Submarine

Submarine, adapted from a novel by Joe Dunthorne, is the debut as director of The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade. It is a confident debut - coming across as almost a British Juno (without the pregnancy), or in other words a cool, indy teen comedy. Ayoade directs with an assured hand, full of nice little flourishes without ever being two showy. The script is smart and funny, without ever being quite as self-consciously (and artificially) cool as Juno. And the soundtrack is enhanced by som great original songs by Arctic Monkey's Alex Turner.

The story follows Oliver (debutant Craig Roberts), who is trying to handle his first relationship with Jordana (Yasmin Paige) whilst simultaneously trying to stop his parents (Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor) splitting up after his mum's old flame, now a self-help guru (Paddy Considine bravely sporting one of the worst mullets you're ever likely to see), has moved in down the street. The adults are brilliant in their roles, but the film stands or falls on the younger performances and both Roberts and Paige absolutely nail it. They are slightly let down by a few of the other younger members of the cast who at times lapse into incomprehensibility, but that's not a major factor.

Overall - 8.5/10 An amazingly assured debut, with great performances by the young leads. Fresh, funny and moving. Well worth seeing.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

This is the latest London-set Woody Allen film, following his usual themes of love, relationships, insecurity and fate. Its an ensemble piece with a terrific cast - so Gemma Jones consults a mystic (Pauline Collins)  to help her deal with her husband, Anthony Hopkins, leaving her. He is meanwhile about to re-marry a much younger "actress" (Lucy Punch). Meanwhile their daughter (Naomi Watts) is struggling in her marriage and has a crush on her boss (Antonio Banderas), whist her writer husband (Josh Brolin) sits at home lusting after the woman in the flat opposite (Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto). And that's before Anna Friel, Ewan Bremner, Celia Imrie and Philip Gleinster all come and go.

Allen's London films (of which this is the fourth) have so far produced one decent one (Match Point) and two absolute turkeys. This isn't quite as bad as that and has some redeeming moments, but its a messy affair that falls a long way short of Vicky Christina Barcelona, let alone his genuine classics, and confirms that Allen is going through something a lean spell at the moment. There are two rules which seem to determine the characters - the older ones seem better written than the younger ones and the men better written than the women. So Jones  manages to be almost decent (even if they are playing rather stereotyped caricatures) and Brolin and Hopkins have the most fleshed out characters, whilst Watts has moments but also some bits which clang dreadfully (not sure if its the script or the strain of the British accent), but Punch struggles with a lazy cliche of a gold-digger and poor Pinto has to try (and utterly fails) to bring any credibility to what is essentially an Allen fantasy - the young, intelligent, attractive woman who ia actually attracted by the older loser perving on her at every opportunity.

The tone veers sharply between broad comedy and pseudo-profundity and attempted pathos in a way that achieves nothing successfully. The ruminations on fate and the twists and turns and downfall of plans are painted with a blunt instrument rather than a deft hand and a light touch. And yet there are moments which suggest that this could have been much better and which show the talent that Allen still possesses. Like the moment Brolin moves in with Pinto and looks back through the window the other way or Watts awkward attempts to declare her feelings to a Banderas who is doing his best not to acknowledge them.

Overall - 5.5/10 Moments of something better, but overall this is messy and confused and a long way from what Allen is capable of.

Battle Los Angeles

Battle Los Angeles is rather similar in plot to last year's Skyline - aliens invade Los Angeles. However, it decides to focus on the military response rather than the civilians caught up in it and has a rather bigger budget and more recognisable cast (more recognisable in the sense that you might actually be able to name one or two of them rather than going "Oh its him off that thing on TV"). Its also a better film, but not as much better as you would hope for.

It could probably win several awards for bad science (if they're hitting the earth they're meteorites, not meteors) and terrible geography (aliens land in the sea and attack coastal cities including Paris!) as well as some questionable military tactics. It has dialogue that ranges from the dreadful to the so bad that its actually quite good (my favourite being "we've already had breakfast"). They plotnotes and character arcs are stereotypical and utterly predictable - you know just who is going to be reconciled to whom, who will make it and who won't, etc... It borrows heavily from the predictable sources - Independance Day, War of the Worlds, Aliens, etc...

However, once you get past all that and a horrendous meet the characters opening section and get into the action, its actually a lot more fun than it has any right to be. Director Jonathan Liebesman handles the action efficiently, if with no great flare, and the cast give good value to their limited roles. Aaron Eckhart is the Sergeant whose last mission went badly wrong, Michelle Rodriguez essentially plays the same role she did in Avatar and Michael Pena plays the civilian dad caught up in the middle of things. At times it feels like it wants to have pretensions to be Platoon with aliens, but is actually much better when it stops taking itself seriously and just keeps the action rolling.

Overall - 6/10 Loud, dumb and unoriginal, but entertaingly action packed and surprisingly fun.

Why I won't be voting for the SNP in May

OK, the Scottish elections are something like a month and a half away and my mind is already made up in terms of how I will be voting for the regional list, but the absence of a Green candidate in my constituency means I still have a choice to make about that. However, I might already be reaching a decision by process of elimination - I've seen nothing so far that would persuade me to break my longstanding habits and vote either Labour or Tories. Added to that I can categorically say that I won't be vote for the SNP.

This has nothing to do with independance (an issue which, as an Englishman in Scotland, I am surprisingly neutral about). No, my decision is based on what for me are the two most important issues in this election - in the short-term there are the cuts facing Scotland and in the long-term there are the environmental issues. In the first case I find the stance of the SNP contradictory and in the second their track record is now approaching the disastrous.

The Cuts
If I was to put the parties on a specturm with regard to their attitudes towards the cuts, at one end you have 
The Tories who, however much the try to dress it up as necessity, ideologically like the the ideas of cutting back state funding.
Next come the Lib-Dems who seem to have been persuaded that the cuts are necessary due to the economic situation.
Somewhere in the middle you have Labour and the SNP both of whom seeming to be appealling to the popular vote by appearing to stand against the cuts and the evil coalition who are viciously imposing them on poor Scotland. Labour are doing this whilst offering no alternative strategy and doing the whole "No sir, it wasn't us, a big bank did it and ran away" act as to how the country ended up in an economic mess in the first place. The SNP are attacking Labour for this, but still not offering an alternative to handing on the cuts from Westminster. Indeed they allowed the democratically mandated tax varying powers of Holyrood (which could offer some alternative vision) to lapse into a state where they could no longer be used without informing parliament (symptomatic of a contempt for parliamentary process they have shown around a number of issues). Meanwhile they exacerbate the situation be cheap populist vote-catching measures like the council tax freeze and by huge, expensive photo ops for Salmond unnecessary public projects like the Forth crossing (of which more later). For a party whose whole raison d'etre is the separation of Scotland from the UK, this unwillingness to explore Scottish alternatives to the Westminster solution, but it actually fits with the way the party has acted in local government across Scotland - they complain about cuts to get support and then cut when in power. It might actually be a fiscally resonsible approach compared to Labour, but they need to stop trying to milk the anti-cuts vote so hard - that is not where they are standing by their actions!

At the other end of this spectrum is, of course, The Greens who say that the cuts are going too far and are wanting and prepared to use the powers the Scottish parliament has to try and find alternatives in Scotland.

The Environment
The SNP, like the other major parties, do their best to try and present themselves as green. Salmond will make speeches about Scotland's potential for renewable energy, but politicians need to be judged by what they do and not what they say and at every opportunity the SNP has shown its loyalty to the coal and oil industries, a dependance on short-term solutions that are denying us the chance to build for the future. The SNP favour building more coal-fired power stations in Scotland rather than investing more in renewable sources, they will try to explain away the environmental impact of this by talking about the carbon capture potential of the North Sea, but there they are talking about technology that has yet to be proved feasible anywhere in the world. They favour allowing deep-sea drilling off Shetland, using the same technology that failed so dramatically in the Gulf of Mexico. Even without the environmental impact, there is a short-termism to these solutions - fossil fuels are running out, investing more in them now is denying us the chance to prepare properly for that time. The fact is that Scotland could be producing almost twice its electricity needs from entirely renewable sources within 20 years or so. If we were to invest now, we could be at the forefront of Green energy. This just won't happen under the SNP.

They also remain committed to more road building projects, like the new Forth crossing, which will cost £2billion (budgetted - as we all know, major projects in Scotland seem to have a problem sticking to budget!). Repairing the existing bridge, which is only 50 years old, could be achieved for a very small fraction of that cost. The costs for that project include a £100 million liability cost to BP as the new crossing will be built across a pipeline thar carries an awful lot of oil. Again, the SNP decided to withhold this information and costing from the parliament when the project was being considered (for "security" reasons). At the same time they are withdrawing funding from an initiative which was working, which had the support of businesses, to get more freight off the roads and back on to the rails.

I could go on, but I won't.

Rango

Rango is the latest CG animation film to hit the cinemas. It features the voice of Johnny Depp as the eponymous chameleon who finds himself in the wild west town of Dirt, where the tall tales he tells land him the job of sheriff and of finding out what has happened to the town's water supply.

The first pleasant surprise about Rango is that it has resisted the current craze to put everything in 3D. The second pleasant surprise is that this is just about the best looking non-Pixar animated film you're likely to fine. They really have shown great attention to detail and produced a wonderful looking film.

The script and the characters might not quite be up to Pixar standards, but all in all, they're not bad. There's an impressive vocal cast - Ray Winstone, Isla Fischer, Abigail Breslin, Bill Nighy, Timothy Olyphant and Alfed Molina (among others) and a script that is silly enough to entertain younger ones, whilst offering enough humour to keep adults watching as it plays with the cliches of the Western and the Clint Eastwood iconongraphy.

Director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) keeps the action moving from one set piece to another, some of which are very well handled indeed, and whilst the plot might be somewhat predictable to say the least, its at least an enjoyable ride to get there.

Overall - 7/10 A pleasantly surprisingly entertaining animated feature - full of fun.

Fair Game

Director Doug Liman's (The Bourne Identity) return to the field of spy movies couldn't be further from the world of Bond and Bourne. There's very little in the way of running, shooting and blowing stuff up. Instead this is the true story of former CIA operative Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) whose identity was exposed to the press by those inside the White House after her husband, former US ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) wrote an article detailing why some of George W's claims in justifying the invasion of Iraq couldn't be true.

There are obvious strengths and problems just from that set-up. With Watts and Penn in the leads, you get the strong, committed performances that you might expect. You also get, given Penn's involvement and the subject matter a fair deal of speechifying on true American democracy, etc... However, one of the main problems with the subject (as with last year's Green Zone) is that we all know how its going to turn out - that there were no WMDs, that the White House did exaggerate and push things in its justifications.

It still manages to be thought-provoking through a few effective scenes - the bullying and manipulation of CIA analysts by White House staff until they got the answers they wanted and the callousness with which the CIA itself abandoned Plame's Iraqi contacts to be killed by the Israelis once her cover was blown. This last point is particularly telling, as in a war against terrorism intelligence has got to be key and the attitudes of the americans in both ignoring the intelligence they got and betraying their sources must ultimately prove hugely counter-productive.

However, the film's most moving and strongest moments actually come away from the political arena in the relationship between Plame and Wilson, the strains events and their differing reactions put upon that and their ultimate strength.

Overall - 7.5/10 The material feels slightly too familiar by now, but strong performances and confident handling of the elements will keep you watching.

The Adjustment Bureau

The writings of Philip K Dick have long been a source of intelligent (and less intelligent (yes, I do mean Total Recall)) sci-fi movies of the likes of Blade Runner and Minority Report, even if they often don't stick that closely to the souce material. The Adjustment Bureau (adapted from Dick's short-story Adjustment Team) follows in this tradition, essentially turning Dick's story into a metaphysical romance.

Matt Damon as would-be senator David Norris who is inspired by a chance encounter with a girl Elise (Emily Blunt) to give the speech of his career. What he doesn't realise is that the encounter has been engineered by the titular bureau - be-hatted men who engineer events to run according to their plan. This plan also states that David and Elise should never meet again. When David discovers this, he is rather reluctant to comply with the plan (opening up a whole free will vs fate idea).

Writer George Nolfi (The Bourne Ultimatum) makes a good debut as director, especially in the early stages of establishing the world and the concepts. The aesthetics of the Bureau itself (borrowing from Wings of Desire) are beautifully realised and devices like the shifting diagrams in books showing the plan and the interconnecting doorways (accessed by the hats) across the city that the bureau use work well, enabling Nolfy to create the his world without too much clunky exposition.

He's aided by a script that is intelligent without being too talky and a strong cast. Damon is as dependable as ever and Blunt seems to get better with every role. The two conjure up a strong chemistry between them. They are aided by The Hurt Locker's Anthony Mackie, Mad Men's John Slattery and Terence Stamp as the adjustors. There are a few hiccups along the way - some of the attempts to avoid using religious language - "the Chairman", etc... - feel rather clunky. But in general, this is an engaging and entertaining movie with a bit of intelligence which sets itself up nicely for the final act. The final act doesn't exactly disappoint, but is more flawed. Firstly, having set up the chase so well, you can't help feeling that its all over rather too quickly without fully utilising the potential of its ideas. Secondly, I'm not sure I totally buy Elise's motivation to run off with Norris on her wedding day under the circumstances. And finally, the conclusion is actually one of the most cliched of all rom-com cliches - the run for love. They just about get away with the final point because the whole is so entertaining and engaging.

Overall - 7/10 A beautifully realised and engaging film slightly let down by a rushed and weaker final act.

I Am Number Four

Hollywood is still desperately searching for the next big teen sci-fi/fantasy franchise to take over from Harry Potter. I Am Number Four, based on the novel by Pittacus Lore (the first of six proposed) is the latest attempt. And that is its main drawback - it feels too much like it is trying to set up a franchise rather than telling a story in its own right. Thus we get too much introduction, too many alien artifacts which are never really used or explained and characters who are glimpsed (like Theresa Palmer's Number 6) before swinging into action in the final moments to show us all what we've been missing.

The plot follows alien teenager (Alex Pettyfer, Stormbreaker) who is hiding as a human on earth from evil other aliens who want to kill him and generally trying to contain his super-powers at High School whilst romancing a human girl. Anybody hearing echoes of TV series Roswell here is not without justification. The parallels stretch right down to the fact that the High School sports star/bully is the son of the local sheriff and has had a past relationship with the lead alien's crush. In many ways, Roswell had more engaging characters and action. Here we get Timothy Olyphant in strangely reined-in mode when  the film could have done with him letting loose. We also get a voice-over introduction about Mogordorians or something like that - never a promising sign in a film like this.

Despite all that, there is potential here - Pettyfer has clearly developed as an actor since Stormbreaker. The bad guys are rather fun (if a bit stereotypically so) and when things do finally take off in the last twenty minutes there are signs of something that could work. Then just as its getting going, the credits roll.

Overall - 5.5/10 Plays more like a pilot for a re-boot of Roswell than a stand alone film, but not without its potential and pleasures.

Drive Angry

Drive Angry could have been a fun, guilty pleasure kind of B-movie. It's got Nicolas Cage as a man who breaks out of hell in order to save his baby grand-daughter from a cult. It could have been, but it's not.

For the most part, it takes itself far too seriously. It pinches ideas liberally from the likes of Shoot Em Up and does them less well. But the main drawback is Cage himself, who after something of a renaissance last year (Kick Ass, Bad Lieutenant) is back on sleep-walking to the paycheque form here (as he was in Season of the Witch). He is comprehensively out-acted by his co-star Amber Heard, mainly because she actually looks like she gives a damn. Regretably as the bad guy cult leader Billy Burke is also a disappointment, lacking in both charisma and menace.

On the positive side, the 3D is not the worst there's been and there are a few sharp lines (mainly in the trailer). However, the main plus here is the excellent William Fichtner as The Accountant, sent to bring Cage back. He brings some style, wit and humour to proceedings, but unfortunately there's far too little of him in the film.

Overall - 5/10  Could have been fun, but Fichtner apart, isn't.

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom is an Australian gangster movie, but don't give up on it yet. It is told largely through the eyes of young "J" (James Frecheville), who after the death of his mother, moves to stay with his grandmother "Smurf" (Oscar nominated Jackie Weaver) and falls in with his three bank robbing uncles.

Where the film works well is in creating an underlying sense of tension at all times. Even in seemingly happy family times when other films might relax the tension, there remains an underlying sense of menace and threat which keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. This is added to by the fact that the police seem no better than the villains they're chasing. Even with Guy Pierce's seemingly sympathetically copper we're never really quite sure whether he is genuinely trying to help J or to manipulate him to get at his family. This creates a film where you are genuinely unsure quite what is going to happen at times and who will make it through to te closing credits.

Weaver's performance is more subtle than might at first appear and justifies her nomination. It is only in the closing stages when we see the lengths she will go to for her family and against those who cross her, that we see the real steel and control in the character. Frecheville has an equally hard task - not unlike the lead in Neds he has to hint at an inner world that is hidden behind a necessary protective facade of blankness. That this works is either down to his skill as an actor or because he is enough of a blank canvass for the viewer to project their own reactions onto.

The downside of this is that there isn't enough here to lend credibillity to J's final act character arc when he is transformed from passive survivor to controlling string-puller. Whilst you might be rooting for him, he no longer feels quite believable.

Overall - 7.5/10 A strong but flawed film that nonetheless grips.

UKIP victory in Barnsley

Of course, they didn't actually take the seat (by a long way) but compared to expectations they must be the most delighted with their performance in the Barnsley Central by-election yesterday. So here are my idiosyncratic placings for how I think the parties did compared to expectations yesterday:

1. UKIP placed 2nd (their best ever result in Westminster poll), beating not only the Lib Dems, but also the Tories and not only saving their deposit but almost trebling their share of the vote to 12.2%

2. Tony Devoy (Independant) He had stood last May and got around 1.6%. Yesterday he increased that 5.2%, beating the Lib Dems and saving his deposit in the process and independants usually do badly in by-elections where the big parties can devote all their energy to it.

3. Labour They won the seat very comfortably (as they were always going to) and their share of the vote (Around 60%) is around par for the course under the circumstances - well up on last May, around back to 2005 levels, but well down on what they have achieved here in the past.

4. English Democrats 2.2% from not standing before is a decent performance (especially in a crowded populist right-wing field) and they managed to beat the Loonies this time.

5. BNP Disappointingly held their deposit and came fourth (ahead of the Lib Dems), but encouragingly their share of the vote still fell by almost a third since last May.

6. Official Monster Raving Loony Party For the second by-election in a row they avoided the wooden spoon.

7. Michael Val Davies (Independant) An independant from Devon standing in Yorkshire was always a bizarre idea, so 60 votes and last place is about what could be expected.

8. Conservatives The collapse in the Lib Dem vote was predictable, the Tory collapse was less so. On the one hand they stayed in third place, on the other hand their share of the vote halved to a lower level than it was during the 1997 Labour landslide.

9. Liberal Democrats 6th place and a lost deposit is one of the worst Lib-Dem by-election performances ever. Disastous. Their candidate (who stood in Barking against Nick Griffin last May) seems to specialise in telling people not to vote BNP rather than getting them to vote for him (Labour must love him).

So, overall, a good night for UKIP but whether that can be turned into seats at any level remains to be seen. A bad night for both the coalition partners, but in an election in which neither were ever in contention, I doubt that they will be too worried... yet.

My Annual Oscar Rant

OK, so it wasn't that bad this year. Grudgingly I'll admit that the Academy achieved at least pass marks this year and there wasn't anything to really jump up and down about in absolute disbelief. They could hardly go wrong with the actor and actress prizes and Christian Bale was a deserving winner in Supporting Actor. It was also good to see Aaron Sorkin winning Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network - deserved recognition for one of the best in the business. As to Best Picture, well it was a fairly even field and if The King's Speech just pipped The Social Network nobody's going to complain.

But its no fun to just congratulate, so here's where I think they got it wrong:

Best Supporting Actress Melissa Leo is a fine actress - she was superb in Frozen River (for which she was deservingly nominated) but her performance in The Fighter (hampered by a dreadful caricature of a character) was not the best in the field. Heck, it wasn't even the best in The Fighter. In fact, she was probably the poorest of the five nominees.

Best Director The King's Speech is a fine film, brilliantly acted, well written, but I can't help feeling that Tom Hooper has got the Oscar based on the other elements of the film. In terms of direction you would be hard pressed to argue that he did a better job than Fincher (The Social Network), Aronofsky (Black Swan) or The Coen Brothers (True Grit). An example a film getting a bit of a bandwagon momentum and sweeping awards it maybe didn't deserve.

Cinematography - OK - both Inception  and True Grit  would have been worthy winners, but this means that Roger Deakins (one of the very best in the business ever - look at the man's CV for a list of some of the most beautifully shot films of the last two decades) has now been nominated 9 times and never won! It also meant that whilst Inception and The King's Speech got 4 statues a piece, The Fighter  and Toy Story 3 got 2 each and Black Swan got one, the really good True Grit left empty-handed. Heck, Alice in Wonderland got 2 Oscars and Wolfman 1, but nothing for True Grit???????????