Black Swan

Black Swan will not be to everybody's taste - its mixture of ballet, pyscholigical thriller and body horror is a challenging mix. It has been compared more to director Darren Aronofsky's last film The Wrestler than to other classic ballet films such as The Red Shoes, but whilst it does share some DNA with The Wrestler (like a fascination with the physical lengths performers will go to for their art) it is actually a very different feeling film, a more challenging one and quite possibly a better one. Whilst The Wrestler was in many respects a social film, built around a structure of failed, tentative and re-launched relationships, Black Swan is more inward looking. The drama is largely contained in the head of techinically gifted but repressed dancer Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) who after being cast in the lead in Swan Lake, struggles to get in touch with her darker side in order to play the titular Black Swan.

Nina is surrounded by an over-bearing mother (Barbara Hershey), a manipulative director (Vincent Cassell), a bitter former lead (Winona Ryder) and a fellow dancer who may or may not be after her role (Mila Kunis). Portman is superb and will probably deservedly head a strong field to take the Best Actress oscar for a role which sees her move from timid and reserved to dangerously unloosed.

My other Oscar tip for this film is Aronofsky for Best Director. As has been much commented on, rather than viewing the dancing from the usual audience perspective, he places the camera right in the thick of it, capturing all the strain and effort involved. Amazingly this adds to rather than distracts from the beauty of the ballet. His other main strength is to capture the paranoid insecurity of his lead - this is a film where much is contained (or possibly not) in half-heard whispers and brief glimpses as the pressure starts to get to Nina and, to be cliched, the boundary between what is real and what is happening in Nina's head get increasingly blurred.

Not everything works - Ryder's role in particular feels like a badly written (and underwritten) cliche. I'm also slightly unsure about the ending, but as in The Wrestler it provides an odd mixture of triumph and tragedy that will at least get you thinking.

Overall - 8.5/10 Thought-provoking, challenging and, at times, surprisingly beautiful.

Some thoughts on the Oscar nominations - part 2

Ok - continuing the earlier post we move onto to consder Best Picture and Best Director. The nominees are:

Best Picture
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids are Alright
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network 
Toy Story 3
True Grit 
Winter's Bone

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky Black Swan
David O Russell The Fighter
Tom Hooper The King's Speech
David Fincher The Social Network
Joel and Ethan Coen True Grit.

There has been a tendancy to see this year's Oscar as The King's Speech  vs True Grit just as last year was Avatar  vs The Hurt Locker, but I have a feeling that neither will walk away with either of the biggest prizes. It has been a long, long time since the winning Best Picture wasn't also nominated for Best Editing, which would count True Grit out. Similarly, you would expect the Best Film to also be nominated for best director, which would count out Winters Bone (which is too small a film to win anyway), The Kids are Alright (too lightweight), Toy Story 3 (too animated); 127 Hours (not quite good enough this time by Boyle) and Inception (too much of a Blockbuster, although Christopher Nolan really should at least be nominated for Director!). Of the remaining ones, The Fighter is probably the outsider, although don't rule it out for Best Picture and I don't fancy The King's Speech to get either award, which leaves us with Black Swan vs The Social Network. I wouldn't be surprised to see them split the awards this year with The Social Network getting Best Picture and Aronofsky getting Best Director.

Screenplays:
Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours
Toy Story 3
The Social Network
True Grit 
Winter's Bone

Best Original Screenplay
Another Year
The Fighter
Inception
The Kings Speech
The Kids are Alright

The inclusion of 127 Hours and Toy Story 3 is really quite mystifying here. Its nice to see Another Year getting a nod as it really is a very good film. The Adapted Screenplay will almost certainly be between True Grit  and The Social Network. As a fan of The West Wing, it would be nice to see Aaron Sorkin win for the latter, but if True Grit does miss out on the other big awards I could see it picking this up as a consolation. Original Screenplay is more open, but if I had to guess I would think it might be one for The King's Speech.

Other Categories.

Elsewhere, I'd expect Inception  to do well in effects and other technical categories and Biutiful to win Best Foreign Language film, although that's often a hard one to predict.

Some thoughts on the Oscar Nominations - part 1

So the nominations for the Oscars were announced at the beginning of the week and here are some thoughts on who's on the list, who should have been on the list and who's likely to win in the main categories:

Best Actor
Javier Baardem (Biutiful)
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)
The only real surprise on the list is Franco, whilst Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine) and Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter) are by all accounts unlucky to miss out. Maybe Franco gets a complementary nod for being the host (but then why no nod for his perhaps more deserving co-host, Anne Hathaway). I've not seen Biutiful or True Grit yet, but Baardem is one of the best in the business at the moment and will undountedly deserve the nod. However, as last year the contest is seen as being Bridges vs Firth and as Oscar likes to even things up, Firth is probably a fairly good bet. If there was to be an upset, Eisenberg would be the dark horse in the pack and more recognition would not be undeserved.

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale (The Fighter)
John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids are Alright)
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)
The selections here seem about right. The most notable absentee is probably Andrew Garfield for The Social Network who I would probably have picked ahead of Ruffalo (who is a fine actor, but hardly stretching himself in this particular role). Given that the academy sometimes use the supporting categories to recognise films that otherwise don't quite get the praise they should, Hawkes shouldn't be ruled out, but in all probability this will come down to Bale vs Rush. I'd like to see Rush make it a double with Firth for The Kings Speech, but have a feeling the academy might go with Bale in what is, rather incredibly, his first nomination.

Best Actress
Annete Benning (The Kids are Alright)
Nicole Kidman (The Rabbit Hole)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
A much stronger field than it is some years. Julianne Moore can feel a bit unlucky to miss out as she was every bit as good as Benning in The Kids are Alright. Williams is already starting to get the sense that she must win one sometime soon, but this won't be her year. Lawrence is deservedly recognised and Kidman can never be discounted, but favourite has got to be Portman who does seem that little bit ahead of the field.

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The Kings Speech)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)
Difficult to comment much as The Kings Speech is the only one of these films that I've seen yet. Techinically speaking Steinfeld shouldn't be in this category as hers is clearly a leading role, but that's studio politics pushing into the wrong categories in order to get a nomination. Given that its Adams' third nomination in five years, I have this feeling that she might get the prize this time.

Best Animated Film
Toy Story 3
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Interesting side-fact - the Academy were limited to three nominees as only 15 eligible films were out forward, if there had been an extra one, there would have been 5 nominees, with probably Tangled and Despicable Me added to the list. As it is, I think they've got the right three.  Toy Story 3 will almost certainly win for two reasons - 1, its also nominated for Best Film (take the hint); 2, its's made by Pixar and you have to go back to 2006 for a year when Pixar failed to win (the Academy inexplicably gave the statue to Happy Feet). However, The Illusionist would be a worthy winner should they decide to stick up for hand-drawn illustrations.
 

The Next Three Days

The Next Three Days is a remake of French thriller Pour Elle (Anything for Her). I don't usually rate Hollywood re-makes of European films and true to form this has worse reviews than its Gallic original. However in this case, I haven't actually seen the original yet (although Lovefilm are just about to send it me, so will have a point of comparison very soon) and that might work in The Next Three Days favour as I found myself enjoying it more than I expected.


Russell Crowe plays John, an ordinary college lecturer whose wife Lara (Elizabeth Banks) is arrested over breakfast one morning for murdering her boss. Three years later, every appeal has failed and Lara is starting to show signs that she's not going to make it through, so John decideds that he has to break her out of jail, as you do. There is some questionable logic involved, as well as some questionable parenting, but as a thriller it works.

The first two-thirds of the film take their time. Director Paul Haggis (Crash) refuses to rush things, allowing you to get to know the principle characters and drawing you into the finer details of the preparation. This pays off with added tension in the final third as John and Lara try and evade the chasing police. None of the elements are totally original, and the film has echoes of many past thrillers, but its well enough handled by Haggis to keep you interested and engaged. They also managed to keep the question of Lara's guilt or innocence open longer than many smiliar films would have done.

Crowe is good in the lead and is that rare Hollywood star who can convince as an ordinary man. However, some of the themes could have been explored a bit more. Lara's despair, which is supposed to be John's main motivating factor is shown by a suicide attempt, but we get little sense of it elsewhere. Similarly, there is a pleasing ambiguity to the ending - can they still be happy together after the changes he has had to undergo in order to save her, but this theme could have been mined further.

Overall 7/10 Its not quite a first-rate thriller and most of the tricks will seem familiar, but its carried out with enough skill to make it an engaging and tense watch.

The Dilemma

The open scene of The Dilemma is reminiscent of some of the earlier Vince Vaughn films, when he was still displaying some edge, humour and charm. Unfortunately its downhill all the way from there on. The set-up might have made a decent comedy or farce in the past - a guy thinks his best friend's wife is cheating on him and doesn't know how to handle, his own girlfriend thinks he has re-succumbed to his gambling addiction because he's so distracted. Of course, if it had been made a few years ago, it would probably have turned out to be a misunderstanding in the end. Here of course, it is all very real. When you add to that Vaughn's character ends up going to places not just beyond all reason, but beyond all likeability - his speech at his girlfriend's parents' anniversary party is just awful and not in a funny way. So you end up with a film that is too dark to work as rom-com type effort, too shallow to have any emotional weight and too unlikeable to be worth bothering to define any further.

And if Vaughn's character becomes unlikeable, the women in the film come off even worse - Winona Ryder plays an obnoxious harridan of a wife, Queen Latifah has some of most excruciating dialogue ever - trust me, I never want to hear the phrase "lady wood" again. Jennifer Connelly's character is at least likeable, but under-developed and what on earth she is doing with Vaughn is a mystery. The whole sub-plot idea of trying to design an electric car to feel like a gas guzzling US classic is just stupid.

I'm about to write something i never thought I would and probably never will again - the film's main redeeming feature is Channing Tatum, who is surprisingly funny as Ryder's lover. He has most of the few genuinely funny moments in the film. There are also a few nice touches with imagined images changing as Vaughn tries to invent stories to cover his tracks, but all in all its really not worth it.

Overall - 4.5/10 It's not as bad as Little Fockers, but comes close. Vaughn should probably go to therapy rather than trying to work things out through film.

Book Plug #2

OK - keeping up with my New Year's resolution to introduce a vaguely literary element to this blog. This is what I'm reading at the moment:

"It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit, and ended up with me being eaten by a carnivorous plant". Thus begins Shadesof Grey by Jasper Fforde, set in a future Britain not quite our own where society is ordered by the level of colour perception people have. Its possibly slightly less immediately accessible than the Thursday Next or Nursery Crime Division novels as the establishing of the world takes a little time, but its none the worse for that and might prove to offer something a bit deeper at the end of the day. That said Fforde still displays his usual inventiveness, wit and fun and this a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable read and I'm loving it.


Still to come on the blog when I get some time to catch up - reviews of The Dilemma, The Next Three Days and some thoughts on the Oscar nominations, together with some thoughts on why I won't be voting SNP in May.

The Green Hornet

Seth Rogen as a superhero in a movie directed by the guy behind indie weirdness like The Science of Sleep  and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It could have been a stroke of genius, it could have been a disaster - in the end its neither, but unfortunately steers rather closer to the latter than the former.

In some ways its unfortunate that this comes after Kick Ass which has rather stolen its thunder and one of its punchlines - what happens if a ordinary guy (albeit a fabulously rich one) tries to be a superhero. The other main punchline - that its the sidekick Kato (Jay Chou) who's the one who actually does all the crime-fighting. He's the one with the martial arts moves and the one who invents all the gadgets and Jay Chou could easily have been the break out star of this movie. At least he could have been if director Michel Gondry hadn't shown himself to be the wrong man for the job. He puts in some nice touches - like the multiplying split-screen effect as news of a bounty on the Green Hornet spreads - but he handles the action sequences (which are pretty vital) poorly and thus Chou's moves are lost in a confusion of messy direction.

Elsewhere the mismatched buddy element between Rogen and Chou has some funny moments, but becomes irritating too quickly. Tom Wilkinson is utterly wasted as Rogen's dad. Ditto Cameron Diaz in a poorly defined role that tries to be pseudo-romantic interest and the brains of the outfit, but ends up being nothing much at all.

Therefore its left to Inglorious Basterds Christoph Waltz as the bad guy with an image-inferiority complex to lift matters. He's the only one who manages to inject the necessary amount of fun into proceedings and his early showdown with an uncredited James Franco is probably the standout scene of the film.

Oh, and of all the nonsense in this film possibly the most unbelievable part is that Rogen's dad amassed his vast fortunes in a media empire by showing integrity and honesty. Hmmm....

Overall - 5.5/10 It has promise that it doesn't quite deliver on - its not as bad as you might fear, but its nothing particularly special either. Waltz is the only element that really stands out from the confusion.

So is Gerry Adams still an MP or not?

Oh what a farce! Only in Britain could this happen. You see Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein MP for West Belfast) wants to resign his position so he can stand for the parliament in the Irish Republic instead. Only the problem is the British MPs can't just resign. Traditionally this is because being an MP is thought of as a serious office that shouldn't just be chucked away lightly. Therefore, if a British MP wants to resign he needs to apply for an office of profit under the Crown (either Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds or Baron of the Manor of Northstead.

Unfortunately for Mr Adams, a staunch Irish Republican accepting a job from the British Crown would be completely unacceptable. Thus he just wrote a letter to the Speaker resigning. However, in order to maintain tradition this has been interpreted in Whitehall as a request for one of the said offices and Mr Adams has been duly appointed to the Crown Office of Baron of the Manor of Northstead. Duly appointed, that is, without his knowledge until David Cameron stood up in the Commons and announced he'd accepted the office. There followed hasty denials of any such acceptance by Sinn Fein and here we are at a very British impasse with nobody really sure whether Belfast West techinically has an MP or not. It really is quite hilarious in its own way.

One possible way forward would be for Mr Adams to do something in order to get himself expelled from the Commons (actually, just speaking in the House would technically be enough, as not having taking the oath he is barred from speaking despite being an MP). However, this would require him setting foot in Westminster something he has steadfastly refused to do in 23 years as an MP. And so the saga rolls on...

Neds

The film is called Neds (Non-Educated Delinquents), its directed by Peter Mullan (master of the gritty) and set in 70s Glasgow Housing Schemes. You know its not going to be a barrel laughs.

Actually, the story really feels rather familiar. John McGill (Conor McCarron) is a bright boy with the potential to do well. He also has an alcoholic father (Mullan) and a big brother who is never out of trouble. John does well at school, despite the hostility/brutality of the establishment, until his well-to-do friend disowns him and he starts to slide into the same gang culture that has absorbed his brother.

Its familiar, but on the whole it works, there is real tension in the gang confrontations and, especially, in the scenes where his dad is drunk. The school scenes work and aren't overused and Mullan has a real sense of period and place in the setting. McCarron also manages to just about hold together the film, pulling off a performance that, paradoxically but reallistically, relies on communicating alot through blankness.

There are misjudged moments, where the imagery overwhelms both character and plot - the hallucinatory scene where Jesus descends from the Cross and tries to strangle John works neither dramatically nor comically. The ending is also a bit on the bizarre side - is it a kind of atonement, heavy symbolism or just an absence of a clue how to wrap things up. And I guess at the end of the day, that is part of the challenge of the movie - Mullan has produced something which should leave you with questions. After all this is a film about Non-educated delinquents where the main character is a high achiever at school.

Overall - 7/10 Not totally original, not totally successful, but gritty, powerful, at times brutal and definitely challenging.

The King's Speech

Finally managed to catch it this week, having been wanting to see it for a few weeks. Of course, there's always the danger with such a wait that the film wouldn't live up to expectations, or rather like The Queen, that it would be an OK British costume drama which failed to live up to all the hype. Actually, The Queen is an interesting point of comparison as it touches on some of the same issues - the place of the royal family in a world changing through technology, duty and private life, etc... However, whilst The Queen was essentially one good performance surrounded by a lot of hype and some crude caricatures, The King's Speech is a truly good film, which has more humour, more feeling and more depth.

The performances are every bit as strong as Helen Mirren's. Colin Firth has been gathering all the attention as he probably heads towards the Oscar he should have won last year for A Single Man as the stuttering prince/king facing up to his responsibilities. But the film wouldn't work unless he was equally matched on either side in both of the key relationships - on the one-side Geoffrey Rush provides a great foil as the Australian speech therapist/aspiring actor who gradually helps Bertie become King George. Less noticed, but no less crucial is Helena Bonham-Carter's turn as Firth's supportive wife (who in real-life would become the Queen Mother). Her evident, but understated affection and support adds a quiet element of subtle love story, which is actually much more moving than the more traditionally romantic Edward and Mrs Simpson (who do not emerge from this film very well (which is maybe a more historically accurate way of looking at things - even Edward's Nazi sympathies are alluded to). Even the supporting cast are excellent from Michael Gambon as the old king, to a twinkle-eyed turn from Timothy Spall as Churchill.

Structurally, the film suffers very slightly from a double climax - it builds toward a personal emotional climax about halfway through in a very touching scene between Firth and Rush, but then dips ever so slightly before building again towards the more historical climax in ascension to the throne, the onset of war and that speech. The film also has a rich vein of humour - the infamous swearing scene is actually very funny - but never at the expense of the difficulties of the protagonist. In fact, in the opening scene, you can't help but feel his excuciating discomfort.

Overall - 9/10 Funny, moving, rich in historical detail and full of amazing performances. Best film of the year so far, by some distance.

The Way Back

Director Peter Weir's first movie in 7 years (his last was Master and Commander) is an adaptation of the disputedly "true"* book The Long Walk Back by Slavomir Rawicz, who claimed to have, with others, escaped from a Siberian gulag in 1941 and walked South via Lake Baikal, Mongolia, China and Tibet across the Himalayas into India. (He also claimed to have seen 2 yetis whilst crossing the Himalayas, but mercifully this is left out of the film).

As you might expect from Weir (especially when making a film sponsored by National Geographic) the film looks gorgeous as the cast traverse through some gorgeous locations (even if they aren't all what they claim to be - Bulgaria standing in for Siberia and Morocco for the Gobi desert). Its also well acted on whole - Jim Sturgess makes a watchable lead (a Polish officer trying to get back to his wife), Colin Farrel has the most fun as a Russian criminal and Ed Harris shines as the slightly mysterious Mr Smith.

However, despite that it remains a curiously unsatisfying film at times. What incident there is in the journey either happens off screen (the actual escape, crossing the guarded railway line) or is rushed through so quickly (an encounter with Mongolian horsemen, crossing a frozen river) that it actually loses much impact. Curiously this doesn't lead to a greater depth of characterisation either - most of the party are left as a one line character description (cooks and draws pictures, etc...) rather than fully fleshed characters. Mark Strong's character is possibly one of the most interesting, but departs the film relatively early. So its left to Sturgess and Harris to carry the film, but even then its only in the latter stages of the journey that we actually get any sense of depth to either man or the relationship between them.

Overall - 6.5/10 A solid piece of film-making, but given the talent involved you can't help feeling that it should be better than it is

* Since the book's publication many have cast doubt on its authenticity and BBC research into Russian records would indicate it to be untrue. However, there is evidence from a British officer in India who remembered interviewing three emaciated men who had crossed the Himalayas and claimed to have escaped from a Siberian gulag. We'll probably never know for sure.

Oldham East and Saddleworth - the Verdict

So the results are in and to nobody's great surprise (and my disappointment) Labour held the seat quite comfortably. So, what does it tell us? Not much really, but here are my thoughts on how each party will be feeling - ranked not according to where they finished, but how happy they will be with it:


1. Labour 42.1% (+10.2) A solid win, an increased majority - its hard to see them losing this seat at the next election now. So basically they've got away with Woolas' dirty tactics.

2. UKIP 5.8% (+1.9) A solid increase in their vote, they beat the BNP into 4th and saved their deposit (a rare achievement in a by-election). They should be very happy with that.

3. Lib-Dems 31.9% (+0.3) They failed to take the seat, but did increase their vote share despite their woeful current standing in the national polls and the fact that, contrary to previous ideas, Tories clearly do sometimes vote tactically might offer them some hope in other areas.

4. Official Monster Raving Loonie Party 0.4% (+0.4%) They didn't finish in the bottom three. Must be happy with that.

5. Green Party 1.5% (+1.5%) 6th place was the best they could hope for realistically, its an Ok performance in an area they have no track record and apparently their candidate did very well at the hustings, which might stand him on good stead for a run in more favourable territory.

6. Pirate 0.3% (+0.3%) Didn't come last.

7. Bus Pass Elvis 0.2% (+0.2%) Did come last, but probably expected little else.

8. BNP 4.5% (-1.2%) Worst ever result in the seat, lost their deposit and finished behind UKIP (which they hate) who should no go on to establish themselves as the right-wing protest party of choice in the area.

9. Conservatives 12.8% (-13.6%) Lost over half their support and are now no longer in a position where they could realistically argue they could challenge for the seat. Dropped to about 13% in an area where half the seat had a Tory MP until 1995. However Cameron might be quite pleased that the result will shore up Clegg for a while. The local party will be less impressed.

10. English Democrats 0.4% (+0.4%) Not too good to finish behind the Loonies and well behind the other right-wing protest parties.

Next-up will probably be Barnsley Central following the Labour MP pleading guilty to expenses fraud. Should be another comfortable Labour hold despite the former MP's corruption. Its another area where the BNP performed well in May last year, so will be interesting to see if they fall back again. There will also be an election in Belfast West as soon as the Irish general election is called as Gerry Adams will be standing down to contest South of the border. He had 55% majority in May, so difficult to see that being anything other than a Sinn Fein hold.

127 Hours

Danny Boyle's latest is one of those films where the story (based on true events) is now so well known - man gets trapped whilst out canyoning and after 127 hours eventually manages to free himself by breaking his own arm and cutting it off with a blunt penknife - that the appeal of the film is not so much in what happens, but how we get there.

In the lead, James Franco has to do the tough job of carrying the film almost without another actor to play-off, and whilst he maybe comes some way short of Tom Hanks in Cast Away, he manages to pull it off (no pun intended).

Meanwhile, Boyle manages to add surprising moments of both beauty (the first sunrise) and humour (see the moment when Franco as Aaron Ralston is forced to drink his own urine for the first time). That said, he also succeeds to creating the feeling that the audience is there in the canyon with his star and things do become gradually more disorientating as Ralston's health declines and edges between reality and his hallucinations blur. So, we end up feeling the huge sense of relief when Ralston does indeed free himself. Not all aspects are quite so successful - Ralston's premonition of having a son, which seemingly prompts his arm-cutting escape, is handled without much conviction and feels slightly out of place despite the post-escape coda.

Overall - 7.5/10 This is not Boyle's best, but is still a powerful, raw film - just not one I think I'd like to see again.

Love and Other Drugs

The makers of Love and Other Drugs are eager to point out that its not a Rom-Com, they prefer the term emotional comedy (or emoti-com). The marketing campaign, however, has definitely been appealling to a rom-com audience. As it turns out, both are right.

For the first two thirds of the film, there is a subtle blend of satire (on the drug and health industry in America) and emotional drama and comedy. As such, it probably treads a line closer to Up in the Air than a traditional rom-com. Although its not as good as that movie, its still a very stong film. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a young, ambitious drug-rep who ends up falling for a woman with early onset Parkinson's (Anne Hathaway). Gyllenhaal and Hathaway have a very easy chemistry and there is some sharp dialogue as they cut through each others bullshit - these are two broken people, looking for escape and finding something more. It is also very funny, both in their blossoming relationship and in Gyllenhaal's attempts to market his drugs.

He is better in these sections and tends to coast a bit through the more emotional sections. Hathaway meanwhile is excellent throughout, giving a thoroughly human and believable portrayal of a woman trying to come to terms with her condition. There is also excellent support from the dependable Oliver Platt and Hank Azaria. That these first sections are handled with a lightness of touch and subtlety is all the more pleasantly surprising as director Edward Zwick (Glory, The Last Samurai, Defiance) is a man more noted for spectacle than subtlety.

It then appears that the film totally loses confidence in itself and retreats into rom-com cliche and an easy happy-ending. The second act raises big emotional questions with real weight, the last act then papers over them with platitudes and hopes you won't notice. Hathaway deserves some credit for still managing to find some real feeling amidst the cliches, but both she and the film deserve better.

Overall - 7/10 A great performance by Hathaway and what could have been a very good film are both betrayed by a formulaic artificial happy ending, but the first two thirds are well worth watching.
 

Season of the Witch

Season of the Witch follows closely in the footsteps of last year's Solomon Kane - its Medieval Europe Hollywood-style. The recipe is quite simple - start with lots of mud and dirt, mist works well too. A few monks, a few knights and lots of dirty peasants, add in some bleak scenery and a stunning castle. Then you need to find a way to factor in some combination of the Crusades, the Plague and witchcraft - because those were really the only things that happened in Europe for about 400 years (Season of the Witch should be applauded for managing all three). Add in a mix of different European accents, apart from for the hero(es) who for no accountable reason will speak perfect American. All that this film really misses out on is an appearance by Max Von Sydow, but almost makes up for this with a Christopher Lee cameo.

The story follows knightly Nicolas Cage (sporting yet another dodgy hairdo) and best pal Ron Perlman who give up serving the church after the atrocities of the crusades, but are "persuaded" to do one last job, transporting an accused witch many miles to a monastery for trial, accompanied by a priest (The History Boys' Stephen Campbell Moore), another knight, a young wannabe and a swindler as a guide. The journey is utterly predictable and you can't help feeling that the film tips its hand as to whether the girl really is a witch rather too early. Still the action is competently handled and Ron Perlman is an old-hand at this kind of nonsense. Nicolas Cage enjoyed something of a renaissance last year with Kick Ass and Bad Lieutenant, but is back on going through the motions and surprisingly subdued form here (although this is his fourth leading role in little over 9 months, so maybe he was just plain tired!). The script is laughable, often quite literally and there's actually a certain amount of guilty pleasure in lines such as "we're going to need more holy water!". Its generally much better when it realises its own nonsense and doesn't take itself too seriously rather than the odd moment that it strays into worthiness and pontificating about the abuses of the church.

Overall - 5/10 Its nonsense and generally it knows it is, but is quite entertaining nonsense most of the time.

Gulliver's Travels

This is not Gulliver's Travels in the sense that any fan of Jonathan Swift's satiric masterpiece would recognise. For starters, you only really get the first (of four) of Gulliver's voyages, with a brief reference to the second, and even that is only really referenced in the fact that there is a land full of very small people called Lilliput and Gulliver puts out a fire in the Palace by urinating on it (yes, that was in the book) and drives away the navy of an invading rival. Thereafter pretty much all similarities with the book cease and what you get instead is a stream of pop culture references and Jack Black being, well, Jack Black-ish.

Having said that, and getting off my English Lit Graduate high-horse for a minute, its not actually as bad as I was expecting. Black manages to slightly tone down his Black-ishness enough to make his character bearable, even approaching likeable at time. And if its not exactly hilarious fun, it does at least have some energy, enthusiasm and inventiveness enough to make it watchable. Of the rest of the cast, Billy Connolly and Catherine Tate are definitely short-changed, but Jason Segal manages to make a likeable character out of what is essentially Black's foil. The stand-outs here though are Chris O'Dowd making a good villain and Emily Blunt, whose mannered performance is initially off-putting, but when you see what she's actually doing, she just about steals the whole movie. The awkwardness of the scheduled courtship between Blunt and O'Dowd providing many of the few genuinely funny moments here.

Overall - 5.5/10 It's not Swift and it's not a masterpiece, but it is at least watchable and largely inoffensive with a few laughs, which is more than you can say for certain other so-called comedies out at the moment.

Little Fockers

To start the new cinema year on a particularly low note - not a film I was particularly enthusiastic about seeing, but I was outvoted. I really enjoyed Meet the Parents, but Meet the Fockers was dreadfully unfunny. No matter how bad this is, I thought, surely it will have more laughs than that. How wrong can I be! This is lazy, cynical, unfunny film-making at its worst. So here are my notes to Hollywood on how to avoid this kind of travesty in the future:

• Jokes that were funny first time round, but not the second, don't suddenly become funny because you try them a third time. Even the stars seem to have stop believing in the material and not even the thought of a big fat paycheck can muster any enthusiasm from messers Stiller and De Niro, let alone anything resembling actual acting as they lazily coast through the same routines again without any effort.
• More stars do not necessarily make a better picture. Jessica Alba and Harvey Keitel are added to the mix this time round. Keitel is presumably thrown in as somebody thought it would be "funny" to have him square off with De Niro - its not, just a reminder of much better films where they had some decent material to work with and could be bothered. Meanwhile Dustin Hoffman lazily dances his way to the bank having done not very much at all.
• There is a difference between funny and irritating. It is possible to make irritating funny - Owen Wilson can do it (with decent material to work with), but here he's just plain irritating. Whilst Jessica Alba trying to talk all dope and down with it has got to be one of the most annoying characters ever committed to celluloid.
• A man injecting adrenalin into his father-in-law's penis to remedy an excess of viagra is just not funny. I don't think I need to stay more.
• Genuine humour doesn't need signposting in advance to let you know you should laugh soon whereas this telegraphs every joke with huge neon signs well before they actually arrive.

To be fair  - there is one decent joke in the whole thing, when De Niro tries to contact his old CIA employers for info only to be told he can probably get what he's looking for on Google. There might also be a couple of mildly amusing segments - a play on Jaws in the ball pool and a pastiche of the classic spy tailing somebody on a train. There, I've saved you the bother of actually having to watch the film - believe me, you'll thank me for it.

Overall - 3.5/10 Unfunny, lazy, cynical, cringeworthy. From here the only way is up for the year.

Political Predictions for 2011.

Just for a bit of fun at the start of the year, I'm going to share some thoughts on how things may go at the polls this year.

The first major test for the big parties will of course be the

Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election.
 Having previously said that I could see any of the big three parties winning this, I now think that things are (unfortunately) leaning towards a Labour win. I say unfortunately not for party political reasons, but because I would like to see the electorate punish the party and not just the individual for the types of wrongdoing that Mr Woolas perpetrated. However, it looks like Labour will get away with it, probably with an increased majority. With the current state of the polls (Lib-Dems possibly down to around 8% nationally (depending on polling company)), the Conservatives being slightly less than whole-hearted in their campaigning and the final weeks of the campaign likely to be dominated by the VAT rise and George Osborne, there is little playing in the Coalition parties favour here.

Almost as interesting as the main battle, will be the performance of the minor parties. With 7 other candidates standing it will be hard for any to save their deposit (5% of the vote required). I wouldn't expect the Greens to do well - this is not their area. Anything much above 1.5% for them will be a good result (and undoubtedly bad for the Lib-Dems as it would probably mean a significant loss of disaffected yellows). The BNP probably stand the best chance of saving their deposit - they polled 11% here in 2001 and saved their deposit at last year's general election. However, support for UKIP has been growing in the area and they stand a chance of pipping Griffin's racists for 4th place. I'm not usually one to cheer on UKIP, but in this particular case, I'll make an exception. In fact it would be nice to see the BNP come behind the Loonies, but it ain't going to happen. My prediction of the result (offered elsewhere) is:

Labour  35.2%
LD 29.8%
Con 22.8%
BNP 4.7%
UKIP 3.5%
English Democrats 1.6%
Green 1.2%
Official Monster Raving Loony Party 0.7%
Pirate 0.3%
Church of the Militant Elvis 0.2%

Local Elections in May
The local elections will probably be more good news for Labour, but Ed Milliband shouldn't get too excited just yet. MOst seats up for grabs this year were last contested in 2007 which was very bad year for Labour. The kind of year where an unpopular government loses council seats that under more normal circumstances they would hold quite easily. Therefore it would only be natural to expect that now, with Labour in opposition, many hundreds of those seats will be won back from the Tories and Lib-Dems. For the Lib-Dems it might be a particularly grim night. They might hold up, or even make some progress against the Tories in the rural South and South-West, but in the North and especially the urban areas like Liverpool and Newcastle, where they had been making inroads for the last decade or so, Lib-Dem councillors will fall in large numbers.

Welsh Assembly
Wales is also likely to be grim for the Lib-Dems in May. Latest opinion polls show that they may be reduced to just one or two assembly seats. In fact, the last poll would have them coming behind the Communist party in one of the regional lists! Labour will make gains, plaid will stand still, The Tories might go either up or down but not hugely, and there is a slim chance that UKIP might just gain their first ever AM. At the end of the day, I reckon Labour will either just achieve or just fall short of an overall majority. Either way I would expect them to go it alone in government rather than continuing the present coalition with Plaid.

Sottish Parliament
Labour should also again become the largest party in the Scottish parliament. This isn't saying much as they require only a swing of 1 seat from the results of a bad year. I would expect them to finish 10-20 seats ahead of the SNP this time. The Tories might lose a seat or two, but I would expect generally they will lose a few constituencies but make it up on the list vote and finish just down on the current levels. The Lib-Dems will also be reduced, but not as badly as Wales (their strength in some parts is, I reckon, too historically entrenched) and they may finish with about 10 seats or so. The Greens will pick up a few extra, probably finihing with 4-5, maybe even up to 6 or 7. Again, I would expect Labour to try and govern as a minority, but it would certainly be in the Lib-Dems interests to make them a coalition offer they couldn't refuse.

The AV Referendum
Tough one to predict this - if Labour take the lead in the yes campaign they may just swing it against a Tory no campaign, but Labour are from united behind AV, so at the moment I'm predicting this might a narrow No vote, which in itself I wouldn't be too bothered about, except that I think it will mean the end of any prospect of electoral reform for Westminster for at least another 10-15 years and that would be a shame and an opportunity missed.

New Year's Resolution and Book Plug No. 1

Happy New Year to you all. For me 2011 arrived in good company with champagne in Paris, which is a promising start. I've got to admit that I'm not a great one for New Year's Resolutions, but this year I've decided that I want to get back into reading more. In addition to trying to work my way through the backlog of books building up on my shelves, I'm intending to occasionally put on here plugs for good books I'm reading when I come across.

So first up is one of those book's that I've been meaning to get round to for a while: The Five People You Will Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. I started it on the plane back from Paris two days ago and am already well-over halfway through it and thoroughly enjoying it. Its quite a light read and very accessible, but at the same time rather thought-provoking.

"This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It might seem strange to start with an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time".
 
"No life is a waste... The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone"