Written and Directed by Ben Affleck

What can I say about this movie other than wow. It was very good, holding my attention from beginning to end. A child disappears and two private investigators(Casey Affleck and Michelle Monoghan) are hired by a relative to help find her. They are not accustomed to working on this type of case, their work experience being with debt recovery. As they work with police(Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman and John Ashton) to find the child, they discover a road filled with twists and turns.

Casey Affleck turns in another fine performance as does Amy Ryan, playing the childs substance abusing mother. I have to admit I suspected the right people early on but I still didn't know why until the end. It's not a happy movie so if that's what you're looking for don't watch this one. This movie is filled with who dun it's, moral dilemma and some action. There is bad language and content about child crimes so this is not appropriate for kids.

Godard's Live My Life, starring Anna Karina, is in every sense the epitome of nouvelle vague flm-making. Karine plays Nana, the protagonist who in 12 vignettes we see go from bourgois Parisian singleton to prostitute. The titles cards we expect with Godard are there with their short, sharp indications of what we're about to see, as are the obscure camera angles and exquisite monochromatic photography from Raoul Coutard.

The style, superficial and overbearing as it is always polarises audiences - usually moreso in the case of Godard than other French director's of the period (Malle, Rivette, Resnais etc are often for more digestible). The problem here, and it really is the only problem (as opposed to Malle's jazz interjections the music really works well here) is the way the characters are written. Godard seems to take far more [and perhaps too much] interest in what the characters do rather than why they do it, resulting in an uncomfortable alienating emotional coldness. There's no way to sympathise with anyone because no one seems to deserve it; Nana's attitude and seeming indifference to her chosen profession is dumbfounding.

The most telling critique i think i can give however is that the film's highlight is from another film - when Nana watches Dreyer's masterpiece La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc. It's the only moment of raw emotion in the whole film and as such, represents the sole glimpse of genuine humanity that an audience can really associate with. Pity Nana? No, i pity Godard for missing numerous tricks, turning out an ok film instead of a great one.

Cloverfield

I have just been to see Cloverfield at the Vue in the OmniCentre in Edinburgh and I thought it was a really good film. One word to describe it? Tense. And just to dispell the myth, no I didn't get motion sickness (and I hate rollercoasters) and the hand held camera work didn't put me off. It was much better done than Blair Witch and added to the tension brilliantly - both what you couldn't see and what you could see through the lens - and was a tad more expensive than the 20p that Blair Witch was made for. The similarity between the films ends there.

Scariest moment: Definetely in the helicoptor, when you think he's dead.

Hi to everybody...have just watched John Turturro's 'Illuminata' about a writer's effort to get him play shown in the theatre at the turn of the last century....wonderful script, acting and was funny and moving and deep...I can highly recommend it...came out in 1998, but hasn't become dated because a period piece...Susan Sarandon, Rufus Sewell, and Christopher Walken are amongst the actors in it, and excellent they are too...in fact all the cast are wonderful...if you haven't seen it...try it...big hugs to one and all....

Is this the rope by which Hitchcock hangs himself? For me, yes, well - at least in part. The obsession with style and technique here really overrides the plots focus and any sense of realism. The rope may be awaiting the film's protagonists, it may be the ingredient that gave them away, but in trying for so long to tie the long tracking shots together Hitch' comes desperately unstuck for this particular viewer.

The set-up is simple: 2 impossibly arrogant bourgois students murder a classmate purely to see if they can get away with "the perfect murder". Murder, they proffer, is not just a crime but an art form reserved for the higher classes of individual to be perpetrated on the weak lower echelons of society. After the murder the 2 students hold a party attended by the deceased's girlfriend, his father and aunt, another friend and an old teacher. To add excitement, or for whatever reason, they use the trunk into which they've dumped the body, for the party's centrepiece. The film follows the conversations at the party and the unravelling of their big plan by the teacher.

There seems to be so, so much wrong with this film. For starters there's the way it's shot. After the first cut to the interior Hitchcock does so much to mask the cuts [at the end of reels] by using close-ups of characters' backs to mask the edit. At the time, i can see that this would have worked for the majority of the audience who wont be looking for edits, but years later with a reputation firmly established this bold experiment fails in my estimations. Once we, the audience, are aware of what Hitchcock is doing, every edit becomes more than just obvious - they become the focus of the film. The close-ups on backs are unsightly, drawing unwarranted attention to themselves they reveal the director's trickery drawing further focus away from the story itself. Perhaps however, this can be excused in context, when technology of the time is taken into account as well as the audience etc. What's stranger then, is when in the final section of the film the cutting resorts to much more standard practise. As unsightly as the early edits may be, they do at least establish their own form of rhythm with which one can accept and become attuned to, but this is all undone by the end of the film. For a film "with no cuts" 3 or 4 actual cuts seems quite steep, for all the good these later cuts do he [the director] may as well have put in a jump cut at the end to a courtroom or to the gallows. I can't deny the technical achievements in pulling those huge camera through the set to achieve those eternal tracking and panning shots, but i really don't feel here that the risk was worth it. In technical innovation Hitchcock undermines any semblance of realism the film started off with, to the point that it's less of a film per se, but an unpolished, raw technical experiment that still needs an awful lot of work before it's fit to be shown to audiences.

Assuming however, you can buy the style and technique enough to focus on the story, how good is the plot? Again, it's found wanting. Wanting of a twist, something interesting to spice it up, something to raise this overwrought melodrama from the ever-predictable doldrums in which it irrevocably resides. For two students who seem so apparently well-educated one has to question almost every decision they make in the film. By placing the body, literally, in the middle of the party they are displaying a huge degree of arrogance and egotism. We know it's going to be their downfall, so maybe that's the point - that ego leads to failure, that the obnoxious upper classes are never as superior as they think they are intellectually or otherwise. But most people already are well aware that arrogance is a forbearer of doom; cocksure and distasteful we resent these protagonists as soon as we meet them and hope they get what's coming to them... which, essentially is what happens in the film. The guests turn up, the teacher rumbles their scheme and makes sure the police come to arrest them. To me it seems bafflingly simple, and almost pointless. Person does bad, gets found out and receives comeuppance: where's the fun, interest, intrigue; excitement in this? Fans seem to point to tension, but i can't say i felt any, at any point in the film. The whole thing seems to be one slippery slope from the moment Stewart enters the room, from the moment he steps in he seems suspicious and gets ever more so 'til the climax. There's no discernible revelation here, just mounting evidence that increasingly confirms one characters initial fear/suspicion.

However, this in itself is not always a terrible thing - after all films that tell a simple story well in a tight runtime can be just as much the masterpiece as those sprawling epics which interweave many complex narrative threads and characters. But, all i can say here is that the execution is terrible (pun intended). There's a kind of build-up to a debate over the merit of murder's artistry in which the protagonists all but give themselves away (they really couldn't make it more obvious, throughout the film, that they are very guilty murderers), yet this central debate, the apparent focus of the film is over extremely quickly with only superficial argument. There's a sort of revelation near the end when the teacher rescinds his standpoint on murder as art, an act (rescission that is) that could have come as a surprise if we knew more of his character or if he didn't seem so impossibly, eloquently, liberal - that he would see the error in his previous views comes as no shock whatsoever; indeed the only shock is that it takes him so long to do so. All in all, the story seems barely real or credible, with lines feeling evermore contrived and dialogue evermore focused on driving home plot points being delivered by 2 dimensional characters none of which we can reasonably side with.

All that remains then is the performances, which could make the film worthwhile. They don't. Wooden throughout, stagey delivery and extraordinary unevenness leave the performances - even from the leads - approaching a shamble. The last remnants of reality are shattered every time anyone speaks a line. The actors should be on a stage when they talk like this, not a film set, and when i say talk i mean read. I'm fairly sure that there are times you can see the actor reading his/her lines off of a cue card off-screen. Monotony is one thing, but that actually, isn't the problem here - everything else is. There's a total emotional dearth at the script's core, and with emotion absent what we're left with is these cardboard figures blandly reading a poorly constructed argument on the morality and sociology of crime. I wanted there to be another layer, some kind of subtext, maybe even something metaphorical going on but there just isn't. At times the writing borders on incompetent - especially with the girl and her ex-boyfriend: really i see no point whatsoever in them being at the party, their only contribution to the plot is needless time-wasting. I don't hate the performances, because i think the fault lies as much with the writers as the cast but surely good actors can make a bad script work - even to some small extent? Perhaps not. James Stewart, FWIW, is the most bearable of those appearing the feature, although that's only because he's playing James Stewart who i happen to like; if Tom Hanks was in the role i would undoubtedly have hated him.

All in all, i was left thoroughly disappointed by a film that seemed to hold so much promise and didn't deliver, at all.

Went The Day Well? rises wonderfully from it's mid-War propaganda roots to quickly become an engaging, entertaining wartime thriller warranting several viewings. The 1942 Ealing Studios production starts as innocently as any rural drama with a truckload of troops entering a village under the auspices of some kind of communications mission. The villagers suspect nothing, and nor do we - the accents come with the stiffest of lips; the only odd behaviour is the scolding of a young boy curious to see what's on the back of the truck under the tarpaulin. As with most films of this type however, where a con is afoot, the audience are told early on that these are in fact Germans in disguise (in a similar vein to Battle Of The Bulge). Curiously, it is the women in the village who have suspicions first, but even they don't cotton on to the traitor in their midst. Ultimately, the Germans' mission is inevitably futile when the villagers seize their chance to take down the troop themselves turning the tables irrevocably to their favour.

For a film with a purpose it not only does what it sets out to do: affirmation of British stoic strength in the face of adversity, but does so without shoving any agenda distastefully down the audience's throat. With the men abroad it's unsurprising that the women take on a lot of the film's strongest roles (Thora Hird taking the strongest, and most frightening) yet these roles don't come with the hardened sense of extreme feminism they might have in later films dealing with this period. The workmanlike direction from Alberto Cavalcanti ticks the standard clichés and runs through predictable plot arcs without ever seeming tired, or mundane. The photography may be uninspired, but then it doesn't need to be particularly special when the story holds up on its own merits. We know what's going to happen, but I never once felt watching the flick was pointless and with some unintentional comedy thrown into the mix this mixed bag has a little something for everyone. Ok, so the acting may be as wooden as the crosses that adorn the church interior but you get what you expect with this classic gem of a film: excitement, a thrill or 2, some action and some comedy all dished up within 90 minutes. I for one couldn't ask for much more.

Surprisingly realistic mid-war propaganda film this film which tells the story of HMS Torrin's crew from the launch of the ship through to its sinking off the coast of Crete. No one is safe from being killed, no matter how much we might like them and even Richard Attenborough turns up as a coward. Get over Noel Coward's stiffest of upper lips and there's some really great stuff here. Realistic [for the time] battle scenes and some interesting, funny characters who we really get to know in the space of two hours. The film's best moment is the captain's wife's monologue on the pitfalls of being a naval wife. Brilliant.

Nb. the film was co-directed by David Lean (his debut), who later went on to make "Lawrence Of Arabia", "Bridge On The River Kwai" and "Doctor Zhivago".

The great Paths Of Glory displays all of Kubrick's flourishing talents early in his career, capturing a fantastic performance from Kirk Douglas in the process. What really struck me about the film was the firstly, it's not anti-war; and secondly the way light is used. With regards to the first point i see a lot of people saying it's one of the great anti-war films... but it just isn't. Bafflingly stupid orders are ridiculed by the film, the way officers were out of touch with what went on in the battlefield is definitely a major issue and the justice of military tribunals comes into question but at no point could i discern a statement on war itself. On the second point - light - it's just fantastic in this. Massive sets with light pouring in through windows, beams fractured by the panes leaving very physical areas of light and dark within the frame through which the characters wander. I'd like to say the battle scene is great, but my crappy rental dvd skipped that bit... i effin' hate scratched rental dvds.

A short horror film from New Zealand director Steve Ayson about a guy who put in some French Doors only to notice things going awry.

Hi to everybody...here's an animated film treat...watch the birdie in it...
'Ratrix Hero' is a short animated film with a running time of 6 minutes wich takes its inspiration from the film "The Matrix". The Hero is a rat and is chased by agents with cat's head.

Big hugs to one and all.....

Hi to everybody...has anybody here seen 'The Russian Ark' directed by Alexander Sokurov? The entire film was shot in one take...and lasts around one and a half hours...
It starts off with a narrator revealing that he is dead and a ghost taking you round the Winter Palace aka the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and takes you on a journey through history meeting fictional and real characters as he wanders through the galleries and massive rooms until it climaxes with an astounding ending, which should knock you over when you realise that only one thing had to go wrong and the entire film would have been lost...
I got it for my birthday last year, and we watched it through scarcely believing that somebody had achieved this astonishing feat or that the cameraman had survived...he nearly collapsed with utter exhaustion but didn't, thank goodness...
If you haven't seen it, cast aside your expectations of a normal film... by that I mean what usually appears at your local cinema...because this film is nothing like these...you can be a bit confused at times as to what's going on because some subtitles are missed off probably deliberately and, unless you speak the language of the ghost, you're not going to know what's happening...but these instances are rare. Most of the time, you realise that you're going through a dream like state and seeing snippets of the past and present like a wonderful tableau...
See it just for the experience if nothing else, and I think you'll be amazed...
Big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...saw two films last night as different as chalk and cheese, but both were very entertaining in their own way.
The first was 'My House in Umbria' with Maggie Smith, Timothy Spall and Ronnie Barker...it was a gentle, tender film about the aftermath of a bomb going off in a train in Italy. Maggie Smith was a passenger in a full apartment with Ronnie Barker and his daughter, a young German man and his girlfriend and an American husband and wife with their young daughter of around nine or ten. The bomb explodes leaving only Maggie Smith, playing Emily, Ronnie Barker,the General, the young German man, Werner, and the young girl, Amy, alive...
They are all injured but Amy has stopped talking with the shock. Maggie Smith has a house in Umbria and invites them all back to convalesce including Amy, while any living relatives in the USA were traced. During all this, an Italian detective pops up every now and then to question all of them about the tragic events.
After they have settled in and have got to know and feel real affection for each other, an uncle is discovered in the USA of Amy's and arrives to take her back with him...he's cold and academic and nobody warms to him and he despises them. I'll not spoil the outcome, just to say that it was a beautifully acted film with magnificent scenery and a great deal of humour and pathos. Slow, but well paced, and I can recommend it.
The second was much more grim...'The Last King of Scotland' about the rise and fall of Idi Amin of Uganda and his relationship with a young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan, who arrives in Uganda seeking adventure and intending to try to help the people out there. The story starts off entirely from the perspective of the young, and as it turns out, completely naive, newly qualified doctor. Idi Amin meets him and, eventually, invites him to be his personal physician because he likes Scotland and the Scottish people...their relationship begins with Garrigan reluctantly accepting the position and somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of trust that Amin puts in him and that he seeks his advice in all sorts of matters. Gradually though, the relationships begins to be oppressive as Amin's sanity deteriorates and the situation in Uganda becomes one of a bloodbath as Amin orders the removal of all who oppose or threaten him. Garrigan falls in love with Amin's third wife, and gets her pregnant, and from then on, he is intent on getting away from Amin, but hasn't counted on the barbarity of the man with dreadful results.
Although I've written a fair bit about the plot, this is still only a small part of the whole film. The acting by Forrest Whittaker as Idi Amin is excellent and James McAvoy is also very good as Garrigan, but I could not warm to him because his naivety and sheer stupidity at times was breathtaking. In the end, I felt he did a great deal of harm because of it and people ended up dead. That, he would have to live with for the rest of his life. He did, however, go on to write the story of his life with Amin, and this is the basis of 'The Last King of Scotland'. For an insight into a terrible period of Uganda's history, I can highly recommend this film but it's not an easy film to watch in parts because so horrific, and even that was tempered because the reality would never have got past the censors...
That's it, big hugs to one and all..

Hi to everybody...we went to the cinema to see 'Pan's Labyrinth' and watched spellbound for its entirety. Guillermo Del Toro, the director, has excelled himself in the making of this outstanding film. The young girl, who is the main character, caught up in the cruelty and savagery of war, is entirely lacking in tweeness, she is lovely, sad, fearful, at times petrified with good reason, and her hapless mother and brutal step father make her life a living nightmare, which ends in a shocking outcome. Throughout the film, a fantasy world is created by her in an attempt to survive what is going on around her, but is, in the end, insufficient to protect her.
A wonderful film that I cannot recommend enough...big hugs to one and all....

A masterpiece? Perhaps. Good? Certainly. The film that ended Michael Powell's career in Britain (he had to go to Australia to find work after Peeping Tom bombed at the box office after its limited release) stands up well on its own merits years later.

Shot in striking colour contrast by Otto Heller the film sees Michael Powell examines the very essence of filmmaking - what it is that makes filmmakers tick. Power, obsession and voyeurism clash with Freudian psychology in this timeless thriller - to some the peek of Powell's artistic career (for what it's worth his most commercially successful film was The Battle of The River Plate) that follows a young focus puller who in between shoots stalks women with his camera, killing them so he can film the expression on their face.

Haunting throughout Powell manages to notch up the tension from the most innocuous of scene openings to great dramatic crescendos of dark psychological violence in a way few directors can match. The icy cold performances chill to the bone, lingering in the memory long after the film has finished.

All in all this film's a short, sharp shock to the system - a shock that audiences and critics of the time certainly weren't ready for, more's the pity. 8/10

Based on memoirs of Jane's sister, I believe, this movie gives a look at Jane's life proir to her writing successes.

I'll admit I had my doubts when I sat down to watch this. When I look at Anne Hathaway, I am instantly reminded of "The Princess Diaries" the kind of movie, topped off with a sequel that can be a career killer. What do I know I suppose, but Reese Whitherspoon will forever be Elle Wood from Legally Blonde. This movie turned out to be a pleasant surprise though not as incandescent, a favorite word of Miss Austen, as something Joe Wright could have done. We are given a look at Jane's family life and her romance with a young lawyer, Tom Lefroy(James McAvoy). The movie highlights the many restrictions placed upon women during that time, their expectations and need to make "good marriages." It shows the struggles of strong minded women who chose to write and how they were embraced or not embraced by society. As the movie progresses through the day to day life and romance, we are also given a look at how "Pride and Prejudice" may have been created. The life experiences of Jane during this time help her to look deeper at those around her and develop her writing style. I did watch the extended scenes after it was over. They were brief but added more dimension to the local suiter, Mr. Wisley who was a bit glossed over.

It's a good movie that could have been even better I suspect, but still enjoyable.

I've watched "Juno" last night and i liked it a lot!

Altough Ellen Page reminded me a little too much of the charakter she played in "Hard Candy" but since i thought that movie was also really good, that was alright.

I liked the overall style and mood of the movie. And i am not such big a fan of happy endings but this ending was well done.

If you haven't seen it, do so!

from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7238211.stm

Jaws star Roy Scheider dies at 75

Roy Scheider in 2003
Scheider was one of Hollywood's biggest stars of the 1970s
Scheider in Jaws

Obituary: Roy Scheider
US actor Roy Scheider, best known for playing the police chief in the Jaws movies, has died at the age of 75.

As well as starring in the first two shark thrillers, Scheider received two Oscar nominations during his career.

He was up for best supporting actor for The French Connection in 1972 and best actor for 1979's All That Jazz.

He died in hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. He had been treated there for multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cell, for the past two years.

Scheider's Jaws co-star Richard Dreyfuss said: "He was a wonderful guy. He was what I call a knockaround actor.

"A knockaround actor to me is a compliment that means a professional that lives the life of a professional actor and doesn't yell and scream at the fates and does his job and does it as well as he can."

First blockbuster

Jaws, released in 1975, was directed by Steven Spielberg and was the first film to make $100m (£51m) at the box office.

It is widely regarded as the film that ushered in the blockbuster era.

Scheider's other film credits included Klute, Marathon Man and Sorcerer.

In the 1990s, he played the captain of a giant, high-tech submarine in futuristic undersea adventure TV series SeaQuest DSV.

The main advantage For A Few Dollars More has over its predecessor (A Fistful Of Dollars) is that the story is much simpler: very little double crossing required. A group of outlaws are planning a bank robber and Clint teams up with Van Cleef to stop the robbery, kill the baddies, and collect the bounty on their heads.

The score is either one people will love, or loathe. To me it seemed to be trying too hard, too over-orchestrated, too full of itself to be taken seriously. Of all the music, it's the chimes from the pendant that work best at notching up the tension as it slows until finally stopping, marking the time to shoot. Clint's character has a name this time, maybe it's a reference to something or a joke but i didn't think it was strictly necessary. Van Cleef's character in the end makes what was to me, a totally unfathomable decision - given his circumstances, but then again i guess you have to suspend most of your belief with these spaghetti westerns. And then there's the partnership itself: either you buy it or you dont; i don't. [[no]]

The film however, is much better shot than Fistful, making much better use of the locations (including using the same shots as the first film on occasion) and all round becoming a much better realised vision of the wild west. As plots go it's simpler, better constructed and although slower i think it works better up to the final 20 minutes or so when everything slows ta crawl. As far as the performances go the leads all ham it up nicely chewing more scenery than cigar, except for Klaus Kinski who really looks like he could explode in a fit of rage at any second.

A good film all round, but i don't think i enjoyed it as much as Fistful; i'll have to watch 'em both again to make some sort of proper decision as to which i prefer.

Hi to one and all...watched a French film last night on BBC4 called 'Heading South'...it was released in 2006 and directed by Laurent Cantet. It starred Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, and Louise Portal.
It was about 1970's Haiti and the older women who took holidays there annually in search of sex with the young men and boys who frequented the beach attached to the hotel they stayed in. There were some very poignant moments in it and it was very well acted by all involved in it, especially the young Haitian men, and the hotel owner. It started off fairly light heartedly, but, gradually, it darkened and you got to see glimpses of the hidden side of Haiti and the brutality of the authorities eventually gave it an unexpected ending. It raised a lot of questions as well about this increasing form of holidaying and the effect it has upon the indigenous peoples. All in all, it was a low budget film, with a good script, some fine acting and nicely paced...I can recommend it if you haven't already seen it.

I watched Eastern Promises, The Assasination of Jesse James and The Brave One this past week. I've reviewed them all on my movie site. I'm wondering if I should just move that stuff over here. I might.

Saw 'The Bucket List' today, what a lovely film. Jack Nicholson back to his very best.

Novel by Ron Hansen

This movie is a narrated story of the famous American outlaw Jesse James(Brad Pitt). The main focus is around James and Robert Ford(Casey Affleck). Ford grows up idolizing James through stories purchased at the lcoal stores and tales glorifying the outlaw and his exploits.
Ford makes an attempt to join the James gang and in doing so gets to know James well becoming quickly disillusioned with a childhood fantasy.

Brad Pitt turns in a chilling performance as James, pulling you into his world and making you fear him as his gang members must have feared him. Casey Affleck who I was unfamiliar with, is remarkable as Robert Ford a man torn by the past and the present of someone he has seen as a hero. Mary Louise Parker is wasted as Jame's wife in a part so insignificant, and Sam Sheppard is good as his brother Frank but isn't in much of the movie.

Ths movie has action but it is more of a character study. Still if you are interested in tales of outlaws and the old west, you will not be disappointed.

Director David Cronenberg never soft pedals anything to make a point. As I sat down with my dinner and turned this on, I was reminded of that. It's best to leave dinner for a different time.

This movie takes us into the world of Russian organized crime. We view it through the eyes of Anna(Naomi Watts)a midwife searching for the family of a young girl, and Nikolai(Viggo Mortensen)who is working his way into this world for reasons that are later revealed. As Cronenberg movies go, this is loaded with graphic violence and sex. Normally I would balk at the excess of both, but for this movie it is almost necessary to portray the brutality of a world unseen to most of us.

Mortensen gives a first rate performance as a man who infiltrates this world, losing himself in it along the way. He becomes entangled with Anna, when she unwittingly stumbles into his world, trying to do what she thinks is the right thing. As I watched her character struck me as bold but the situation as not terribly realistic. IA midwife meddling with a crime family? It's a noble sentiment but I doubt the story would have played out the same in real life. Still the background of the character and her recent past are driving forces and lend suspense to the story and let us view the many aspects of each character.

Vincent Cassel is along for the ride, as explosive as ever, playing the son of the crime boss. His performance is top notch as well. Though he is nasty as usual, we are given a look at a vulnerable side of his character, something I've not seen before.

It's a good movie, worth a watch, though not dinner and a movie fare.