JUDY

It's been a while since I watched JUDY and my reluctance to review it has been the unwillingness to commit to paper what a truly mediocre film - what a hammy absurd central performance - is gaining such awards success. I cannot for the life of me fathom why Renee Zellweger is being heaped with awards for a performance that verges on pastiche and is never convincing. And the only answer I can find is that this is the ultimate awards season Mercy Fuck.  Hollywood loves a broken bird, especially a woman tormented by her own self-image, and in Renee they have found the bats-squeak whisper of an echo of Judy Garland's psychological trauma.  I feel they aren't so much praising Renee's performance as applauding her mere survival, albeit in a weird Jennifer Lawrence-lite post surgery existence and speaking with a bizarre southern drawl. 

But let's get back to the film. It focuses on Judy in the final years of her life - battling Sid Luft Rufus Sewell) for custody of the kids - broke - playing gigs in London to pay the bills.  She's a neurotic, lonely alcoholic, always vulnerable to a young charmer (Finn Wittrock) who'll promise her riches but usually ends up swindling her.  Judy has to be manhandled on stage by Jessie Buckley's sympathetic stage manager.  We're meant to recognise her as still capable of being a true star through the eyes of her adoring gay fans.  But really this is just a pathetic portrait of a broken woman, running several leagues below her peak power.

Renee Zellwegger doesn't look like Judy, despite the short brunette wig and the costumes that ape her London look.  She doesn't sound like Judy when she sings.  She adopts a kind of slanting, stumbling walk and inverted kind of beaten up posture that makes us think - wow - Renee is broken - rather than telling us anything real about Judy.  Worse still, the film just isn't that well directed.  Rupert Goold - a stage director best known for the recent TV version of the Henriad -THE HOLLOW CROWN - doesn't have any visual flair, and doesn't really bring any insight to staging the show tunes.  And the script is really workmanlike and cliched.  Do we really need to have a lonely Judy having supper with a fawning gay couple, who have no interior life or meaning other than to just be cliche fawning gay fans?

The only parts of this film that I thought had real truth to them were the flashbacks to Judy's childhood as an abused child star, forced to slim, put on pills, with every date stage managed.  But even here the movie doesn't have the balls to depict the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of Louis B Mayer. 

JUDY is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 118 minutes.  The film played Telluride and Toronto 2019 and is now available to rent and own.

VICTORIA & ABDUL

Lavish costumes and location photography cannot help this thinly plotted, dull film with its anachronistic politics.  It takes what is a genuinely fascinating late life obsession of Queen Victoria with a handsome young Indian clerk and drains it of its spikiness and shoe-horns it into politically correct nonsense.  While still apparently in mourning for her long-dead husband Albert, Victoria had already conducted a scandalous romance with her Scottish servant Mr Brown (also depicted on film with Judi Dench as the Queen.) In her final decade, she took fancy (literally, creepily) to a young muslim Urdu-speaking Indian.  The spikiness of the relationship comes from its objectification of the young male, but also the fact that she used him to learn about the culture of her dominion which she had never visited. In reality, he was the fawning man we see on screen, but also potentially a chancer (as are all courtiers more or less). His brother in law was selling Victoria's jewels in London and he was using her to advance the cause of his father's pension.  Did Abdul really believe in deference and service or was he on the make?   Stephen Frears banal film never bothers asking the tough questions - about Victoria's frustrated sexuality and exploitation of Abdul - about Abdul's motivations - about the dangerous situation in India with the rise of the independence movement, and Abdul's potential role in gaining favour for the Muslim League.  It's only interested in an anachronistic tale of love across the class, race and religious divide.   Judi Dench's Victoria is thus a radically anti-racist Queen with an enquiring mind, embattled by her small-minded Royal Household, as embodied in her pantomime-villain son, Bertie (Eddie Izzard).  The whole thing is slow-moving, and so uncurious about motives as to be a profoundly boring watch.

VICTORIA & ABDUL has a running time of 111 minutes and is rated PG-13. The film played Venice and Toronto and opened in September 2017. 

DAD"S ARMY

Feature length versions of successful TV shows, let alone those originally created decades ago, are never entirely necessary.  And many, including a previous film version of the British comedy DAD'S AMRY, are a failure.  However, for those of us with fond memories of watching this gentle wartime comedy, this new film offers a chance to walk down memory lane with a movie of reassuringly gentle humour and pace, and a surprisingly nuanced expansion to feature length.

The concept of the original show was to focus not on the derring-do of our troops fighting Hitler overseas, but on the rather pitiful men left behind. Too old, too young, flat of feet  - these left-behind men formed the part-time Home Guard, who really were part of Britain's home defences.  The joy of the original show was seeing the clash between the earnest good intentions of the men in doing their bit for the war effort, and the reality of their menial and apparently pointless manoeuvres. No less joyous was the clash of personality and class within the corps - from Captain Mainwairing's rather pompous middle class solidity to Wilson's Oxbridge educated charm to Private Pike's juvenile incompetence and Private Jones' panicking.  

I can report with no little relief that this new cast is absolutely up to the challenge of resurrecting those much-beloved characters without pastiching them.  Toby Jones is brilliantly self-important but also heartbreakingly earnest as Mainwairing. Bill Nighy is tragic as Wilson.  THE INBETWEENERS' Blake Harrison is charming as the infantile Pike.  Daniel Mays is suitably oily as the wartime black marketeer, Wilson.  Bill Paterson is suitably grim as Fraser and Tom Courtenay's Jones gets the best comic moments. But perhaps best of all is Michael Gambon as the flappy wittery adorable Private Godfrey.  One might wonder what such a sterling cast is doing in a rather dusty TV remake, but I feel it's testament to the fondness with which this show is remembered that such acting greats were willing to take on small parts in a low budget film.

This isn't a movie with many laugh out loud moments, though it does contain those. Rather it is a bittersweet gentle comedy about ageing men trapped in decisions made long ago, longing for glory but frightened and overlooked.  When Catherine Zeta-Jones glamorous German spy waltzes into town, there isn't much tension around whether the platoon will triumph. But in a handful of small delicate ways we realise why they would be so easily duped.  This delicacy also extends to the introduction of the platoon's wives and girlfriends - referred to but never seen in the TV show.  There are some clever and gentle digs at the misogyny of the times, but this remains a feel-good film in which Britain will triumph through unspoken friendship and common decency.   Director Oliver Parker and screenwriter Hamish McColl also rather cleverly withhold some of the famous lines and the iconic theme tune to the very end, giving us a satisfied warm feeling as we leave the cinema. Delightful!

The movie is on release in the UK, Ireland and USA. It opens in the Netherlands on April 28th and in Brazil on May 5th 2015.

London Film Fest 2012 Day 6 - QUARTET

Tom Courtenay and Maggie Smith as Reggie and Jean,
estranged former lovers, in QUARTET.

Dustin Hoffman's directorial début is an hilarious romantic comedy set in a nursing home for classical musicians, based on the play by Ronald Harwood (THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY).  The joyful good humour and colourful characters more than compensate for the rather predictable plot, the weak middle section, and the rather cowardly finale.

All romantic comedies need a sense of peril that must be resolved and an obstacle to true love. In this movie, the peril is the possibility that the rather luxurious nursing home will be closed if enough money cannot be raised at a benefit gala where the former stars take to the stage. This problem will be solved if new arrival Jean (Dame Maggie Smith) agrees to sing, and ignores the fears that she will damage her glittering reputation.  The obstacle to true love is that Jean's cuckolded ex husband Reggie (Tom Courtenay) is also a resident in the home - they are both hurting and must be brought together by the offices of the loveable rogue Wilf (Billy Connolly) and the lovably ditzy Cecily (Pauline Collins).

The movie drips with good will and good humour. To be sure, some of that humour is the rather simplistic kind - the joy of seeing well-bred old-people swearing like troopers.  But most of it is more subtle - poking fun at the egotism of celebrities and the stereotypes about the soloists versus the chorus and directors stealing ideas and being impossible (Michael Gambon in a brilliantly funny supporting role).  The problem is that we are never in any serious doubt that Jean will agree to sing, recreating the quartet from Verdi's Rigoletto that the four singers recorded in their heyday - and there is never any doubt that Jean and Reggie will be reunited.

Sheridan Smith, Billy Connolly, Maggie Smith, Pauline Collins, Tom Courtenay, Dustin Hoffman, and real-life opera star, Dame Gwyneth Jones

And while the movie drips with humanity - sympathising with people who are patronised and put on the shelf and forever regretting their former life - it does not have the gritty profundity of the movie to which it will inevitably be compared, THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL. That film tackled racism, homophobia and failed marriages - by contrast, this is a much sweeter, lighter confection. My final gripe is that while I quite understand why Dustin Hoffman did not want to risk showing his actors lip syncing to opera, I did feel rather cheated of not seeing some kind of performance at the end.

QUARTET  played Toronto and London 2012 and will be released in New Zealand on Dec 20; in Australia on Dec 26; in the USA on Dec 28; in the UK on Jan 4; in Germany on Jan 24 and in the Netherlands on Jan 31. The running time is 90 minutes. 

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2

After the turgid teen-moping of DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1, it comes as quite a relief to see the HARRY POTTER franchise close with what is essentially a two-hour epic battle between good and evil. Director David Yates' DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 is visually stunning, beautifully constructed, and never falters in pace or tone. Indeed, in its tight pacing, Steve Klove's adaptation beats J.K.Rowling's baggy source-novel hands down.

It feels somewhat superfluous to provide a plot summary for one of the most popular children's books of all time, but for those of us who read the book on release and have since forgotten the mechanics of the ending, here it is. The movie takes place in contemporary England, where ordinary people live unknowingly alongside a world of magic. Young wizards are trained at a boarding school called Hogwarts, and older wizards are governed by the Ministry of Magic. But over the past seven films, we have seen the world of good magic over-turned by the reappearance of the evil Voldemort - a former Hogwarts pupil - with a particular vendetta against our improbable hero, Harry Potter. We pick up the story with Harry Potter and his side-kicks, brainy Hermione and loyal Ron, on the hunt Horcruxes - the magical objects into which Voldemort poured his soul. If the kids can kill the Horcruxes they can save the world from a reign of Black Magic; their school from a fierce magical battle; and Harry from a fateful confrontation with his nemesis.

The resulting film opens as a kind of heist movie, with Harry and co. breaking into Gringotts bank on the hunt for a horcrux, but pretty soon we are back at Hogwarts and into the final battle which absorbs the vast majority of the run-time. The visuals are simply stunning. I have always been impressed by the make-up and CGI effects that transform Ralph Fiennes into the snake-like Voldemort, but the image of his foetus-like horcrux was incredible and unforgettable. And Hogwarts is evocatively photographed in murky gloom (yes, even without those awful and unnecessary 3D glasses), and is hauntingly battered and bruised by the final act. We are basically in the realms of a war movie - and the producers do not shy from showing us death and destruction. The post-battle scene, with nurses dressed in WW1 style costumes, was both deeply affecting - as well as deeply British - as they all sit around and have a nice cup of tea! 

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the film is that the main characters are rather over-shadowed by Professor McGonagall's "Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more"-style battle-cry and Matthew Lewis' scene-stealing turn as Neville Longbottom. Indeed, on the back of his appearance in this film, 6 foot tall and looking for all the world like a young Clive Owen, one can't help but suspect that he might have a brighter post-Potter future than Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint!

If I had any difficulty with the film, it was the use of 3D. I didn't feel that it added anything, and enveloped an already hauntingly dark film in yet another dark veneer. My other two problems rest with the book rather than the film, which after all, has to be faithful or risk disappointing the fans. I continue to believe that J.K.Rowling lost her gumption when it came to Harry's final choice - that there was a darker but more satisfying ending that she could've written. And I rather felt that Neville Longbottom was short-changed in the epilogue.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 is released globally on July 15th.

THE KING'S SPEECH - wonderful pantomime

In the mid-1930s, Britain was still a proud Empire that ranged from the Caribbean territories in the West, via East Africa, to India, Australia and Hong Kong. But the home country was still reeling from the Great Depression and fearful of the second Great War in living memory. The Empire needed leadership, both from its politicians who had the real political power, and from its monarchy, whose job was to inspire loyalty and imperial unity in the face of adversity. But the politicians fell grip to appeasement, and bar Winston Churchill, utterly failed to anticipate Hitler's aggression. As for the monarchy King George V was dying; and his son, David. the short-lived King Edward VIII, abdicated so that he could marry the scandal-ridden divorcee Wallis Simpson. Thus, David's younger brother, Bertie, the Duke of York (father of the current Queen Elizabeth) was thrust onto the throne as King George VI, with the task of leading his country and his Empire into World War Two. Pity then, the man, courageous and dutiful, but hampered by a debilitating stammer induced, the movie argues, by a shockingly loveless and brutal childhood.

THE KING'S SPEECH is, then, the story of how Bertie (Colin Firth) persevered through humiliation and fear to become technically more accomplished at public speaking and emotionally able to take on the burden of monarchy. He did this, the film posits, through sheer courage; the love of a good woman (Helena Bonham-Carter); and through the advice and friendship of the radically informal, Antipodean speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). 

So here's the thing. THE KING'S SPEECH is basically a really well made and emotionally involving film. It comes to our screens dripping with critical praise and smothered with awards. Director Tom Hooper eschews the typical lavish costume drama production design and shooting style, instead trapping his King in fog-bound streets and narrow corridors. The cast give fine performances. The script is beautifully written. I was deeply caught up in the drama. But, as I write this review some days later, I am less impressed by the film. Because, essentially, I was in the realms of pantomime cinema.

Colin Firth is, after all, playing an essentially Good Man.  Firth's Bertie is understandably angry; occasionally very funny; a warm, loving father and a dutiful king. He is an under-dog hero without faults, played by an actor at the top of his game.His wife is also without fault in this film - determined to help her husband, utterly sympathetic to him, charming to commoners, but conscious of maintaining her regal authority. And even Lionel Logue is a man without fault and dripping with charm! He is wonderfully brash, believes in Bertie's essentially goodness, and constantly helps him, even when Bertie sounds off at him. Even the minor characters are basically charming and lovely.  Logue's wife (Jennifer Ehle) in a few short scenes is a picture of calm concern and wise advice.  The horribly politically wrong Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin (a marvelous cameo from Anthony Andrews) is noble and humble in his failure.  And even Chrurchill (Timothy Spall), the towering personality who seemed to win the War single-handedly through sheer bloody-mindedness and brilliance, is humanised by the admission of a youthful speech impediment. 

And what of the villains of the piece? They too are essentially mono-dimensional. David (Guy Pierce with a pitch-perfect voice impersonation) is basically a bullying, selfish cad, utterly beguiled by the domineering Wallis. The late King George V (Michael Gambon) and his wife are distant, uncaring, bullying parents. And Derek Jacobi's Archbishop of Canterbury is an obsequious passive-aggressive arse.

So there you have it:  THE KING'S SPEECH is the ne plus ultra of feel-good movies, with the added bonus of being about glamorous royals. It comes complete with palaces and princesses - evil villains, unimpeachable heroes, the love that conquers all, the buddy movie, the under-dog story. And the biggest signal that we are in the realms of blatant emotional manipulation? The lazy use of the adagio from Beethoven's 7th symphony and the adagio from Beethoven's 5th piano sonata as we hear the King give his final, triumphant speech and wave to his adoring public on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

THE KING'S SPEECH played Telluride, Toronto, London and the AFI 2010. It was released last year in the USA, Canada, Greece, Spain, Australia and New Zealand. It is released on January 7th in the UK, on January 21st in Estonia and Finland, and on January 28th in Slovenia, Iceland and Italy. It will be released in France on February 2nd, in Hungary on February 3rd and in Brazil and Sweden on February 4th. It will be released in Portugal on February 10th and in Germany and the Netherlands on February 17th. It will be released in Russia on March 17th.

At the British Independent Film Awards, THE KING'S SPEECH won Best Film, Screenplay, Actor (Colin Firth), Supporting Actor (Geoffrey Rush), Actress (Helena Bonham Carter). It was nominated for Best Director, Supporting Actor (Guy Pierce) and Production Design (Eve Stewart). It has also been nominated for seven Golden Globes and four SAG awards.

THE BOOK OF ELI - Spoiler free review before release date notes, spoilers afterward

THE BOOK OF ELI is the latest flick from The Hughes Brothers, the directors behind the impressive DEAD PRESIDENTS and the piss-poor Alan Moore adaptation FROM HELL. ELI lies somewhere in between: it's visually imaginative and audacious in its premise, but it's so ludicrous in its execution as to undermine its credibility. The story has Denzel Washington play a lone man with kick-ass knife- skills walking a lonely highway in post-apocalyptic America. This basic set-up has some similarity with THE ROAD, leading some critics to draw comparisons. But that's just nonsense. Viggo Mortensen looks like he's been walking for years without a haircut or soap or a decent meal in THE ROAD. In THE BOOK OF ELI, all the lead characters sport a look that's more Hollister Hobo - pearly white teeth, skinny jeans, cool boots, latest-season sunglasses. Where THE ROAD is shot in a menacing sombre murky grey, THE BOOK OF ELI is sunbleached and de-saturated. It feels more like the Wild West than the end of the world as we know it. So, back to the story. Our lone man with mad kung-fu skills walks into a Wild West town, run by local fascist Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman. (We know he's a Fascist because he reads Mussolini, because the film is THAT subtle. Seriously, it wouldn't have surprised me if Carnegie were sending out biker gangs to find Unobtainium). Carnegie sends out illiterate biker gangs to hunt down a book - a book that Eli happens to be carrying - that he believes will give him the power to dominate mankind. And, in case you really can't guess what that book is, I'll say no more about it. Everything else about the town is pure movie cliché. There's a seedy bar where the out-of-towner kicks off a fight. There's a cute chick in distress (Mila Kunis) who looks like she has full access to a functioning hairdresser. There's even a general store full of goods that apparently isn't knocked off, despite the fact that it's only guarded by Tom Waits with one gun.

So, Eli realises he needs to get the hell out of dodge and the Hughes Brothers make a lame attempt to have him bond with the cute chick who insists on following him. We pause for a truly bizarre encounter with an old cannibal couple, played completely improbably by Michael Gambon and British comic gem, Frances de la Tour. I'm almost tempted to say that this movie is worth the price of admission for this crazy scene. But that would be a misjudgement.

Because in the final act, THE BOOK OF ELI wraps itself up in a manner so stupidly that you really shouldn't respect anything about the film at all. But, in case you are going to see it, stop reading here. Those of who have seen it, continue on, after the release date notes.

THE BOOK OF ELI is on release in the UK, US, Greece, Russia, Canada, Kazakhstan, France, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Poland and Romania. It opens on February 3rd in Egypt; on Feb 10th in Belgium; on Feb 18th in Australia, Germany and New Zealand; on Feb 26th in Finland, Italy and Sweden. It opens in March in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Singapore, Argentina, Brazil and on June 19th in Japan.

.....SPOILERS FOLLOW.....

Okay, so there are three major problems with the ending of this film. First, you know that even after Carnegie gets his hand on the book, he's not gonna be able to read it. (I was betting on it being in a foreign language). So there's no suspense. The second major problem with the film is the way in which the rug is pulled from under the audience with the revelation of Eli's blindness. This was just totally lame. A blind man simply would not be pulling off the manoeuvres he had pulled off throughout the movie, and I'm not buying the "divine protection" crap. The final problem is that, even if we buy the blindness and the surprise, what was the point? I mean, the world has been near-annihilated by an apparently religious war and we're meant to be all happy that religious books have survived? Don't get me wrong - I'm not anti-religion - indeed, I am a practising Catholic - but shouldn't someone in the movie at least QUESTION whether Eli is doing the right thing?

Ah well. The whole thing was frustratingly ill-conceived.

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 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....

HARRY POTTER & THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE - bland

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

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

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

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

SYLVIA - dirge

The first film I ever watched at the London Film Fest started a trend of disappointing opening and closing night galas - the programming dictated by commercial interests rather than artistic merit. The movie was Christine Jeffs' dismal biopic of Sylvia Plath: acclaimed poet; wife of the adulterous Ted Hughes; mother to two small children; and suicide. And if you think I'm being reductive, then that is exactly what this movie does: it reduces Plath and Hughes' relationship to a daytime TV melodrama. Oh how pretty tony, young Sylvia (Gwyneth Paltrow) looks! See how her hair shines! See how that devilishly handsome Ted Hughes gets tired of her and betrays her! See how she is martyred in a dismal British flat in dismal post-war London! Oh, how Paltrow emotes inner pain! The whole thing was utterly dull and unconvincing. The fault, however, does not lie with the actors, nor with the score, cinematography or any other matter of execution. It lies in the movie's conception as a touching homage to Sylvia rather than a genuinely engaged, insightful analysis of what was, by all accounts, a passionate marriage and a painful suicide that cruelly left behind small children. The resulting film simultaneously caused offence to Plath's family for daring to be made at all - but causes offence to its viewers by refusing to actually delve into the emotional torment at its heart. It is the same emotional evation that frustrated me in Christine Jeffs' new film, SUNSHINE CLEANING - another film that deals with quite dark, depressing subject matter and yet handles it with all the willingness to truly engage of a rom-com (but without the benefit of actual laughs).

SYLVIA played London 2003 and opened in 2003 and 2004. It is available on DVD.

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED - so rudely forced

The following assumes familiarity with the novel and the 1981 TV series, and is replete with spoilers.

What is BRIDESHEAD REVISITED about? From that question follows all choices made by screen-writer Andrew Davies in editing down a novel replete with events, characters, superficial luxuriance and profound political and spiritual discourse. What is necessary? What is secondary? What can be safely altered to satisfy the exigencies of the two-hour film without changing the source-text or, worse still, render the result illogical?

For me, BRIDESHEAD REVISITED is an elegy for lost values. The values of discretion, discernment, elegance, friendship, love and faith in a world dominated by economic turbulence, vulgar ambition and the random cruelty of global war. People remember the novel for its depiction of the idyllic lifestyle of the British aristocracy - dreaming spires, champagne and strawberries, coming out balls in Mayfair and Venetian palazzos. But it's also a novel about General Strikes, mortgaged properties being demolished for modern apartment blocks, impending war and skeletal whores. To create a novel about an insular love story is to miss half the point.

The first fault of the film is its lack of elegance or subtlety. Take the early scenes at Oxford. We are introduced to Matthew Goode (a tremendously good performance) as Charles Ryder. He is a gentleman, from a good if not leading (with a capital "L") school. He is meant to be a little dazzled by the glamorous and beautiful Lord Sebastian Flyte, but he should not feel too lowly to be in their company. He cannot compete with Sebastian's eccentricities or Anthony Blanche's outré stories, but it was quite absurd to see Boy Mulcaster ask if he was from Eton, or gods preserve us, Winchester! After all, Evelyn Waugh makes quite a point of telling us that these boys are so well bred that they would not dream of letting on that they had not met Charles before. Andrew Davies confounds this error by allowing Charles to wear flannels to supper at Brideshead when everyone else is in White Tie. At every turn, Davies wants to bludgeon us with the idea that Charles is a lower class arriviste, and, on some level, simply after the house! By contrast, see how subtly Waugh exposes Charles with his sly little comment about Bellini.

The lack of subtlety stretches to the characterisation of each main character. Sebastian is portrayed by Ben Whishaw as a mincing alcoholic. Anthony Blanche looks about forty and is menacing rather than a piercingly observant eccentric. Julia (Hayley Atwell) is a repressed, obedient daughter with none of the independence or complexity of the novel. Lord Marchmain is an old rogue with none of the Byronic aura of Olivier's portrayal. And Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson) is a screen villain who speaks glibly about responsibility, destiny and faith.

This brings us to the second major flaw with this film. There is no "creamy English charm". Anthony Blanche had it perfectly, when he said that Sebastian and his family were simply dripping in charm and that they would catch Charles with it, and use him for their own ends. But the scant screen-time at Oxford never lets us see Sebastian seduce Charles with his charming lifestyle. And the portrayal of Lady Marchmain is utterly devoid of charm. She does not flatter one with intimacy and special attention, but commands with authority. It's very important to our continuing empathy with Charles that he doesn't realise that he is betraying Sebastian until after he has been drawn in. It is part of Charles' naivety that he believes that he can be Sebastian's true friend and a friend of the family up to the horrid Christmas as the final break. It is very important that Lady Marchmain should repent of her harsh words to Charles. If she cannot repent, then she is not human, and does not deserve our sympathy. And Emma Thompson's Lady Marchmain never does.

The third flaw is Andrew Davies' treatment of Julia. One of the most elegant symmetries in the novel is that Sebastian is Julia's forerunner - and that Sebastian must fade out of our sight for Charles to realise that he is in love with Julia. In this film, Julia is present throughout, staying at Brideshead during Charles and Sebastian's perfect summer and accompanying them to Venice. Because of this, we never see Charles enchantment with Sebastian and the secret world through the low door in the wall. Moreover, Julia is never an enigmatic, desperately glamorous, almost unattainable woman. Part of the joy of the relationship for Charles is that he has drawn down the moon - both with Julia and Brideshead. But in the film, she is simply the conventional best friend's sister.

In Andrew Davies' adaptation, Charles and Julia realise that they are in love early on - in Venice - in the full gaze of Sebastian and Lord Marchmain. This gives Andrew Davies a convenient hook upon which to hang Sebastian's plunge into alcoholism and flight to Morocco. I quite gasped when I heard the clumsy and anachronistic exit line "You only wanted to sleep with my sister". This motivation is crude and reductive. It also gives Davies a problem. If Julia and Charles know they are in love, why don't they simply marry? Davies "solves" this by making Lady Marchmain a pantomime villain, and Julia subservient. Mummy commands marriage to a Catholic of good family and Julia obeys. At this point, Davies would've been better off conjuring up a Bridey-esque dull Catholic aristo. For why on earth would Lady Marchmain have approved of Rex - a vulgar, Canadian, who, it is later revealed, wasn't even Catholic?

The obedient marriage gives Davies yet another problem. It was plausible that Julia might seriously consider a life "in sin" with Charles when she had already defied her Church in her marriage, and then in the affair which puts her on the Atlantic liner. By contrast, in Andrew Davies' script, I never believed that Julia would go through with it. She is always obedient, apart from a few weeks of passion with Charles. We didn't need Bridey's priggish comments, or the crisis at the fountain, or the arguments over her father's deathbed, to bring Julia back to the Church and away from Charles. We have to believe that Julia has led a life away from "his mercy" for us to benefit from the dramatic turnaround in the denouement and to feel the full force of what has been snatched away from Charles.

In the final scene, we are restored to Brideshead in World War Two and Charles makes no straightforward pronouncement of faith. He refuses to extinguish a candle in the chapel but the reasons for this are ambiguous - it could be out of respect for the memory of Sebastian and Julia rather than out of faith. Accordingly, the film looses the profound emotional charge of the final pages of the novel.

My abiding feeling at the end of the film was that it had been adapted by a screenwriter who didn't particularly like or understand the novel. Yes, one must be concise and lose plot threads, but to alter so profoundly the fundamental meaning of the novel is unforgivable. To answer my original question, BRIDESHEAD is a book about the complexity of friendship, love and faith. It is not about a man who lost a woman because he tried for a grand house but wouldn't convert to get it.

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED was released earlier this year in the US, Greece, the Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark. It opens this weekend in Australia and the UK. It opens on October 23rd in New Zealand and Portugal and on October 31st in Norway and Spain. It opens in Germany on November 20th and in Belgium on January 9th.

THE GOOD NIGHT veers off track

THE GOOD NIGHT is a rather straightforward movie about lucid dreaming and comes off as indebted, but deeply inferior, to THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP. Martin Freeman (THE OFFICE) plays a faded Britpop star frustrated with his new career writing derivative commercial music. He's also frustrated with his deeply irritating girlfriend (Gwyneth Paltrow) and fantasises about a beautiful woman played by Penelope Cruz. Mocked by his amoral best friend (Simon Pegg), our hero turns to a variety of new-age kooks for techniques to sustain and even control his dreams. Finally, he actually meets a girl who looks just like the object of his fantasies.

The movie has some little comedic gems - Simon Pegg is on brilliant form and Britpop legend Jarvis Cocker is unnervingly convincing as a talking-head. But overall, THE GOOD NIGHT is a mess. The look of the film is bizarre - it's meant to be set in New York but is transparently set in London. The acting is mixed, with Danny de Vito and Michael Gambon wasted, and apparently unmotivated, in smaller roles. But most of all the script, from writer-director Jake Paltrow, veers off track. The movie starts of a romantic-comedy with an odd-ball streak, but ends up feeling like an Almodovar rip-off. Paltrow simply doesn't have the stones to handle the severe material he introduces.

THE GOOD NIGHT played Sundance 2007 and went on release in Russia, Greece, the USA and Israel in 2007. It was relased in 2008 in the UK and South Korea and is now available on DVD.

THE BAKER - hokey cokey pig in a pokey!

Milo is a hitman on the lam in a Welsh village. The locals presume he's the new baker and Milo's all to happy to swap his Glock for an apron and stave off his mid-life crisis. Problem is, the locals soon twig what he really does for a living and start commissioning him to kill their irritating neighbours. Milo still thinks they're ordering "cake". So proceeds a comedy of errors that is painfully executed. Writer-director Gareth Lewis never moves beyond the obvious - exploding Welsh sheep, garden gnomes - and always crosses the line from silly to plain stupid. The classic example of this is a scene where our (anti-)hero Milo (Damian Lewis) and his love interest Rhiannon make love smeared in flour, eggs and cocoa powder. Unsexy and, what's worse, not hugely funny.

We've seen hitmen turn soft before. This territory is covered better in THE MATADOR. Even ANALYSE THIS makes a better fist of it. Fish-out-of-water comedy has been done better too. But the most tragic thing about this movie is that it seems to ignore all the development in British comedy over past decade, not least by the genius TV series THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN. In that phenomenonally successful show, the comedians moved beyond the crude stereotypes used by Lewis. They satirised the urban view of rural life as well as pushing those stereotypes to their logical and grotesque conclusions. By contrast, THE BAKER seems very old-fashioned and unambitious.

THE BAKER is on release in the UK but is also available on DVD.

AMAZING GRACE - workmanlike but worthwhile biopic

In AMAZING GRACE, director Michael Apted (HBO's Rome) and writer Steven Knight (DIRTY PRETTY THINGS) deliver a workmanlike but worthwhile biopic of anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffud). The film covers his early life as an MP, fired up by an ex-slave-ship captain turned preacher (Albert Finney) and his best friend, Prime Minister William Pitt (Benedict Cumberbatch). Despite the evidence of an escaped slave (Youssou N'Dour) and some popular support, every year Wilberforce's bills are beaten by vested interests in the form of Lord Tartleton (Ciaran Hinds) and The Duke of Clarence (Toby Jones.) Worse still, when the new French Republic declares war on Britain, Wilberforce and his radical friends (not least Rufus Sewell's Thomas Clarke) are seen as seditious. Despondent, and increasingly dependent on laudanum, Wilberforce contemplates defeat, before a fiery young woman played by Romola Garai prompts a renewed attack in a more helpful political climate and victory, via a cunning Fox is achieved.

The movie is not without its flaws. It will not win prizes for visual flair and feels the need to dress up its earnest history lesson with a little love story (Wilberforce and wife) and a little emotional manipulation (the blind preacher's final speech). History is teased into a palatable form: lords sit with commoners in parliament, for example. However, there is no doubt that this is a very well acted film, with a scene stealing cameo from Michael Gambon as Charles Fox and a finely nuanced performance by Cumberbatch as Pitt. And as someone with little prior knowledge of this issue I found the movie engrossing - an effective primer on the social and political backdrop to the anti-slavery movement in Britain. But, in fairness, I should warn viewers looking for the African viewpoint on slavery, that that lies beyond the scope of this particular project.

AMAZING GRACE is on release in the US and UK and opens in Australia in June.

THE OMEN 666 - It's official! The EU will destroy mankind!

You know what, I am all about the Omen remake. Not because it’s a great movie but because I have seen so many piss-poor un-scary ‘70s horror remakes of late that it’s a huge relief to see anything remotely competent on screen. And this version is competent. More than that, it fulfilled the genre contract of making me jump out of my skin around 5 times in the two hour stretch, despite the fact that I had seen the original and so knew the plot. I think this comes down to the fact that the central story of THE OMEN is fascinating and terrifying, and no matter how hard you try, it is pretty hard to balls it up. In addition, we get some nice character actors giving strong supporting performances – from Pete Postlethwaite, David Thewlis and Michael Gambon to the iconic Mia Farrow. It’s all good.

Except when it isn’t. Hard-core 70s horror fans are bound to find plenty to be disappointed by, not least the weak casting of the main roles. Liev Schreiber – usually a fine actor – gives a bizarrely understated, or should I say comatose – performance as Robert Thorn. Schreiber has obviously made a choice to play Thorn as a hard-as-nails, bottled up kind of guy. However, it seems a bit unsatisfactory that his face barely ever registers emotion given that pretty much all Thorn does in this movie is get a lot of shocking and bad news, usually related to how people he knows and love have suffered agonising deaths and how his own son may in fact be the devil’s spawn. His wife, Katherine Thorn, is played by Julia Stiles – again a fine actor, but around fifteen years too young for the role. My final quibble is that while this seems like a fairly lush, blockbuster-stylee production there are one or two glaring errors. In the climactic car chase a character rushes through the streets of England only to pass buildings with conspicuously Central European signage. Nice.

Anyways, like I said, I have a fondness for this flick. It is what it is – an above-average remake of a horror classic that, despite its manifold flaws, still managed to scare me silly a couple of times. Job done.

THE OMEN 666 is on global release. P.S. The reference in the title of this review is to the assertion in the movie that one of the portents of Armageddon is the rising of the Roman Empire. David Thewlis' character interprets this as the signing of The Treaty of Rome.

HARRY POTTER & THE GOBLET OF FIRE - a lesser movie than the sum of its parts

The new HARRY POTTER movie is a decent enough 2 and a half hour version of the novel and if you like the novel no doubt there is some charm in seeing it up on screen. It is fun to see Harry nervously asking out Cho Chang and to finally catch a glipse of evil Lord Voldemort. But if you are not a fan of the books you will probably be bored by the unrelenting gloom of the surroundings and the uncomfortable mix of a corny high school romance and a far darker gothic thriller. This strange mix of the cute and innocent and the far grittier core story is, of course, evident in the book itself. But over a sprawling mass of 600 odd pages each strand has a bit more room to breathe and the contradictions are not so evident. In the movie, the mood swings jar. Most notably, in the penultimate scene we have the long-awaited clash between Voldemort and Harry. Nasty things happen and they are shot with authenticity and acted with conviction. When Harry emerges from this harrowing encounter we feel that he has been through something that is literally terrible. But he emerges into the cute Olde Worlde Hogwarts, with cute friends, kindly wizards and floppy scarves. This return to Enid-Blyton-land subverts the preceeding emotional intensity.

Overall, this is a good movie in its parts. It is well acted, well shot and while I found it over-long it is hard to see where the editor and screen-writer could have cut it down without losing key plot points. But put together I find the tension between the two story strands untenable. Presumably this tension will only get worse in the next two movies as the body count increases. This raises the key question of how suitable and indeed enoyable a movie this will be for kids. The classic horror movie tropes are all in evidence, and as the kids get stuck in a vicious maze at the end, I half expected Jack Nicholson to come bounding out with an axe. More practically, 2 and a half hours is a long time for kids to sit still. The movie has been given a 12A certificate which puts the responsibility with parents to decide if their under-12s are up to it. I would advise extreme caution.

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE went on global release yesterday.