Review: Her

Rates:  *  *  *  *

In the near future, humans and computers have developed a near symbiotic relationship.

Future people have their home system, their laptop and their portable i-Style devices same as us, but these different elements have been woven into one amorphous whole, in a way that is still out of our reach. One operating system runs everything in your personal network, and all of the electronic gadgets that you use during the day, including your work station, are overseen by this disembodied electronic PA.

Future people are effectively connected to this network 24 hours a day, and nearly everything they do links to it in some fashion.

Future people also have a predilection for bright shirts and dorkily high, beltless pants.

This is the background presented to us in the new Spike Jonze film her, a nearly un-categorisable movie that blends romance, comedy, drama and sci-fi elements.

Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) is a likable sad sack knocked about by a recent divorce. While most of the components of his life seem in place - nice apartment in a modern filing cabinet, steady job writing personal letters on behalf of clients, wardrobe of pastel shirts and tweed slacks - Theodore is a reserved, insular man and very lonely.

But when he purchases the latest version of an operating system for his personal network, he gets more than he bargained for. His new OS comes with an artificial personality; a programmed but infinitely adaptable system that learns from everything it experiences and develops its character in consequence, much as humans do (and evil computers do in other films, shortly before they decide to destroy humanity).

Dubbing itself Samantha, the OS and Theodore quickly move beyond checking emails and scheduling appointments and begin to develop a genuine friendship. They talk constantly and explore the city together (Theodore wears an ear piece and carries a small digital camera, so Samantha can see and hear) and the effect they have on one another is pronounced. Theodore's sense of fun and optimism returns, after a glum hiatus, while Samantha develops and matures exponentially.

Even though one member of the duo is a disembodied computer program, their relationship makes perfect, logical sense.

That the two characters then fall in love shows the kind of risks Jonze is willing to take, and what makes him such an exciting film maker. In terms of mis-matched, odd couple lovers this would have to rank at the pointy end of any analysis of this plot device from film history.

Theodore and Samantha go on dates, coo at each other and even (inventively) have sex. They sometimes argue and annoy each other, but they also talk, work things out, find a way to overcome the things that come between them. And so, they are like every other couple that has lasted more than 5 minutes in each other's company, in movies and in the real world.

Despite the unusual nature of the relationship, their ups and downs feel very real and carry emotional weight. As a viewer, you wish them well, hope they make it, but can't shake the feeling that something will go amiss. That the rules of movie narrative, and life, almost demand that things will not end as happily as everyone hopes they will.

There's a wonderful, though melancholy, sequence early in the film where Theodore tells Samantha about the end of his marriage. How he and his wife grew together and changed and explored and that this was exciting... and that it was these same factors that also ended up pushing them apart. That they changed too much and no longer fit together. Without giving away too much of the plot, this serves as a marker of how the story plays out, and the bittersweet tone behind the events on screen.

Writing, as well as directing, for the first time, Spike Jonze has created perhaps his most complete movie to date. The manic energy of his first two - brilliant - films (Being John Malkovich and Adaptation) has dissipated, replaced by a mature, reflective tone. While this was also present in his last film, Where the Wild Things Are, Jonze has created a much more fully developed narrative this time round.

The world that his characters inhabit in her is vividly realised (praise is deserved here for the production design team) and, while ravishing to look at, is entirely convincing. Similarly, his characters are written in a subtle, sophisticated way, that allows them space to move and breathe, to be unpredictable in the way real people are.

He is greatly aided in this by some fine acting, particularly Joaquin Phoenix in a change of pace role. Centre stage for nearly the whole film, Phoenix maintains just the right tone from start to finish and shatters the perception that he is only suited to playing angry weirdos. He is well backed by Amy Adams, who shines in a smallish part as Theodore's best friend and neighbour.

The other main player, the operating system, is voiced by Scarlett Johannson, who gives a slightly one-note performance (interestingly she replaced original cast member Samantha Morton, when Jonze was unsatisfied with this aspect of the shoot. Morton remains credited as an associate producer). There are also times when the story wanders a little, and the running time (more than two hours) is probably a little longer than is necessary.

But these are minor quibbles.

Funny, well observed and moving,  her  transcends the novelty items in the plot and emerges as an affecting look at the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. It makes its points about how humanity's interaction with technology is evolving early, and then switches gears to show us how, even in an altered future, the things that we will have to deal with are much the same as they are now. And much the same as they always have been. The more things change, the more they remain, fundamentally, the same.

A bold, intelligent movie, as fearless as its principle characters prove to be. 

Review: Philomena

Rates:  *  *  *

In mid twentieth century Ireland, a terrible fate awaited unlucky Catholic girls who found themselves unmarried and knocked up. Disowned by their conservative families, they were effectively imprisoned in convents, forced to work at grueling manual labour while their infants were put up for adoption. Often the parents would tell friends and family that the girl had died.

Such was the fate of Philomena Lee (well played in her youth by Sophie Kennedy Clarke), whose one night stand eventually leads her to disgrace and captivity in one of these cruel institutions (territory which has been covered by the movies before, most notably 2002’s harrowing The Magdalene Sisters). At age three, her son is adopted away and she is forced to work four more years scrubbing sheets in a hellish laundry before being sent on her way to start over.

The story picks up many years later when Philomena, now elderly (and played by Judy Dench), is trying to find her missing son. She has been stymied by the church – they tell her all their adoption records have been destroyed in a fire – and the local Government seems disinterested. Philomena’s daughter then meets the recently sacked (and somewhat disgraced) spin doctor and former journalist Mark Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) and tries to get him engaged in her mother’s plight. Initially dismissive (Sixsmith tells her that human interest stories are for cretins), his lack of career options make him reconsider and the promise of an expense account from a magazine editor make him positively enthusiastic.

Mark is soon on the case, the trail leading Philomena and Mark from rural Ireland to America and some gentle road movie adventure.

Steve Coogan produced and co-scripted this adaptation of the real life Mark Sixsmith’s 2009 non-fiction book, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, and he clearly saw in the author a plum role for himself. And Coogan is fine, in an uncharacteristically subdued role, nicely capturing the prickly superiority, but underlying decency, of this frustrated career-man.

But Coogan’s underplaying, while mostly effective, also stands as an indicator of what I found unsatisfying about this movie. It’s a very… restrained piece. Emotions are largely kept in check, people’s responses are modulated, voices are rarely raised. As one of the test pilots wives put it in The Right Stuff, ‘Everyone’s always maintaining an even strain.’

The character of Philomena is even more problematic. As well as keeping her emotions largely out of sight, save for the odd tear, there’s something inconsistent about the way she’s been written. At times she’s a verbose chatterbox, playing to stereotypes for both the Irish and the elderly, and at others she offers mostly silence pierced with an occasional pointed remark. Similarly, she’s at one moment depicted as so unworldly that a modern five star hotel makes her giddy (Chocolates! Buffet breakfast! Pillows!) and in the next as so sophisticated that she doesn’t turn a hair talking sexuality with complete strangers.

Dench’s performance is solid, and a welcome change from the iron lady she’s played in the Bond films lately, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she was the right person for this part. Her Irish accent comes and goes somewhat, and there is little chemistry between her and Coogan, a serious problem in an odd-couple movie like this one.

Her story ark also steadfastly refuses to give the audience an emotional payoff.

Despite all the terrible things that were done to her, Philomena never questions her faith, nor shows much sign that she feels anger, or even frustration, towards the nuns and the church. Just the opposite, in fact, as she chastises Sixsmith for getting angry on her behalf. Even when, at the end of the movie,  she is confronted with a nun who not only tormented her when she was younger, but also deliberately kept her grown up son from finding her before he died, she just turns away and moves on, with barely a word of recrimination.

While I imagine that this ending is true to the source material (they surely would've used a more rousing one if it were available), it does give the film a rather muted conclusion. Which is, I suppose, in keeping with the overall tone.

Philomena is an inoffensive drama with good intentions and good people involved. It is well made and gives earnest attention to a very serious subject. But it’s hard not to feel that more could have been made from the remarkable personal journey the central character experienced. By keeping the tone so resolutely low key, the writers and director (British veteran Stephen Frears) make this story less engaging than it could have been, with an equal reduction in the films emotional impact.


Solid but disappointing, overall.  

Review: Battle of the Sexes

Rates:  *  *  *  1/2


America in the late 60's saw global super power fallen on hard times; embroiled in a war in Vietnam, the economy crippled by oil shocks and one of their most notoriously evil Presidents overseeing it all in the White House.

So a good question for us might be: have things improved in the four decades since? The US is still embroiled in foreign conflicts and their economy is still a basket case. At least they have a better President now.

Another slant on this same question is the driving force behind this entertaining, pseudo-sports documentary; has the lot of women in America improved since the dawn of the modern feminist movement in the sixties?

Based on the evidence presented here the answer seems to be, 'Yeeeeessss... but.'

The film tackles this subject through an unusual prism: the founding of a professional tennis circuit for women and subsequent novelty challenge matches that were staged between leading women’s tennis players of the day, and an aging, loudly sexist, former men’s tennis champ. The sporting elements are then deftly set alongside the story of the fledgling women’s rights movement from the same era, showing how they were both facets of the same cultural moment.

Once women felt empowered to speak up for themselves, change came to every aspect of society where women were involved i.e. absolutely everywhere. Tennis was just one area that underwent radical change. The film energetically sets up both scenarios and links them together through some judicious editing and framing material.

The film opens in 1967, the last year tennis was played on an amateur basis. The sport was totally unrecognisable from the multi-billion dollar TV extravaganza that it is today. The leading players were low key athletes with little media profile and, outside of the US Open and Wimbledon, little attention was paid to them.

Professionalism arrived in 1968 and with it came greater financial rewards and a higher profile. From the outset, women were paid much less than their male colleagues (at Wimbledon in 1968, the men’s singles winner received 2000 pounds and the women’s 750 pounds) and were generally treated as second class citizens. The film explains this as in keeping with the standards of the day; commercials, TV clips and sound bites are shown that depict women in a limited, stereotypical fashion, cooking, cleaning, mothering and mostly treated like cattle.

As famous feminist activists like Susan Sondheim stood up for themselves in public, leading female tennis players of the time were inspired to demand equitable treatment as well. They organised their own breakaway tennis tour, risking their careers (bans were threatened) and played wherever they could find sponsors and a crowd. The success of this radical venture paved the way for all of the treasure that was to flow into women's tennis in the ensuing decades.

Enter Bobby Riggs.

Riggs was a 55 year old former tennis champ – he had twice won Wimbledon in his heyday – fallen on hard times. As professional women’s tennis began to blossom, Riggs reinvented himself as an outspoken 'male chauvinist pig' and challenged the top women's players to an exhibition match. When he played, and unexpectedly defeated, Australian champ Margaret Court, Riggs was able to drum up an enormous amount of media interest and dough, which he used to set up a second match.

Second time round, Riggs faced off against Billy Jean King, a top shelf American player who had also helped champion the breakaway professional women’s tour (something Court had not been involved in). Billed as ‘The Battle of the Sexes,’ the match was depicted as a cultural, as well as sporting, clash; feminism versus chauvinism, traditional values against contemporary ideas, the old against the new. Interest in the match was such that it had to be played in a football stadium to accommodate the crowd, and an estimated 90 million people watched on TV (making it the most watched tennis match in the history of the sport).

The second half of the movie focuses on this match, its protracted build up and aftermath and it is here that it most closely resembles a traditional sports doco. This part of the film is broadly entertaining, with King’s earnest professionalism and Rigg’s goofy bafoonery in stark contrast.

But the film makers never lose sight of the themes they establish in the opening half of the film, and find inventive ways to connect the dots between their keys points even as some iffy tennis re-enactments take over onscreen.

Riggs is a ridiculous symbol of something very ugly in society, but he is a symbol all the same and some of the film’s most telling moments come as his defenders (male and female) voice their support for his offensive pronouncements. And King’s victory, while a watershed moment for women’s sports, is also clearly positioned as just one small battle, among a much wider equal rights war (one that continues to this day).

Maintaining an entertaining tone and light touch from start to finish, this fascinating movie manages to be generally entertaining but still nail its targets. It’s thoughtful and thought provoking in equal measure, a skillful balance beyond the capabilities of many films. The presentation is not ground breaking – in fact, it is another example of what we have to come to expect from a contemporary doco – but is well handled and tightly packaged.


A top shelf piece of cultural commentary and a fun (if occasionally horrifying) time capsule.

Review: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Rates:  *  *


Scenario 1

Walter: When I was younger, I used to work at Papa John’s.

Other Guy: What’s that?

Walter: Oh, it’s like a pizza joint. Awesome pizza!

Other Guy: I like pizza!

Walter: Yeah!

Other Guy: What’s it called again?

Walter: Papa John’s.

Other Guy: Papa John’s?

Walter: Papa John’s.

Other Guy: Papa John’s… Okay. I might try it next time I’m out and about. Papa John’s!

Walter: Papa John's.


Scenario 2

Walter: Yeah hi, I’m trying to use my eHarmony Super Awesome Dating Account, but I’ve got a problem.

eHarmony Worker: What’s your problem beautiful?

Walter: It’s so awesome I can hardly believe it!

eHarmony Worker: A-ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Walter: A-ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

eHarmony Worker: That’s funny. You’re really funny! And wonderful. All of our customers are wonderful!!

Walter: You really make me feel good about myself.

eHarmony Worker: You should feel good about yourself. Because you’re just super awesome.

Walter: That’s why I opened the account!

eHarmony Worker: A-ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Walter:  A-ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!  And all this for only $500 a year!!

Walter Mitty is a daydreamer. Unless you've been living on Mars these past seventy years (the original short story, ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,’ was published in 1939) you probably know this; the book is famous and there have been adaptations before.

For this new incarnation he’s been updated somewhat; he’s now a shy, insular, apartment  dweller in New York with a job about to swallowed by the pace of internet driven progress. And he’s also now a man quite happy to prostitute himself for a multimillion dollar company when the opportunity arises (see Scenarios 1 & 2 above).

The film opens with Mitty (Ben Stiller) sweating over whether or not to send a dating site message to a co-worker he’s sweet on. He stares at her profile, absorbs all of the (scant) details, absorbs them again, grits his teeth and decides to send it… then chickens out and sits down. The opening credits rolls as he fidgets and fusses and keeps changing his mind. And then, when he does pluck up the courage to hit ‘Enter’... his computer crashes. It’s a lovely sequence; neatly establishing the central character and making some nice points about life in the modern age. Unfortunately, the film pretty much peaks at this point, barely two minutes in.

Mitty works in the basement at Life magazine, transforming photo negatives into their famous, lavish images (something of an anachronism; Life went under more than 10 years ago). He’s good at his job but quiet and his colleagues think him a bit of an odd bod.

But when an aggressive new firm acquires the magazine and decides to turn it into an internet only publication, and sack pretty much everyone, Mitty is spurred to break out of his low key rut. He hits the road looking for Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn), adventurous news photographer and grumpy iconoclast, hoping to track down a copy of a missing photo Sean had submitted for Life’s last cover. Mitty's travelogue takes him to Greenland, Iceland, Afghanistan and one zany adventure after another (and the film makers really show their inventive side with their relentless plugging of Papa John's and eHarmony in these far flung locations).

Which creates something of a problem.

The original point of TSLoWM I took to be something like;


·         Daydreaming is nice.

·         But daydreaming is no substitute for real life.

·         Real life can be nice too if you give it a chance.


Which is a bit trite, but pretty solid. But instead of this, the movie opts for;


·         Daydreaming is nice.

·         But daydreaming is no substitute for real life...

·         ... providing your real life is crazier than what you've been daydreaming!


In other words, the movie has no point at all. And, after the opening half hour, it stops referencing Mitty's imaginings in any case. They seem to exist in the film solely to give the director (Stiller again) a chance to fool around with some fairly silly, and admittedly fun, sequences before the National Geographic photo journal takes over the plot. Towards the end of it all, Mitty says something like, 'And you know, I don't do that daydreaming stuff anymore...' and I thought, 'Oh yeah! The daydreaming thing!'

After two hours of global roving it felt like the plot device from some other film.

And long before the central character does, you know his wanderings are going to bring him out of his shell and help him get closer to his dream girl. It's as obvious as the realisation that eHarmony helped fund the production of the movie. And this can only mean that a certain inevitability hangs over proceedings, regardless of how hard everyone tries to keep it light and quirky.

So this goes to the heart of what is wrong with this film; it is neither funny enough to work as a comedy, nor effecting enough to work as a drama, nor fresh enough to work as a romance. The cast tries hard, the exotic locations provide some lush eye candy and the acerbic parody of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (a much worse film than this one) made me laugh out loud, but otherwise this is a misfire in nearly every respect.

Mostly unsatisfying to everyone bar the corporate sponsors.

Review: The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug

Rates: * * 1/2

So there’s a mountain. And some dwarves who used to live there. And they’re on a quest to move back in, helped by a hobbit and a wizard. The key sticking point is the dragon, who took over the dwarf mountain and now doesn't want to give it up.

This, in a nutshell, is the plot of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the venerable fantasy novel that has been thrilling audiences since it was first published in 1937. There’s more to it, but since the number of people who aren't familiar with the book can be counted on one hand (without the thumb) there’s probably no need to break it down any further.

This is also where the second Hobbit movie – The Desolation of Smaug – picks up; mountain, dwarves, quest, hobbit, wizard, dragon. The opening scene shows wizard Gandalf and dwarf leader Oakenshield meeting in a pub and hatching a scheme to claim the mountain back, which sets the whole plot in motion.

Which might seem a little strange.

I mean, as a starting point for a quest flick this is fine. But didn't we already have a near three hour movie before this one? Wasn't that meant to establish the characters, set the story up and advance the plot to a certain point? The answer, clearly, is no. Which makes you wonder what on earth that leaden paced first installment – An Unexpected Journey - was all about. The one thing that sticks in my mind about AUJ is the never ending dinner scene at the beginning, and that’s not a memory I want to revisit too often.

So TDoS makes clear that the previous film was almost entirely redundant, which goes to the heart of the problem with this series of films. While The Lord of the Rings books are epic length and so suited director Peter Jackson’s monolithic treatment of them, The Hobbit is a much simpler, shorter story and blowing it up into three movies was very obviously a dud idea. The excessive length of the overall project, with corresponding flat, aimless stretches, again hampers the new film almost as much as the first.

Although, this is not to say that TDoS doesn't have its strengths.

The opening hour – as our heroes run for cover in a sinister forest - is terrific. And the climactic battle with Smaug delivers the goods. These sections provide a much sharper story arc for this movie in comparison to the first, which gives a greater sense of urgency and import to what is happening on the screen.

So it is a shame that a lot of that impetus is lost during a plodding mid section. Our heroes spend an absolute eternity doing… not very much; after escaping from the forest elves they fanny about with a dreary boatman in Laketown for an age, hiding and bartering for supplies. Gandalf, meanwhile, leaves the bulk of the party to go off on his own for a bit, something he states he ‘would not do unless it was absolutely necessary.’ Curious then, that the point of this side mission is absolutely obscure; he summons up fellow wizard Radagast, breaks into an empty crypt with him, strokes his beard a bit and then sends Radagast off again. Subsequently, he heads to the ruined fortress of Dol Guldur and encounters a disembodied necromancer (you can probably guess who this is) and their orc army.

All of Gandalf’s solo adventures (not to mention Radagast’s greatly expanded role) are not in the book and so have been created specifically for the film, something the film makers have defended as part of their plan to ‘flesh out’ the story. That these scenes are among the weakest in the new movie demonstrates the hubris that surrounds this idea; ‘I think what Tolkien meant to say was…’

When film makers reinterpret material from another medium there are always changes required and fans who are unhappy with whatever these are. But what we have here are enormous tangents being added on to a tightly plotted little adventure romp. The new sub-plots, characters and dialogue add nothing, whatsoever, to the overall thrust of the story and, worse, their bloating of the narrative detracts from the fun bits.

As more than one reviewer has already pointed out, most readers could get through the 300 page book version of The Hobbit in about 6 hours. And countless millions have done so, over the decades.

But we have nearly reached this time threshold in the movie series and the end is not yet in sight. Another three hour installment will be waiting for us next Boxing Day, with who knows how many extra bits tacked onto it. And this suggests a director and writers who have lost perspective and their grip on the material. They seem to be making films to please themselves, and so are not making films very pleasing for the rest of us.

Jackson’s LoTR films were so successful that the director was able to release super expanded ‘Special Editions’ of each one to an audience hungry for more. With The Hobbit series you hope that maybe he’ll do the reverse; redact all the crapulent new stuff and release a three hour ‘condensed’ version that sticks to the original plot.

And that is one movie I’ll be very keen to see. Ho hum.

The Best Films of 2013

I would normally write a lengthy intro to my favourite films of the year list. This is traditional. All pundits normally indulge themselves.

Something about the trends apparent in modern cinema. And how these confirm the declining standards of life as we know it. And how much at least two of; mobile phone use in the audience, or overlong running times, or the inedibility of modern popcorn make me want to go and live in the forest and not watch any movies at all, unless they're ones I've made myself with a camera made out of twigs (a la The Last Movie).

But this is all too angry... and kind of insane... and a 'Best Of' list should be a happy time... and I don't really know what I'm talking about anyway.

So let's get to the money! I mean, the movies...

10. THESE FINAL HOURS

In the wake of a massive, civilisation ending catastrophe (implied to be a meteor impact in the Northern hemisphere), residents of Perth, Western Australia face up to the end with varying degrees of stoicism. Perennial fuck up James (Nathan Phillips) wants to spend the day partying with his friends, but a chance encounter with a distressed young girl (brilliantly played by Angourie Rice), provides him with one last opportunity to show his good side. This terrific, low budget Australian film serves as showcase for talent on both sides of the camera, and provides moments of excitement and tension along with less expected elements of pathos. Echoing On the Beach (which, like this, played at this years Melbourne International Film Festival) but with a contemporary mentality, These Final Hours provides a particularly fine example of the sort of local film we don't see often enough. 

9. GRAVITY

Thousands of kilometres above the surface of the planet, a small team of astronauts work to repair a malfunctioning satellite. When an unexpected catastrophe decimates the crew and leaves their spacecraft prone, two survivors - plucky but inexperienced Ryan (Sandra Bullock) and cocky veteran Matt (George Clooney) - battle the relentlessly hostile environment as they struggle to make it back to Earth. About as far removed from a conventional Hollywood depiction of space exploration as you could get, Gravity starts with a realistic depiction of the difficulties of life in space... and then things start blowing up. Once the plot is in motion, the film becomes an almost unbearably tense scramble against time, as oxygen, fuel and mental faculties start to run out. Director Alfonso Cuaron and his team spent three years in pre-production on this and it shows; the film's visuals are literally jaw dropping and among the most elaborate ever created (see it on the biggest screen you can, for maximum impact). The characters and dialogue are all cardboard, but its impossible to care much while this thrill ride is going. 

8. STORIES WE TELL

Most people have questions about themselves; where they came from, their roots, what their parents were like before they were born. Canadian director - and sometime actor - Sarah Polley's probing of these fundamentals provides the foundation of this documentary, but her personal investigation soon takes a number of turns as family secrets are unexpectedly brought to light. Utilising interviews with her extended family and friends, and carefully selected re-enactments, Polley creates a family portrait remarkable for its depth and candour, and distinguished by the range of emotions on display. Joy, pain, sorrow and love all have their place in this story and the film maker is most generous in allowing the audience to share these with her. The director's father, Michael Polley, has some of the finest cinema moments of the year, as he talks very directly about his late wife, a woman he was married to for decades but never quite figured out. An outstanding, heartfelt movie.

7. BEHIND THE CANDELABRA

Towards the end of his life, famed entertainer Liberace seemed to have it all; money, mansions and a multitude of small dogs. To the public, this was a story of tremendous, flamboyant success. Behind the scenes was a lonely and isolated man, forced to hide his homosexuality - and jumbo sized libido - from public view. Enter Scott Thorson; a likable and directionless teenager who becomes the musician's lover, confidante, chauffeur and (thanks to plastic surgery) lookalike. Their affair rides a roller coaster of manic behaviour, torrid emotions and drug abuse, ending in court accusations and recrimination. For a story with so many scandalous elements, and so much capacity for overblown melodrama, it's remarkable that Behind the Candelabra also works so well as a simple love story. The connection between star and acolyte is believably established and their early times together are sweetly, gently depicted, which gives their downhill slide the weight of tragedy. Michael Douglas and Matt Damon give stunning, uninhibited performances and the production design and depiction of 70's Vegas showbiz is spot on. A remarkable, funny-sad movie.

6. THE DOUBLE

Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg) is a nebbish trapped in a low grade nightmare; he has a dull job, a cramped apartment and a crush on a pretty girl who ignores him. He's unhappy, frustrated and trapped. And then he meets... James Simon (Eisenberg again), a visual doppelganger with a dramatically different personality. The two become friends, but Simon quickly realises that behind his double's breezy exterior some very dark things are at work. Up and coming director Richard Ayoade's (Submarine) second feature is an assured comic puzzle box. The drab, grey and brown production design radiates just the right tone of mild urban hell, the perfect backdrop for the escalating events onscreen, and the director deftly chooses his moments to ratchet up the tension. Surprises abound and you're never quite sure where the narrative will head off to next. Eisenberg clearly has a ball playing twin parts, and the impressive supporting cast features neat turns from Mia Wasikowska, Noah Taylor and Wallace Shawn. A darkly funny, highly original treat.

5. SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

Pat (Bradley Cooper) has hit rock bottom; his wife has left him, he's lost his job and he's been confined to a psychiatric hospital after assaulting his wife's new lover. On release, he's forced to move back in with his parents - a colourful pair with problems of their own -while he tries to sift through the wreckage of his life. Distraction comes in the form of Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), another train wreck barely functioning after the sudden death of her husband. This manic, acerbic twosome slowly - very slowly - bond over joint  participation in an amateur dance contest, while driving everyone around them slightly nuts. Romantic comedies are one of the foundation genres of cinema yet good ones have become increasingly rare, which adds another layer to the pleasure of this fresh, funny, deeply romantic film. No punches are pulled in the depiction of the main character's mental health problems, which raises the stakes considerably as they edge towards each other. Brad Cooper is simply a revelation as the well meaning, manic, Pat, but he is surrounded on all sides by a fine ensemble (Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Jackie Weaver and Chris Tucker all shine) and director David O. Russell maintains the right tone and tempo from start to finish. One of the feel good movie experiences of the year.

4. A HIJACKING

Heading for home after an extended stretch at sea, the crew of a Norwegian cargo ship have their tedious routine shattered when they are hijacked by Somali pirates. Escalating events on the ship are compounded by the drama at corporate headquarters, where a controlling CEO (Soren Malling) takes personal charge of negotiations and quickly finds himself out of his depth. This taut, tightly directed thriller starts slowly and then cranks up the tension in the second half, particularly when focusing on the plight of the ship's easy going cook Mikkel (a superb Johan Phillip Asbaek). The film achieves a level of realism that is completely absorbing and gives a gripping depiction of different personality types cracking under pressure. Violence is only used sparingly, but powerfully, and is shown as simply one tool available to the tormentor. An utterly harrowing movie experience.

3. A TOUCH OF SIN

China is the world's most populous country and its economic miracle child; three decades of modernisation has transformed a rural, isolated backwater into a global powerhouse. But these rapid changes have not come without cost. A Touch of Sin shows life in contemporary China through four loosely linked stories, each depicting a central character struggling to cope with the unbearable pressures of their daily lives. Each day is a fight, a sprint, a wrestle, where nothing comes easy and everything hangs by a thread. In such a harsh, unforgiving environment the violence the characters resort to (taken from real life events) seems entirely understandable and eventually becomes just another element of the background noise of a hyperactive society. The importance of the individual is depicted as entirely secondary to that of the state, leaving the characters in a moral vacuum where they make their own survival rules. A powerful, thought provoking film, full of remarkable performances and indelible imagery, and one that manages to work just as well on a conceptual level as it does on a narrative one. Sure to be dissected for some time yet.

2. UPSTREAM COLOUR

The Thief is a criminal who may have conceived the perfect crime. The Sampler is an outcast who observes the natural world around him. Kris and Jeff are victims caught between the two; robbed and psychologically damaged by the first, rescued but somehow trapped by the second. To reveal much more is almost certainly inappropriate... if not outright impossible, given the complexities of the plot. Independent American director Shane Carruth returns with his second feature, nine years after cult favourite Primer also proved difficult to summarise concisely. His new movie simply overflows with ideas, examining (among other things); relationships, patterns of behaviour, the essence of intelligence and man's impact on the natural world. As a kind of bonus, it also works as a tender love story, as two wounded souls connect and start to heal each other. A bold, at times outlandish, film that is in equal parts disturbing, funny, tender and tragic, but is never less than fascinating. A shot of intellectual adrenaline.

1. FRANCES HA 

Frances lives, loves and laughs in New York, at least when she can afford it. A professional dancer a few years out of college, but a few years short of professional traction, she lives very much in the moment, one haphazard misadventure leading to the next. 

Over the course of a few busy months she breaks up with a long term BF, moves house, loses and regains her bestie, doubts her career, moves house, visits Paris, works at her old college, dances in the street, moves many more times and smokes a lot of cigarettes. Usually short of a buck, and always needing new digs, Frances rides the bumps of her existence with remarkable equanimity. 

She does get knocked down, but never for long. And her determination to carve her own path ultimately pays off, and gets her moving toward where she wants to be.

This warm, beautifully observed light comedy is centred around Greta Gerwig - in career best form - as the title character; funny, bold, quick witted and generous, as well as awkward, difficult, impulsive and petulant. 

In other words, utterly human, and so removed from the caricatures that often populate movie comedies. While the central performance is a delight, this is only one among many. The supporting players, cinematography, sets, dialogue and music (a particular treat for fans of Modern Love) are all first rate. The sum of all these parts is a movie that is laugh out loud funny and touching, moving and gregarious, something with a universal message. 

I may never have lived in New York, nor been a dancer, nor a woman but I felt like I could relate to much of what Frances experiences, which makes her eventual progress so much more rewarding. 

Although you don’t want her to leave when the credits roll. The reveal of the meaning behind the title is probably my favourite movie moment of 2013, but there are so many great moments ('I'm really happy for you', is another) that I want to watch the whole movie again... right now! 

Brilliant stuff.

Also Very Good...

- Drinking Buddies

- Omar 

- Fruitvale Station

- Lincoln

- The Punk Singer

- Inside Llewyn Davis

- Computer Chess

- Blue Ruin

- The Past

- A Field in England

The Worst Films of 2013

This list comes with a few provisos:

a) There were lots of movies that I didn't see this year;

b) I don't know that much about movies really;

c) I don't know that much about anything.

With that in mind then, an otherwise definitive guide to the worst films of the year.

10. THE IMPOSSIBLE

South East Asia is a nice place to visit. And an even nicer place to spend Christmas, at least if you're white, Western and loaded enough to hire your own private plantation replete with army of dark skinned servants. Shame that a big wave had to come and spoil the fun. But, if you've not seen this, you can rest easy knowing that the wealthy white folks get away safely, ensconced in their own private plane while the grubby natives look on disconsolately from behind a barbed wire fence. Sucks to be them! This film was rightly lauded for the special effects that re-created the devastating Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, but unfortunately this only lasts for about 5 minutes. The remainder of the running time is taken up with fatuous melodrama, which is offensive when it isn't mundane. The only thing they didn't show was Naomi Watts stepping on the head of some local nobody, as she sprinted for the getaway plane.

9. WORLD WAR Z

This wasn't the worst zombie movie of the year (see below) but nevertheless, problems remain. Fans of Night of the Living Dead, for example, will be surprised by the lack of scares. And fans of the popular novel this is based on will be surprised by how it’s no longer set in the future and told from multiple points of view. And fans of entertainment will wonder how $200 million could be spent to produce something so devoid of any entertainment value. This film has a few good moments and Brad Pitt tries his best as a hackneyed everyman, but it’s mostly just overblown, silly and dull. Humanity's central defence against zombie takeover – they won’t attack people who are injured – also means that pretty much everyone alive on planet earth today would be safe from them (who hasn't had an injury or two), thusly negating the film’s existence. Which would have saved everyone a bit of time, if nothing else.

8. STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS

JJ’s first Star Trek reboot was a lot of fun; New Spock and New Kirk took to their roles with relish and quickly established some chemistry that seemed set to power the franchise. And the preliminaries on this follow up could hardly have been better; a thunderous trailer and Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain (yay!). This good feeling lasted through the pre-credits sequence – a vigorous run through the jungle on a primitive planet – but began to fade about the time a mysterious set of tubes were entrusted to the Enterprise’s crew. 

‘Tubes?’ 

‘That’s right, tubes Kirk. Tubes!’ 

The tubes contain… bodies? Which were put there because… not too sure. But the bodies themselves had come from a failed experiment of some sort, conducted by someone, somewhere else. The ship’s cute new lady engineer then shimmies down to her undies to try and work out what’s going on, by which time I was looking around the IMAX trying to see if anyone else’s mouth was hanging open. The whole thing wraps up with a bizarre re-telling of the famous ending from Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, only with the principal roles reversed… for some reason. This made squillions and was liked by Trekkies (for the most part) but for me, was the worst tent pole of the year.

7. THIS IS 40

Pity Pete and Debbie; they live in an enormous mansion, have tonnes of disposable income, two cars, four laptops, 8 TV’s, 16 i-Devices, live in the richest country on Earth and have never wanted for anything in their entire lives. Wait… What was that thing at the start? Oh right, the pity thing. Oh, yes, well, it seems that both of them are getting a bit older. And Pete spent $25000 on a neon sign for his business which he should have given to his dad. And one of the employees at Debbie’s hobby homewares shop is hotter than her and makes her feel a bit dowdy. It makes your eyes moist to think of it all, to be sure. While this bloated, mid life crisis comedy is technically well made and has some fun with the supporting characters, there’s something utterly obscene about watching these wealthy, spoilt brats bemoan their lot. Do the makers of this have no idea what’s going on outside the gates of their privileged, fortified compound? History will tell you that they never do, until the mob forces the gate and puts them to the sword.

6. I'M SO EXCITED

AKA, When Great Directors Go Bad. Pedro Almodovar has found late career lustre with a string of rapturously received comedy-dramas (Talk to Her, All About My Mother and Volver chief among them) but his last two movies have died terrible, tawdry deaths. But if 2011’s The Skin I Live In was merely trashy, exploitive junk, this dismal, wannabe provocative comedy set on a doomed airliner ups the ante by adding more adjectives; insipid, boring, unfunny, tired and pretentious among them. What may have seemed fresh and lively when Almodovar was making films in the 70’s and early 80’s has long been gazzumped by a shift in taste: The Farrelly Brothers moved jokes about semen into the mainstream a decade ago and this sad attempt by the director to return to his X rated roots falls resoundingly flat. Embarrassing.

5. WARM BODIES

Something about this lame, unappealing zombie rom-com recalls the South Park episode where AWESOME-O pitches new Adam Sandler movie ideas to Hollywood execs… ‘Adam Sandler is trapped on a desert island and falls in love with a coconut… Adam Sandler inherits a billion dollars but first he has to become a boxer…' So, we've had low budget zombie movies and big budget zombie movies, zombie action films, zombie sci-fi films, zombie comedies, a critically acclaimed zombie TV show and films where the zombie-ization has been caused by space rays and aliens and solar flares and viruses and radio waves until… Well, how about zombies in space? Zombies at Spring Break? Hold the phone I’ve got it, zombie rom-com!! Suffice to say that this film struggles from the opening voice over but then, much like the subject matter, fails to properly die, limping on through 98 more excruciating minutes. Not something John Malkovich will highlight on his CV.

4. THE EAST

I had very much enjoyed 2012’s The Sound of My Voice, about independent journalists trying to debunk a suburban cult leader, so was eager to see this re-team of that film’s writers, director and star (Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling, sharing duties). And their scenario here had potential; a young investigator (Marling) is assigned to infiltrate a secretive enviro-terrorist group and write an expose of their activities. But from the moment the established members of said group show up to breakfast wearing strait jackets and then feed each other without using their hands, this film quickly throws off any claim to credibility it may have had. Even worse, the plot devolves into a malnourished will-she won’t-she scenario, as our heroine tries to decide whether to stick by her dorky new terrorist boyfriend or stay loyal to her boo-hiss evil corporate boss. ‘Isn't there a third option?’ you want to demand on her behalf. Cliched scenarios, dialogue and characters abound, as the film plods slowly to an obvious finale. The biggest disappointment of my movie year.

3. THE PAPERBOY

This movie could serve as some kind of guide to creative casting: Zak Effron as a shy, backwards type; Nicole Kidman as a trashy southern sexpot; John Cusack as… a crazed, red neck, croc hunter!!! Woo hooo! That each of these ideas is sillier than the last (although Effron is pretty good actually) points you clearly in the direction of the mindset of this ludicrous thriller, which starts out in a middling fashion and then quickly heads downhill. As the plot unfolds in a way that is probably meant to be serpentine, but is actually just plain daft, the bizarre sights and sounds pile up like cars on a highway at the start of a Final Destination film; Nicole Kidman urinating on Effron’s leg, Matthew McConaughney revealed as a BDSM freak, baccy chewin’ Cusack coming on a like a tough old bubba while a rubber alligator hangs from a tree behind him. This last was so absurd that it gave me a good laugh, which is probably not the idea when characters lives are meant to be at stake. Still, at least it was a rare moment of levity, on a night otherwise better spent in front of HBO. 

2. THE WOLVERINE

With the plethora of Superhero and Comic Book movies that have filled multiplexes of late, here is a concept that no one had thought of yet; take a well known superhero, remove them from their normal genre and dump them in an entirely different type of movie. So, in this case, we have Wolverine taken out of his usual context battling other mutants and plonked at the heart of a Yakuza/Asian crime saga. As an idea, this feels like the random garbage that comes out of a late Wednesday afternoon spitballing session, and as a movie it works about as well as watching Superman go to the old West or Batman join an interstellar space mission (the latter, admittedly, a pretty awesome idea). That the Yakuza/Asian crime drama Hugh Jackman’s earnest hero finds himself in here is also an overwrought, dreary mess clearly doesn't help. And neither does the feeling that nothing happening on screen really means anything much, beyond the Wolverine Happy meal tie in at Maccas.

1. CARRIE

There are always questions around remakes. Why? Being the main one. With this unbearably mediocre rehash, another would be ‘How do I remove all trace of what I just watched from my brain?’ Lacuna Inc? But perhaps the makers of this version were always on a hiding to nothing. The 1976 Brian DePalma original is a favourite of many, and not just from the horror-cult fanboy community. But everything that makes the original work seems to have been sucked right out of this; it’s neither scary, nor funny, nor populated with crazy-awesome 70’s hair and clothes. And Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek are enormously large shoes to fill, even for the well credentialed replacements that have been brought in. Ultimately, this Carrie just feels amateurish and the pointlessness of its existence is enough to require French terminology to describe it. Carrie is... The worst film I saw this year.