The Other Guys

The Other Guys is a film designed around one central joke - that most police films are action packed thrillers involving drugs and guns, whilst a lot of the most serious crime is white collar cases involving computers and currency transactions. The film tries to bring these two different worlds together, at least one presumes that is the intention from the number of scary statistics over the closing credits. The fact that you need the closing credits to remind you what it was supposed to all be about is an indication that somewhere between that one idea and the finished film, things got rather messier and the actual details of the police case are hazy to say least, and at times almost totally lost in the scattergun approach to humour which is both the film's major failing and biggest success.

Such messiness is almost inevitable when you cast Will Ferrell with his own unique brand of humour. Ferrell here is at his best since Stranger Than Fiction (2006) and his funniest since Anchorman (2004) and gives a timely reminder of how funny he can be with the right material as the forensic accountant who is partnered with Mark Wahlberg's frustrated action man. Wahlberg is a revelation - showing a comic ability that has so far remained almost completely untapped. That said, the film is almost stolen by a hilarious cameo from Samuel L Jackson and Dwayne Johnson as the hero cops. Its a cameo that ends hilariously abruptly, but its almost worth going to see the film just for their sake. Steve Coogan also gets one of his better big screen outings as the financial bigshot at the centre of investigations. Not all the jokes are successful and as mentioned above the plot is hardly worth trying to follow, being little more than a loose structure of an investigation to hang the buddy comedy aroound. That said there's more here that works than doesn't humour-wise.

Overall - 7/10 Its hit and miss, but definitely more hit than miss and thus ends up being one of the funnier films of the year and welcome return to form for Ferrell after a very dodgy patch.

Winter's Bone

If you're feeling slightly down and need some light-hearted fun to pick you up, then you probably want to pick something else to see. If, however, you are tired of the usual multiplex fare and wish to see a superior piece of atmospheric, thought-provoking film-making then this should be first on your list.

Adapated from the novel by Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone is the story of Ree - a 17 year-old girl growing up in the challenging environment of the Ozark mountains. In a very closed patriarchal community with its own way of doing things and very pronounced taboos, Ree has to care for her younger siblings and her mum who has mentally shut down. To make matters worse, her dad is missing, is due in court and has put their house up as security against his bail. In order to save the house, Ree sets out to find her dad, dead or alive, despite repeated warnings not to look into things too much.

The film provides an absolutely fascinating look at a hard and closed community whch has little truck with the law. Director Debra Granik also manages to maintain an atmosphere or sustained menace just below the surface, which is all the more remarkable as this very rarely erupts into actual violence (almost all off-screen) and the pacing is slow, if none the less gripping for it. Granik also manages to capture something of the bleak beauty of the region, contrasted with the ragged run-down state of most of the settlements. This is not an easy environment to live in and many of its residents have turned to cooking Meth to get by.

In the central role, Jennifer Lawrence is outstanding - hard and yet human wth dogged determination. Its a performance that is already generating Oscar buzz and deservedly so.

Overall - 8.5/10 Bleakly powerful and gripping. Not an easy watch, but one that is worth it.

Cyrus

The plot of Cyrus can be summarised as follows: a divorced man in a depressed rut (John C Reilly) is given a lift when he starts a relationship with a woman (Marissa Tomei). Everything seems to be going well until he meets her son, the eponymous Cyrus (Jonah Hill) who has an unusually close relationship with his mum and takes an instant dislike to the new man in her life and whilst hiding behind a mask of friendship engages in a battle of wits to get rid of him.

Thus this film could easily have been a broad comedy, playing the situation for laughs (as the trailer might rather suggest it is) or it could have been an emotional melodrama, turning up the heat to a sticky ending. Cyrus is neither of those things, but its also hard to define what it is exactly. Writer-Directors Jay and Mark Duplass have been building up a credible indy-reputation through films not many (including me) have see - The Puffy Chair or Baghead anyone? What they produce here is quirky, darkly funny, but rarely in a laugh out loud kind of way, but also rather an interesting and fascinating look at some rather dysfunctional people.

They are aided in this by a top-notch cast. John C Reilly is a consistently underrated actor who shines here in his best role for a long time, making his character neither too much of a loser to be likeable or too good to be unbelievable in the situation. Marissa Tomei is excellent as ever, but has the least explained character to make credible. Added to the mix is indie-queen and ever-reliable Catherine Keener as Reilly's ex-wife and confidant. Which leaves Jonah Hill - an actor I have given some criticism to before - he was hugely unlikeable in both Funny People and Get Him to the Greek, but here when he's actually playing the unlikeable character he takes his cue from the veterans around him and underplays really well and adds a real human dimension to what could have been a one note joke. This helps with an ending that turns out to be surprisingly underplayed and warmly touching.

Overall - 6.5/10 Hard to categorise, certainly won't be too everybody's taste, but its an interesting and quirky little film.

Have the Lib Dems sold out?

Since the General Election in May, there seem to be have been two competing narratives or spin that have been vigorously promoted and that have gained some considerable traction with the public at large.

The one that the coalition are promoting heavily is the standard new government line that the mess we're in is all the last lot's fault. Or in other words, that we're in a financial mess because Labour ballsed things up thoroughly. Reality however, is always more complicated than spin. Yes, I'm fairly certain that Labour was guilty of some irresponsible spending, especially towards the end of their administration (and probably making some promises they knew they could never pay for in a desperate attempt to sway the election). But we shouldn't forget that it was largely the banks (nationally and globally) that created this crisis. Nor should we forget that most government since the war (of both parties, and not just in this country) have had a tendancy to spend more than they bring in (through a reluctance to either raise taxes or make cuts) and thus produced a generally steadily escalating problem to be paid for by the next generation - the current financial crisis has merely accelerated this. (Indeed, the first few years of New Labour are one of the few exceptions to this).

The second narrative is that the Lib-Dems have sold out their principles for ministerial seats in joining the coalition. For much of the time since the election Labour have focussed their attacks almost solely on the Lib-Dems as sell-outs. Partly, in doing this they come across as spurned lovers, jealous that the onject of theor affections has hoped into bed with a new partner.In the run up to the election there was a cosy assumption that the Lib-Dems were like a mini-Labour and could only ever enter coalition with them. That has proved not to be the case. But have Clegg and co sold out?

The Formation of the Coalition.
In the run up to the election, one of the things that it was clear the Lib-Dems stood for was parties working together. Clegg also made it clear that the party that came first should have the first go at forming a government. Having campaigned so long for a chance to hold the balance of power and contribute to government, the party would have lost all credibility if they had turned their back on the opportunity. Reallistically on May 7th, there were only two real alternative - Tory-Lib coalition or a Tory Minority government. Its difficult to see what the Libs would have got out of a supply and confidence arrangement with a Tory minority which would have led to Cameron having to do far more to appease the right-wing nutters on his backbenches. There's also an argument that it was in the national interest to have a stable government that the coalition provides in order to reassure the markets (although personally I'm uncomfortable with the narrative which seems to give ultimate power to unaccountable market forces, but that is a debate for another time which none of the parties seem to want to engage in). The other issue was that only the Tories could actually afford the risk of another election this year - and it would have stretched them. Labour and the Lib-Dems were left practically penniless, so nobody wanted to risk going back to the polls. Thus far, the Lib-Dems appear to have sold out less than the Tories, who actively campaigned against the idea of a hung parliament or coalition.

The Nature of Coalition Politics.
Part of the reason why the Labour narrative of Liberal sell-out works so well, is that we are unused to to coalition politics here. They necessarily entail a certain amount of compromise and concession and the larger party will inevitably be able to get more of their agenda across. Thus the tories have been able to pass free schools, which raises Lib-Dem hackles, whilst the Lib-Dem pupil premium is agreed, but will take time to deliver. Similarly it will take time for the gradual raising of the tax threshold to feed through. Partly, in all of this the Lib-Dems are losing the media war - they are seen as more subservient to a Tory agenda, whilst their achievements are overlooked and not mentioned. As a balancing point, discontent in the right-wing media and tory backbenches should also be noted. This is not the government they were hoping for either. Chris Huhne at the Deparment of Energy and Environment seems to be particularly hated by the Daily Torygraph, so he must be doing something right under the radar. Of course, there has also been anger over the VAT rise, although it should be noted that both parties rather evaded the issue throughout the campaign. "I know of no plans to raise VAT", etc... As I have blogged previously, I think the anti-progressive nature of this is over-stated and as an anti-consumption measure, I think we should wait and see. Another under-reported context to this is attempts to standardise the rate of VAT across the EU. And what figure do they want to standardise at - 20%. Hmmmm. But of course, the Euro-sceptic Tories won't want to talk about that.

Indeed, Lib-Dem influence could also be seen working in silence of the Tories on Europe and the possible delay of a decision on Trident until after the next election. The Lib-dems have clearly had to step back on immigration, much to Vince Cable's obvious dislike.

Cuts, Cuts, Cuts
But, of course, the main grounds for accusing the Lib-Dems of selling out is over cuts. During the election, Clegg sided with Brown in saying that the economy should be given more chance to grow before cuts are enacted. There was of course a whole heap of disingenuousness all round in this debate. The parties chose to argue almost solely about £6bn in National Insurance, Labour hiding the deep divisions between Brown and Darling and the possible impact of the cuts they had already made (the job lossses currently being announced are from Labour cuts - the Con-Dem ones are yet to come). The Tories swerved admitting the scale of the cuts that would be made and Clegg has since said that he changed his mind on the timing of cuts before the election, but neglected to tell voters until afterwards. So amidst this positive storm of pots calling kettles black, what's going on.

To address the deficit, any government has three basic strategies - spending cuts, tax rises and economic growth (bringing in more revenue from existing taxes and hopefully reducing the welfare bill). Labour's strategy incorporated all three, but centred on fiscal stimulus to try and grow the economy. The economic figures since the election show that this was working to some extent. However, it does seem to me a strategy built on levels of consumer spending which are neither desirable nor sustainable and possibly feeds into perpetuating a boom and bust cycle.

The other issue is that on the election day itself, the EU was plunging into economic crisis. The markets, and particularly the credit-rating agencies demanded a new government that would take a tougher line with the deficit. The consequences otherwise would be a reduction in the UK's credit-rating, higher interest rates on our debt and a spiral that it would have been much harder to get out. So, the coalition's plan is what the markets wanted (as mentioned above, I'm uncomfortable with this particular argument). There is of course counter-exanmples like Ireland, who did all the credit-agencies asked and still had their rating reduced.

Personally, I think that, whilst some cuts needed to happen and the way some services are delivered needs to be looked, the current government's cuts probably go too far and would have liked to have seen a balance slightly less cuts heavy in a way that possibly does threaten continued growth and will cause a lot of pain to a lot of people (and I'm not convinced that the effects will be felt equally by all). That said, it remains to be seen how much spin there is in advance of the reality. I still suspect that the 40% figure is put out there to make the 25% seem less bad. I also think that Osbourne is aiming to eliminate the deficit in order to make sure he meets Labour's target of halving it in this parliament - cuts being harder and more expensive to implement than to plan. So, to a certain extent I am disappointed in this aspect of the Lib-Dems involvement, but not to the extent of buying the Labour spin of selling out.

What has this meant in political terms?
In opinion polls since the elections there has been a steady decline in Lib-Dem support from 24% at the election to about 14% now. The main beneficiaries are Labour (who are benefitting from not having a leader or direction at the moment - they are "not-the-coalition" without having anything fixed to be shot at in return), but also gains for the Conservatives and Greens. In part, the Libs always fall back in-between elections, there might also be a slight over-compensation in polling companies methods and weightings from the general election where they all over-predicted the Lib-Dem share.

However, this isn't being totally born out in real results at the polls yet. Local council by-elections are bad predictors for the national picture, but they are all we have to go on at the moment. Since the election, the main gainers have been Labour, who are up something like 10 or 11 seats. Surprisingly the Libs are also up by 3 or 4 seats, whilst the Tories are down by around 10, the Greens holding steady (1 gain, 1 loss, 1 hold) and independants and the continuing Liberal party making up the other losses. What is slightly surprising is where the Libs have been making gains - you would expect them maybe to make progress against Labour with tactical support from newly reassured Tories, but here they have been losing seats and gaining against the Tories where you would have expected them to lose Labour tactical support. To a large extent this can be explained by the fact that the last few sets of local elections (to which these by-elections are compared) were exceptionally good for the Tories and bad for Labour, so there is a certain normality being restored (independants and smaller parties usually do worse in by-elections as the big parties are free to target more resources there), but as much as there is a pattern it is that the Libs are falling back in the North of England, but making slight gains in the South. It will be interesting to see how this pans out over the next few years - Clegg is clearly playing a long game and won't be overly troubled by current polls. The Lib-Dems have been this low before in recent years and recovered. Will they this time? The jury is still out...

Tamara Drewe

I seemed to be in a minority of one who thought that Stephen Frears last-but-one film, The Queen, was rather overated and tonally confused. If The Queen was tonally confused, Tamara Drewe finishes in a head-on collision of tones, moods and genres. To be fair, not all of that is down to Frears or this film. Tamara Drewe is an adaptation of Posy Simmonds graphic story of the same name, which in turn is a loose updating of Thomas Hardy's classic novel Far From the Madding Crowd. Far From the Madding Crowd is essentially a tragic novel which has a happy ending shoe-horned in at the last minute at the insistence of his publishers. Unfortunately, the film doubles the jarring changes in tone. For most of the running length it is in mood, whilst not quite a breezy rom-com (there's something darker about it), at least comic in tone and genre. The characters are largely comic characters. And then just before the end, it hammers on a tragic deus-ex-machina ending involving an out-of-control dog, a herd of cows and a serial adulterer (which is nowhere near as funny as it sounds). Then to compound matters they try to cover this up with a sticking plaster happy ending, so everybody ends up with the right person (albeit for all the wrong reasons).

All of which is a real shame as up until that point the film had been bright, witty, sharp and a lot fun. The eponymous heroine (Gemma Arterton), a columnist for the Independant, returns to the village of her childhood. Here she finds herself torn between three men - her childhood sweetheart and village hunk Andy (Luke Evans) who is also shagging the village's Australian barmaid; local author and serial adulterer Nicholas, whose long-suffering wife Beth (Tamsin Greig) is unwittingly and slowly winning the affections of gentle American academic Glen (Bill Camp); and rock musician Ben, who is also the object of affection of a teenage fan/stalker (Jessica Barden) whose actions set in motion most of the plot elements.

Which all sounds like a bad episode of Emmerdale, but some great performances, a sharp script and gorgeous locations lift this into a highly watchable a very entertaining comedy. That is, until the third act car-crash.

Overall - 6.5/10 A well-above average film let down by a doubly jarring ending. Still worth watching, but not as good as it could have been.

The Runaways

The Runaways ticks all the boxes for a big music biopic a la Ray or Walk the Line - broken home, childhood trauma, the perils of touring, descent into drink and drug addiction before final redemption. At least, it ticks all the boxes bar one. It fails to capture what it is in the music that is groundbreaking or innovative or good enough to be special. There may or may not be a great movie in the Joan Jett story. Certainly her break through into the male dominated world of guitar-rock suggests an interesting story, but all we get here are glimpses - a guitar teacher who won't teach a girl electric guitar.

But the problem is that this is not the Joan Jett story - Jett is largely a supporting character to the band's singer, Cherie Currie, upon whose autobiography this is based. So what you get is a tale of exploitation of the underaged Currie, which is sad, but ultimately a bit hollow as the film fails to get below the surface of either the characters or the music. And this case, this isn't helped by  structure that is episodic to the extreme, denying any real character arcs.

This cannot be laid at the the feet of the cast. Kirsten Stewart, temporarily escaping from vampires, is convincing as the young Jett, but is left rather on the sidelines. Dakota Fanning completes the transition from child star to teenage actress with a good performance in her most adult role to date, but it is Michael Shannon who comes close to stealing the whole movie as the morally dubious but undoubtedly eccentric manager of the band.

Overall - 6/10 A solid, but ultimately rather hollow music biopic.

The Illusionist

In this age of computer generated animation, there is something refreshing about seeing a traditional hand-drawn animation, especially where the art is as beautiful as here in Sylvain Chomet's follow-up to Belleville Rendezvous. There is an additional delight for us here in Edinburgh in recognising the locations which are lovingly drawn from years gone by. (Really this film should be seen in the Cameo which features in the film).

The story is an adaptation of an unproduced Jacques Tati script and follows a stage magician (Tatischeff - clearly based very closely on Tati himself) struggling at a time when his art is clearly struggling in face of competition from rock'n'roll and TV. His search for an audience takes him from Paris to London and on to the Scottish Isles, where he meets a young girl who believes that his magic is real and follows him back to the mainland and onto Edinburgh, where he is forced to go to some lengths in order to maintain her illusions.

The action and the humour is very Tati-esque. Its genuinely funny and there's a great selection of supporting odd-ball characters including a German ventriloquist, a very sad clown and a psychotic rabbit. However, the humour is mixed with a very strong dose of melancholy from the dying of the old performance traditions.

However, the real delight here is in the animation. I suspect that this is the kind of film that will be repay multiple viewings, such is the attention to detail, all lovingly drawn, that you will pick up something new every time you see it (look out for the name of the pawnbrokers).

Overall - 8/10. A very old-fashioned film that is both funny and sad and lovingly illustrated.

Ice Cream Van Economics.

This was the description of certain strands of the government's thinking by the head of Unison Scotland. His argument that starting from the point of view of how much money do we have and what can we get for that is like a child at an ice-cream van, whereas our leaders should start from the place of what do we need to be doing and how can we pay for that.

Up to that point, i would say that he has a fair point. The fact he went on to use this argument to try and justify a larger pay rise for his members rather undercuts his point as this has nothing to do with providing and protecting essential services from cuts and rather confirm me in my earlier rant against unions. To remind you, I was complaining that unison had voted down a pay deal for 1% this year, nothing next and 0.5% the year after. Well in response COSLA (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities) are imposing a deal of 0.65% this year and nothing for the next two years. The reduction from the original offer does seem deliberately provocative, but the whole thing was also rather predictable. The question now is will the union have the suicidal tendancy to go further and pursue industrial action. Meanwhile, I struggle with the almost irresistable urge to say I told you so.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

This is the second movie I'm reviewing this week based on a series of illustrated books. It carries a great tag-line : "I'll be famous one day but for now I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons". and follows the exploits of Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) as he tries to work out how to be popular in Middle School. As such, its a very episodic structure with the main through plot being Greg's ongoing friendship with the decidedly uncool and rather rotund Rowley.

Most of the episodes and overall characters arcs are rather predictable. You know how its all going to end and the humour, understandably skews towards its young target audience (mouldy cheese and bogeys). However, it refreshingly underplays the standard be yourself message rather than trying to overdo the emotional punch, instead trying to focus on the humour and that is its main success. It has a sharp, wise-cracking script and makes good use of the cartoons from the source material (especially in a recurring popularity league table which Greg is constantly falling down). Gordon does a good job of making Greg likeable even when he's doing fairly unlikeable things and he's supported well by the rest of the cast, including Kick Ass' Chloe Moretz. As a result, the jokes are more hit than miss and there's enough here to amuse adult as well as younger viewers.

It comes across as the mutuant offspring of The Wonder Years and Mean Girls, but that's, at the end of the day, no bad thing and has done well enough that a sequel is already being filmed.

Overall - 6.5/10 Its sharp and funny with likeable leads.

Going too far?

I don't usually find myself in the position of defending a conservative politician, but recent attempts to smear William Hague and the personal pain he has revealed in an attempt to defend himself have left me feeling rather sorry for him and rather sickened by the climate we live in with attempts through many media to tarnish politicians.

Already in this young parliament, we have had:

David Laws - with whom i feel some sympathy, but acknowledge he broke the rules and had to go.

Danny Alexander - who had done nothing wrong, despite the Torygraph's best efforts to smear him.

Chris Huhne - which was a private tragedy for his family, but not a resigning matter in these days, neither should it be.

Carlione Nokes - who certainly guilty of hypocrisy more than anyone else on this list.

Crispin Blunt - who's case is not dis-similar to Huhne's

And now Hague. What has he done wrong? Been picture smiling in public with another man - shock horror! Been guilty of sharing a hotel room with an assistant (of the same gender) - you could see this as inadvisable, or you could see it as a prudent cost saving measure in this age of austerity. The appointment of a friend as a special advisor might be questionable, but if somebody were to examine all the special advisors in this government and the last one, I'm sure that they would find many more questionable appointments. And in all the speculation there hasn't really been an examination of his suitability for the job. In the absence of anything more substantial, I say give the man a break.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Scott Pilgrim vs The World is an adaptation of a series of seven cult-favourite graphic novels. It's directed by Edgar Wright of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead fame. It stars Juno's Michael Cera and stylistically ts largely based around rather old computer games. In other words, its a film that has all the geek fanboys rather excited. That summary has probably, either got you rather excited too or thinking it sounds dreadful. If you're in the latter camp, you're probably best moving along now, I'm not sure anything here will win you over. If you're in the former camp, then the only real question is does it deliver?

The answer to that is a resounding yes. This is lively, energetic, witty and, above all, fun. The story, such as there is one, follows Scott (Cera) bass player in the band Sex Bob-Omb, trying to make it big. He falls for the mysterious Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and then discovers that in order to date her he must fight and defeat her seven evil exes. For a film that is essentially structured around a series of fights, there was a danger that this could become repetitive, but each sequence is done with its style and twists. In fact, the visual flourishes throughout (largely borrowing from games like Street Fighter) are hugely entertaining and there are some great gags en route. For example, when Scott takes on movie star Lucas Lee (Chris Evans), mid-fight he suddenly finds himself up against the stunt doubles instead. There's also a fairly literal battle of the bands contest and a hilarious sequence with Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) as a super-powered vegan.

On the whole Wright keeps the action moving at great pace and keeps the jokes coming. He's helped by a cast that are uniformly excellent for the film. Its hard to pick standouts, but Evans and Kieran Culkin as Scott's gay room-mate come closest. There are one or two moments when the pace slows and the films drags a bit, but on the whole this will keep you laughing until the end and the amusingly bathetic show-down between Scott and Mega-Scott.

Overall - 8/10 Its lively and fun and anarchically funny almost from start to finish.