The Iron Man

This is a wonderful, albeit short, children's book from celebrated poet Ted Hughes. I have seldom seen such efficient and effective writing in children's fiction, nor anywhere else for that matter, and the way he writes is every bit as fascinating as the unique story itself!

The Iron Man is a massive robot of unknown origins who finds himself roaming the countryside. He feeds on metal and iron, much to the detriment of the local farmers - who find their tractors and barbed wire fencing destroyed or gone in the wake of the Giant. They resolve to trap the being in a large pit and to cover it over with dirt. When this fails they listen to the local boy who first spotted the giant, who suggests they try to befriend it and make some kind of deal with it.

But the Earth is a wicked place. Our fighting and warring has become so clamourous that it brings terrible trouble to us in the form of a massive space dragon. This is a being so large that it covers all of Australia and it seeks to subject the Earth to a horror unmatched. The Iron Man might be the Earth's only hope of salvation.

This is pretty much most of the book. Like I said, it's short. It runs for about sixty pages or so and runs in a linear and slightly episodic fashion. No dialogue is featured until the last chapter, the book's climax, where the book gains most of it's meaning and the frightening urgency of the situation becomes all too apparent.

The Iron Man is a timeless tale and a memorable parable on war, peace and technology. The farmers' first reaction to the Iron Man is to destroy him but little do they know that his help will be sorely needed. Unfortunately, the world remains - mostly - a wicked and inhospitable place and the messages here are just as clear now as they ever were. And, sadly, they seem just as fanciful and unattainable. A wonderful story for everyone, to read to children and to be enjoyed by adults alike.

The Battle of San Pietro

John Huston made this war documentary whilst on assignment in Italy during WWII, and it has since become immortalised as an influential milestone in documentary filmmaking. Covering a brutal engagement between American and German soldiers, The Battle of San Pietro made waves for being a little too honest for war propaganda. Huston broke free of the usual constraints of wartime coverage by pushing the bar for realism higher, getting his camera in amongst the actual troops and daring to show war for what it was. For anyone with a passing interest in WWII this is an invaluable resource - an actual account of a battle made as it happened.

At 30 or so minutes I expected there to be a stronger narrative but this is mostly just pure footage narrated by Huston. The soldiers aren't heard, their story is entirely organic - they're just filmed doing what they do and it's all put together in a moderately linear fashion to show the course of the battle. I can't even imagine how frightening it would've been for people to see this documentary in the 1940s... this level of realism wasn't really seen again in fictional or documentary films until the 1970s with the Vietnam War, and The Battle of San Pietro wasn't really shown to the public at the time due to the army's disapproval of this. As a result, it was initially only used for training purposes by the United States Army, although this wasn't the audience Huston had intended for his film.

Huston's account is so brutally honest in its depiction of the cost of warfare that some parts are still hard to watch now. There are some rather harsh images of fatality, such as the image of troops marching across the ruined battlefield while the head of a dead soldier lies limp in the foreground. Huston was accused by some of deliberately making an anti-war film, but all he did was film the reality of war. It actually ends with the emergence of happy and relieved San Pietro village children, so despite being labelled as anti-war propaganda it's actually kind of an affirmation of America's place in the European theatre of war as a force for liberation.

DIRECTOR: John Huston
NARRATOR: John Huston

RELATED TEXTS:

- John Huston also made the war documentaries Winning Your Wings and Report From the Aleutians.
- For a fictional Huston film about WWII, see Heaven Knows Mr. Allison.
- Other American WWII documentaries made by famous directors: The Battle of Midway (John Ford), Why We Fight (Frank Capra), Sex Hygiene (John Ford), Torpedo Squadron (John Ford), December 7th (John Ford), You John Jones! (Mervyn LeRoy), Memphis Belle (William Wyler), Tunisian Victory (Frank Capra), Death Mills (Billy Wilder), The Fleet That Came to Stay (Budd Boetticher), Here is Germany (Frank Capra), The Last Bomb (Frank Lloyd), Know Your Enemy (Frank Capra), The Town (Josef von Sternberg), The True Glory (Carol Reed), Two Down and One to Go (Frank Capra) and Your Job in Germany (Frank Capra).

The 2012 Oscars

BEST FILM
Millions of people around the world are probably now scratching their heads over an 'old' movie winning Best Film. Hopefully a small fraction of these people actually go out and see The Artist now, it's a wonderful movie and it's nice to see something so positive and winsome get a bit of recognition for once. I think most of the other nominees were worthy of mention, it would still be quite easy to boil the list down to just five films, but I think that's not really the way it should work (as the whole process is basically about boiling it down to just one film anyway).

The Artist (full review)
A glorious return to the early days of cinema, this was a predictable case of the frontrunner winning, but a year ago I doubt anyone could predict that a silent black and white film would be on everyone's lips as the Best Film winner of 2012. As you might've guessed from above, I support this win wholeheartedly and I hope it inspires people to get outside of their comfort zone and really enjoy something a bit different for once. The Artist's nostalgia and inventiveness both justifies and earns the Best Film tag, I love that this movie beat out the usual Oscar-baiting types of movies that also got nominated.

Hugo (full review)
This was my number one pick as I quite easily liked Hugo the most out of any of the Best Film nominees, but if it was going to get beaten then I'm more than happy for it to be beaten by The Artist. Martin Scorsese continues to show that he's at the top of his game with this movie. I'd argue that this is the best film he's made since Casino, and it couldn't be a more different film so maybe he should experiment with other genres and demographics a bit more. More family adventure films Marty!

Midnight in Paris (full review)
I haven't been keeping up with Woody Allen's career so I can't really comment on this in the context of his last few films. What I can say is that it's an urbane and witty piece of filmmaking that's as uncompromising and artistically valid as Terence Malick's The Tree of Life. Allen is fiercely courageous in bringing his own brand of intellectualism to the screen... it isn't a film that will appeal to everyone but I have to applaud him for just making the films he wants to make and doing it with such verve and passion. I enjoyed it a lot.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (full review)
Probably the most controversial of the nominees, and not for the right reason either. In the past a film about a tragedy like 9/11 would've been seen as brave and envelope-pushing, but now it's very much the done thing when it comes to Oscar season and so Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close feels like far too easy and obvious a choice for Oscar recognition. The film isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, but I won't be the one to defend its many flaws either. It's just a shame because it's based on such a fantastic novel and the chance for this novel to reach a wider audience has now been squandered. Perhaps it was the casting of Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock that pushed so many people away from this film. What I find unforgiveable is simply the fact that this got nominated and Drive didn't.

The Descendants (full review)
I like this movie but it didn't seem 'big' enough to warrant all the attention. I guess this was the token indie nomination for 2012, there always seems to be at least one of these. It's an enjoyable flick but no one could justify a Best Film win for it. The best thing about its loss here is that writer-director Alexander Payne will keep striving for greatness, and I'd love to see him keep making superior quality indie films with that hunger behind them.

The Tree of Life (full review)
I think this was the most unexpected nomination of the lot. Malick has invented a unique film language all of his own, and I can imagine many Academy voters getting stuck halfway through this just because they didn't get it. It's more a work of art than a film so it's probably hard to justify any serious contention, but I'm still glad it got nominated nonetheless. This film is deep, and I don't mean that in an ironic or facetious way. It's the closest we'll probably ever get to seeing a film made by God.

Moneyball (full review)
Sports movie! I really enjoyed Moneyball but again, it just didn't feel like a serious Oscar contender to me. It's a great and hearty true story that combines the entertainment factor of sports with some worthy messages about the failure of sportsmanship in America. I can definitely get behind a film like that, but when you watch this next to something like Hugo or The Artist it's pretty clear that it just isn't up to scratch.

War Horse (full review)
Some people groaned at the nomination of Spielberg's War Horse but these are clearly also the same people who would (unfairly) not give this movie the time of day. This is a film for fans of epic old-school filmmakers like David Lean, John Ford and King Vidor. It's a bold and unashamedly sentimental look at a devastating piece of history, and I challenge the sceptics out there to watch it and not be impressed by how effortlessly Spielberg can tell a complicated story like this in such a visually simple way.

The Help (full review)
I'll back this movie as well. Sure, it's Oscar-bait, but everything about it is so perfectly pitched that it's hard to argue with its success. This film is like Forrest Gump without the mental retardation or embarrassing right wing agenda, and how can you not like that? Much like War Horse, I'd award points to this film because it dares to be a little old fashioned in an era of sceptics and hipsters.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
This one was pretty much a dead certainty, my only fear was that Max Von Sydow could split the 'old man' vote somehow. I was backing Plummer and was glad to see him get it. I loved his acceptance speech, it was so witty and relaxed and pleasant. What a class act.

Christopher Plummer (Beginners)
Plummer is part of a disappearing generation of great older actors, and he didn't get nominated for the first time until 2009's The Last Station. A Best Supporting Actor nomination was probably the best he could hope for, so it's great to see him get some real recognition with this win, and it's great that it was actually for a performance that deserved it. His depiction of an elderly gay man who comes out of the closet in his last few years of life is very endearing, and Plummer makes it sing without being over the top.

Kenneth Brannagh (My Week With Marilyn)
I found it interesting to hear that Brannagh wasn't even the first choice for the role of Laurence Olivier in this film, it was originally meant to be Ralph Fiennes. I could see Fiennes doing it, but for Brannagh there's that shared history of both Olivier and Brannagh being the kings of screen-Shakespeare in their respective eras. Brannagh is uncanny as Olivier, and I'd love to see him win an Oscar for something one day, he's a great actor and director and I think he's underrated in both fields. Just compare his acting in things like Harry Potter to his Shakespearean work, and then he goes and proves himself a more than adept mimic as the great Olivier as well (and he doesn't do it a sentimental way either).

Max Von Sydow (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)
Look, I like Max Von Sydow, the guy is a living legend, and yeah he usually doesn't get roles with much substance to them these days (usually he gets cast in the role of sinister old man) so it's nice to see him in the important but all-mute role of 'The Renter'. It's a slightly quirky role and he's emotive enough without overdoing it, but (having read the book) I just think the character's depth wasn't achieved. It's a hard character to put on the screen, and whilst Von Sydow does the best possible job with the script he's given, it isn't Oscar worthy.

Jonah Hill (Moneyball)
Definitely not! You can't nominate a comedian just for not being funny. I still can't believe Hill got nominated for this, all he did was not act like an arsehole. That's nomination worthy? It just feels like the Academy is (as usual) desperately trying to prove it's still hip by putting someone younger in there next to Nolte, Von Sydow and Plummer. I generally like Jonah Hill, but this nomination should've been Albert Brooks for Drive.

Nick Nolte (Warrior)
I love that Nolte got a nomination for this, he was a standout in Warrior and his performance showed a certain depth of experience that's hard to fake. There was real restraint in his combination of unexpected vulnerability and toughness, I loved it, it was a great characterisation and Nolte has long been an undervalued character actor. He's always had an unusual but strong screen presence, and hopefully he'll get more chances to show this now.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
We all knew that Spencer had the Oscar, this one was in the bag, and I guess I can't really fault it too much. Second hottest favourite was probably Bejo for The Artist, but if I had to choose from the nominees I would've chosen Melissa McCarthy... her performance will live on beyond the Oscars in a way that none of the others will.

Octavia Spencer (The Help)
Everyone loves a sassy black lady, and when you team it up with a sympathetic political agenda it's pretty much unbeatable. The author of the novel The Help actually created the role with Spencer in mind, so half her work was already done for her. It's a character designed to evoke inspiration and empathy, and Spencer did it with enough strength for it not to seem manipulative, and I don't really think you can overvalue how effortlessly she does it.

Berenice Bejo (The Artist)
Bejo is charming in this film but I guess charm alone doesn't do the trick when you're up against Octavia Spencer and the potent message of American civil rights that Spencer's character represents. Bejo is fun in The Artist but she isn't really the 'supporting' actress in the film, she's the leading lady to Dujardin's leading man, so it feels odd that she's in this category in the first place. That aside, I can take or leave her work in this film, she's great and all but it just didn't grab me.

Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs)
I really don't agree with McTeer's nomination. I guess she got it for the double-combo of gender-bending and adopting an Irish brogue, but I was just never convinced by any of it. She's meant to be a woman living the life of a man in 19th century Dublin, but to me she looked more like K. D. Lang.

Jessica Chaistain (The Help)
Chaistain virtually came out of nowhere in 2011 with both this role and her work in The Tree of Life, and the two performances couldn't be more different from one another. Her character in The Help is a buoyant and flighty creature unsuited to life in the deep south of 1960s America, ostracised by the women in her community and uncomprehending when it comes to their ingrained racism. It's a great character and Chaistain does the character justice, but as it's her first nomination she was probably just considered lucky to even get nominated.

Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)
I love that McCarthy got nominated for this, and I really wanted her to win it but I knew it would never happen so I just had to be happy with the fact that she got nominated. Great comedy work doesn't always get the recognition it deserves at the Oscars, and I'd like to think that McCarthy's nomination for Bridesmaids is in the spirit of Kevin Kline's Oscar-winning work in A Fish Called Wanda. McCarthy really threw herself into her Bridesmaids role with such enthusiasm and a truly impressive lack of dignity, she stole the whole movie as far as I'm concerned.


BEST ACTOR
Dujardin was the favourite but I'm still a little surprised that he won. I never underestimate America's love for their own, so I was afraid Clooney or Pitt might take it because they've been waiting a little while. Dujardin deserved it though and the power of his acting defied 'the rules', so it's great to see him rewarded for an iconic performance. I guess those other eager Hollywood veterans will have to keep chasing the dream.

Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
Physicality was pretty much all that Dujardin had to work with in The Artist, and he doesn't so much as work with it but lets it do all the driving. He embodies three archetypes of the silent era - the dashing action man, the physical master of comedy, and the swooning matinee idol. For anyone else this would be positively schizophrenic and fragmentary, but he marries these personas together so joyfully that every second he's on screen is an absolute pleasure.

George Clooney (The Descendants)
Apparently it's a big deal that Clooney played a 'regular' guy in this film, but when the most interesting thing you have going for you is the fact that you're not wearing a suit, well, it doesn't exactly say much, does it? Clooney has a magnetic screen presence, so if he's in a well-written role like this he's still pretty much untouchable, but I'm not ever going to believe in a Best Actor win for him unless he breaks the mould a bit more and gets outside of his comfort zone.

Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
Everyone loves Gary Oldman and his ability to disappear into a wide range of quirky roles, so it's amazing that this is his first actual nomination. I guess it was always going to take something special yet underplayed to finally get him noticed, and that's what this role is. George Smiley is one of the great modern literary characters, it's a role that requires subtlety, and Oldman does stillness just as oddly watachable as he does animated. He was never going to win this award (especially when put next to an A-lister like Brad Pitt) but at least now he's on the scoreboard.

Brad Pitt (Moneyball)
I just don't get this nomination. It's starting to feel like Pitt is now getting Oscar nods just for hanging around long enough and accumulating enough fans. I've always felt that Pitt is best when put into smaller character parts (Twelve Monkeys, Snatch, Burn After Reading) that allow him to be a little bit more colourful. When he's given a lead role he always seems to fall short of achieving any actual emotional depth, and Moneyball is no exception. He's too distant in the role. And for some reason he was always eating.

Demian Bichir (A Better Life)
I love these Oscar curveballs where they nominate some nobody from a small independent film, but who are they really kidding? Bichir's prize is just to be nominated, I reckon he would've had the least votes out of any of the nominees simply because he doesn't have any history behind him and his film was too small in scope. But having said that, his performance feels so authentic that I'd happily rank him as one of the top three nominees in this category. It took me a while to realise he was the crooked politician out of the TV show Weeds, which just goes to show that the right role can give any truly talented actor the opportunity to really shine.


BEST ACTRESS
This was the one I was least sure about. I couldn't make my mind up about whether it would be Viola Davis or Meryl Streep (though I was personally backing Michelle Williams). Seeing Streep get it felt good, the last time an actor broke that two-award barrier was Jack Nicholson's Best Actor win in 1997 for As Good As It Gets, and Streep is easily as good as him if not better. While her peers (De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman) flounder and struggle to recapture their former glories, Streep is still at the top of her game after nearly five decades, making her the greatest actor of her generation.

Viola Davis (The Help)
I don't really get this. Davis is a good actress, but she felt like a bit like a supporting actress in this film. It's a good role and she's good, but yeah, I don't see it as an Oscar frontrunner and for me it's probably the weakest of the five nominees. Hopefully it at least means she'll keep getting good roles.

Meryl Streep (Iron Lady)
The Streepster is a machine. She's unrecognisable as Thatcher, and that's not just down to the extraordinary make-up job (including the false teeth and nose). She comes across as the real deal - voice, mannerisms, body language - it's all completely new for her. She must be pushing 60 now and she's still able to diversify in ways that no other actress (or actor) can touch. Sorry if I'm gushing a bit, but she's a living legend and part of the reason she isn't deified like De Niro or Brando is simply because she's a woman, and that's not cool at all.

Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs)
I think Close did an amazing job in this role. It was a dream project that she spent nearly three decades trying to get onto the screen so she must be a little bummed out that she didn't get the big gong. I think the issue with this role is that the film wasn't accessible enough (period drama based on play = niche audience) and that Close's character didn't have any big moments or a satisfying story arc.

Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)
Williams was fantastic as Marilyn Monroe. I was sceptical because she didn't really look the part to me, and Monroe is such a huge icon that it's a big ask for anyone to do her justice. Despite all that, Williams managed to physically embody the iconic aspects of Monroe's public persona whilst also delving into the personal world of a fragile and tortured artist, and that's a pretty big achievement. This is Williams' third Oscar nomination and I'm thinking she'll at least have a few more before she's done.

Rooney Mara (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo)
To be honest, Mara was not on my radar at all prior to this nomination. I can't say I've noticed her in anything before, so I went into The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo without any preconceptions. She does a good job but I'm not convinced that this was all her, I think a lot of it was just down to Lisbeth Salander being such an original and interesting character. I'll reserve judgment until I see her in a few more things.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The highly-stylised and fetishistic opening credits sequences (accompanied by an amped up version of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song) makes it feel like a female James Bond film, but David Fincher's English-language adaptation of the bestselling Swedish crime novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo shoots for more of a film noir feel. I haven't read the books or seen the original film, so I went into this cold, and therefore I can't really comment on how it compares to the other versions. What I will say straight up though is that Fincher's return to crime territory didn't really do much for me, but I will concede that this could be partially due to flaws in the source material.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo starts out as a character piece about two unlikely heroes, the disgraced journalist Michael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and a punk-chic security specialist named Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). Through different circumstances they both become involved with a hidden history of unsolved murders in Sweden, and eventually they join forces in the hope of linking these murders together and finding a previously undetected serial killer. It's a fairly pulpish idea; a forty year old missing person's case unfolds into something a lot more sinister, but I guess the selling point is via the character of Lisbeth (the 'girl' of the title), an enigmatic and emotionally damaged heroine for a new era in crime fiction.

The pairing of Blomkvist and Salander is an interesting take on the odd-couple dynamic you find in these sort of films, and whilst Daniel Craig seems to enjoy playing a bit of a wuss I think he needs to push himself into more diverse roles and get away from thriller/action territory altogether. His complete lack of a Swedish accent sticks out amongst everyone else's better efforts. Also, I have certain reservations about the character of Blomkvist. Knowing that the book's author (Stieg Larrson) was a controversial journalist, I couldn't help but think that Blomkvist is a bit of a mary sue. I mean; older journo helps save the soul of a hip youngster (who he also gets bonked by over and over again)... come on, really? That's the hero of your story? Fantasise much?

Depictions of anti-authoritarian subcultures (IE. Punks, hessians, straight-edgers) are always going to be problematic in mainstream texts, so I went into this with a certain hesitance in regards to the character of Lisbeth. It's all well and good for a million middle-aged pro-establishment readers to see this character as 'fresh' and 'different', but I'm always wary of that element of patronisation when it comes to using counter-cultures as fodder for fiction. So there's that question of whether Lisbeth is a true representation of a subculture, or if she's more a case of damaged goods aping a certain look, or if she's both. It seems most likely that she's both of these things, but it does place certain negative connotations on the subcultures the writer has traded on. I know this is a small and negligible aspect for most viewers (for a lot it will be a complete non-point), but it rankles me a little that this is the only kind of serious exposure most people will have to this kind of character. Don't get me wrong, she's a cool character (and Mara keeps it as subtle as she can), but I find it all a little weird.

So I'm giving this film a bit of a thumbs down... for a long time I was scratching my head over why there were two protagonists and I just kept waiting for the two storylines to link up. I know this story is essentially setting up a trilogy, but it just takes too long to get going into the actual guts of the plot. It should've been a bit more stand-alone. The story itself isn't anything super special either, it's just a murder mystery with ominous 'important' music. If you're a David Fincher fanboy (or fangirl) you'll probably still love this movie. It's dark and a bit twisted, and there are at least two rather graphic scenes that most will find shocking (I can't believe my 82 year old nan read this book and liked it!), but overall I just thought it wasn't anything great.

DIRECTOR: David Fincher
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Steven Zaillian, based on the novel by Stieg Larrson.
KEY ACTORS: Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, Robin Wright, Steven Berkoff, Geraldine James, Joely Richardson, Goran Visnjic, Alan Dale

RELATED TEXTS
- The novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larrson. He followed it with two other novels before his untimely death, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Overall the series is known as The Millenium Trilogy.
- All three novels have been adapted into Swedish language films starring Noomi Rapace: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.
- Other David Fincher crime films: Se7en, Panic Room and Zodiac.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Film Editing. Nominated for Best Actress (Rooney Mara), Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.
BAFTAS - nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Original Music.
Golden Globes - nominated for Best Actress (Mara) and Best Original Score.

War Horse

It feels like ages since Steven Spielberg has made his 'own' film. The only other films he's directed since Munich (which was 7 years ago) were Indiana Jones and Tintin, so it's good to see him sinking his teeth into something a bit more substantial. War Horse marks the first time the director has focused on WW1 (previously he had done WWII in at least four films) and it has a real 'old world' feel to it, calling to mind the classic work of iconic directors like David Lean and John Ford. The old fashioned style of epic filmmaking that he evokes could be construed as cheesiness by some, and initially it seems to have a lighter touch than one might expect, but the characters and the hero of the film (an actual horse) pulls the viewer into this historical period and landscape. Spielberg works through some rather heavy themes with all the skill, delicacy and expertise that has made his previous body of work so uniformly successful and entertaining. This is very much the family-friendly version of Saving Private Ryan.

In case you didn't guess from the marketing materials (and the name of the film), War Horse is about a horse. Much like the classic western Winchester '73 and its eponymous gun, War Horse follows this horse as it passes from owner to owner throughout the duration of the First World War. In the opening scenes a good-natured but alcoholic farmer (Peter Mullan) drastically overpays for this horse (named Joey) in a fit of whimsy, much to the glee of the local landowner who hopes to repossess his farm. But the value of this animal is more than monetary, he will end up being priceless as he travels from soldier to British officer, to the Germans and to the French, and a determined farmboy (Jeremy Irvine) enlists in the war just to try and find Joey so he can keep him safe.

I have to admire Spielberg for daring to tackle such an old-fashioned concept. Very few people these days are prepared to invest themselves in a film that doesn't have a narrative engineered around human characters. The horse in this film isn't really anthropomorphised too much, but if you can't handle the idea of people talking to horses as if they're people then you're probably going to have a hard time taking this movie seriously. It is a serious movie though... WWI was the last war for horses, and as such it wasn't a war where they really belonged, a conceit that allows Spielberg to explore ideas relating to old 'honourable' warfare in contrast to newer forms of warfare. Did horses ever belong in human-made wars? The tragedy of WWI really hits home when you consider the cost of life felt by these animals, and War Horse explores this alongside all the other classic parts of WWI mythology - the idea of horses on a modern battlefield, the unexpected ceasefires, the classism that prompted officers to fire on their own men, and ideas relating to honour amongst enemies.

There's something about the modern masters (Spielberg, Scorsese) in that they're always able to show everything clearly and memorably. The action is never messed up by unneccessarily flashy editing, everything is blocked and choreographed in relation to how the viewer can perceive what's happening. Character takes precedence and this follows through into the action in terms of the perspectives used. I mentioned earlier that Spielberg pays homage to David Lean in the way he directs this film, and this can be seen especially well in the shot where Rose Narracott (Emily Watson) is shown knitting at the end of a scene and it dissolves perfectly into the image of Albert and Joey toiling on the field. It reminded me of that classic dissolve in Lawrence of Arabia that introduces Omar Sharif.

This is a really solid film that stands alongside Spielberg's canon of classics. There are a few scenes where I was very much like 'not cool!' because I have a hard time handling cruelty to animals in any form (even when it's fictional). This made it a little hard to watch at times, but I guess this is also why Spielberg didn't make the film too dark or revisionist. I watched the whole thing with a lump in my throat, it was very moving and spirit-rousing.

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg

WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis. Based on a book by Michael Morpurgo.
KEY ACTORS: Jeremy Irvine, Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Eddie Marsan, Toby Kebbell, Niels Arestrup

RELATED TEXTS
- The 1982 children's novel War Horse by Michael Morpurgo.
- Spielberg's other war films: Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Empire of the Sun and 1941.
- Some other big WWI films: All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, A Very Long Engagement, Gallipoli, Grand Illusion and Sergeant York.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Film, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.
BAFTAs - nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Original Music, Best Special Visual Effects, Best Production Design and Best Sound.
Golden Globes - nominated for Best Film (Drama) and Best Original Score.

Bullhead

I went into this film not knowing anything about it and found something profound and indelible about loyalty, cowardice, friendship and consequences. I can't really talk about this Flemish film any further than that without spoiling certain parts of it so all I'll say is that you should stop reading now if you don't want to know any more and just try to check it out. Otherwise read on.

Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a cattle farmer who gets involved with a dodgy black market beef trader. This trader has been implicated in the murder of a policeman and Jacky's former friend, Diederik (Jeroen Perceval), is working as an undercover informer. Things get a bit complicated and the police start to get interested in Jacky as a major suspect in their investigation. But none of this is really what the film is about. Jacky is a 30 year old man who takes bucketloads of steroids and hormones to reinforce his masculinity due to a disturbing and horrific act of childhood bullying that has left him without testicles. It sounds like a sick joke when you put it on paper, but this is actually a serious film abut a man with no balls, and it pushes the envelope in the way it explores the resulting psyche of such an adult - he's a wounded animal, a danger to others and himself, and the film takes a cautious delight in playing with our ability to empathise with such a protagonist.

When the film gets to that illuminating point where we flash back to Jacky's childhood, the unfairness of these events won't be for the faint of heart. It's a horrible situation because the perpetrator has mental/developmental issues so the blame and responsibility should fall on the shoulders of the parents who let him terrorise Jacky. The film isn't much interested in exploring this idea too much, the parents are criminally connected so there's no justice for Jacky, and nothing is going to bring his balls back either. The farreaching consequences of this include Jacky's inability to form meaningful relationships and some insurmountable problems with aggression (no doubt exacerbated by the crazy amount of steroids he takes). The situation with the beef dealers and the police eventually spirals off in unexpected ways, and Jacky is forced into a relationship with his former childhood friend Diederik.

The more brutal aspects of the film aren't gratuitous but they are confronting. I didn't see the dramatic ending coming either, it's a real punch, but I was glued to the screen from start to finish as this unexpected gem unfolded in a variety of surprising ways. It's raw but restrained, an intriguingly subtle examination of a wounded psyche that will push more than a few buttons. A real class act.

DIRECTOR: Michael R. Roskam
WRITER/SOURCE: Michael R. Roskam
KEY ACTORS: Matthais Schoenaerts, Jereon Perceval, Jeanne Dandoy, Barbara Sarafian, Frank Lammers

RELATED TEXTS:
- Roskam's only previous film works were the short films One Thing to Do and Carlo.
- Bullhead has drawn comparisons with Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, in the way it combines crime with personal turmoil relating to aggression.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Artist

The hot favourite for the 2012 Oscars is undoubtedly The Artist, a heady return to the glory days of silent cinema that should appeal to the romantic in any film fan. There's been some criticism that the film is too lightweight to accrue such acclaim, but the comedy and entertainment elements are entirely a part of the film's fabric. You couldn't make a silent film today without it being populist... only the most hardy of film historians would sit through a more downbeat return to silent filmmaking without complaint, and a great deal of the triumphs of the silent era were films that wore their hearts and senses of humour on their sleeves so openly. You can't pay homage to that without emulating it, and the fact that The Artist is such a riproaring success is because it captures all of that so authentically.

So why make a silent film today? Films started out silent because the technology to match audio to film had yet to be invented. Between the late 1890s and about 1928, the medium of film grew to become something else - both art and entertainment. The lack of sound meant that filmmakers and actors had to work extra hard to tell their stories, giving rise to an unfettered creativity that has forever made film a visual medium. The Artist is a film that looks at these roots in a metatextual way... the story is about fictional actor-director George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a superstar of the silent era who finds his career on the skids when he refuses to adapt to the rise of the talkies (talking cinema). The subject matter is reflected by the fact that The Artist is a silent film... it's a silent film about the end of the silent era, so it's a piece of art that comments on itself. The methods used to tell the story reflect the story itself.

You don't need to be a film historian to appreciate how fun and visually inventive The Artist is, but anyone with a passing knowledge of cinema's earliest days will note that it's rife with the mythology of silent cinema. The film references Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, the Wall Street Crash and the sob stories of the various actors left behind by the talkies. Dujardin is wonderful as George Valentin, able to embody not one but several archetypes of the era - he's an action man like the swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks, a romantic icon like the tragic Rudolph Valentino, and a physical comedy king like Chaplin, Lloyd or Keaton. The rest of the cast is equally perfect in their roles, Berenice Bejo and John Goodman both look their parts and act them out accordingly, with verve and enthusiasm.

There are a few little surprises in this film in regards to inventive sound design but I won't spoil any of them because the fun is entirely in being ambushed by the way The Artist plays it all out. This is a charming, innocent, visually imaginative and evocative film that tells a deceptively simple story in a big way. It's an A+ effort, and in an ideal world we'd see a few more filmmakers experimenting with telling stories in purely visual terms.

DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius
WRITER/SOURCE: Michel Hazanavicius
KEY ACTORS: Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle, Penelope Ann Miller, Malcolm McDowell, Ed Lauter

RELATED TEXTS:
- Hazanavicius and Dujardin previously worked together on the comedy spy-films OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio.
- The other film of 2011 to pay homage to the earliest days of cinema is Hugo.
- Other films about the end of the silent era: Singin' in the Rain and Sunset Boulevard.
- The last silent film to be made was Mel Brooks' Silent Movie, in 1976.
- And if you enjoyed The Artist and want to check out more silent cinema, I'd recommend Sunrise, The Crowd, Broken Blossoms and City Lights.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Film, Best Actor (Jean Dujardin), Best Director, Best Costume Design and Best Original Score. Also nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Berenice Bejo), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Original Screenplay.
AFIs - won Best International Film, Best Internation Director and Best International Actor (Dujardin). Nominated for Best International Screenplay.
BAFTAs - won Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Dujardin), Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Original Music and Best Original Screenplay. Also nominated for Best Actress (Bejo), Best Editing, Best Make Up and Hair, Best Production Design and Best Sound.
Cannes Film Festival - won Best Actor (Dujardin). Nominated for Palme d'Or.
Golden Globes - won Best Film (Comedy/Musical), Best Actor - Comedy/Musical (Dujardin) and Best Original Score. Nominated for Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Bejo) and Best Screenplay.
Independent Spirit Awards - won Best Film, Best Actor (Dujardin), Best Director and Best Cinematography. Nominated for Best Screenplay.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

"We should be fighting communists, not each other"

Any modern attempt to adapt John Le Carre's seminal spy novel comes laden with certain issues. Foremost amongst these is how to make it relevant to contemporary audiences... for most people the all-pervading fear of the commie is a joke of the past, and then there's the fact that any espionage thriller tends to be held up in comparison to whatever James Bond has been doing lately. So Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy could've very easily been a complete washout, but Tomas Alfredson wisely pushes it as far from James Bond territory as possible, and he makes the cold war stuff feel real. In this respect it's barely even a thriller in the way that modern audiences would see the term... instead it's a cerebral throwback to the espionage thrillers of the '70s, a cold war period piece that has more in common with The Ipcress File and The Conversation than it does with The Bourne Identity or Casino Royale. This is a film that requires the viewer to have all their wits about them, and it views the cold war almost as if it were a parallel universe.

George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is a retired spymaster called out of retirement to find the 'rotten apple' at the top of MI6. The film combines multiple timeframes and a Shakespeare play's worth of character actors to wheedle its way into an incredibly dense and complex whoddunit. There are lots of clandestine meetings in locker rooms and cafes, suspicious looks and accusations, and enough intrigue to keep Miss Marple busy for a year. These are the most powerful men that the world has never heard of, many of whom were loosely based on real-life operatives by author John Le Carres, and the way that they talk and deal with each other in a semi-childish manner seems incredibly bizarre at times. And this is in contrast against the taciturn Mr. Smiley, a man who plays his cards so close to the chest that it seems like he isn't playing at all. Smiley's effectiveness is down to his mild manner, he's cornered the market on being underestimated, and so he's pretty much the anti-James Bond in every way - a hero for the thinking man.

There are so many important characters in this complicated film that it threatened to completely overwhelm me a few times. They did the right thing in casting such a good range of recognisable faces, and Oldman is so fantastic as Smiley. He plays against type and gives a really restrained performance, affecting a cultivated oldboy inflection and doing things small. The attention to detail in this performance is magnetic, he draws you in and wraps you up in this great character. In an ideal world he'd win the Oscar for Best Actor, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that at least three of the other 2012 nominees are more likely to get it. Other standouts in the cast are Mark Strong, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy - they all make their characters stand out despite the fact that this isn't a story that dwells too much on performance or characterisation.

Director Tomas Alfredson came to this project after his chilling work with Let the Right One In, and his European sensibility lends the production a certain authenticity (perhaps because Europe is still a few decades behind the UK). There's an interesting subtext about the contrast between 'real' war (percieved as honourable) and the cold war (seen as a sneaky conflict after the A-bomb forced all the world's animosity to go underground). I feel a little unsure about putting my complete stamp of approval on the film, the script and novel are both rather dense and complex, so I don't think that just one viewing was enough for me to fully appreciate everything that was going on. I enjoyed Oldman playing the bespectacled librarian-avenger, but I can't completely say I grasped all the mechanics of the plot or even fully appreciated what Alfredson was doing as a director. It looks great and it feels great, but it's one to watch again methinks.

DIRECTOR: Tomas Alfredson
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan. Based on the novel by John Le Carre.
KEY ACTORS: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciaran Hinds, David Dencik, Simon McBurney, Kathy Burke, Stephen Graham

RELATED TEXTS
- Based on the novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carre. The character George Smiley also featured as the lead in the novels Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, Smiley's People and The Honourable Schoolboy.
- Smiley was also played on the screen to great acclaim by Alec Guinness in the TV films Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People.
- The character has also featured in the TV film A Murder of Quality (played by Denholm Elliott) and under a different name in the '60s film A Deadly Affair (played by James Mason).
- Other film adaptations of John Le Carre novels: The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, The Constant Gardner, The Little Drummer Girl, The Russia House, The Looking Glass War and The Tailor of Panama.
- Tomas Alfredson previously directed Let the Right One In, the success of which led to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. There is also some subject and tonal similarity to the German film The Lives of Others.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Actor (Gary Oldman), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score.
BAFTAs - won Best Adapted Screenplay and Best British Film. Also nominated for Best Actor (Oldman), Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Original Music, Best Production Design and Best Sound.
Venice Film Festival - nominated for Golden Lion.

Midnight in Paris

Owen Wilson plays Gil, the latest in a long line of characters that would have been played by director Woody Allen if he were younger. Allen's creative take on Paris and intellectualism is inventive, witty, and (I know this is a cliche) a return to his glory days as a director. Gil is a writer who worships an ideal that paints Paris as the hub of literary excitement in the 1920s. As he and his rather shallow fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams) gad about the Parisian countryside with a know-it-all wanker named Paul (Michael Sheen), Gil begins to fall in love with Paris itself. It's a romance that will lead him to begin walking the streets one night, where he discovers a way to travel back in time to the 1920s and begins hanging out with personal heroes like Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel.

It's such a nerdy concept, especially in bringing all these surrealists and modernists to the screen, and it's cute that Allen has chosen to do something like this in his old age. The opening shots of Paris are remniscent of the director's earlier classic Manhattan, though instead of black and white he uses a gold and yellow colour palette that calls to mind great painters like Monet and Van Gogh. Usually Allen is best known for his depictions of New York, but here it's another city and another way of life. In Paris he has the historical hub of artistry, and he uses this to examine ideas about the people and eras we idolise. A big part of this is nostalgia and our relationship with it, and the ironies that underlie it. Gil's novel is literally about nostalgia, and his journey to the 1920s (and then later to the 1890s) allows him to explore this in a more concrete fashion.

You won't like this film if you're not able to watch the lives of intellectuals without cringing. Inez and Paul represent all the worst things the intellectual class has to offer. Sheen is almost farcial in his depiction of the boorish Paul (and he does a decent American accent too), and McAdams is suitably condescending as she fawns over him. In this respect, Wilson is perfect as the lead... he's just such a likeable guy when he isn't trying too hard to be funny, and he brings an easygoing quality to a role that could've come across as whiney in that stereotypically Woody Allen way. The humour in this film is rather subdued and will probably vary for each viewer depending on their knowledge of the historical figures involved. Corey Stoll is hilariously confident, straight-talking and tough as Hemmingway, and the sequence where Gil travels even further back to the 1890s humourously demonstrates the subjectivity of 'golden ages'. I liked this film a lot more than I expected it to, it's a fun idea and it will speak to anyone with a passing interest in literature and the attitudes of artists. Some people will see it as being more about Gil and Inez's relationship, but I saw that as very much a small subplot compared to the sheer joy of seeing Owen Wilson as a laidback time-travelling writer.

DIRECTOR: Woody Allen
WRITER/SOURCE: Woody Allen
KEY ACTORS: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cottilard, Michael Sheen, Kathy Bates, Kurt Fuller, Carla Bruni, Mimi Kennedy, Adrien Brody, Tom Hiddleston, Corey Stoll

RELATED TEXTS
- Woody Allen has started making films outside of America fairly recently, partially for funding reasons. The first of these were filmed in the UK - Match Point, Scoop and Cassandra's Dream. He also filmed in Spain, for Vicky Christina Barcelona and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.- - The novel that Hemmingway wrote during his time as part of the 'Lost Generation' was The Sun Also Rises.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald's life story has also featured or semi-featured in the films Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Beloved Infidel and Last Call.

AWARDS

Academy Awards - won Best Original Screenplay. Nominated for Best Film, Best Director and Best Art Direction.
AFIs - nominated for Best International Director, Best International Film and Best International Screenplay
BAFTAs - nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
Golden Globes - won Best Screenplay. Nominated for Best Film (Comedy/Musical), Best Director and Best Actor - Comedy/Musical (Owen Wilson).
Independent Spirit Awards - nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actor (Corey Stoll).

The Ides of March

"You broke the only rule in politics. You want to be president? You can start a war, you can lie, you can cheat, you can bankrupt the country... but you can't fuck the interns. They'll get you for that".

George Clooney directs this sharp and deliberately non-humourous satire on the current state of American politics. It's a continuation of his liberal ideals and his deconstruction of the hypocrisies that hinder America's percieved greatness as previously seen in his directorial project, Good Night and Good Luck. Clooney takes the pivotal supporting role to Ryan Gosling's lead, and with a idea-packed script they explore American politics in more depth than any A-list Hollywood film deserves.

Some people will walk into this film expecting a thriller, or a big sweeping drama ala Traffic or Crash, but I think the film is more akin to The Wire in the way it comes at the issues from all sides but still manages to retain a more personal scope. I've heard some reviewers (such as Harry Knowles) disparage the film as 'another negative take' on American politics, and I guess to some degree that's true. There's not a lot that's new in this film, it is another cynical look at politics, but it does get elevated somewhat by the presence of Gosling and Clooney both bringing their A game, and sadly, this stuff is still incredibly relevant to western politics and America doesn't really deserve to be let off the hook just yet.

Clooney plays Mike Morris, a democratic presidential candidate. He's a liberal and he promises some radical positive changes, but he also has a scandal brewing beneath him. Gosling is the Deputy Campaign Manager who becomes unstuck by his own politicking but manages to find some leverage that might secure his future in politics when his path continues to cross with a young intern (Evan Rachel Wood).

The American political system seems so complicated to me, I'm not going to pretend I understand it all, but I guess if I had to boil this film down to a concept I'd say it was saying that politics is all about how things look rather than how things are, and the forces that influence the movers and shakers behind the scenes. Clooney's role is partially a comment on Obama's presidential platform. Barack Obama was a man who won on the back of people who dared to dream of a bright new future, but he was also man who ultimately won't deliver on his refreshing 'honesty'. On top of this there's also a touch of that other recent political chestnut; Clinton's indiscretion and the way it threatened to overshadow everything he ever did.

Gosling is decent in his lead role as Stephen Meyers (though his better work this year was in Drive and Crazy Stupid Love) and he gets across the hypocrisy of this character without making him seem cartoonishly vile. Stephen is horrified when a rival tricks him into orchestrating his own political decline, but he is then also willing to throw a relatively innocent intern under the bus, and the final scenes between him and Clooney leave a very bad but familiar taste in the mouth as a result. All I'll say about Clooney's performance is that he is very believable as a top-line politician. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti also have important supporting roles, and seeing them in the same film together is mildly satisfying as they jowl off against one another for the character-actor crown of their generation.

The direction is more than accomplished, Clooney occasionally goes in for some stark imagery such as Hoffman and Gosling silhouetted against a giant, vividly-coloured American flag, or the image of himself standing at the end of a bar in the dark. All I can say is that he should do a lot more shots along these lines, they really helped the film come alive in those too few moments. The rest of it is a bit talky and complicated in the way it explores the consequences of a compromising position. Some people will love this film, but I only got so much out of it.

DIRECTOR: George Clooney
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by George Clooney, Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon. Based on a play by Beau Willimon.
KEY ACTORS: Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright, Max Minghella, Jennifer Ehle

RELATED TEXTS:
- The 2008 play Farragut North by Beau Willimon, which was loosely based on the 2004 campaign of Democratic candidate Howard Dean.
- The title is an allusion historical events involving Julius Caesar, for a good viewpoint of this see Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
- Other damning films about the American political system - Wag the Dog, Primary Colours, All the President's Men, All the King's Men, The War Room, Advise and Consent and The Candidate.
- Clooney investigated corruption and political influence as a writer-director with Good Night and Good Luck, and as an actor in Michael Clayton.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
AFIs - won Best International Film and Best International Screenplay. Nominated for Best International Actor (Ryan Gosling).
BAFTAs - nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Philip Seymour Hoffman)
Golden Globes - nominated for Best Film (Drama), Best Director, Best Actor - Drama (Gosling) and Best Screenplay.

The Help

Along with Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud, this film is probably the most self-conscious in its 'Oscar-baitiness' this awards season. A period film about the civil rights movement in America's deep south? The Academy has always loved films like this. There's been some criticism that The Help seeks to alleviate white guilt by having a white heroine as the saviour of racial tension in Jackson, Tennessee. It probably doesn't help that the source material's author, Kathryn Stockett, is about as black as skinny jeans and How I Met Your Mother.

I just want to say straight up that these criticisms are completely unfair and miss the point of the film entirely. I'd like to think that western society hasn't become so cynical that we can't make films about subjects like this, and I think it would be pretty hard to argue that the real stars of this film aren't the African-American actresses Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. As much as Emma Stone's character acts on their behalf, there's no denying the fact that most of the film's tension derives from the dangers experienced by the black characters. More importantly, it's disingenuous to ignore the fact that the civil rights movement could not have happened if it weren't for the combined efforts of people on both sides of the civil rights line. You can't have equality without someone from the power-wielding side acknowledging the imbalance. It's simple logic.

Anyway, rant over. The Help is about the servant class in 1960s Jackson, Tennessee... these are the African-American women who babysit and clean for the town's upper class women. Skeeter (Emma Stone) is an aspiring white writer (representing the era's shift towards gender equality) who wants to collect and publish the stories of these disenfranchised women. She herself was raised by an unfairly treated black woman and this is partially a story about what happens when the children these women raise are all grown up and educated. Representing 'the help' are Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer), two put-upon but strong-willed women who have come to a breaking point in this racially inequal society. Slavery may have been abolished some 80 years earlier, but true freedom is not yet theirs. This is about the prolonged transitional period (nearly 100 years) between slavery and social freedom. This is very much the African-American side of the story.

It's not a groundbreaking film and the themes it deals with should be quite familiar to modern filmgoers, but the story it tells has a real character-depth and quality to it. It feels like a light is being shone onto the inequality of an age. For all our familiarity with this topic via films like Forrest Gump or Mississippi Burning, the soul of the civil rights movement has never really been given centrestage and shown like this. This is how it happened, as it happened. The acting is all heartfelt and perfectly pitched, there's an unsung frankness to Emma Stone's performance that suits the role of a trailblazer, and Davis and Spencer are both magnetic in their pivotal roles. There's a certain satisfaction in taking this journey with them and then seeing Jackson's women confronted with the shame of what they've truly done. This is genuinely good film, ignore the hype and the haters and just enjoy it.

DIRECTOR: Tate Taylor
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Tate Taylor, based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett.
KEY ACTORS: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney, Chris Lowell, Anna Camp, Mike Vogel, Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen

RELATED TEXTS:

- The 2009 novel The Help by Kathryn Stockett.
- Films about African-Americans and the civil rights movement: Mississippi Burning, The Colour Purple, Forrest Gump (partially), Malcolm X, King, To Kill a Mockingbird and Ghosts of Mississippi.
.- Director-writer Tate Taylor (who more usually works as an actor) previously directed and wrote the film Pretty Ugly People.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer). Also nominated for Best Film, Best Acterss (Viola Davis) and Best Supporting Actress (Jessica Chastain).
BAFTAs - won Best Supporting Actress (Spencer). Also nominated for Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress (Davis) and Best Supporting Actress (Chastain).
Golden Globes - won Best Supporting Actress (Spencer). Nominated for Best Film (Drama), Best Actress - Drama (Davis), Best Supporting Actress (Chastain) and Best Song (The Living Proof).

Black Mirror: The National Anthem

Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror threatens to be so searingly relevant that it makes all other television look decidedly un-modern. In the first episode, ironically named The National Anthem, the Prime Minister of the UK must have unprotected sex with a pig on live television in order to save the life of the country's much-loved princess (who has been kidnapped). To give you any more information than that would be a disservice, as part of the episode's strength is in watching it unfold. Every contingency you might imagine is taken into account, the whole thing plays out realistically (and not at all for laughs, despite the rather grotesque premise), and the most shocking thing is - it all takes place in just 45 minutes, managing to cut right to the heart of an issue in a way that other television series are unable to manage in several series' worth of episodes. The level of accuracy is outstanding (even down to individual Youtube comments that can be read in the background of some scenes).

*mild spoilers*

Primarily, I saw The National Anthem as being about the irrelevance of the old media in the information age. A D-notice gets put on the media, yet the internet remains uncontrollable and we see political frustrations play out in response to this. There's an implicit element of satire, in that the mainstream/old-order media (the TV networks) can't even talk about these events in any detail. It's ridiculous, but it's also 100% true of how things work now. When we look at things like Facebook and Twitter you can see that the strictures of TV are so far removed from the internet and social networking that they might as well be different planets. Nothing's secret anymore, the average joe has a platform from which to speak to millions of other people.

I can't talk about it any more than that. All I'll say is... you should definitely seek this out and watch it. It's brilliant, the first true work of art of the 21st century.

Albert Nobbs

"Life without dignity or decency is unbearable"

Glenn Close transforms herself into Peter O'Toole for her dream project, Albert Nobbs. It's a role that Close first played on the stage back in 1982, and she has been trying to adapt it into a film ever since. Now, thirty years later, she finally gets to put this character on the screen but her age does make her look and seem more than a bit like the elderly Mr O'Toole! This is the very definition of a pet project for the actress though, she not only stars in the film but also produced it, co-scripted it and even wrote all the songs. You can see the kernels of staginess in the way that most of the action does take place in static arenas, but there has been a conscious effort to open the story up for the benefit of the film medium (as adaptations of the theatre are almost always wont to do), and I guess the period/costume drama element of the story does lend itself to a BBC-ish feel.

Albert Nobbs (Glenn Close) is an Irish woman who has lived a great deal of her life disguised as a man. The shy and reserved Mr. Nobbs works as a butler in a fairly upmarket hotel during the 1890s, and scrimps and saves every penny in the hope of one day owning a shop. A chance encounter with a painter named Hubert Page (Janet McTeer) throws Nobbs' world into disarray when the two both discover each other's feminine secret. Nobbs is particularly fascinated to hear that Mr. Page has even taken a wife, and decides to begin courting a woman of his own (Mia Wasikowska).

You can see the tragic turns in this story coming from a mile off, but it doesn't play out exactly as I thought it would. There are a few touches of humour in Close's performance as the jittery Mr. Nobbs, though it's hard to tell if this is entirely intentional. I mean, it's a good performance and it certainly has that element of radical transformation that attracts our attention, but I don't know if it's a true "tour-de-force". Nobbs doesn't really get any big cinematic moments, and his story just fizzles out. I will say though that Close is very convincing as a man, a lot more so than McTeer as Mr. Page (who just comes across as a lesbian rather than a man).

I have to admit that I don't really know if there is any historical basis for this story. If there is, the film affords a fascinating insight into a shrouded slice of history. If there's no such basis, then it at least offers some comment on class and gender roles in the late 19th century. This is a world where the rich do whatever they like, whilst the working class have much stricter values - a true sign of how the class system really worked in the UK.

I can't say this film blew me away, but it was certainly different enough to keep me interested. I felt pretty disappointed at the way the plot played out, it just didn't feel very cinematic to me. There was however one great (but odd) scene where Nobbs and Page venture out into the world dressed as women again, and they look like a pair of awkward old 19th century drag queens. I think this says more about the gender politics behind the film than any amount of tragic action or dialogue can... they just look so uncomfortable in these clothes, it isn't them.

DIRECTOR: Rodrigo Garcia
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Glenn Close, John Banville and Gabriella Prekop. Based on a short story by George Moore.
KEY ACTORS: Glenn Close, Janet McTeer, Mia Wasikowska, Pauline Collins, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Mark Williams, Brendan Gleeson, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Aaron Johnson, Brenda Frickr.

RELATED TEXTS
- Celibate Lives, a collection of short stories published by George Moore in 1927, which includes the short story Albert Nobbs.
- The play The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs, on which this film is based.
- Films about gender-bending: Boys Don't Cry, Glen or Glenda, Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, Yentl and Victor Victoria.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Actress (Glenn Close), Best Supporting Actress (Janet McTeer) and Best Makeup.
AFIs - nominated for Best International Actress (Close)
Golden Globes - nominated for Best Actress - Drama (Close), Best Supporting Actress (McTeer) and Best Song (Lay Your Head Down)
Independent Spirit Awards - nominated for Best Supporting Female (McTeer)