This is not a review of - 2 DAYS IN NEW YORK

Because Sundance projected the film for 30 minutes without subtitles, then faffed about for 10 minutes, then cancelled the screening. In all my years of going to LIFF and watching c50 films per fest, I've never seen something like that happen. Just sayin'

THE AIR I BREATHE - pretentious wank

"I always wondered, when a butterfly leaves the safety of its cocoon, does it realize how beautiful it has become? Or does it still just see itself as a caterpillar?"

Who writes such nonsense? Debut feature director Jieho Lee apparently. The ensuing film, THE AIR I BREATHE, is a deeply unhappy affair.The laborious structure sees four inter-twining stories each focusing on a character whose story, apparently, illustrates an Asian proverb that life is made up of Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, and Love. This apparently gives Lee leave to include dialogue as banal as that quoted above. Forest Whitaker plays a naive low-level banker who loses a ton of money in an illicit gambling den and ends up robbing a bank to pay back Andy Garcia's rent-a-mobster. In an inter-related story, the mobster's cocky nephew (Emile Hirsh) is being shepherded through the night by a clairvoyant goon (Brendan Fraser). The goon will end up saving a teen popster (Sarah Michelle Gellar) from the mafiosi, and all the stories are linked when Kevin Bacon's doctor realises the popster has a rare blood type that can save the life of the woman he loves.

The performances fall into two broad camps. Garcia, Whitaker and Hirsch play to type, lazily. Fraser and Gellar are running as fast as they can from their typical screen personae. The script is banal and never matches up to its self-proclaimed profundity. The direction is gimmicky. Need I say more?

THE AIR I BREATHE was released in early 2008 and is available on DVD.

2 DAYS IN PARIS - scarily observant, hysterically funny rom-com

2 DAYS IN PARIS is a truly funny, scarily observant film about the impossibility of relationships. Poly-functional film-maker Julie Delpy plays a 35 year old photographer called Marion who's in a relationship with Adam Goldberg's American Interior Designer, Jack. After 2 years together, 2 days in Marion's home town convinces Jack that he doesn't actually know anything about Marion and that she could well be cheating on him. For her part, Marion doesn't get why Jack is so uptight about her ex-boyfriends, nor why he prefers to take photos of everything rather than stay in the moment with her. Neither have any affection for France, nor any sex, thankfully undermining the city's reputation.

2 DAYS IN PARIS has rightly been compared to Woody Allen. It's a movie about real people in a real relationship having real conversations, albeit in a heightened state of neuroticism and with wittier one-liners. The observations ring true but are not laden with forced profundity. (Although I could have done without the twee drawing on the screen, I rather liked Marion's voice-overs.) But most of all, I love the ambiguity of the ending. Sure, the lovers end up dancing the night away, but are they in love or in a state of compromise? Are they enjoying a few moments before an inevitable break-up? You could watch a thousand Hollywood rom-coms and never find an ounce of such authenticity.

2 DAYS IN PARIS played Berlin 2007 and was released in Germany, Austria, Hong Kong, France, Norway, Finland, Taiwan, Belgium, Spain and the US earlier this year. It is currently on release in Thailand and the UK. It opens in Sweden on September 7th, in Italy on October 5th, in Australia on December 26th and in Turkey on December 28th.

THE HOAX - Richard Gere in outstanding performance shock!

Who knew?! Richard Gere throws off the facial ticks and smarm that make-up so many of his performances for a genuinely gripping turn as the real-life author and compulsive liar, Clifford Irving. Gere perfectly captures the genius of the failed author who displayed a gift for empathising with reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes and sold a fake autobiography to McGraw-Hill publishing for a cool million bucks. The key is to make the character so charming that you almost want him to succeed but to under-cut his winning nature with a barely acknowledge manipulative streak. Nowhere is this more evident than in Irving's willingness to frame his best friend (played by the ever-brilliant Alfred Molina) as an adulterer.

There's lots to like here apart from Gere's performance. For a start, this really is an important and fascinating true-life story. Hughes knew Irving was faking his autobiography and anonymously sent Irving material incriminating Richard Nixon. What Irving didn't figure out till too late was that Hughes didn't want to bring Nixon down. Rather, he just wanted to scare Nixon into doing his bidding. And Nixon was scared. So scared that he allegedly ordered the Watergate break-in partly to snoop for advanced copies of the book!

Other great things about this pic: the production design and sound-track place us firmly in the late 60s/early 70s and the script-writers are good at making a contemporary audience understand the magnetic pull of the Hughes mythology. The film also boasts a strong supporting cast with Stanley Tucci, Hope Davis and Julie Delpy donning period costumes and Marcia Gay Harden struggling manfully under a bad wig. It all adds up to a high quality, intelligent movie that will appeal to those with an unhealthy interest in how establishment power structures (and bad marriages) really work.

THE HOAX was released earlier this year in the US, the Netherlands, Russia, Iceland, Belgium, France, Turkey, Israel and Portugal. It is currently on release in the UK. It opens in Finland on August 24th and in Brazil and Norway on August 31st 2007.