Wandering Whimsies

Whether you consider it a rip off or homage to Miyazaki’s work the animated Children Who Chase Lost Voices is a highly successful, quite charming adventure that could easily slip into Studio Ghibli’s masterful canon. A young girl picks up some unusual music on her crystal radio set that leads her into the company of an enigmatic boy from a subterranean kingdom and onto melancholic escapade. The writer/director Shinkai ‘borrows’ much of the animation stylings of Miyazaki, explores similar themes of loss and the passage of time and even cobbles together a patchwork plot that’s half Castle In the Sky, half Spirited Away but unfortunately forgets to lift the delicate scripting and well, modesty. A thoroughly entertaining film from a filmmaker with much promise.

Jackson continues to mine the rich Tolkien seam with the first part of his trilogy adapting The Hobbit. Martin Freeman, as usual, mugs his way through proceedings as Bilbo Baggins who gets recruited by a certain wizard into a dwarf heavy quest to evict a troublesome dragon blah blah blah, I’m sure you’re familiar with the plot. There’s more humour here than Lord of The Rings and it’s a sunnier production overall but Jackson still packs in plenty of action and, given it’s certification, a surprising amount of dismemberment.  As we’ve come to expect Jackson assembled a talented ensemble and his polished production and attention to detail make for lush storytelling and this, and it’s subsequent sequels, will no doubt rake in the cash as well as a plentitude of well deserved plaudits.

Glum Vs Gaudy

Thomas Alfredson's condensed adaptation of Le Carre's classic spy thriller Tinker Tailor was a surprising success. With an accomplished, talented cast including Cumberbatch, Hardy, Jones, Firth and Oldman and an impressive script the tale of Smiley's mole hunt unravels at a deliberate pace that slowly winds the tension up towards the big reveal. Obviously the book and the original have a level of detail you can't squeeze into a 2 hour movie but they've crafted a pretty strong version which, along with the superb cinematography, will no doubt garner plenty of awards. Hopefully they'll do The Honorable Schoolboy next instead of jumping straight to Smiley's People like the Beeb did.

Director Tarsem Singh's previous efforts The Cell and The Fall were beautifully lush films but paper-thin and Immortals, based loosely on the Greek myth of Theseus, follows that same pattern. Our protagonist is forced into taking up arms when the evil king Hyperion ravages his land in search of a fabled bow with which he can release the Titans. Rourke, Dorff and Cavill are joined by the luminous Pinto in the super glossy sword and sandals action and they all manage to put in good performances however the script is fairly week and the Titans themselves a little, er, underwhelming so the whole thing kind of fizzles out at the end, of course there's a fat hint towards a sequel but I guess that'll depend on the box office. Despite all it's flaws I still quite enjoyed it, think Clash of the Titans with a God of War commitment to stylish violence and hyperbolic visuals.

Egocentricity & Ectoplasm

Ian McEwan's Saturday is a provocative novel about a single day in the life of an affluent neurosurgeon, Henry, who lives & works in central London. From early morning, the reader becomes an intimate witness to Henry's river of thoughts, fears and remembrances as well as the mundane activities of a typical weekend but a car accident at the fringes of an Iraq War march has consequences for his whole family. It's testament to McEwan's skills that the main character and side players survive this cauldron of microscopic attention unscathed and the everyday detail never seems burdensome in fact McEwan's clear, crisp prose lends a necessary briskness to the narrative. This well written, close study is an excellent read, but for me at least, a little disappointing; given the focus on one protagonist's interior life and character it was a pity I didn't really like Henry very much, he's diffident, pompous and shallow, one of those tedious, ossified professionals that tend to live half-lives despite their privileges. Nevertheless McEwan continues to impress.

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel concerns a rotund psychic working the circuit while coping with a foul, truculent, uncouth spirit guide who is unwilling to reveal the truth about his mistress's mysterious, tragic past. After hiring an assistant business booms but the effort to cash in with a biographical book brings increasingly dark memories to the surface. There's plenty of funny swipes at the psychic biz with some great oddbod characters, hucksters and credulous, desperate punters (most familiar from my own days as a book hawker/kook enabler) and there's plenty of brilliant dialogue but the biting cynicism slowly reveals a pitch black plot riven with delusion, deception, abuse, murder and prostitution all rearing very ugly heads along the way. It's very well written, with a nicely drawn afterworld but it's maybe a little flabby in the midsection and I'd have preferred a firmer resolution after all that grim but still it's definitely worth a look.

British Binds

While Kraken isn't China Mieville's most accomplished novel, this urban fantasy still romps along, piling on the strange and manages to kick seven shades out of Neil Gaiman's efforts. A giant preserved squid is stolen from the British Museum and Billy, a curator, is plunged into an alternative London filled with mancers, mages, assassins, cults and occult sects most of whom want a little chat about his now absent specimen. Though dark, Mieville keeps things chipper with plenty of humour and cultural references and it's one of his more commercial - mainstream even - offerings but like PKD his imagination is irrepressible and page after page is stuffed with ideas and invention.

On Chesil Beach is an oh-so intimate examination of the wedding night of a young, virginal couple in the early 1960's. McEwan's novella ably demonstrates his skills, with a clean, clear narrative style unfurling the duo's tensions and characters in the seaside hotel they've chosen for the physical consummation of their love. She, a scared, neurotic classical musician with father issues and he, a intellectual voyeur, devoid of maternal love but ramrod with expectations - this was bound to be a, er, bumpy ride. Only 160 pages or so but still a magnificent read that's as funny as it is touching.

Paper Profundities

Modern suburban living and it's concomitant anxieties are revealed in the darkly comic, rather brilliant White Noise by Don Delillo. Jack Gladney, his wife Babette and their extended brood of children live a peaceful life off campus but their media soaked lives come under increasing strain when the town is threatened by a toxic cloud. Delillo is a superb writer and his stunning interweaving of threads like our relationship with technologies, foolish niche academia and the psychological encroachment of the media effortlessly fill page after page of this skillful satire that's as funny as it is tragic. If I was to find fault it'd be that despite being richly drawn individuals the main characters became a little tiresome in the final third and maybe the pacing of key events could have been improved. Still this is one fine book and given it was written 26 years ago a startlingly prescient one. I can't wait to read one of Delillo's more contemporary novels. Thanks to Sir J for the tip.

Crashing a plane into water near the town of Shepperton a young man transcends and transforms reality in J G Ballard's The Unlimited Dream Company. Quite unlike his early scifi dystopias or his later near-future prophecies Ballard's fantastical, William Blake inspired novel is a exhilarating fantastical narrative about nature and religion, er I guess. After the fatal crash our protagonist is imbued with great power and with the local populace under his sway they become witness and participants in his ascent into a strange, brooding Demigod. Unfettered and plunged into the mystic Ballard's writing has never been better as he creates dizzying scapes of preternatural fecundity, orgiastic metamorphoses and their flipside of fetid decay and insistent absorption. It's a hard novel to explain so you're just better off getting yourself a copy and diving right in.

Perusings from a Poplar Paradise

Brando and Liz Taylor star in the peculiar melodrama Reflections in a Golden Eye from 1967. Set on an equestrian military base, Brando plays a tormented, closeted Major married to a promiscuous, gossipy Taylor who carries out her affairs with little discretion, throw in a genitally mutilated neighbour and her uber-camp houseboy and a troubled voyeur/stable hand and a heady, gothic brew foments. Stylishly shot in a sticky golden hue the lives and loves of the characters drift inexorably towards tragedy and though sharply scripted and well crafted by John Huston without the skills of the actors involved this would have descended into a sweaty bedroom farce. Still it's definitely worth a watch if only for it's audacious examination of sexual proclivities.

Luc Besson's Angel-A follows the fortunes of a small time hood who, on the verge of suicide, gains the assistance of a mysterious 6ft blonde with a penchant for cigarettes. Beautifully shot in black and white this urban fantasy has bags of easy charm and wit as we witness the lead's relationship blossom during their Parisian wanderings. It might not appeal to fans of Fifth Element or Nikita but this light romantic fable has some unexpected depths.

Cartoonish Capering

Sucker Punch exemplifies Zack Snyder's good and bad qualities as a film maker; sure the film's nicely shot and there's a handful of decent, stylised action sequences but the film is crushingly adolescent, devoid of acting ability and seriously vapid. A young woman is wrongly sent to the loony bin where she lives out her remaining pre lobotomy days in a fantastical haze of escape attempts, epic battles and a little girl bonding. I dunno, if you're just after some glossy violence set to pounding music then this will suffice, anything more and I'd look elsewhere.

Captain America is the lynch pin to the forthcoming Avengers movie so the stakes were high for this origin story film and it's not a bad effort just a bit unremarkable. The action is framed by the Captain's contemporary defrosting while the bulk of the movie flashes back to WW2 and the start to his career and his eventual showdown with the Red Skull. Unthinking patriotism personified the Captain has never been a superhero I've been very fond of but this action stuffed feature grasps for the same semi-serious tone as Iron Man thankfully cutting someway through the flag waving hooey.

Big Dumb Fun

Obviously inspired by the big budget nonsense of Avatar, the Tamil scifi epic Endhiran certainly pulls out all the stops. Sure there's some weird musical numbers and peculiar subcontinental comedy but this tale of a sentient robot going off his rocker is bags of fun. The actor playing mad scientist doubles up as the mad robot and does a decent job keeping the characters separate but my eyes were mostly on his beautiful paramour Sana who is achingly gorgeous. Anyways if you can stomach the nearly 3 hour run time this scifi film will reward you with some of the most bonkers SFX sequences you"ll ever see.

Marvel's pantheon has always felt a little, well cartoonish, compared to DC's but Ken Branagh makes a pretty decent Thor, despite the inherent silliness in the character's back story. Some Australian provides the muscle behind the hammer wielder as he's banished to Earth for hubris and must contend with the machinations of his brother Loki before returning to Asgard to kick ass. Though the lead is a clunking fist Branagh has assembled a range of talented support including Hopkins, Skarsgard, Portman and Elba and the otherworldly designs of Asgard and Jotunheim, land of the Frost Giants, is rather spiffy lending a pleasant sheen to all the nonsense.

War Machinery

Micmacs is Jeunet's latest and as usual it's filled with a panoply of oddbod characters and steampunk-y apparatus. Bazil, a video shop clerk, gets a bullet lodged in his brain and winds up on the streets only to be adopted by a gang of quirky rejects who live under a rubbish tip and it's not long before they decide to combine their talents to wreak revenge on the arms companies behind our hero's sorry predicament. What ensues is a charming comedic caper with a fine cast and more than a few barbs for the filthy arms trade. All in all another highly enjoyable half-fantasy from the director of City of Lost Children and Delicatessen.


Lebanon is a searing antiwar movie set predominantly in the claustrophobic confines of a tank during Israel's 1982 incursion into Lebanon. The strains of urban conflict soon take their toll on the mostly inexperienced squad in their sweaty vehicle and they find themselves marooned in a Syrian enclave. The film has an almost mythic feel to it as it switches between the inside of the tank and the carnage/mayhem outside as observed through the tanks gun sights but the excellent cast bring a desperate humanity to proceedings as it slowly builds to a frenzy of panic and confusion. A brilliant, nuanced, quite devastating anti-war movie, that's the perfect companion piece to Waltz With Bashir.

Bogeymen Real & Imagined

The intersection between true crimes and urban myths are explored in the documentary Cropsey. Two Staten Island filmmakers start investigating the truth behind the local legends of a child snatcher that surround an abandoned mental asylum and soon uncover a complicated, tragic history at the very heart of their neighborhood. It's a decent film, well made with plenty of face time with key individuals but they failed to get the one interview that would tie the whole thing together so by the end it all seemed a little fruitless and more like a special on Crime & Investigation.

The Troll Hunter is a cracking Norwegian found footage flick about some documentarians who try to make a film about rogue bear hunters but discover far more deadly, mythological predators in the wilds of Norway. It's great fun with some nice creature effects and a well thought out mythos that's gradually unfolded as the filmmakers dig deeper into their government's secret Troll management scheme. These found footage films rely on poorly lit, shaky cam action to build the tension and it does get a bit tiresome but the film's quality pushes through and it's well worth a watch. There's plenty more juice in Trolling so I hope they make a sequel, shit I'll probably be happy with a prequel.

No English

Rare Exports is funny, dark reworking of the Santa mythos from Finland. A young kid is perturbed when after miners excavate a burial mound his naughty friends start disappearing but when his Dad ignores his warnings he decides he'll have to sort it out by himself. This is the perfect antidote to the usual sentimental Xmas movie bullshit and great fun throughout - a lovely grim fairy tale that will no doubt get mashed and drained by the Hollywood machine before next Yuletide.

The international fraternity of the Undead is comically expanded by Tokyo Zombie, a barmy Japanese film about a pair of moronic plant workers who use their ju-jitsu to defend themselves against the flesh hungry horde but find themselves still on the shitty end of the stick in the post-apocalyptic society. Though the effects are pretty cheap and there wasn't enough initial zombie killing for me it's still a gleefully violent, very funny film and I loved it but it is quite bonkers in that uniquely Japanese way so consider yourself warned.

Metropia is an animated Swedish dystopia about a depressed office worker who starts hearing a nagging voice in his bonce and plunges into a continent wide conspiracy. The plot itself isn't particularly special but the animation is brilliant, real photos are manipulated creating characters and scenery alike, giving the film a very unique feel. Despite it's visual quality it's isn't particularly interesting so unless you're a fan of animation or bleak futures I'd give it a miss.

New Disappointments

Nic Cage's latest film Season of the Witch has taken a hammering in the press lately so I was looking forward to watching what I presumed would be an amusingly bad B-movie that only Cage would be involved in like say the remake of Wicker Man or Ghost Rider. Cage is joined in his medieval-y Witch roadtrip by the excellent Stephen Graham & Ron Perlman, the Irish kid from Misfits and briefly by Christopher Lee but sadly it's decidedly average, not quite as bad as the papers have been making out or maybe that's the presence of Perlman I dunno but I found it quite tedious, sure there's a few laughable lines and some great Cage faces but it just plods along the usual supernatural tropes till a CGi heavy finale. Ho hum not bad enough to be funny and not good enough to entertain.

Soulboy is an unimaginative, workman like coming of age drama set during the heyday of the Northern Soul movement of 70's Britain. The acting is ok but the script is half hearted and the plot superhackneyed - boy meets stunner but realises he loves another blah blah. Still there's plenty of storming tracks to enjoy it's just a shame they couldn't have tried a bit harder with story. Maybe this other film will make a better fist of it? Or you could just trawl YouTube.

Resplendent Independents

Anguish is a barmy horror thriller from the mind of Bigas Luna. Structured like a demented Babushka doll a mother/eye obsessed serial killer wreaks revenge on those who've wronged him while two girls freak out in the cinema while watching said killer - all very meta and highly enjoyable. It's crammed with hypnotic imagery and auditory tinkering which help build the increasing feverish atmosphere while characters on both sides of the screen start to lose their grip on reality. A marvellously surreal satire on the power of cinema & movie violence.


Skeletons is a charming, offbeat comedy about a pair of exorcists who root around uncovering personal problems with some lo-fi technology like some sort of spiritual repairmen. Unfortunately their own problems and misgivings come to a head when they're asked to find the missing husband of a lonely housewife. With two great performances from the leads, William Adamsdale & Andrew Buckley, and a sharp script this is a funny and quite touching debut from director Nick Whitfield. Considered alongside the equally imaginative debut feature Monsters from Gareth Edwards and you might start getting excited about British genre cinema.

City Pursuits & Royal Hunts

The Town is a Boston crime thriller with Ben Affleck acting and directing. Affleck and his heist gang are pulling a string of jobs for Pete Postlethwaite but the attention of the Feds as well as local PD start making things complicated. It's not bad, I'd say slightly above average Hollywood fare with a good standard of thesping throughout but it's hamstrung by a preposterous romantic side story and some clunky dialogue.

Dragonslayer is a Disney fantasy flick with Ralph Richardson. An old wizard leaves his apprentice to the task of killing a pesky dragon that's terrorising some kingdom. Other than Richardson's nicely crafted cameo as the bumbling aged Wizard this is the usual Disney cheese fest with the museum curator from Ghostbusters 2 waving the magic pendant about trying to impress his lady friend amidst some cheap special FX. Bland and uninspired so only for 80's nostalgia freaks.

Kids vs Priests & Two Cheesy Capes

I'm not the biggest fan of the Xmas consumerist shebangalang but it's a good opportunity to treat the little ones to some retro fantasy fun. It wasn't my intention to rewatch The Box of Delights myself but I'm quite glad I did, I know it's trite but they really don't make them like this anymore. Based on a John Masefield novel from 1935 this period set 6 parter follows the adventures of a young boy home for the festivities who unwittingly becomes dragged into a supernatural battle for the titular box. Though it's seriously hampered by the cheapo FX at heart it's a charming, fantastical romp that has wit and dread in equal measures. It's hardly a surprise Mike Newell is thinking of a remake.

DC seem to be making more of an effort with their recent animated features but their latest, Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam isn't the best. Basically a retelling of the origin story of Captain Marvel but set in Metropolis this featurette is pitched at the younger kids and therefore is packed with cheese and is paper thin, worst of all though the animation is really patchy throughout.

Odd 80's & another tame horror

Nothing Lasts Forever is a bizarre B&W urban fantasy starring the kid from Gremlins, Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray. Set in an alt-Manhattan where the port authority have seized complete control a young wanna-be artist finds guidance from some tramps who happen to be the hidden masters of the world and ends up on a lunar bus trip. Written & directed by some dude from SNL it's a bit of a mess but a charming, gently comedic one. If you can find it and you like Gilliam-esque strangeness I've give it a watch.

Devil is the first of Shyamalan's Night Chronicles series (based on his ideas but written/directed by other peoples) and too my surprise it's not terrible, certainly an improvement on The Happening or Lady in the Water. The premise is ridiculously simple; a bunch of strangers are stuck in a faulty lift with Satan and unfortunately for them he seems in a playful mood. Anyways it avoids the pretentiousness of Shya's own films and plays out as a pretty average b-movie; the acting is competent and it ticks along ok it's just a shame it's not scary.

Scuppering EIFF & brainless celluloid fantasy

As it's about to be shown at the EIFF I thought I should get round to watching Fuest's strange scifi film The Final Programme based on the even stranger novel by Michael Moorcock. Though they've changed the ending this sticks, as far as I can remember, pretty closely to the plot of the novel - Jerry Cornelius plans an assault on the family home to rescue his sister from the clutches of his demented brother and gets assistance from a creepy scientist Miss Brunner only to end up a pawn in her larger schemes. The film looks great - Fuest designed the sets himself apparently - and though there's plenty of decent actors along for this crazy ride it's stutters a bit towards it's shambolic ending. Never the less I enjoyed this drug addled scifi thriller for the oddity it is but it's probably not for everyone.



Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is, unsurprisingly, a lot of guff. Based on a series of video games it follows a jumpy Jake Gyllenhaal as the time bending Prince trying to restore honor to his kingdom with nowt but a magical dagger and a fair princess in tow. There's plenty of action, some natty SFX and competent enough acting but it's a soulless piece much like those insanely successful POTC movies. Reasonable enough for a wet Sunday afternoon I suppose.

Disengage brain now

The remake of Clash of the Titans was as dumb as the original film and the acting was wooden at the best of times, particulary by Worthington but, strangely, I still quite enjoyed it. It's romps along with plenty of action and the FX and design of the monsters was pretty good so I dunno maybe as I'd just expected a bit of popcorny blockbuster nonsense and that's just what you get I was quite satisfied. I didn't bother with the 3D version as it's taken such a drubbing in the reviews but a 2D Kraken was fine by me.

John Cusack stars in Hot Tub Time Machine a funny, banal, scifi comedy about a bunch of friends spirited back to 1986 via a faulty hot tub. There's a barrage of gags from the get-go and they spin in plenty of amusing 80's references without it getting tedious but I think it was the excellent cast of Cusack, Corddry & Robinson that really made it. If you want a dumb comedy in the vein of The Hangover this should suffice.

TVersity Times

Solaris, mm loads of punters seem to like this version so I thought I'd give it another go. Nope still didn't enjoy it. The acting is "cool", so typical of Soderbergh's work and though it's reasonably scripted it tries to hard to be art-house, which never really works without an intelligence behind it. It does look nice however while Tarkovsky's looks terribly dated now in terms of FX and set design it's just such a shame that both drift so far from the intentions of the author, in his own words.

"As Solaris' author I shall allow myself to repeat that I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images. This is why the book was entitled Solaris and not Love in Outer Space." er Zing.

Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland was not bad, not a complete success but probably way better than Burton's, though I still haven't seen it. Miller manages to create a nice daydreamy hallucinatory feel and there's plenty of quality on the actor front except, crucially, for the girl playing Alice whose strange zonked out performance leaves a big hole at the center of the very strange victorian styled proceedings.

Xmas viewing - the Average