Locke

This is different, in a good way. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when it was pitched: "It's about a man driving his car and talking to people on the phone" ... "Huh? Then what?" ... "Nothing. That's it. A man in a car."

Very brave. There's no hiding for Tom Hardy as Ivan Locke, since he's the only character you see ... and you see him for the whole 85 minutes. And whilst this might have made a good radio play, the visuals you do get are totally compelling. Hardy is simply outstanding.

SPOILERS

The film starts with Ivan Locke getting into his BMW at a building site. Presumably he's heading home but when he has to stop at a traffic light he at first seems to fall asleep briefly, then when woken by a truck honking he seems to see something in his rear-view mirror and decides to turn right instead of left.

As Ivan drives we find out what is going on via a series of phone calls; and the odd monologue directed at Ivan's dead father who he seems to be imagining as a back-seat passenger.

Firstly we learn that Ivan is due to oversee a huge concrete pour early the next morning. His deputy Donal goes ballistic when Ivan calls to tell him that he won't be there and Donal is going to have to take charge. Andrew Scott is great as the skittish assistant - sometimes calm and showing initiative and other times almost completely losing it. Who would have thought that men talking about the ins and outs of a concrete pour could be so interesting?

Gradually we discover where Ivan is going. The plot is so cleverly constructed. He could have lied to everyone and made something up, but he is so inscrutably honest that he has to tell the truth. That sounds like it might be hard to believe, but the way it is played is totally believable.

At one point Ivan's boss Gareth says "Why didn't you just say you were ill?" and Ivan replies "Because I'm not ill."

There are some little nuggets worth looking out for. As Ivan calls people and they call him, you see the names and phone numbers coming up on his console. For most people it is their actual name, but I noticed that instead of "Gareth" it has "Bastard". Which suggests Ivan has had some issues with him in the past that aren't otherwise mentioned.

I think the film has a lot to say about modern life. Ivan Locke is a man who "has it all" in a modest way. He's successful in his career, he's respected and people like him. He has a wife and two sons who all love him. He appears on the surface to be unable to do anything wrong.

And yet he has made a mistake. One mistake.

Locke believes so firmly that anything can be put right, that he decides to do the right thing and sees that decision through to the end. He's clearly driven by the failure of his own father to do right by him when he was a child.

But the consequences are severe. Both his employer and his wife are totally unforgiving. Interesting that he works for an American company that immediately fires him for leaving the site in Donal's hands. I'm sure there are plenty of other companies that might have done the same, but American companies are singled out as the most soulless. His wife Katrina, voiced by the lovely Ruth Wilson, is both slow to grasp that he has made another woman pregnant, and then quick to kick him out of her life without any second chance.

You get the impression that Ivan was too good for them. His boss says he put in a good word for him, but probably jumped at the chance to force him out. Who knows what marital problems Ivan and Katrina had, but she accuses him of always loving his buildings more than her.

There's a fairly small role for the fabulous Olivia Colman, but as you'd expect she makes Bethan as real as can be. A lonely, scared woman who would like Ivan to love her, even though he hardly even knows her.

Probably the most surprising film I have ever seen... because it is just a man in a car... but such a well played story. Brilliant.

Lilya 4 Ever

This is possibly the bleakest film I have ever seen. Almost everything that happens to the main characters is bad. The brief moments of respite only serve to set Lilya and Volodya up for further misery.

So what is the point? Is it just to make the viewer feel bad that some people have miserable lives?

If so then it worked. I felt terrible at the end of this film. It made me feel like the world was a horrible place. I had to go and do something else to take my mind off it.

So I guess this is the cinematic equivalent of a beggar in the street. Most people will walk by without even noticing, some people will feel sorry for them, a small number will offer some assistance; maybe someone will be moved to actually help change things in the long term.

Fighter

This is about the Danish film Fighter from 2007... not one of the many other films with that title.

It's not really clear from the start that the film is set in Copenhagen. Because we see the Turkish girl Ayse with her family who are very traditional. Then it's very disorienting to start seeing blonde Danes cropping up everywhere.

Maybe I just wasn't paying attention, because I found the film very dull.

Fighter tries to be a social drama combined with a martial arts film. It does quite well at the former and quite badly at the latter. As the film progresses it almost starts to feel like a parody of The Karate Kid.

I think it would have been much better to leave out the "tournament". Girls fighting boys is one thing, but light-weights against heavy-weights is ridiculous and just wouldn't be allowed on safety grounds anywhere.

There was a story here that was worth telling, but by tying it up with a bad MA sub-plot it gets lost. The sifu character is quite funny though... his sage-like advice is staggeringly underwhelming... "look eyes".

Bayonetta: Bloody Fate

I find that I am usually hot or cold on Japanese anime films. And even the ones I like are a bit baffling. The visuals on Bayonetta are right up there with the best I have seen - the animation is fantastic - and I shouldn't really complain about the clichéd English accent that they gave the main character on the English soundtrack.

But the story is baffling. Even with the lengthy history lesson at the beginning... or maybe because of it. What is going on? Other than knowing that Bayonetta is a witch and there are some creatures that don't like witches, I was pretty lost most of the time.

It's hard to know if the script is better in the original Japanese. Maybe the translation was poor. But the English version is pretty dire... all the dialogue is just so stilted.

Bah. I just wish someone would write a decent script for films like this. The characters have so much potential beyond a few action scenes. Disappointing.

Sinister

This is supposed to be a psychological horror film, but I didn't find much of it scary at all. There are a few yuk moments when, along with the main character, you want to look away but can't quite stop watching. I think there were a couple of attempted jumps... but they were totally telegraphed so didn't have any effect.

I did find the film intriguing though. The idea seemed quite original and I wanted to find out what was going on. That's all that kept me watching, in spite of the clichéd creeping around alone in the dark for no good reason.

SPOILERS

The plot is quite simple on the surface. Ethan Hawke plays one-hit-wonder true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt who is desperate for another crack at the big time. He moves his family to the house where the previous owners were hanged and their daughter disappeared, in the hope of writing a best-seller about it. His family know there was a murder in the area (as that is what Oswalt always writes about) but don't know they are living in the actual house where it happened. They aren't happy at moving again, as clearly Oswalt has clearly been fruitlessly chasing his next hit for 10 years.

Nice introduction. Some interesting characters. Plenty of possibilities.

Then things get weird. Oswalt finds a box of old Super 8 films in the attic along with a projector. He rigs up a screen and watches the most recent film first. It shows the family being hanged by an unseen assailant. Wow, he's only been on the case a day and has hard evidence already! Of course he wonders how the film got there and who shot it...

It takes several days for Oswalt to get round to watching the other films. This is silly. The only reason for this is so that the plot can be strung out and we can see some clumsy character development. Also, obviously, Oswalt can only watch the films alone at night after everyone has gone to sleep so that he can be scared by the creaky house and "footsteps" in the attic.

Despite the clunkiness of the plot, it is quite intriguing. The films show other families being murdered in novel horrific ways, seemingly by the person who shot the Super 8 movies. These scenes aren't particularly graphic. The horror comes from the suggestion of what is happening rather than the depiction of it - which I like in a horror film.

Obviously the murders are linked and we eventually find out that there is an ancient Bogey Man who "eats children" and has been on the loose since Babylonian times. OK, right.

Just as Sinister looks likely to descend into a terrible ending with the "good guy" battling the demon, it surprises you. Oswalt does what he should have done on day 2 and decides to get himself and his family away from the death house ... immediately. And he does. They leave and don't come back.

This wrong footed me for a moment, and got me thinking "OK, so the demon must follow them somehow". And of course he does. Oswalt gets a call from his police insider who tells him that all the families that were murdered had lived in the house where the previous murders occurred.

Oh shit. At this point Oswalt might have been wise to move back to the death house... but that might not have worked anyway. Instead he goes up to his attic and finds the box of Super 8 films and the projector there ... which I forgot to mention that he burned before he left the death house.

This freaks him out a bit, as you might expect. He tips the box over and spots an envelope labelled "Extended Cuts". It might as well have read "Ha, Ha. Gotcha!" because the previously unseen clips of film show that each of the murders was in fact committed by the child which then went "missing".

Crikey. What does he do now? Is one of his children going to be possessed and try to kill him? No. His daughter is already possessed and has already drugged him. He wakes up to find his wife and son gagged and bound like him. In a nice touch the girl says "Don't worry Daddy, I'll make you famous again." before killing them all with an axe. She captures it all on film, of course.

The movie ends with the girl being carried away by the Bogey Man and then the box of Super 8 film sitting neatly in the attic.

So, quite neat I thought. There are plenty of flaws obviously, but on the whole Sinister is quite entertaining in a, ahem, sinister way. I particularly liked the suggestion that Oswalt's fate was caused by his own reckless fame-hunting at his family's expense... shame that his family shared that fate... but that's demons for you!

Murk

In a psychological thriller you only get real tension if there are options. The problem with Danish thriller Murk is that there are very few options throughout and, as a result, the tension evaporates quickly rather than building to any sort of climax. What is there is promising, but I think the plot needed a few more characters and twists to make it a good film.

SPOILERS

The film starts off with Jacob and his girlfriend hosting a visit from his wheelchair-using sister Julie and their mother. Gradually we find out that Julie tried to kill herself and was left brain-damaged by the attempt. Then Julie surprises everyone by announcing her intention to marry Anker, who she met on the internet. The family are concerned but happy and the wedding proceeds.

But Julie kills herself on the wedding night. Cutting her wrists in the bath, as Anker slept.

At this point I couldn't see why she would do that, but she'd tried several times before... and who knows the mind of a troubled soul?

We jump forward to Jacob sorting through Julie's possessions. This is nicely done, as he finds many things that remind him of the past (both good and bad times) before making the plot-moving discovery. Anker has left a book behind which contains a memorial to another girl, with the same wording that he requested for Julie's memorial. Jacob is suspicious and starts investigating.

Firstly he finds that Anker has left him a dud phone number. We also learn that Anker has no family and that Jacob's family know almost nothing about him. This is stretching credibility a bit.

And that's how the film continues. Jacob finds more and more evidence that Anker is seeking women on the internet who have survived a suicide attempt. He marries them and kills them on the wedding night. No-one else has noticed this. Jacob doesn't think he can tell anyone.

There are some mild twists. The town of Mørke has a creepy policeman who might be helping Anker... or maybe he is the murderer, somehow. It's possible, but always unlikely. Later it looks like Jacob might be fitted up for one of the murders, but that doesn't run far either.

The ending is the most disappointing part. After a really clichéd villain's explanation of what he's done (including the revelation that there are more victims than Jacob ever thought) Anker drugs Jacob and tries to kill them both. Of course Jacob survives! Just.

The plot lets the film down. Many, many other things are good about it, but overall it just left me tutting.

Sparks

As independent films go, Sparks is pretty good. It is billed as a super-hero movie but don't expect it to be an effects-filled extravaganza. Cleverly it is set in the 1940s, so the supers don't need much in the way of powers to battle bad guys armed mostly with their fists and the odd baseball bat. In fact, most of the supers don't have any powers at all... just a mask and the guts to mix it a bit.

It is a dark film. Definitely not one for the kids. The hero gets put through the ringer and the villain is an insane bible-bashing serial killer.

SPOILERS

During the opening credits we see a meteor hit America and learn that all but 13 people exposed to its radiation died. These few, the Rochester 13, all gain different radiation-induced special abilities. At this point I assumed that Sparks was one of them... but he isn't.

Most of the film is Sparks recounting his story to a journalist whilst on the run accused of nine murders. We learn early on that his real name is Ian Sparks and his parents were killed when he was a child. He blames criminals for his parents death and decides to fight crime. Clearly Ian isn't a bright spark, because he decides to use the name Sparks as his super identity. Not that clever when he lives with his grandmother, who is killed when bad guys that Sparks has "put down" come back for revenge.

In fact, things don't go very well for Sparks for a long time. He gets beaten up a lot, but bounces back and trains hard. In one throw away comment he mentions that he heals pretty good. Is that a clue that he has some sort of healing power? (like Wolverine)

Things pick up when he manages to attach himself to female crime-fighter Lady Heavenly. Not very modestly named, or dressed. She doesn't have any super powers either... unless you count the ability to only take on thugs stupid enough to fall for her telegraphed back-kick every time.

Ian and The Lady become a couple and everything looks rosy until they take on serial killer Matanza. The killer brutalises The Lady, but doesn't kill her because she is rescued by her ex-boyfriend Sledge who kills Matanza. Everyone ridicules Sparks because he appears to have blacked out, leaving The Lady to the mercy of Matanza. She leaves him and goes back to Sledge.

Until now things have been quite dark, but Ian sinks into a deep depression and hangs himself. Just as his landlord is helping himself to the rent from Ian's wallet, the dangling Ian comes back to life with a gasp. Aha, so he does have healing powers. But if he isn't one of the Rochester 13 then where did his power come from?

Ian meets an ex-cop called Archer who explains how Ian's parents died and introduces him to two people with real super powers - Cain and Dawn. Cain can throw fireballs and Dawn can take on the appearance of anyone she has touched. Ian asks why they hide their powers and Cain says it is so they can go "where the real action is".

The next scenes are very interesting. Ian still thinks he has no powers. He helps Archer, Cain and Dawn to get revenge on another of the Rochester 13 who Archer claims was responsible for Ian's parents death. But this turns out to be a lie. Archer himself was ultimately to blame for the accident, and the "revenge" is simply a robbery. Ian is shocked to find out that the "heroes" with powers are really just out for themselves to make money.

We keep getting updated versions of Ian's parents death. Eventually we find out that their car was rammed into a train carrying tankers of experimental red liquid. This liquid has given Ian (and later we find Archer too) his healing powers.

Alone again Ian discovers Matanza's old lair and finds film footage which shows that he was shot in the head, he didn't black out, and also that Sledge was in league with Matanza. Finally Ian believes that he has powers. He sends the film to The Lady and asks to meet her.

When the Lady meets Ian she greets him warmly but then stabs him... before morphing into Matanza who it turns out is one of the Rochester 13 and faked his death at the hands of Sledge. Hiding Ian's body he waits for The Lady and then shoots her, disguised as Ian.

Of course, Ian isn't dead and goes after Matanza. He gets shot and thrown off a building by Sledge, who turns out to be Matanza's son and is also a shape-shifter. But when Sledge finds out that Matanza has killed the Lady he attacks him... and is killed.

This gives Ian enough time to recover and when Matanza comes for him he blows them both up with dynamite.

We see a finger twitching and a pool of blood soaking back into it.

This would have been a great place to finish the film. Can Sparks possibly recover from being blown to pieces? A bit of uncertainty and mystery at the end would have been good.

Instead we get two pointless scenes extra. In one Ian tracks down Archer to India and doesn't help him escape the lizard man. Then at the end we discover that The Lady isn't dead... and she and Ian get back together... ahhhh.

So, a few flaws, a low budget, but a good story I thought and well executed. I enjoyed it.

Oyster Card Auto-top-up Nonsense

I don't travel on the London Underground much these days. When I did though, I had an Oyster Card which was very handy.

Last week I did happen to go into London and needed to use the Tube. I fished out my Oyster before I went and checked to see that it had some credit on it. It did, about £11. I also noticed that it still had Auto-Top-Up enabled...

Aha, I thought. If I use the Oyster then it will try and add on £20 from my (old) credit card when my balance goes under £10. Even though I knew they couldn't charge me, because the card expired over 2 years ago, out of politeness and not wanting any hassle, I cancelled the Auto-Top-Up before I left home.

Sorted, you might think.

Oh no. I used the Oyster and everything seemed to work fine. But the next day I got a rather threateningly worded email saying that my Auto-Top-Up payment had failed and I must pay the money or my card would be cancelled.

I checked my account online. There was the cancellation, at 2pm, and there was the attempt to top-up, at 10pm.

I phoned TfL to point out their mistake...

Sorted, you might think.

Oh no. Apparently it was my mistake. Even though I had cancelled the Auto-Top-Up, the barriers take 24 hours to be aware of this... so they were right to charge me a top-up.

OK. Fine. That sounds dumb, I said politely, so just cancel the top-up and we can get on with our lives. Sorry, says the operative, the money is on your card now... so you have to pay us the £20 before we can remove it.

Huh? I have to pay them £20 so they can give me it back?

Sometimes, on the phone, you find yourself so dumbfounded by someone quoting ridiculous policies that you just have to accept defeat and give up.

So what happens now? I don't need my Oyster any more, as there are cheaper alternatives, so they can cancel it. I would cancel the card myself but you can't do that online, you have to phone (which I can't bear to try again) or do it by post.

Let me check... this is the 21st century isn't it?

Play

My policy of not reading film reviews or watching trailers if possible let me down on this one. Play is a film about bullying. As someone who was bullied as a child that's not a subject I care to revisit.

Even worse, Play also seems to be about a gang of black kids bullying white kids. I say it seems to because I didn't watch the whole film. After about 30 minutes I'd seen enough.

So maybe this is a good film if you care to watch it all. Maybe it isn't racial stereotyping. It claims to be based on a true story. Maybe it is. Who knows. I don't.

After The Wedding

This is a stunningly emotional film which had me in tears several times... I don't usually cry at weddings. My old favourite Rolf Lassgård is for once matched for gravitas by the other stars Mads Mikkelsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen and Stine Fischer Christensen. At last a full complement of Danish actors to stretch the great man and produce a truly great film.

SPOILERS

We begin in India with Jacob (Mikkelsen) struggling to keep an orphanage running. You can tell that he's been there a long time and that he's committed to helping the children. A lifeline appears. A wealthy donor in Denmark wishes to fund the orphanage, on the condition that Jacob meets him in Denmark to complete the arrangements.

Jacob is reluctant to leave India. He tells the children that The West is full of rich idiots. But the head of the orphanage insists he goes, as this is the only way to save the orphanage. So he goes.

Clearly uncomfortable to be back in Denmark, Jacob meets with Jorgen (Lassgard) who explains that he hasn't quite made up his mind which projects to fund yet. This annoys Jacob, who thought the deal was already agreed. Jorgen is apologetic and explains that he can't think straight because his daughter Anna (Christensen) is getting married the next day. He invites Jacob to the wedding.

So far, so interesting. But when Jacob arrives at the church we see that Jorgen's wife Helene (Knudsen) recognises him. They clearly know each other but say nothing when they are formally introduced. Intriguing. Then comes the big shock. At the wedding reception Anna makes a speech thanking her parents... especially Jorgen even though he's not her genetic father!

This scene is terrific. At that point in the speech Helene casts a glance at Jacob. The look plus some quick maths tells Jacob that Anna is actually his daughter. He is shocked to say the least.

The following scenes are wonderfully done too. Jacob takes a moment, then confronts Helene, leaves and comes back the next day to get the truth. Everyone tries to be civilised. Anna learns the truth and tentatively meets with Jacob. The complexity and depth of emotion portrayed is exceptional.

It turns out that Jorgen and Helene have been looking for Jacob for years. Not finding him they had told Anna her father was dead. So there's a lot of sorting out to do. If that wasn't enough, Anna's husband turns out to be a gold-digger who is too dumb to not screw his secretary in his own house, so gets caught by Anna a few days after the wedding!

The only thing that seems a bit fishy here is that Jorgen seems a bit too happy to have found Jacob. That feeling gets stronger when he inserts a clause in the orphanage funding contract that says Jacob must live in Denmark. What is he playing at?

Dramatically Helene finds out that Jorgen has a terminal illness which he has been hiding from everyone. She confronts him and he confesses that he wants to force Jacob into taking care of her and their children. This part is Lassgard at his best, facing tragedy, and Knudsen matches him blow for blow.

By now I'm in bits. Everyone is breaking down. Especially poor Anna who has found her real dad, kicked out her cheating husband and now faces losing the man she knows as her father... all in a few days.

Jorgen dies. After the funeral we see Jacob visiting India where the orphanage is now vastly improved. One of the boys is like a son to him, as he raised him from a baby. Jacob asks him to come back to Denmark and live with him... but he refuses, partly because he likes his life in India (especially in the improved orphanage) but also because Jacob always said The West was full of rich idiots.

The film ends here, with Jacob realising that he has to leave behind his emotional ties in India if he wants to maintain the ones he has now found in Denmark.

Wow. What an emotional roller-coaster. This would have been a good film with any two of the four main performances. With all four we have wonderful scenes between Jacob and Anna, Jorgen and Helene... and all the other combinations! Truly absorbing from start to finish.

The Imitation Game

Having read Andrew Hodges biography of Alan Turing and having visited Bletchley Park, I was slightly concerned that The Imitation Game might be yet another film playing fast and loose with British war-time history. Fear not. Even the Poles get some credit for capturing an Enigma machine and building the early bombes.

Of course there are liberties. A film just wouldn't work with the action spread across all the actual characters involved, so there has to be some conflation. If you want the actual history then read Hodges book: Alan Turing: The Enigma (it is excellent). Instead this film uses events to show us what Turing was like, what the people around him were like, and how he interacted with them.

It's not a linear time-line. The story cleverly switches between the main war-time thread, Turing's post-war troubles and his school days. The editing is excellent: the transitions don't jar, they provide just the right information at just the right time to keep building up the layers of our understanding of the man Alan Turing.

The cast are outstanding. Charles Dance and Mark Strong are great as the establishment brass. Keira Knightly and Matthew Goode are great as contrasting "other" codebreakers. Benedict Cumberbatch is so good as awkward geniuses (in Sherlock and Parade's End) that I almost took it for granted that he would be great as Alan Turing... and he's more than that, he is awesome in this film.

Cumberbatch's performance really shows the development of Turing's character from complete loner to team-leader, from academic to hero, from trusted servant to convicted "criminal". For me he really portrayed the Alan Turing I have imagined in all I've read about him.

And as expected as Cumberbatch's performance was, an equally good and important contribution comes from Alex Lawther as the schoolboy Alan Turing. In timely flashbacks we see how Alan was bullied, how he didn't understand people and how his friendship with Christopher Morcom coloured the rest of his life. All this is portrayed wonderfully by Lawther in some of the film's most moving scenes.

The film isn't perfect as a historical drama, but as a fact-based thriller and an examination of the genius Alan Turing it is brilliant. There's quite a bit of humour... too. I highly recommend it.

PS I am proud to have played a tiny part in the Turing story as a signatory to the petitions which eventually lead to the government apology and the royal pardon which overturned his conviction for gross indecency.

Deliver Us From Evil

This is about the 2009 Danish film, not the 2014 American horror of the same name.

It is a bit of a confusing film. Not in terms of plot, that is quite straightforward. But in terms of what it is trying to say. To me the message wasn't much more than "people living in small towns are violent bigots".

SPOILERS

We start with some narrative explaining that Lars is a bit of a shit. This isn't really required, since we can see that straight away... and nothing happens in the film to change our minds. At the end he does appear repentant but it is so unconvincing and I didn't buy it for a second. So the film clearly isn't about any sort of journey for Lars.

OK. So Lars drives a truck, drinks, phones, smokes, throws his lighter down in disgust at his girlfriend not answering the phone and then looks for it on the seat / floor. None of this would normally matter since he's on a main road that no-one else uses. Except today Anna is on her moped carrying hymn sheets to her friend's house. Yes, Lars hits Anna while he's not looking where he's going.

He gets out of the truck and when he sees who he's killed he drags the moped and body off the road. Then he wipes down the truck and drives off.

Next we learn that Anna's husband is Lars's boss. And worse, he is ex-army. And worse, he has a bodyguard who is bigger than the proverbial brick shit-house. Probably not surprising that Lars was scared then.

Lars then goes out of his way to set up a Bosnian refugee by getting him to drive the truck back to the depot along the same bit of road where he'd hit Anna. Just for good measure we also see Lars treating his pregnant girlfriend really badly. So now we know he hates immigrants and women. Oh, and also his brother who got out of town, made something of himself and then returned to the family home after their father's death.

All of this is reasonably well done. There are some interesting shots. The scenery and lighting are excellent. We get the message that Lars is nasty and his brother is nice.

But then Anna's body is discovered and everything falls apart. Her husband loses the plot and actively prevents anyone from calling the police. Instead he goes to get his gun(s) and stomps off to the local fair with his giant bodyguard to lynch Lars... so I guess there's only one vehicle in the whole area which could have been responsible.

Lars successfully deflects the blame at Alain (the Bosnian) who gets beaten up and is only saved by Lars brother Johannes. Johannes takes Alain back to his house, somehow escaping the angry mob who know where he lives so it's a short-lived escape.

The only other sane person in the village at this point, the doctor, shows up to help but gets shot by Anna's husband when he tries to call the police. The mob try to break into Johannes house, but he fends them off with a nail gun!

At this point I understand that the mob are mindless and Anna's husband has lost it. But the film keeps laying it on ever thicker in case I'm still unsure. The police (both of them) finally figure out that something is going on and trace the doctor's phone to Johannes's house. When they get there Anna's husband shoots them... fat lot of use they were. But this shocks most of the mob into running away, just leaving Anna's husband, his bodyguard, Lars and Lars's mates.

By now Johannes's wife is scared enough to suggest that maybe Johannes shouldn't sacrifice his whole family for one Bosnian guy that he doesn't even know that well. He disagrees. So she decides that the mob will probably let her and the kids go and leaves.

At this point we get stung with the twist. Alain confesses to Johannes that he had been on the road that morning and had seen Anna. She only wanted to comfort him but he hugged her a bit too hard, she fell down and died. OK. So Lars didn't kill her, she was already dead.

Back to Johannes's wife. Her plan to leave doesn't go so well and the mob attack her, but she gets away when Johannes appears at the door and they go after him again.

What are we learning here? Nothing, it is just mindless. At this point Lars thinks things have gone too far (he has a crush on his brother's wife and is also quite fond of his nephew and niece) so he finally confesses to Anna's husband that he was driving the truck. Oh, the irony now that we know Anna was already dead [NOT].

At least we are near the end. Anna's husband goes to shoot Lars but he's run out of bullets. He asks his bodyguard to get more but he refuses because Lars's girlfriend is pregnant and the child should have a father. Hmmm, at least the big guy has some standards.

Disappointed by the end of the lynching, Lars's friends decide that the only fun left is to run after Johannes's wife and rape her... so they do. Just so we know that they have no standards at all... what they think Johannes's wife has done to warrant this is unclear. All we need to know is that they are nasty and therefore deserve to die when Alain turns up and kills them.

Despite most of the town's tough guys now being dead, Johannes decides to leave the family home. So he packs up the family and they leave. Followed by Lars and his girlfriend on a motorbike.

The film ends with the narrator walking along the road telling us that this is the end of the story.

So what happened to Alain? What happened to Anna's husband? These are ultimately minor issues compared to wondering what the film was trying to say. Mobs are bad? Ex-army guys with guns and big bodyguards aren't to be messed with? Johannes should never have gone back to his home town?

I can't help thinking that it's the last one. If Johannes hadn't been there and tried to do the civilized thing then the crowd would have just lynched Alain and had done with it. Simple solution for simple folk. What kind of message is that?

The Raid 2

Following on from the original, The Raid 2 had a lot to live up to. The Raid was a breath of fresh air in the action movie genre, so how would a sequel go? More of the same or another leap of originality? Well, it is a bit of both. I think it keeps the best parts of the original and adds more substance to it.

SPOILERS

I found the opening a bit confusing. We see someone being executed beside a shallow grave in the fields outside a city. I thought the victim looked like Rama's brother from The Raid but I wasn't sure. Wasn't he a powerful gangster? How come he's being taken out in the first few minutes? Even more confusingly we then cut to Rama and Bowo in what looks like the immediate aftermath of the first film.

At this point I was worried that The Raid 2 might be a muddled disappointment.

Things do gradually get clearer. It was Rama's brother being killed and a secret task force want Rama to infiltrate the gangs responsible to destroy them and the corrupt police officials who are in league with them.

Rama initially refuses but later accepts when his family's safety is threatened. He was right to be suspicious though: beating up a minor villian to get a few months in jail to get close to Uco (son of one gang leader) actually turns into 2 years in jail!

During that jail time Rama saves Uco's life in an assassination attempt which explodes into a full blown riot. That's after Rama had already attracted Uco's attention by seeing off 15 of his supposed bodyguards.

The violence is just as explosive as in The Raid. Brilliant choreography and expertly executed by  Iko Uwais and all his opponents. And because there is so much more "quiet time" between action scenes here than in the original, the action feels even more explosive when it comes around.

There is more variety in the action too. The original was restricted to what could be done in a tower block, but in the sequel we have the action in the prison, out in the open, in a car and in a train... as well as in various buildings.

The fight in the train is between Hammer Girl and several gangsters. At the same time we have Baseball Bat Boy fighting some other gangsters. Trust me. I know this sounds like something from Kill Bill or a bizarre Japanese manga comic, but it works.

At 150 minutes The Raid 2 is a lot longer than the first film. The story isn't that complex but the time is well spent developing all the characters. And I think the gaps between the action scenes are about right to maximise the impact. The final battle is pretty damned gratuitous and leaves you thinking "wow".

You can see the progression from part one to part two. Well done to Gareth Evans for achieving that rare thing, an action sequel which is as good or better than the original.

Divergent

We might as well get the comparisons with the Hunger Games out of the way first. The lead in Divergent is a young woman called Beatrice Prior who is very like Katniss Everdeen. They are both physically weak but tactically astute, smart, brave and selfless. They are both a bit too perfect...

SPOILERS

Unlike the post-apocalyptic world of The Hunger Games, the post-apocalyptic world of Divergent is rather small. It's confined to the city of Chicago in fact. Plus a few fields just outside the big wall (or rather, the modest wall with a lot of very tall metal gantries on top). No-one seems to question the fact that there is no civilisation beyond the wall.

Actually, no-one seems to question much of anything, because humans seem to have evolved to have only a single character trait: either selflessness, peacefulness, honesty, bravery or intelligence. It is very rare to have more than one trait... OK.

This is where our heroine Beatrice gets into trouble. When tested at 16 to see which faction she should join (despite living in the selfless faction all this time) we find that she is also clever and brave. Yippee? No. This is bad. She is Divergent and that is bad because she can't be controlled... like everyone else who is just one thing.

Right. At this point I was thinking that the plot is pretty dumb. But the characters are quite likeable so I sort of just went along with it. Fortunately for B the tester had a brother who was killed for being divergent so she lies about the result and tells B to keep her mouth shut, or else. B has to choose a faction at the big public ceremony and goes for Dauntless (the brave ones). This seems a shock to her parents... which is odd since we later find out that her mum grew up in Dauntless. I guess there are no public records of this public event otherwise B could have known that too!

The next thing that is hard to swallow is that Dauntless are the police / army. Since they seem to run everywhere and enjoy jumping on and off moving trains (which somehow are missing the safety feature of locking the doors when the train is moving) this is odd. I wouldn't trust them with a sharp knife, let alone a loaded gun and my national safety... Reckless seems a better name.

Talking of names; B decides that Beatrice isn't a tough enough name for her any more and chooses Tris as her Dauntless name. There seems to be something of a history of this kind of thing in Dauntless, as the newbies discover their instructor is called 4...

Rather predictably Tris struggles in training and gets the crap beaten out of her several times during the stage 1 (physical) training. But 4 clearly likes her and helps her out with some secret tips. I don't know why he has to do it covertly, since he's supposed to be training the recruits so I would have thought giving them advice might be part of that job?

Shailene Woodley does a great job as Tris that keeps me watching through the nonsense. Also the character of 4 played by Theo James is quite intriguing and we don't know for a long time whether he is divergent too, or if he just fancies Tris.

The baddies are excellent too.  Jai Courtney's Eric is either an overly tough sergeant-major type who really just pushes the recruits too hard for their own good because deep-down he cares about them and the job they have to do for Dauntless... or he's a sadist who likes to see people suffer. I don't think we ever quite resolve that in this film.

Which brings us to Jeanine, head of the clever people. Kate Winslet plays her very deadpan, which is wonderful. Is she onto Beatrice from the start? Does she want to take over the world (what's left of it). Every time she utters the mantra "faction before blood" it is quite chilling.

The story charges on. Tris gets kicked out of Dauntless for being not tough enough, but gatecrashes the next test anyway and helps 4 win the game which gets her just enough points to pass the physical round. Cool. So she makes it to stage 2 (mental) training. This is a breeze for her since she has a mind and the other recruits don't. Which becomes a problem for her because it's obvious that she must be divergent. Fortunately the tests are exclusively administered by 4 who covers up for her... yes, he is divergent too.

With 4's help Tris passes the final test and gets inducted into Dauntless. Just in time for the whole faction to be drugged by Eric and the Dauntless leader who doesn't seem to do anything except have secretive chats with Jeanine. Off march the zombie soldiers to enforce the new world order with only the divergent ones actually conscious.

There are a few stretches of the imagination required near the end, but things shape up pretty much as you'd expect. Tris and 4 save the city from Jeanine who it turns out wanted the smart people in charge and planned to do that by executing the entire selfless faction... hmmm, right.

But or heroes are now factionless... and the fact that they just saved the entire society from descent into tyranny doesn't seem to be worth anything so they have to run away and jump into a moving train. We know they'll be back for part 2 though... and maybe there is something outside the wall?

Overall I'd put this one down as "entertaining, but a bit silly".

I, Frankenstein

SPOILERS

It doesn't take more than a few minutes to realise that there isn't going to be much of a story to I, Frankenstein. That's because the film opens with a quick "here's all you need to know about Frankenstein" section that deals with the monster's creation, and his creators demise, in a flash.

OK. So we're not going to dwell on that then. What's next? Well, we get an intriguing early look at the demons and gargoyles. These look like cool creatures. Maybe we'll get a bit of story development now? Nope. Frankenstein's monster immediately gets taken to the gargoyle queen (really? a queen. they're not bees...) so he can be told the whole history of demons versus gargoyles. Sigh. Oh, and the queen tells the monster that she's going to call him Adam from now on... nice.

Off Adam goes and tries to hide from the demons for a couple of hundred years, killing the odd few who find him along the way. He gets a haircut and some decent clothes so that by the time he reaches the present day he can walk about in America without anyone seeming too upset by his appearance. Except it probably isn't America... since Frankenstein was European... and the gargoyles base is a Gothic cathedral that looks at least 400 years old... and the movie was filmed in Australia. But hey, who actually needs to know where a story is set when there really isn't much story.

Bill Nighy pops up as one of Lucifer's fellow fallen angels. Of course he has an English accent because he is the villain. There are some scientists too... actually only two scientists. One of which is female so that she can feel sympathy for Adam, which the male scientist doesn't... but he's only the assistant anyway so we don't need to care about him as he'll probably die anyway (I can't honestly remember if he does or not).

Bill has a plan for raising thousands of humans from the dead as hosts for the demons that have been bumped off by the gargoyles and Adam over the years. That should give him an edge in the war, since there only seem to be about a dozen gargoyles left at this point.

Don't worry though, because Adam might be a bit grumpy but he is the good guy and he's certainly going to win. Of course he nearly doesn't, but just trying is enough to earn him a soul, which then trumps Bill's (sorry, Naberius's) hand and it's happy days.

There's one last moment of peril when everyone falls into a giant hole in the ground, but unless we suddenly forgot that all the gargoyles are really good at flying, it's no surprise that all the good guys escape with minor scratches.

In one last major plot twist Adam decides that now he has a soul he's going to be called Frankenstein, after his formerly hated creator, from now on. I don't think he ever really liked the name Adam anyway... it didn't suit him.

Somehow, despite the clunky storytelling, this is a reasonably entertaining film. The effects and fight scenes are cool and Bill Nighy injects some well needed humour (intentionally or not). I don't think there will be any sequels though.

Under The Skin

This is a weird film, but I liked it. The beginning and most of the middle don't make sense until the end... but there are plenty of little clues to keep you interested, or at least intrigued, by the slow parts.

The reported budget for Under The Skin was £8,000,000. I'm guessing most of that was Scarlett Johansson's fee, because I'd class the look of the film as very much in the low-budget category (I don't mean that in a bad way) and according to the blu-ray extras most of the actors were amateurs.

SPOILERS

At the very start there are some odd lighting effects that look in turns like stars, or planets, or some sort of broken camera lens effect. Maybe this is supposed to convey space and/or time travel. It didn't mean anything to me. Then we see a motorcyclist racing along narrow Scottish roads and the film gets going.

The motorcyclist (as I'll call him... because no-one in this film has an actual name that we learn) meets a van coming in the opposite direction. Both stop. The motorcyclist then walks calmly off the road into the dark and re-appears with a woman over his shoulder. He puts the woman in the back of the van. Odd?

Next we see the (dead?) woman being undressed by a naked woman (played by Scarlett Johansson). The scenery is completely white and featureless. Is this the back of the van? We see the dead woman's face a few times, but not very clearly. She looks a lot like the other woman. The woman puts on the dead woman's clothes and touches her skin as if curious about something. Then we see the woman driving the van.

She drives the van about a lot. Mostly in a large town / city at night. Glasgow probably.

Eventually she starts approaching single men and asking them directions, but also questions to determine if they are single and live alone. I found this part quite slow, but I suppose it was necessary to show that the woman didn't just hit the ground running, she had to work at her strategy.

I really liked the way that the action escalates ever so slightly each time the woman finds a new "victim". The first time we just see a guy get in the van, then it cuts straight to the woman in the van alone again. The next time we see the guy follow the woman into her house. And so on.

It's not really clear what the woman is doing to these men. Just as the van scene was white and featureless, the house scenes are black and featureless. The men seem to just sink into a black liquid whilst transfixed on the woman. Later the woman chooses a disfigured man as her victim and he seems to partially realise what is happening - "We are dreaming?" he says, "Yes, we are dreaming." replies the woman. We see him start to sink, but then the camera cuts to the woman leaving the house.

She stops to look in an old mirror, for a long time. I wasn't sure if she was deciding whether or not to release the disfigured man, or checking her "condition" because she hadn't "eaten" for a long time. On balance, I think the latter, because she probably decided to free him when he realised what was happening... or maybe he was just lucky and she got tired of killing people. Anyway, I think the sinking into black liquid was just how the men felt as they were being absorbed somehow by the woman.

So, the disfigured man is released and wanders off naked. Somehow though the motorcyclist knows this and goes after him. He catches him and, presumably, kills him. Earlier in the film I thought that the motorcyclist was simply a male version of the woman and that he was off doing the same thing she was. But later he seemed to be more of a guardian / troubleshooter for her ... this is never resolved.

Having lost her "appetite" for people the woman then wanders off (abandoning the van). She eventually meets a man who helps her, seemingly out of kindness. Eventually they kiss and start to have sex. The woman seems very inexperienced but goes along with it until the man tries to penetrate her. Frantically she pushes him away and examines her vagina with a lamp... quite disturbing for the man!

The woman leaves the man's house and wanders in a forest. She is attacked by a man who is working there and he tries to rape her. In the struggle the woman's skin tears and the man runs away in horror.

We finally see that the woman is a black alien creature. Is this why the men sank into a black liquid? And we know why the dead woman looked like the naked woman at the start. The alien wasn't just taking her clothes, it copied her skin too... that's why it was touching her so curiously.

Does her skin tear because she hasn't absorbed anyone for a while? Earlier when she falls in the street she stays down for a long time, as if worried that she might have torn then. So maybe the false skin is just delicate. The creature certainly seems to be lost in despair now.

The very last part was slightly gratuitous, I thought. The rapist returns with a can of petrol, douses the alien and burns it alive. Then we see the motorcyclist, who has been looking for the woman, stopped and suddenly with no idea where to go... as if following a signal which has gone dead.

Brilliant. The film is only about 100 minutes long but manages to build up so many interesting questions... only a few of which it answers. We have to work out for ourselves what the alien / aliens were doing here and what the motorcyclist did next.

12 Years A Slave

This is a brutal film. Shockingly brutal. Almost from the beginning it smashes you over the head with the brutality of slavery. Then it keeps smashing you over the head. Pausing only to move the scene from one set of brutalisers to another set of brutalisers. In the end, after 12 years, one slave escapes to freedom ... one ... and for that we are supposed to be grateful?

There is no entertainment in 12 Years A Slave. People only watch it out of curiosity following the hype, or from a perceived duty fuelled by racial guilt. It is hard to criticise because so many people have praised it so highly. But praising the message that slavery is appalling shouldn't be confused with praising a movie for being a good film. I don't think this is a good film.

It drags on. There is very little progression. I found it hard to tell how much time (of the 12 years) had passed at any one point. Solomon didn't visibly age. There are few clues to the intervals between events. How long was Solomon with his first "master", how long was he with the second before being leased out to the third, how long before he came back? I have no idea. That's a flaw.

There are very few characters. Solomon is the only black character we learn much about. What did the other black characters think of him, what did he think of them? We don't really find out. Another flaw.

I didn't learn anything from this film that I didn't already know. Slavery is horrible. Treating people like that is inhuman. I was hoping for an interesting exploration of that, but instead this film gives you a succession of graphically violent scenes which only shock.

The Book Thief

SPOILERS

I really enjoyed the book The Book Thief, so I didn't really expect the film adaptation to be very good. That's usually the way. But in some ways it is good. Not completely though.

In the book having Death as the narrator is very clever. It's an idea that works surprisingly well given the setting of Germany during WWII. The film tries to keep true to this, but narration in films is notoriously tricky. We get a flavour of Death, but it is very superficial compared to the book. I think it just about works. Much as I like Roger Allam as an actor, his voice is nothing like what I imagined Death to be like from the book, which is probably the case for a lot of people. He sounds far too kind. Death has to be a bit grimmer, doesn't he? That's why his interest in Liesel is so unusual and intriguing.

One thing the film does do very well is capturing the setting. Use of common German words and a decent smattering of Germanic accents adds a lot. Emily Watson and Geoffrey Rush are very strong as Mr and Mrs Hubermann. Sophie Nélisse is a great find and a perfect Liesel. Her relationship with Nico Liersch's deliberately slightly annoying Rudy is somewhat downplayed for a lot of the film which makes the tragedy near the end a bit less dramatic than it should be.

Obviously there's a lot left out in the film. I felt that the tone of the film was a lot lighter than the book. Herr Hubermann's decision not to join The Party was only mentioned in passing once, I think. Apart from the book-burning rally, the Nazis didn't seem very frightening. Some of the persecution scenes just didn't seem to work for me.

I did enjoy the film though. The story is fairly true to the book and the cast carry off the characters very well. The ending is paradoxically both happy and sad.

Hitman

Films based on video games are often pretty poor. Remember Doom? Not if you are lucky. But I don't think the whole genre deserves the universal reflex panning it usually gets. The first Tomb Raider and Resident Evil films were reasonable. And I propose that my favourite, Hitman, is actually quite good.

SPOILERS

OK, so there are some silly points... such as Interpol not being able to find a large bald man with a bar-code tattoo on his head, who always wears a black suit and a bright red tie, for over 3 years. Oh, and the ultra-highly trained member of The Organisation sent to kill Agent 47 manages to miss by miles from just across the street... just after equally well trained Agent 47 has killed Belicoff from a range of 4 kilometres!

Put those things aside for a moment. No action film is without the need to suspend disbelief a little.

I think Hitman works because Timothy Olyphant is brilliant. He's an anti-hero who has his standards and sticks to them. Everything from the way he walks and talks to the silent looks he gives some people says "just don't mess with me, alright!"

There's a great scene where he comes crashing through a hotel window. He doesn't say anything. He just looks at the occupants as if to say "you got a problem with this?" and then leaves. Observant film-goers might notice that the occupants were actually playing the Hitman video game! Nice bit of self-referencing there.

This is more than a one man film though. Olga Kurylenko as the bitchy-exterior Nika is the perfect foil for Agent 47. She's annoying enough to provide some good exchanges between the two characters, but nice enough to not want 47 to kill her... and being something of a beauty "it's impolite to stare" she provides a few distractions from the rough edges.

Unlike similar capers the guys chasing the "hero" are not complete idiots. Dougray Scott and Michael Offei are refreshingly competent Interpol cops who are continuously foiled by corrupt agents and the vested interests served by The Organisation. This is an important point. The fact that they are good at their job only serves to further heighten Agent 47's prowess and the sinisterness of The Organisation.

Overall I think that Hitman has an atmosphere very similar to some of my favourite man-with-no-name westerns starring Clint Eastwood. Yes, it has flaws, but it's very entertaining too.

Saving Private Ryan

I just happened to notice that Saving Private Ryan was on TV and thought I'd give it a go. I know it is supposed to be good, but it looked to be way too long.

SPOILERS

I liked the fact that you start with a survivor visiting war graves in the present day, but don't know who he is. Especially when we go back in time to the D-Day landings and immediately see Tom Hanks character, who could be the guy... or not. For most of the movie I actually thought it would turn out to be him.

The long scene on the beach (20 minutes) is some of the most harrowing cinema I have ever seen. It is intense, frightening, sad and relentless. You start to wonder if any of the US soldiers are going to survive. It just goes on and on. If you ever thought war films over-glorify war then watch this. It almost had me in tears.

Then we get 2+ hours of something else. Obviously there has to be some respite, but after the opening battle everything seems pretty dull thereafter.

The fact that Private Ryan is one of the few survivors in the battle at the end was just a bit too unbelievable. And the planes turning up just in time to blow up the tanks, but too late to save Hanks and crew... apart from the quivering translator who grows enough balls to shoot a German, again just too late to save Hanks.

So, in summary, watch the first half hour then skip to the end if you want to know who the guy visiting the cemetery is.

Revenge of the Sith

In a moment of weakness I decided to watch Revenge of the Sith again last night. The only surprise was just how angry the terrible story still makes me. Three whole prequels leading up to Anakin Skywalker turning to the Dark Side and this was all we got!

SPOILERS

Another thing that struck me more heavily this time was just how rubbish a part Natalie Portman was given in this movie. She is a brilliant actor and can't have been happy with the weak role she got. All she does is sit/stand around waiting for Anakin, with the occasional bit of dreadful dialogue. Until the end when her previously valiant character gives birth (even though the medical droid says they are going to operate) and just about has the energy to name the twins before dying of grief. What? Come off it. Padme wouldn't just give up and leave her newborns to the perils of the Empire. She would fight like hell!

The other plot holes are well documented too, but the one that still really bugs me is why does Obi-Wan Kenobi pick up Vader's light sabre and walk off? Vader is apparently going to burn to death and has no means of escape (until the Emperor comes to get him in person) that Kenobi can see. If Kenobi loves Anakin like a brother as he claims then he would mercifully finish him off with his light sabre rather than letting him burn. If he thinks Vader is evil and has to die then he should finish him off with his light sabre to be sure... in case, I dunno, the Emperor comes to get him in person. Either way, Obi-Wan should have killed Vader.

Yes, I know he can't kill him because Vader is in EP 4, 5 and 6. I'm just saying that the plot of RotS stinks big-time.

Like Father, Like Son

SPOILERS

On the surface the story of Like Father, Like Son is very simple, yet the movie is emotionally very complex.

We start off by seeing a nice comfortable Japanese family. Hard-working father, doting mother and six year old son Keita who is preparing for school entrance exams. Life isn't perfect - Dad works too much and doesn't spend enough time with his wife and child - but everyone seems happy enough.

Just as we've got to know the family a bit, the parents get called to the hospital where Keita was born and told that there was a mix-up at the birth and Keita is not their son...

The next part of the film was a bit too slow for me. We meet the other two parents who got a boy that they called Ryusei. The parents are told that they should probably swap the boys. Obviously they can't just do it overnight so they have a few trial visits and sleepovers.

I must admit that I got a bit bored of some scenes where the parents and kids were just doing ordinary stuff. I guess that had to be there to show the length of the process... which was months, I think. But I'm glad I stuck with this film, because the final third is incredibly moving.

Both families are very different, so the boys struggle to settle in their "real" homes. Also, being six they aren't old enough to understand why things are happening, but they certainly know what is happening... and the parents are all in bits because they love their original sons but feel almost obliged to swap back to their blood relatives. What is more important, DNA or six years of shared experiences?

There are a few twists and turns. Because the families are so different we get four different perspectives from the parents... plus various friends and relatives have to offer their own opinions.

After dithering for months the parents finally decide to swap for good. But things don't quite work out and Ryusei runs away back to his original family. His parents go after him and when Keita sees his original dad he runs away! But dad chases and pours his heart out to the boy.

The film finishes with everyone together, so you have to guess for yourself what happens. I like to think that the boys went back to their original families, but that the families stayed friends so that the parents could see their offspring and Keita and Ryusei could see each other (as they had become friends).

Everyone involved should be very proud of this film.

47 Ronin

SPOILERS

I've decided that it's just too hard to write about films without giving away any of the plot. So from now on posts that start with the word SPOILERS are going to contain plot details.

I watched 47 Ronin with friends who are really into Japanese culture. They seemed to know about the original story, which I assumed was a legend since the film starts off talking about dragons and demons. But the original story is actually a real-life story from 18th century Japan. There actually were 47 Ronin who avenged their lord ... it's just Hollywood that added the demons and dragons.

And that's where the film falls down for me. It's neither a fully fledged historic drama nor an all out fantasy action film. It is a bit of both. Both angles are done pretty well: I thought the historical parts were fascinating and the action parts were exciting and fun. But they just don't seem to fit together all that well. I think I would have preferred just one or the other... or both as separate films.

I think the most telling example of the discord is in the ending. As an action adventure film the good guys have to win and get the girl. As a historical drama the ronin have to die (granted a samurai death by the Shogun with their honour restored). So they die, but Keanu Reeves character gets some vague line about searching for the girl across all worlds for ever until he finds her. Hmm, OK, that's fine then.

Too Old

So now I've been writing this blog for just over a year. Why is blog underlined as a spelling mistake in this editor? Shouldn't the editor for a blogging site understand the word blog? (and blogging).

I guess that is a better summary of how I'm feeling about technology than the other examples I had. We get told how brilliant technology is every day, and yet it is also frustratingly awful at so many simple things.

For example: I had to replace my PVR because it died, completely. The new one is a Humax, which is OK, apart from a few really annoying details. Firstly, it doesn't call recordings recordings, it calls them reservations. Why? It makes recordings. They are recordings. Everyone has called them recordings for ever, why change, other than to be different for the sake of it. Secondly, it stores recordings in folders, like a computer. The folders have labels which tell you how many recordings they contain:

1 File(s)
2 File(s)

Surely it isn't beyond the skill of the modern computer expert to make that:

1 File
2 Files

Come on people. Details matter. These machines have all this power and you can't even be bothered to make the labels neat.

Someone told me that I should try using Google Keep for my TODO list. But when I tried to get the app for my phone it didn't show up in the store. It turns out that my phone has too old a version of Android to run it. An app that is a TODO list wont run on my phone because it is too old! And how old is that? About 2 years, I think.

My iPod touch was too old to get iOS 7... let alone iOS 8.

It feels like everything has to be replaced every year, and given a new name, to be relevant. It doesn't matter if things don't work properly today because there will probably be a fix in the update tomorrow... or the day after... and if there isn't then it doesn't matter either because it really wont be a problem the day after that because you'll have bought a new gadget by then and moved onto new problems (sorry, I mean issues).

And don't even get me started on how awful most modern websites are! What is going on? In the race the attract attention, no-one is thinking about the poor souls who are just trying to use things to get something done.

Social media? What a waste of time. Literally.

Connect with your friends and family online? No, an excuse to not visit people in person.

Bah. I can't be bothered to go on. No-one is reading this anyway.

The Machine

I love it when a film comes along which shows that you don't need to spend a fortune to make a great film. Even a sci-fi film. The budget for The Machine was less than £1,000,000 and I enjoyed it immensely.

Don't think that means there are no special effects, or bad effects. Because The Machine does have some great sci-fi moments, they are just used very sparingly, which adds to their impact. The sets are also very minimalist, but that fits well with the story too.

It is the cleverness of the story that is the key to the success of the film. The pacing is also excellent, with calm sciency sequences often surprisingly punctured by moments of violence.

Toby Stephens plays the brooding troubled genius superbly and is nicely complemented by Caity Lotz as his less cynical, wilder, unconventional colleague. Again the story is clever here: their relationship doesn't quite develop in the way that you might expect.

If I have a small complaint it is that the bad guy played by Denis Lawson doesn't always cut it. That may be a bit harsh, because this is a difficult character. He's not really a bad guy, for a start, since everyone involved knows what the objectives of the Machine programme are and he's just the one in charge.

Those quibbles are more than balanced out by the mysterious implant people who I really didn't know what to make of right up until the end. Given the previous surprises I also didn't know how it was going to finish...

So, great film despite the low budget. I highly recommend this.

5150 Elm's Way

When you take a tried and tested genre for the basis of your film you really have to the standard stuff really well, or do something a bit different, if you want people to take notice.

For 5150 Elm's Way I want to be kind and assume that the makers were going for different.

The genre in question is innocent person imprisoned by maniac. So, pretty done to death (excuse the pun) you might think. But 5150 Elm's Way does have some good ideas and they are original, I think.

Unfortunately I didn't think the execution of the idea was very good. From the moment the main character Yannick falls off his bike at 10 mph, somehow rendering it completely unusable, you worry that the plot is going to be a bit clunky. And my worst fears were realised as he walked blindly into a mess and then failed on numerous occasions to escape. Even worse, he does eventually escape and then gets recaptured by basically being a moron.

Not having any sympathy for the victim is a major flaw in a film where that is all that is happening.

Some of the scenes where he is trapped are interesting, and the overall premise is promising, but mostly everything bounces off the walls with very little finesse. Which is a problem because this isn't a horror film, it's a thriller... just not very thrilling.

And then there's a vaguely open ending which leaves room for a sequel. Really? I don't think so.

Mademoiselle Chambon

On another day I might have really enjoyed the French film Mademoiselle Chambon. Everything unwinds very slowly. There isn't a lot of dialogue. The subtlety of the acting by leads Sandrine Kiberlain and Vincent Lindon is excellent: a look here, a glance there, a brief touch.

But as it happened I wasn't in the right mood. So I felt this was far too slow and laboured for a small return. At one point we cut to a scene where Jean is sitting in a bar... thinking... then we cut away again. Yawn.

I think the lack of drama, in the wider sense, doesn't help. It's just two people who form an attachment and then aren't sure if they want to take it any further. There will be consequences, of course, if they do; but we aren't really exposed to those. We are left to imagine their inner turmoil based on a few looks and the odd line of dialogue.

At the end it is almost as if Mademoiselle Chambon isn't actually a real person. But rather is simply a metaphor for the restlessness of middle-aged men.

Dragon

Unlike some Chinese martial arts films, Dragon has a compelling and interesting story which also contains some fighting. Rather than being a collection of fight scenes sown together by a weak plot.

In fact there aren't that many fight scenes, so if all you want is action then this isn't the film for you. If you like Sherlock then this definitely is worth a look, as it reminded me a lot of the BBC's latest take on Holmes... with Takeshi Kaneshiro as Holmes and star Donnie Yen as a cross between Dr Watson and a bad guy... since for most of the film we don't know who, or what kind of man, Lui Jinxi really is.

I wish I could do the film more justice by writing more, but I'm very tired, so I can't... if I leave the review too long then I'll forget what it was like. So just take it from me, this is a pretty good film.

The Expendables

By the time a film series gets up to part 4 (or is it 5?) you have to start wondering if there maybe isn't something worth looking at. And so it is with The Expendables. Finally I decided to take a look... despite the mixed reviews.

What you get isn't so much an action film as a trip down memory lane. If you never saw the Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis films of the 1980's then you will probably just wonder why there are some old guys running round with Jason Statham and Jet Li.

As you might expect, there's plenty of fighting and not a lot of acting here. Although I think I'd have to single out Mickey Rourke as the opposite: he doesn't do any fighting but puts in a good performance as Sly's brother (is that brother, or bro? ... it doesn't really matter, I guess).

The action scenes are fun but nothing special, in the present day. So for me it is the nostalgia that saves the day. The cheesy one-liners. The hulking bad guys who kick the crap out of the heroes until the last minute. The improbable escapes. Bad guys who can fire 1000 rounds without hitting anyone. Good guys who can drop a dozen baddies stone dead with 3 bullets and a medium sized pocket knife.

There actually is the thin thread of a story to hang the action onto. And I assume that the obvious hooks will be used to pull in the other old-time hero guys as the series goes along.

Will I be checking out part 2, at least? Hell yeah!

Upstream Colour

Usually the hardest part of writing a film review is not giving away the plot. In the case of Upstream Colour that is no problem at all. Because, after watching it, I still have no idea what it is about.

When you fail to understand something as totally as I did this film, you are left with two possibilities:

1) The work is of such staggering complexity that it is beyond my comprehension level. It is the cinematic equivalent of a small-print unillustrated book on Quantum Mechanics. It doesn't matter how hard I look, or how much I think about it, I'm just never going to get it.

2) There is no meaning. The film was made by a bunch of art students dicking around. They thought that if they made something abstract then lots of people would assume that it must be case (1) above and everyone would think they were geniuses. The cinematic equivalent of The Emperors New Clothes.

I've seen plenty of profound films that have affected me deeply. This film just baffled me and after an hour I just wanted it to end.

Initially I thought it was telling a story about mind-control and was to be taken literally. Then it seemed that it was in fact about mental illness and the early scenes were supposed to be some sort of post-rationalisation of Kris's state. By the end everything was looking literal again... bizarre as it was.

I really liked Shane Caruth's film Primer. That was confusing in a delightful way because the complexity came from the fact that time travel is complicated. You didn't know what was going on, but you understood why you didn't understand. My problem with Upstream Colour is that you have nothing to hang on to. And for that reason it didn't connect with me and I didn't enjoy it.

Captain America : The Winter Soldier

Firstly, I hope it isn't a spoiler to clear up my misunderstanding of the title Captain America: The Winter Soldier. If, like me, your first thought was "Why is Captain America called The Winter Soldier?" then fear not: he isn't. The Winter Soldier is another character in this film.

Secondly, I've never been a fan of Captain America, apart from as a member of the Avengers. He just never seemed very interesting... Maybe it is the whole stars-and-stripes thing, or just that his powers were a bit, well, dull.

This is a good film though. The story is fast-paced but not shallow. There are some new characters to enjoy and some old ones which get further development. Captain America himself is much more dynamic than in the first film: he runs, jumps, fights and throws his shield ... a lot. He's also got some good dialogue and plenty of decent support from The Black Widow.

I don't know a great deal about the Cap comic books. But the major players seem to be lining up in this film for a showdown in Captain America 3. I hope that film meets the high standard set by this one.

Plus there is a mid-credits teaser for Avengers: Age of Ultron where we see...

Wild Target

It is always a shame when films you really like do badly at the box office. I suppose it is more likely with comedies than other genres; because different people find different things funny.

The problem with Wild Target is that its humour is very British. I think it's funny that Victor Maynard can't stand up to his mother and that Rose can't help helping herself to whatever she likes the look of. The bad guys are so comic-book that you almost feel sorry for them.

There is plenty of complexity and subtlety in all of the characters. Bill Nighy does his thing with panache and Emily Blunt is somehow strong and weak at the same time. My only criticism is that Rupert Grint has a character who is too much like Ron Weasley: that's a criticism of the writers not Grint, who does a fine job.

Somehow, amongst these great performances, Martin Freeman and Geoff Bell almost steal the show with their weirdly hilarious double-act of Dixon and Fabian ("What flavour are these?") ... who are just right as flunkies for an almost camp Rupert Everett.

So, I can't really explain why I thought this was funny, when clearly many other people didn't. Give it a try if you like anything else Bill Nighy has done... you might just laugh a lot too.

Magpies

Jo and I used to both be quite superstitious about magpies. There are lots of magpies near where we live; and we both knew the rhyme One for Sorrow, Two for Joy from our childhood.

I'd say pretty much every day, one or both of us would see some magpies and think they were an omen for the happenings of that day. The interesting thing though, is that we both saw what we wanted to see.

Jo had a habit of often being quite pessimistic: if she saw a magpie and then spotted another at a distance, then that would count as two separate magpies... so it would be one for sorrow twice; and she would expect to have a really bad day.

I, on the other hand, always allowed quite a large separation between individual magpies to count as a group. So any two magpies in the rough vicinity of one another were two for joy and a good day ahead. If I later saw a further lone magpie then that would add to the first couple and become three for a girl. Whereas Jo would see the loner as cancelling out the first pair and flipping her back to one for sorrow again.

Also, for me, anything more than one was considered good luck. So given the large number of magpies near us, I was almost always OK. Jo, sadly, favoured some of the more downbeat variations of the rhyme in which various higher numbers were also unlucky (for example nine for hell).

I remembered all this today when I saw a lone bird with its back to me this morning. I couldn't tell if it was a magpie or not. It was black from behind, and I couldn't see any coloured feathers. So I decided it probably wasn't a magpie... and I had a good day.

Underworld: Awakening

I thought I had seen all the Underworld films. Then I started watching Underworld: Awakening and it didn't seem familiar at all. Oh, good, a new one.

Except that eventually I did start to recognise scenes. So I have seen it before. Maybe I missed the beginning for some reason? It wasn't that long ago, but I just don't remember.

For me, the character of Selene is just brilliant. And not least because of how great Kate Beckinsale looks in the shiny black outfit!!! I know I was disappointed that she wasn't in the third film (which was a prequel set before her time).

Anyway, back to Underworld: Awakening. Selene is once again a main character. And like the other films the writers play fast and loose with history to conjure up an unlikely story that doesn't stand up to close inspection.

If you enjoy the action and like the idea of vampires battling werewolves then you will like this film as much as its predecessors. The action and effects are brilliant again; but I sensed a cutting back in the scale of things which suggests the budget was a bit tight this time.

Once again we have the promise of a hybrid, who is supposed to be "more powerful than any of us" but actually isn't. I think this is the hardest weakness to ignore in all the Underworld films: the hybrid is always supposed to be super special but always gets captured easily by the bad guys!

So, like the other sequels, this film isn't as good as Underworld, but is still quite entertaining.

The Silence

German film The Silence (from 2010) is a mixture of thriller and drama.

It's not really a murder mystery, because you see the initial crime. I didn't really like that part; it was too graphic and the accidental element didn't seem to fit well. Possibly the film would have worked better if there had been at least an element of uncertainty about what had happened in the flashback to 1986.

Having said that, I thought the present day scenes (2009) were excellent. There is a lot going on between the characters, all of which have pretty major problems. There's a real build up of frustration in the viewer that people just can't see what is right in front of them because they are too busy fighting their own demons. On several occasions you think "Right, he's going to confess now." or "Now they've got him." but you are wrong.

The second murder almost becomes inconsequential (to the dismay of the child's parents) because the authority figures are so determined to believe that the same killer committed both crimes; and the police are convinced they know what happened.

It really is quite painful at times to see people failing to do the right thing. But then, I guess that is real life. In the end we are left with a group of people who have all been devastated by the horrible crimes that have been committed. Even the police are left damaged, despite feeling for the most part that they got their man.

One thing I couldn't decide was what the title refers to. Is it the silence of the people who could have spoken out but didn't, or is it the silence left behind when a loved-one dies?

Together

Together is a Swedish comedy drama directed by Lukas Moodysson.

Made in 2000, the film looks in every way like it was made in 1975. In fact, at the start I found myself checking that I had the right DVD because initially it looks like it might be a terrible 70's B-movie.

But that's just a clever trick to draw you in and move the setting to a commune called Tillsammans (Swedish for Together). This is where everything kicks off. You quickly see that this isn't a glorification of the commune: the film isn't trying to make you feel bad about owning a car, or a TV, or for having a shower every day. Instead it pokes fun at the commune by simply highlighting why communes don't work; because people are ultimately selfish at some level.

There is also a great contrast between the commune and the people who live next door. They think they are so different (and presumably better) but of course they have exactly the same characteristics.

This is a comedy where you laugh somewhat nervously at your own faults, enacted by the characters in the film. Anyone who has ever shared a house with people who weren't members of your own family will recall squabbles like those in Together. It's great fun. You just know things are going to go wrong; which just makes it even more amusing when they do.

The soundtrack is great too; and I liked the uplifting conclusion. Nice!

Planet of Snail

What is the film Planet of Snail about? After watching the first 1/3 I don't know. I don't even know the names of the two main characters. Call me impatient if you like, but that's not a start which is likely to keep me watching.

The main guy is blind. I think he is also deaf; but can't be sure, because I thought the main girl was talking to him at one point. She also does this unusual thing where she looks like she's playing piano on his fingers... which I guess means he is deaf.

She is very short. I can't tell if that is the only unusual thing about her. Is she his friend, sister, wife, girlfriend or a professional carer? Again, I don't know because the film moves at a snail's pace and makes no concessions to people who want to know what is going on.

Is that the point? This guy's life moves at a snails pace?

Just before I gave up on it, I sat through ten minutes of this couple trying to replace a light-bulb. OK, so it was an unusually complicated light-bulb... she can't reach, he can't see... they get  there in the end.

I wasn't sure if this was supposed to be celebrating their independence or mocking them. I hope the former, but it was really hard to tell.

Sorry, but I just didn't get into this at all. Boring.

The Selfish Giant

This is a British film loosely inspired by the Oscar Wilde short story of the same name (part of The Happy Prince and Other Tales).

It tells the story of two boys Arbor and Swifty in Bradford. I've never heard the name Arbor before; and thought he was being called Arthur... but it didn't sound quite right. I think it is a tree reference to the original story which has gone over my head. Also, director Clio Barnard's previous film was a documentary called The Arbor.

Anyway, the film is a classic end-of-innocence story, in the loosest sense... since the boys are hardly innocent at the beginning, unsurprisingly, given the environment they are growing up in. The boys are both involved with theft of metals, under the cover of legitimate scrap-metal dealing. They get in deeper as the film goes on, and you know things are going to end badly for someone.

The characters of the two boys are brilliantly constructed and played by child actors Conner Chapman and Shaun Thomas. Their similarities and differences are enthralling as their powerful friendship is tested to breaking point by events.

Ultimately this is a film about that terrible moment when you realise that your actions have consequences for other people. Consequences which, like it or not, you have to take responsibility for, one way or another.

Very well made film. Well worth a watch.

The Desolation of Smaug

Part 2 of the Hobbit is just as long as part 1, but much more tedious.

I was sceptical when I found out that one book was being spun out into three long films. But part 1 did a pretty good job of winning me over: there was a lot of character development, and plenty of action, to go with the stunning visuals you expect from Peter Jackson. I think that film worked.

Unfortunately The Desolation of Smaug just seems like filler. Yes the visuals are still stunning, and there are bits of action, but the film takes nearly two and a half hours to get going... and then just stops!

I actually felt really fed up at the end. Like I'd been teased with a treat which was just snatched away. All the good parts leading up to that were largely forgotten. What a rubbish trick.

Does it make me eager for part 3? No. I haven't read the book but I think I know pretty much what is going to happen now. I can certainly wait another year to rent the third movie without needing to see it at the cinema. I will watch it, for completeness, but wont be paying out again.

Peter Jackson made a shed-load of money for some people with The Lord of the Rings. That was an epic story that needed three epic films to tell it. Those people obviously thought that PJ could magic another shed-load of money by turning a much shorter story into another three epic films. They were wrong. This franchise looks increasingly like a vanity project backed by greedy fools, preying on genuine J. R. R. Tolkien fans.

It is sad that The Hobbit wasn't made as a single epic film with the same actors as The Lord of the Rings. Together those films would have made a very nice set.

False Trail

This is a 2011 sequel to the 1996 Swedish film The Hunters. As far as I can tell, the only common character between the films is Erik, played by the amazing Rolf Lassgård.

So False Trail is a pretty loose sequel. There doesn't seem to be a very good reason why Erik should be called back to his old home town from Stockholm, against his will; and the writers invent an additional reason for his reluctance to return, as if he didn't have reason enough after the events of the first film.

This could easily be a Wallander story. In fact I had to remind myself a couple of times that it wasn't; being a big fan of Rolf in that role.

There isn't much that you can't guess early on in the case. So this isn't much of a mystery. Clearly there is a fall guy and people laying a false trail to him... the clue is in the title after all.

So, like many of Lassgard's films, this is mostly about the characters. And unlike some of his weaker films, he isn't the only great character. Peter Stormare also has a great character in Torsten who also seems to be a good-cop and bad-cop rolled into one. The scenes between Erik and Torsten are all very tense, as they scope each other out.

This isn't a brilliant film, because the plot is a bit predictable, but it is still a good watch.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Even as a long-time Marvel fan the only thing I knew about the Guardians of the Galaxy before watching the film were the character names from finding them in the Lego Marvel Superheroes game.

Which is no problem. This is an origins film; it explains everything as it goes along. Not that there's a lot to explain. There's no complicated plot, not much by the way of twists; everyone does what you expect them to do, pretty much all of the time. And yet it is a very enjoyable film.

There is a wacky array of characters: a white man, a green woman, a raccoon coloured raccoon, a tree and a heavily tattooed bald man. And that's just the main characters; the supporting creatures are (literally) just as colourful.

The dialogue is very tongue-in-cheek with humour for a range of ages. Several times, as an adult, I found myself thinking "did they really say that?". Be careful what you laugh at if you watch with kids... you might get some tricky questions.

As you'd expect, the effects are brilliant. How far things have come since the horror that was Jar Jar Binks: now we have amazing digital characters like Rocket and Groot who are so brilliant that you'll just believe they are real.

I think all the actors were great, the writing and directing is awesome.

Marvel continue to expand their movie Universe very nicely... with characters from post-credits teasers cropping up here: The Collector from Thor 2 and Thanos from The Avengers.

Timecrimes

I've seen Spanish film Los Cronocrimenes three times now and still think it is brilliant.

It just goes to show how you can make a great film on a low budget with good actors and a good story.

Nacho Vigalondo really has made a gem of a film here. There are only a handful of characters and no special effects; but this is my all time favourite time-travel movie. It all comes down to the cleverness of the story and how it is told.

Time-travel films always struggle with paradoxes: what happens if I go back in time and change my own past? Timecrimes has a string of events which gradually unfold through the experiences of Hector. Where many time-travel films leave you rolling your eyes at the liberties that the writers take to fix things, Timecrimes is incredibly consistent and believable throughout.

I can't say much more without spoiling the plot. Watch it and see what happens!

Day Watch

My strategy of not knowing much about films before I watch them usually pays off. I've had many great experiences over the years that would have been lost if I had watched certain trailers or read certain reviews.

But sometimes it backfires. I didn't know that Day Watch was a sequel... and I haven't seen Night Watch. There is a narrative reminder at the beginning of the film which explains some of the plot so far; but that is probably only just enough for people who have seen the first movie. If, like me, you haven't then it doesn't help you a great deal. But it gives you a chance.

There are lots of good effects in the film and I liked the characters. But from time to time I would just find myself completely lost. There don't seem to be many distinguishing features between the Light Others and the Dark Others. And they all seem to live in similar flats in Moscow somewhere.

I also failed to grasp what was special about Svetlana and Yegor; other than that they were going to be Great Others for some reason. I have no idea if there were any other Great Others in the film, if there even ever had been any, or if there was some sort of Highlanderesque competition to be the only Great Other.

And who were the two old twin guys?

Of course, I understand that I probably asked for all this confusion by watching the sequel before its precursor. I guess credit must go to director Timur Bekmambetov for creating a movie that is actually enjoyable to watch even if you don't know what is going on.