If Bina007 ruled the world...or at the very least, the Academy Awards....

Enough of all this negativity! Let's raise a glass to the best and brightest and celebrate all the truly wonderful achievements of cinema in 2007. (An remember, I haven't yet seen NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR, THERE WILL BE BLOOD or SWEENEY TODD.....

Best Motion Picture of the Year
Winner: 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS - searing drama about a young woman getting an illegal abortion in Communist era Romania. Outstandingly well-scripted, acted and produced. Drips quality and integrity from start to finish. An instant pantheon movie, for which writer-director Cristian Mungiu won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Breath-taking cinema - reminds you how powerful this medium can be.

Other Nominees: THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD - Oz director Andrew Dominik's lyrical, handsomely produced, heart-breaking story. A young man's hero-worship takes him to the edge of murder, but it's the hero's tacit complicity in his own death that breaks our heart. A film of which I expected very little but once again was frozen with awe when the lights came up.

HOT FUZZ - too often, august award ceremonies overlook the deceptively simple-looking movies that make us laugh. HOT FUZZ is spot on with its referential humour but, unlike so many weak spoofs, underpins it with a neat plot, a genuine puzzle to solve and real cameraderie between the protagonists. Kudos to Brit director Edgar Wright.

BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA - another genre that is rarely patronised by the Academy, but h children's movie that is never patronising and tackles harsh subject-matter with grace and imagination. Two young kids make a fantasy world that is shattered by a nasty accident. Beautifully made, grabs you by the heart - a movie that should be watched by adults and kids alike.

THE SINGER - Gerard Depardieu reminding us just how good he can be in a May to December romance that surprises us with its insight, sensitivity, emotional bravery and the genuine sexual chemistry between the two leads I can't wait to see what writer-director Xavier Giannoli does next.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Winner: Casey Affleck as Robert Ford in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD. A break-through performance that perfectly articulates the slightly psychotic nature of being a "super-fan". Affleck never allows us to judge Ford harshly - he takes us with Ford into his guilt and regret.

Other Nominees: Richard Gere in THE HOAX - a jaw-droppingly good performance from Richard Gere, who I'd never particularly respected before this, as author Clifford Irving. Gere as Irving fools everyone into thinking he is writing Howard Hughes' biography. Gere conveys the slippery nature of Irving's psyche.

Irrfhan Khan in THE NAMESAKE proved to a Western audience what a subtle and profoundly good actor he was, portraying an Indian expat with a romantic heart struggling to deal with modern American life. He has that thing that all actors should aspire to: he makes us happy to spend time with him and he makes us care about what happens to him. What astounds me about Irrfhan Khan is his range - he's also brilliant in light comedic roles.

Tim Roth in YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH Tim Roth has always been pure class - just check out a very early role as a hyper-intelligent skin-head in MADE IN BRITAIN. In Coppola's come-back he handles complex material in a script that stretches credulity. He plays a young man an old man and everything in between. It's simply an acting masterclass.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Winner: Ashley Judd in BUG. All these performances are raw, brave and on the edge. All these actresses deserve praise for exploring painful territory and making the extreme seem believable and sympathetic. Ashley Judd wins out because her performance was so convincing and the material was the most difficult: she plays a woman holed up in a motel room with a conspiracy-theorist wacko. They both simply go mad.

Other Nominees: Maggie Gylenhaal in SHERRYBABY. Gylenhaal excels as a drug addict ex-con who comes back to claim her daughter and has to face the demons from her past. A typically strong performance from one of the most impressive actresses of her generation.

Angelina Jolie in A MIGHTY HEART. Jolie reminds us how good she was in GIRL, INTERUPTED - before TOMB RAIDER. A quiet, modulated performance that portrays Marianne Pearl's immense bravery in the face of her husband's kidnap and execution by Muslim fundamentalists.

Julie Christie in AWAY FROM HER. A heart-breaking -performance by Christie as a woman who suffers from Alzheimer's, makes the brave decision to leave her husband and enter a nursing home, forgets her husband and then falls in love with another man.

Marion Cotillard in LA MOME. A charming performance that conveys the complexity of Edith Piaf's character and holds together a biopic that threatens to crumble under its unnecessarily complex non-linear narrative structure.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Winner: Steve Zahn in RESCUE DAWN. A surprisingly honest, moving performance from funny-man Zahn as Dieter Dengler's fellow escapee from the Cong in Werner Herzog's fictional recreation.

Other Nominees: Eddie Redmayne for LIKE MINDS LIKE MINDS is a slight British thriller which will be remembered purely as being Eddie Redmayne's first flick. He is an immensely impressive young actor, even in dreck like SAVAGE GRACE.

Satish Kaushik in BRICK LANE. Kaushik manages to make a comic villain - fat, over-bearing husband - into a figure of symathy and indeed nobility. A truly great performance in a mediocre movie.

Ben Foster in 3:10 TO YUMA Foster is magnetic as a mentally unhinged outlaw in this Western remake. You can measure the brilliance of his performance from the fact that he steals scenes from under Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.

Chris Cooper THE BREACH A performance that perfectly transmits the contradictions of a CIA mole and under-pins a much under-rated spy thriller.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Winner: Tilda Swinton in MICHAEL CLAYTON. A performance that conveys perfectly conveys the moral dilemma of modern capitalism: how far do these companies recruit insecure over-achievers who will identify with the brand and sacrifice their social lives and indeed their moral integrity for its survivial. In a solid film full of strong performances, Swinton stands out.

Other Nominees: Romola Garai in ATONEMENT. The British actress who should be more feted than Ikea Knightley - in the scene where she apologises to Knightley and McAvoy's thwarted lovers she acts them off the screen.

Saiorse Ronan in ATONEMENT. A confident, intense and assured performance from a young actress as the confused, spiteful little sister who deliberately does something grave and wrong but for what she thinks is the right reason.

Meryl Streep in LIONS FOR LAMBS. Just for the sheer delight of watching two actors at the top of their game (Streep and Cruise) having a war of words over the War on Terror. It was what cinema rarely is these days - a delicate balance of intellectual substance and belly-laughs.

Cate Blanchett in I'M NOT THERE. In a cast of mostly men trying to interpret the life and myth of Bob Dylan, Blanchett gives the most convincing and scarring performance of Dylan in his caustic electro- phase. A far better performance than in ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE, certainly.

Best Achievement in Directing

Winner: 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS What more can I say? If any movie from 2007 survives the test of time, it will be this one. This movie shows us how great cinema can be. Kudos to Cristian Mungiu.

Other Nominees: Susanne Bier for AFTER THE WEDDING If I could nominate an ensemble cast, this movie would win, but at the very least one has to praise Susanne Bier was a scalding tricksy script about a dysfunctional family, riven by secrets and ruled by a manipulative father. This is what Dogme was all about wasn't it? Not some adolescent rant against technical artifice but a desire to strip cinema back down to bare emotional truth.

Sarah Polley for AWAY FROM HER An impressive directorial debut from this actress - and more impressive for the fact that she tackles an unfashionable but increasingly important subject - how Alzheimer's destroys relationships. She elicits career-redefining performances from her cast but also conjures up stunning visuals.

Julie Delpy for 2 DAYS IN PARIS Who knew that Julie Delpy would turn out to an auteur?! A confident directorial debut and a rare movie that combines belly laughs with insight. I also love her confidence in depicting a romantic comedy that is fundamentally cynical about the possibility of love.

Sean Penn for INTO THE WILD Finally Penn finds material that matches his own concerns, rather than taking someone else' film and over-stuffing it with heavy earnestness and pretensiousness. As with Sarah Polley, Penn elicits great performances from his cast but also masters the visuals.

Best Writing, Original Screenplay

Winner: Julie Delpy for 2 DAYS IN PARIS. Funny, smart, unpredictable!

Other Nominees: Michel Gondry for THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP. Funny, smart, unpredictable!

Aki Kaurismaki for LIGHTS IN THE DUSK. Another wonderfully absurd, off-beat, and yes, that most dirty of dirty words, quirk, script from this Finnish director. A hopeless security guard almost wills his own downfall at the hands of a femme fatale and a caper gone wrong.

Shane Meadows for THIS IS ENGLAND Yet another strong film from Britain's most authentic writer-director. Meadows perfectly conjures up the early 80s and all the thwarted hopes of the working classes. Once again he deftly combines profound subject-matter - racial violence, social deprivation - with a good ear for the absurd and comic in even the worst situations.

Nanni Moretti for THE CAIMAN A superlative film not so much about the scandalous Italian Presidency of Silvio Berlusconi but about how ordinary Italian let this happen. A film that depicts moral complicity on a small scale but did so in defiance of Berlusconi himself. Subtle, clever, funny, moving.

Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay

Winner: Sooni Taraporevala for THE NAMESAKE. Another great script from the women behind MISSISSIPI MASSALA and SALAAM BOMBAY!

Other Nominees: Ron Nyswaner for THE PAINTED VEIL. A sensitive adaptation that opened out this novella and made it seem relevant to modern eyes.

Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman for STARDUST.
Matt Greenhalgh for CONTROL

Michael Goldenberg for HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX - an impressive script that condenses down a baggy monster into the most focussed of the Potter flicks.

Best Achievement in Cinematography

Winner: In a great year for cinematography, Harry Savides just edges out the competition for ZODIAC, with his moody visuals of the West Coast in the seventies. Possibly is best work since Se7en.

Other Nominees: Martin Ruhe stunning black and white photography for the Ian Curtis biopic, CONTROL, which one suspects was heavily directed by Anton Corbijn.

Edward Lachman for his technical mastery of black and white, colour, composites and immitation in Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan movie, I'M NOT THERE

Coen-Brothers collaborator Roger Deakins for the stunning landscape photography in Andrew Dominik's THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD.

Philip Robertson for his stuning use of DV to depict Morecambe Bay in Juliet McKeon's FROZEN.

Best Achievement in Art Direction
Winner: Ann Chakraverty, Pierre Pell and Stephane Rosenbaum for THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP

Other Nominees:Suttirat Anne Larlarb for THE NAMESAKE

Nick Ralvobsky for FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS

Isabelle Guay, Nicolas Lepage and Jean-Pierre Pacquet for 300

Aradhana Seth and Adam Stockhausen for THE DARJEELING LIMITED

Best Achievement in Costume Design

Winner: Milena Canonero for THE DARJEELING LIMITED

Other Nominees: Jenny Beaven for AMAZING GRACE

Mark Bridges for FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS

Ruth Myers for THE PAINTED VEIL

Gabriele Binder for THE LIVES OF OTHERS

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
Winner: Theme from St Trinian's, Girls Aloud, ST TRINIAN'S

Other Nominees: Rule The World, Take That, STARDUST

Barso Re, A R Rahman, GURU

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
Winner: Alexandre Desplat for THE PAINTED VEIL - a score heavily inspired by Satie

Other Nominees: Alexandre Desplat for THE GOLDEN DOOR

Elliot Goldenthal for his arrangements of Beatles classics in ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis for THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD

Nitin Sawhney for THE NAMESAKE
Best Documentary, Features

Winner: TAKING LIBERTIES. Chris Atkins articulated better than I ever could the revolutionary nature of Tony Blair's regime - anti-liberal to an extent that most right wing Home Secretaries could never have dreamed of. Should be required viewing in schools, along with....

Other Nominees: TERROR'S ADVOCATE - Barbet Schroeder's important and chilling documentary about Jacques Verges - a lawyer who has defended terrorists and war criminals with an alarming lack of moral qualms.

BLUE BLOOD - Steven Riley's low budget British documentary about the Oxford-Cambridge varsity boxing match. Funny, engaging, worth seeking out on DVD.

JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN - Rock doc maestro Julien Temple's hommage to Strummer. Rich in interview footage, the movie captures everything that was exciting about punk and the sad hangover of the late 80s and 90s.

ZIZEK! - I can't get enough of Marxist theorist Slavok Zizek. He lectures with imense passion and comedy about movies, life, the universe and everything. Astra Taylor's documentary is a wonderful companion to Zizek's PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA. Is he sending himself up, or us?!

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

Winner: 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS

Other Nominees: AFTER THE WEDDING

THE SINGER

CLIMATES - emotionally raw Turkish drama

THE FAMILY FRIEND - creepy, surreal Italian film about a manipulative grotesque who blackmails a beautiful young girl. Deeply bizarre but memorable.

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

Winner: RATATOUILLE - showing that CGI can have heart, rather than just snappy one-liners.

Other Nominees: SURF'S UP - a handsomely drawn movie that also displayed heart rather than post-modern in-jokes.

MAX AND CO - an old-fashioned stop-motion film from France that has a zany story, real visual imagination and even works when the young viewers don't understand the language!

TERKEL IN TROUBLE - a filthy, irreverant animated film about a young kid fighting school bullies. Despite the toilet-humour, spot on on the neuroses that bedevil young kids.

Crimes Against Cinema: The Ten Most Piss-Poor Movies of 2007 OR Why Danny Dyer Should Be Tried as a Serial Offender

Piss-poor cinema is typically lazy, formulaic, badly produced and lacking in ambition or artistic integrity. In previous years, the chief aggressors were studio hacks pumping out weak franchises aimed squarely at the lowest common denominator. But in recent years, we've seen the co-option of the American independent cinema movement, with a certain style of "Sundance" movie feeling as jaded and derivative as the studio fodder it seeks to replace. Hands up all those sick of quirky characters, faux-naif camera-work and self-conscious music choices. So this year's Worst Of List eschews the usual commercial crap that harbours no ambition of greatness. Instead, we focus on movies that really were trying to be good but failed.

My first two picks are both low-budget British erotic revenge thrillers that reach for profundity but stumble into cheap exploitation. Both also star Cockney geezer Danny Dyer in performances that demonstrate his limited range. The first offender is STRAIGHTHEADS - in which a women is brutally raped by a couple of slack-jawed yokels in deepest darkest Worcestershire (from the look of it.) She turns into a psycho-killer and exacts a revenge that will be familiar to readers of Marlowe's Edward II. The second movie is called THE GREAT ECSTASY OF ROBERT CARMICHAEL. In this flick, a young man desensitised by popular culture and political violence brutally rapes and kills a random middle-class woman. We know this is meant to be a "serious" movie about "issues" because the psycho-teen rapist listens to classical music, just like Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The problem is that neither film has the intellectual gravity of ORANGE or STRAW DOGS. As a result, they just feel like crass exploitation flicks.

The third film in this year's list is yet another low-budget British revenge film featuring Danny Dyer! The only slight difference with OUTLAW is that the pscho-revenge-killings are not prompted by rape. But everything else is depressingly familiar: from the incredible dialogue to the insufficient character delineation to the weak performances. Grim.

As we move away from the low-budget revenge thriller, you might think we'd be leaving territory besmirched by the inappropriately smirking face of cinema's equivalent of Victor Willis. You'd be wrong. Still, in fairness to Dyer, his typically one-note performance was by far not the worst thing about low-budget British comedy THE ALL TOGETHER. He was trumped by the arid wasteland where Comedy Used To Live.

Speaking of which, the fifth item on the list is, you guessed it, a low-budget British flick called MAGICIANS. I'm not sure how it happened but this flick took two of the funniest guys on British TV - Mitchell and Webb - and put them in a feature length film that was almost entirely devoid of laughs. There's a PhD for some poor film student in working out what goes wrong when TV comedians fail on the big screen.

Venturing outside of the UK, we had plenty of examples of formulaic American movies in the faux-naif genre. YEAR OF THE DOG is a case in point. Quirky characters up the wazoo; a cast-list stuffed with darlings of independent cinema; this film has Sundance ooozing from its pores. It's also faintly patronising toward its characters, unfunny and unable to engage its audiences in it protagonist's emotional crisis. These directors need to realise that if quirk is not balanced with genuine comedy, it's just irritating. Moreover, it's a barrier to the audience relating to the protagonist.

The seventh movie on the list proves that the Spirit of Sundance is infecting cinema as far away as New Zealand, and that Mitchell and Webb are not the only successful TV comedians to suffer an embarassingly laugh-free transition to the big screen. In EAGLE VERSUS SHARK, Jemaine Clement of the hysterically funny duo Flight of the Conchords plays a quirky geek who pisses off his long-suffering quirky geek girlfriend. Then he fights a disabled guy, which is quite funny. Then the movie ends. Weak beyond belief.

The eighth movie on my list is THE DARJEELING LIMITED. Wes Anderson is the director who can most clearly take credit for inventing the Sundance style, despite the fact that he actually makes studio films. But as his characters have become more wealthy and his reputation has become more august, his films have delivered diminishing returns. Where we had genuine emotions and love-able characters in BOTTLE ROCKET, we now have ever-more flowery production design and ever-more vacuous characters and thinner plots. I don't care about the characters in THE DARJEELING LIMITED. They are as indulged as this film is indulgent. I despair of Wes Anderson.

The ninth movie on my list is a genuine all-out fiasco called ANGEL. It's a French-produced melo-drama set in Edwardian Britian called Based on a sappy sub-Mills and Boon novel by Liz Taylor, the movie is about a wilful authoress who manipulates everyone around her. Director Francois Ozon will no doubt argue that the over-acting, absurd dialogue, fantastical costumes and sets, are all intentional. But a pastiche is interesting for only so long, and this film certainly does not sustain our interest. I only hope that talented actress Romola Garai's reputation survives.

Note that, despite their failure, I still have more respect for these nine movies than piss-poor studio films that don't even try to do anything different. A noble failure is better than a mediocre, banal auto-flick. Having said that, I can't help mention a string of uninspired shameless cash-ins from our friends in the West - namely HOSTEL PART II, HANNIBAL RISING, BECAUSE I SAID SO, GOAL 2 LIVING THE DREAM or the most piss-poor studio films of the year: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END and SPIDERMAN 3. Of all these movies, PIRATES 3 must take the biscuit as the example par excellence of all the traits that characterise flabby, over-busy franchise films. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I give you: Ikea Knightley's and Orloondo Bland's* wooden central performances; a plot so convoluted you could catch fish in it; the indulgence of Johnny Depp's ego; the inability of the screen-writers to stick the rules of the fantasy genre that they set up in the first film; the reliance on running and shouting rather than genuine chemistry between the romantic leads or genuine tension in the adventure story plot. *TM BBC Radio 5 Live, Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode on film.

The Twelve Most Spine-Tinglingly Awesome Moments of 2007

It may be hard to believe when you read an excoriating review, but every time I sit down to watch a movie I do so in joyful hope. I can't explain how much I love cinema. Ever since I was a little girl there seemed to be something magical about a beam of light that transformed a negative into a living and breathing story. I also love the idea of shared experience. I grew up in a small town with a large Italian population and a larger cinema. When the Rocky movies played, the cinema manager, a suave Roger-Moore wannabe who wore a dinner jacket(!), opened up both the stalls and the circle. A thousand Italians cheered for Rocky as though they were watching a live bout. Outstanding! Later on I studied cinematography so as to disabuse myself of my obsession with cinema. I thought that if I knew the nuts and bolts, I'd forget about the magic. It didn't work. I became more obsessed than ever, except that now my infantile fascination was girded with a respect for the technical expertise underlying every movie - even the cyncical cash-ins.

So in a rare annual moment of warmth and optimism, here follow those flashes of brilliance that reminded me - amidst the sequels, threequels and hopeless failures - just how wonderful cinema can be. Note that this list is significantly different from my Best Films of 2007 list (found in a drop-down box in the side-bar). Even piss-poor flicks can have moments of inspiration - which is a faintly hopeful thought.

The first moment is totally juvenile and comes from the Danish animated kids flick, TERKEL IN TROUBLE. I knew I was in insane place - a cross between SOUTH PARK and GRANGE HILL - but I didn't realise how shamelessly brilliant the movie was until the sidekick sang the following love song: "I think I've been been blind until today, when you suddenly looked at me and said 'Fuck off and die - you're too ugly for me and your mum goes for a hundred dollars,' you said it straight to my face". Pure Comedy Gold.

The second moment is the hysterical cameo from Jason Bateman in SMOKIN' ACES. Altogether, this was a much better caper flick than we had any right to expect but Bateman really stood-out in a great ensemble class. He really suits those sleazy, frayed at the edges roles.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, at the end of January I got to see Sergei Bondarchuk's WAR AND PEACE for the first time, and not just to see it on DVD but on the big screen at the Barbican. The battle scenes, where the Red Army don period costume and literally fire canon, were outstanding, as was the entire film. In fact, for all sorts of reasons, Bondarchuk's WAR AND PEACE is my favourite movie of all time.

Next, as a confirmed anti-vegetarian, there was something mischevious and delicious in seeing a camera segue from a cute little piglet to a nice thick slice of bacon sizzling in a pan. And in a children's film no less! Thank you CHARLOTTE'S WEB.

For sheer beauty, you can't beat the shots of Shirley Henderson running on the beach at Morecambe Bay in Juliet McKoen's film FROZEN. The colour palette, the texture of the sand, and all on DV. A real technical and artistic achievement.

Next, proof that even weak movies contain moments of joy, we have Jessica Stevenson's dance routine in Mitchell and Webb's disappointing cinema debut, MAGICIANS. Absolutely bloody hysterical!

The seventh stand-out moment restored my faith in big budget action flicks and Hollywood franchises. It's the tunnel chase scene where McClane crashes a truck into a helicopter in DIE HARD 4.0. It just reminded me how good 80s action flicks really were. And how guiltlessly egregious. Thrills and spills-tastic.

Eighth up, we have Nikki Blonsky's opening number in HAIRSPRAY. It was just so full of energy and fun that you wanted to spend more time with the character and bought into the musical. She's one of 2007's great finds.

Ninth up, I give you two words: Spider Pig. Yes yes, as disappointing as THE SIMPSONS MOVIE was, Spider Pig is now an iconic cinema moment.

Next, we have Richard Gere, who's not someone you'd normally associate with stand-out acting performancs. But in THE HOAX he really got to flex his muscles. There's a scene where he's creating fictitious tapes of himself as author Clifford Irving interviewing Howard Hughes. In reality, he's playing both Irving and Hughes. The impression is superb, but what's more captivating is the fact that Gere can convey how comfortable Irving feels in Hughes' shoes. He's almost better at being Hughes tham himself.

Eleventh, and back to juvenilia, the utter ridiculousness and brazen absurdity of the opening scene of SHOOT 'EM UP. Clive Owen as a pissed off British nanny fighting off gangsters, chomping on a carrot, and still managing to hold the baby. Who needs to be Bond anyways?

Twelfth, a fight scene as homo-erotic and breath-taking as any you've ever seen. Viggo Mortensen in a butt-naked knife fight with some Russian hoods. Once again, David Cronenberg takes us to the edge of voyeurism and exploitation-violence and then calmly walks over that edge. EASTERN PROMISES: flawed movie; iconic fight scene.

Best of 2007 and worst of 2008?

Sorry folks! No Best Of lists till I've seen the much-lauded NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, SWEENEY TOOD and the latest Paul Thomas Anderson flicks (all first/second week of Jan.) However, in true Grinch like fashion I will shortly be posting my Ten Most Piss-Poor Flicks of 07 list and also the 10 Most Spine Tinglingly Awesome Scenes list.

Looking forward to 2008, I hear that Madonna, who I would gladly try for crimes against cinema, has had her debut directorial effort selected for Berlin 2008. This is depressing news. Try as I might to be free from prejudice, probability suggests that this is not going to be a work of artistic genius. Which leaves us with the suspicion that the Berlin programmers have succumbed to the need for publicity. Poor show from one of the world's premier film festivals.

ST TRINIAN'S - clearly leery, but still rather fun

ST TRINIAN'S is a movie that is sure to provoke outrage and rightly so. After all, there is something leery and pervy about getting a bunch of teenage girls dressed up in mini-skirted, suspender-ed school uniforms. Added to this, half the jokes are about fellatio and the other half are about illegal substance abuse. Against such a backdrop, the script-writers lame attempts to throw in a one-liner about how "clever is cool" seems a pretty thin cover. More admirable and endemic to the plot is the idea that ST TRINIAN'S is the last bastion of free thinking in a country of league tables, SATs and the National Curriculum. Laudable stuff.

The key point is that, as politically incorrect as ST TRINIAN'S is, it's also a lot of fun. Indeed, far more fun than I had expected. The script is genuinely funny, the visual humour and witty one-liners well observed. The film has a lot of energy and the caper is engaging. The ends all tie up and a good time is had by all. The plot sees the infamous girls fight off a twin threat to their beloved school. First, the government is sending in a ruthless Minister, Geoffrey Thwaites (Colin Firth) to reform Britain's most anarchic, under-performing school. At the same time, the headmistress is in danger of losing the school unless she can repay the Bank £500,000. So the girls decide to nick The Girl With The Pearl Ear-ring from the National Gallery and fence it the headmistress' scoundrelous brother - a Mayfair art dealer - via their shifty mate Flash Harry (Russell Brand). They do so by cheating their way to the final of a school quiz, which is held in the National Gallery.

In particular, I loved Rupert Everett in drag as ST TRINIAN's headmistress. There is something simply delicious in seeing him camp across the grounds in a lurid pink jersey-suit topped of with a Hermes scarf. And the way in which he/she vamps at Colin Firth's stuffy New Labour Education minister is pure joy! Jodie Whitaker (VENUS) is also fantastically fun as the school's chav secretary - just watch her dancing to the final song from GIRLS ALOUD. Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie and Toby Jones (INFAMOUS) are all good value in very small parts as are the very under-used/under-rated Fenella Woolgar (BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS) as the gun-toting PE teacher and Lucy Punch (BEING JULIA) as the Minister's daughter and Cheltenham Ladies College hockey captain.

In such a busy, riotous ensemble piece many actors fall by the wayside. Lena Headey (300) is worst served as the geeky new teacher. Mischa Barton is perfectly fine in her cameo, but the cameo seems utterly redundant to all but those marketing the film to US distributors.

Still, all-in-all, and despite the suspect sexual politics, ST TRINIAN'S is a good solid piece of light entertainment. My final observation is that, given the content, the BFI's 12A rating seems a trifle generous. Parents of young teens might want to vet the movie before letting their younger offspring loose on it.

P.S. Did I forget to mention the awesome two-tone score?

ST TRINIAN'S is on release in the UK.

BALLS OF FURY - quite depressingly piss-poor

We went to see BALLS OF FURY on the grounds that in our fragile state (the variety of the wine) we couldn't handle anything too cerebral. On the other hand, as we were soon to discover, there's a level of brainlessness that can exert its own special kind of pain on the poor hapless cinema-goer.

BALLS OF FURY is brought to you by the cinematic gurus (sarcasm) behind the altogether dismal RENO 9-11: MIAMI. This time, writer-director Ben Garant and writer-actor Thomas Lennon try to spoof martial arts and under-dog sports movies. Trouble is, this is territory that has been mined with greater success by recent classics such as DODGEBALL or even BLADES OF GLORY. Dan Fogler plays a washed up ping-pong player called Randy Daytona. Daytona is recruited by the FBI to bring down a sinister triad and ping-pong fanatic (Christopher Walken).

The jokes are weak - alternately sexist or racist. The plot is entirely predictable. And I spent most of the movie feeling embarassed for the actors - especially Walken. And as for Aisha Tyler, she loses all credibility as a guest reviewer on Siskel and Ebert given her choice of script.

BALLS OF FURY was released in the US, Singapore, Russia, the Philippines, Ukraine, Iceland, Slovenia, Australia, Kuwait, Greece, Spain earlier this year and is currently playing in the UK. It opens in Argentina on January 17th 2008.