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....

Overlooked DVD of the month - CHICAGO 10

Brett Morgan has a knack for making funny, insightful documentaries about colourful historical figures. Half his genius is picking characters that have a finely tuned sense of theatrics: the other half of his genius is in bringing that to a modern audience with a sense of flair and energy. In his bio-doc of Robert Evans, legendary Hollywood producer and ladies man, THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE, Morgan used photo-montage and memoir. In CHICAGO 10, Morgan mixes vintage news-footage, animated court-room recreations, contemporary interviews and simulated stand-up. The sound-track mixes contemporary protest music with Eminem and the Beastie Boys. The resulting documentary is very funny, often surreal, and brings home the gravity and high stakes of the American civil rights and anti-war movement of the late 1960s.

The story is simple. In 1968, the American counter-culture movement is fuming about the escalation of the war in Vietnam. They plan to come to Chicago and lobby the Democratic National Convention. The movement coalesces around the Yippie movement led by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, and the Black Panthers led by Bobby Seale. Mayor/Boss Daley sets the pigs onto the protestors: Communist conspiracies "justify" disproportionate police brutality. The Chicago 8 are brought to trial. The documentary basically dramatises court records and puts them in context. The Chicago 7 come across as witty, intelligent and radical, but not unreasonable. The gagging of Bobby Seale, and the severance of his trial from the group trial seems like an act of pure and brutal racism. It's shocking to modern eyes. Hank Azaria is simply brilliant as Abbie Hoffman and Jeffrey Wright is powerful as Bobby Seale .(The final two members of the 10 are the two lawyers).

Watching the movie today I was shamed by how active and passionate these kids were and how bland and anaemic the anti Iraqi war protests were. But I was also massively entertained. It's just FUN to see Hoffman skewering the judge, or the defense attorney asking if an undercover cop was hurt by a jumper. And so Brett Morgan achieves the rarest of rare things: he makes a movie that is important and entertaining: and a documentary that actually deserves to be seen on the big screen.

CHICAGO 10 played Sundance 2007 and opened in the US and UK in Spring 2008.

MESRINE: PART ONE - DEATH INSTINCT - a new gangster classic

Jean-François Richet's French gangster biopic is the movie that PUBLIC ENEMIES should've been: part character study, part thriller, part prison break-out movie. It's well-directed, emotionally and intellectually satisfying and superbly acted. It evokes a sense of time and place and involves the audience without glamourising the subject matter.

Richet splits his biopic into two parts, in the manner of Steven Soderbergh's recent biopic of Che Guevara. The movies are self-contained but as soon as I watched one I was desperate to see the other, and they work best as a whole.

Part One opens as a tense thriller - a plump, middle-aged Jacques Mesrine (an award-winning performance from Vincent Cassel) and an enigmatic woman (Chloe Sevigny) are ambushed by the police in late 1970s Paris. The movie then switches to a more youthful Mesrine, witnessing horrific interrogations as a soldier in the Franco-Algerian war - the start of his brutalisation perhaps? After the war, he rejects a bourgeois life and joins his childhood friend working for local mob boss (Gerard Depardieu). Mesrine is smarter than the average thug, more charming, and more honourable. Cassel has us believing that he does want to make good for the sake of his kid, but ultimately, he can't keep straight, and abandons his family for a life on the run in Canada with a similarly inventive, ruthless crim. played by an unrecognisable and ruthless Cecile de France.

The resulting movie is gripping, emotionally affecting, and impartial without being indifferent. Cassel is deeply impressive - but so are Depardieu and de France. The period and mood are brilliantly evoked - style serves content. This film is, simply put, a new gangster classic.

MESRINE PART ONE won three Cesars,for Best Actor, Best Sound and Best Director. MESRINE: PART ONE played Toronto 2008 and opened last year in Belgium, France, Russia, Hungary, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Croatia. It opened earlier this year in Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, Italy, Turkey, Norway, Germany, Denmark, Greece and Brazil. It opens in the UK and US on August 7th.

THE PROPOSAL - over-styled, under-powered rom-com

Anne Fletcher, of 27 DRESSES and STEP UP fame, delivers a high-concept but low-on-laughs "romantic comedy". The big concept takes a career-bitch (Sandra Bullock) who fakes an engagement to her younger executive assistant (Ryan Reynolds). She wants to get a visa to the US; he wants to be promoted to editor. Over a weekend in Alaska to visit his parents they are meant to fall in love with each other. Problem is, there is zero chemistry between the two. It just looks like a middle-aged woman, with too much Botox and far too over-styled, macking onto a much younger guy. I didn't buy the whole "I'm a tortured rich-kid" dynamic with the guy. I didn't buy the whole "I'm a power-bitch because my parents died" excuse for the woman. And I really didn't buy the wannabe schmaltzy ending. For falling-in-love over a family country-house weekend, check out the far superior in DAN IN REAL LIFE. And for a more credible and affecting immigration set-up, check out the old Andie McDowell/Depardieu classic, GREEN CARD.

THE PROPOSAL is on release in the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, Georgia, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, New Zealand, Russia, Lithuania, Mexico, Poland, Turkey, Egypt, Sweden, Greece, Bulgaria, Argentina, Portugal, Ukraine, Brazil, Spain and Estonia. It opens later in July in Iceland and Germany. It opens in August in Malaysia, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Singapore and the Czech Republic. It opens in September in Italy, Hong Kong and France. It opens in Japan on October 16th.

Normal service resumes

Apologies for the enforced absence, Moviegoers, but I was struck down with Hamthrax, as those of you following BinaDoubleO7 on twitter will have gathered. The high likelihood of catching weirdass diseases while travelling on the Underground is one of the few major disadvantages of living in Zone One. However, I am now safe for human consumption, as it were, although the thought of having to watch THE PROPOSAL this weekend could send me back to the sanatorium. Normal service resumes tomorrow.

SHINE A LIGHT - I just don't get it

Bad joke - what do The Rolling Stones and Martin Scorsese have in common? They both did all their best work before I was born. And, let me be clear, I'm not that young. As if in testament to the sheer ludicrousness of the Rolling Stones' continuing concert career, Scorsese inter-cuts this vanity project/concert movie with vintage TV interviews with the younger Stones, musing on how long their careers with last. And in an effort to make their music seem relevant to the Kidz we also have Christina Aguilera and Jack White guesting on a couple of songs. The resulting film is presumably a must-see for Stones fans but left me cold. It's just a tragic continuation of the failed 1960s radical project. Here we have counter-culture icons, continuing to milk that iconography for their audience - who have themselves grown-up and sold out. The Rolling Stones wait around to shake the hand of Bill Clinton's mother-in-law. Give me a break. Martin Scorsese parodies himself with an unnecessary closing tracking shot. The whole thing reeks of crass commercialisation.

SHINE A LIGHT opened Berlin 2008 and was released in Spring 2008.