemingly lost his marbles in court. His only job is to get the litigator back on his meds and back defending a big corporate client from a $3bn class action lawsuit. The corporate client is particularly ruthless about ensuring a beneficial outcome.

But the real business of this film is to show how each of the main characters comes to a brutal realisation about the nature of the corporate world and their part in it. Michael Clayton is a man who realised that he has been bought and for a cheap price, at that. The litigator - played by Tom Wilkinson - realises that he has wasted six years of his life defending a case he doesn't believe in - and that this is representative of corporate America. Perhaps the most intriguing character, though, is Tilda Swinton's corporate council, Karen Crowder. She begins as a nervous businesswomen, eager to impress and to look the part. Her imperceptible slide from conscientious legal advice to protecting the firm at all costs is deftly portrayed thanks to assured editing and a subtle performance.

Every member of the cast gives a subtle and authoritative performance, from Austin Williams, who plays Clayton's kid, to Sydney Pollack who plays the leading partner of the firm. Behind the camera, I loved the way in which the shots were framed, usually looking through doors or windows and around corners. I loved the misty, gloomy lighting contrasted with the guiltless wealth of rich corporate interiors. And I love that Tony Gilroy's script never over-explains and doesn't hope to see every plot strand to a neat conclusion. Most of all, I love that MICHAEL CLAYTON is not another slick but tired court-room thriller but a patient and brilliantly put-together character study. We need more cinema of this calibre.

MICHAEL CLAYTON played Venice and Toronto 2007 and is currently on release in the UK. It opens in Italy and the US next week and in Argentina, Hong Kong, Denmark, wide in the US, in France, Australia and Iceland the following week. It opens in Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway on October 25th and in Turkey, Germany, Spain, Finland, Russia in November. It opens in Egypt on January 23rd 2008 and in Japan on February 23rd 2008.

WIND CHILL - workman-like supernatural thriller

On the hottest day of the year so far, Doctor007 and I ducked into a blissfully air-conditioned but absolutely empty theatre to catch whatever was playing. That turned out to be an under-the-radar spoooooky thriller from the Clooney/Soderbergh production camp. The plot is simple. A beautiful college student cadges a ride home from a geek. They get stranded in the snow and seemingly enter an eternal loop of road accidents and other wacky shit. It's pretty formulaic but gets a marginal thumbs-up for three reasons. First, DP Dan Laustsen beautifully photographs the sinister snow-swept mountains. Second, it's nice to see a pretty heroine in a horror flick who actually has brains. Rather than a ditzy, bikini-clad blonde, WIND CHILL presents us with Emily Blunt's gutsy engineering student. And yes, she is perfectly capable of saving herself, thank you very much. Third, both Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes (HISTORY OF VIOLENCE) give credible performances as two teens. Indeed, the blossoming of their relationship is far more interesting than the supernatural nonsense surrounding them.

WIND CHILL was released in the US in April 2007 and is currently on limited release in the UK.

SPOILER ALERT: I also think the movie could've been improved by ending 10 minutes earlier, with the chick caught in a nightmarish constant loop, rather than stumbling sentimentally after her guardian-angel love-interest to safety.....