Adventures on the Internet

This is a stunning film of extraordinary beauty.
Opening with a quote from Rimbaud:

As I descended into impassable rivers
I felt no longer guided by the ferryman

the film grasps the viewer's attention and never relinquishes its grip.

A hit man is commissioned to carry out an assassination in southern Spain, and the film follows his journey across Iberia through a series of stylised meetings with a cast of enigmatic contacts in the most photogenic locations. Isaach De Bankolé delivers a mesmeric central performance as the assassin, coolly pursuing his mission armed only with a selection of sharp suits.

Not overburdened with distracting dialogue or action, the viewer is able properly to concentrate on cinematography, composition and soundtrack.

Perfection. Film of the year. Essential viewing.

Tony Montana is a Cuban refugee recently arrived in Florida in search of the American Dream, whose mother and sister (Gina) live in a modest single storey dwelling on the outskirts of Miami. His father left the family home a long time ago. Tony has been separated from his family for many years, and the lack of a positive male role model or a domineering matriarchal figure during teenage years appears to have been influential in his development.

Desperate to become a 'success' before re-establishing contact with his estranged family, Tony employs ethically dubious business practices in the course of building a substantial personal fortune from his work as head of a large pharmaceuticals supplier. He marries the woman of his dreams Elvira, whom he has managed to lure away from recently deceased boss Frank Lopez, but happiness remains elusive as their relationship enters a rocky patch and Elvira ultimately walks out. Tony's family also reject him - his mother unwilling to accept financial assistance, and his 'kid' sister Gina resentful of Tony's proscriptive attitude towards her romantic liaisons. This overly protective approach to Gina highlights an ambiguous personal morality which contrasts sharply with Tony's business credo. ("All I have in this world is my balls and my word and I don't break them for no one.")

Tony's business associates are a disappointing cross-section of middle and senior managers in the banking and chemical industries. Even the cultured and sophisticated Bolivian landowner Alejandro Sosa resorts to underhand methods when he runs into difficulties with an over-zealous investigative journalist. This latter episode leads eventually to Tony's demise, as Sosa holds him responsible for the failure properly to manage the resulting PR catastrophe.

As the film reaches its culmination with Tony blown away into the pool adorning the reception area of his mansion, his earlier observation, "You know what capitalism is? Getting fucked!" seems strangely apposite.

Essential viewing.

The Coen brothers' glittering career continues its inexorable downward trajectory with a disappointing exercise in pointlessness. In fairness, the trailer gives sufficient warning of what to expect but glowing reviews in the mainstream media suggesting that this directorial pair are the finest film-makers in the history of civilisation should be read with caution.

Not funny enough to be a comedy and lacking substance as a drama, on exit from the cinema it's difficult to avoid the feeling of having donated 105 precious minutes of existence to an undeserving enterprise. Mercifully, those 105 minutes will be quickly forgotten.

A far-fetched plot, clunky symbolism, characters the like of which in real life don't exist (surely?), and are neither interesting nor amusing enough to be worth inventing, it's a struggle to find any redeeming feature.

A few snaps from the National Arboretum, Westonbirt...

A voyage into the mind of director Terry Gilliam -
visually beautiful, with a fractured narrative.

Essential viewing.

A heartwarming tale of family life in North London.

It's a situation familiar to us all, I imagine. You (Ralph) are a hard-pressed writer, struggling to come up with a film script, and the deadline is looming. Your partner (Phoebe) is a successful soap actress, always out at rehearsals, filming, or publicity events. Christmas is just around the corner, and you need a hand looking after the children.
So naturally, without seeking references, you hire an exotic French/West African au pair via the Internet, and don't bother mentioning the fact to Phoebe, who, emerging half-dressed from the bedroom one morning, is not a little put out to discover the new helper (Nene) serving the children's breakfast.

However, in a twist that perhaps doesn't mirror everyday life, Ralph's writing is based around his own domestic circumstances and he plans to enmesh Nene not only in household duties, but also into his personal life and the film script. When Nene realises she decides to take a pro-active role in the unfolding drama, and soon has Ralph and Phoebe wrapped around her little finger, and indeed other, more interesting parts of her body.

It's a neat idea, but the execution is flawed - particularly in the matter of constructing any believable characters. And Ralph's voice-over/narration of his thoughts on desire, lust, creativity, etc, serve only to detract - the viewer might be better left to make up his/her own mind as to the characters' motivations.

Although billed as a steamy psychodrama, don't go getting too excited - the viewer struggles to get under the characters' skins, or inside their clothes.

A heartwarming tale of contemporary family life in a modern housing estate on the Essex/London border.

Mia lives with her sister Tyler and their mother in a compact apartment with off-street parking, in which they pursue their mutual interests - watching TV, listening to music, smoking and drinking. They show their affection for each other in the traditional manner, through a constant stream of verbal abuse, swearing and fighting.

Mia's social worker drops in occasionally to arrange a place at a special school and a youth referral unit, but the youngster is reluctant to engage with this process, and remains resolutely outside of the care system. Mia instead directs her efforts towards dancing, and attempting to steal a horse from the local travellers, camped on a nearby brownfield site.

Her mother's latest live-in lover Connor provides some encouragement for Mia in her aspirations to become a dancer, as well as petty cash to support her under-age drinking. However, Connor realises his enthusiasm has gone too far when he engages in consensual sex with the 15 year old on the sofa late one night, and he returns to his own wife and daughter early the next morning. This development leaves both Mia and her mother distraught, but salvation for Mia comes in the form of Kyle, one of the travellers she has been tormenting, whose newly restored Volvo 940 GLE 2.3 LPT estate is ready to carry her away to new adventures far from the Thames Gateway.

Shot on location amongst the housing estates and marshlands of south Essex, the film is a reminder of the drama and beauty that exists right on our doorsteps.

Essential Viewing.

Odd Horten is an unremarkable chap who has been driving a locomotive on Norwegian railways for almost 40 years. A typically unexpressive, reliable, pipe-smoking Scandinavian without much family, few friends, and save for the anchor provided by his work, almost adrift in the world.

Following his retirement dinner, on the eve of his final working day Horten gets into a number of scrapes that cause him to be late and miss his last journey. In retirement he sets about a variety of time-filling activities lacking a core narrative. (A visit to his mother in a care home, buying a new pipe at the tobacconist, dining at his regular restaurant, getting locked in after hours at the sauna/swimming pool.) Just as you begin to wonder where these somewhat random episodes are leading, Horten confronts the fear he has been avoiding all his life, and in a beautifully handled change of tempo, scene and lighting, the possibilities of a new life open up before him.

Essential viewing.