'127 Hours' review:

In theory Danny Boyle might just be the perfect choice of director to make a mainstream film about the graphic, but nevertheless quite boring, story of Aron Ralston - a climber who got trapped in a rocky crevice in an isolated part of Utah in 2003 and only escaped by severing his right arm below the elbow. I say boring because although Ralston had to hack through his own flesh and bone with a blunt knife before he was free, he spent five days prior to that sitting in the dark, talking to his video camera and drinking his own urine. However, in Boyle's hands you know that the story will be punctuated by his trademark blend of hyperactive editing and energetic music, with even the smallest moments - such as taking a sip of water - afforded flashy, hi-octane treatment with bravura use of camera.

This ceaseless, self-consciously hip treatment is exactly what the Academy Award winning director of 'Slumdog Millionaire' has brought to the table in his film '127 Hours', which stars James Franco as Ralston and is co-written with regular partner Simon Beaufoy. It begins with a fast-paced, split screen montage of archive footage showing people in big social groups (on the stock market floor; or at a sporting event) making elaborate use of their arms. Boyle, never one for subtlety, is ramming home the point that we use our arms a lot in communication with others. By going it alone and neglecting his friends and family (he doesn't return their calls or tell them where he is canyoneering) Ralston will loose one of these important social instruments, though ironically he will emerge a better, more socially minded individual as a result. Ralston might spend most of the film trapped in one tight space, but he does at least venture on an emotional journey. As every poster for the film tells us, this a "triumphant true story": something intended to be every bit as "feelgood" and "heartwarming" as 'Slumdog'. It's a motivational tale about survival and how we, like Ralston, can turn great adversity into a positive life-changing experience.



That is the theory anyway. Instead, for me at least, Boyle's heavy-handed and fidgety style of storytelling detracts from the humanity of the piece, as he shifts uneasily from crisp digital landscape photography, to grainy handheld shots, to cameras showing the POV of a hand or the inside of a drinking straw. Sometimes it's lo-fi and gritty and sometimes it feels like an expensive Michael Bay directed music video. It is the same restlessness and tacky excess that characterises the director's entire filmography, though with it's hallucinations and dream sequences, '127 Hours' also features the surreal touches and moments of genuine invention as seen in his best work: 'Shallow Grave' and 'Trainspotting' (and for me 'A Life Less Ordinary'). Yet these flourishes now feel overwrought and verge on self-parody. It also doesn't help that the self-indulgent form and fast-cutting of Boyle's film is consistently set to the most horrible of musical selections.

The cumulative effect of the distracting editing and the over-the-top soundtrack is that the film's most pivotal, climactic and talked about sequence - that of the amputation - is almost funny rather than horrific. I'm quite squeamish and I can't watch so-called "torture porn" films, so I was expecting to have to resist the urge to cover my eyes during the final moments only to be underwhelmed. It's no fault of the special effects and make-up department. The wound looks real (at least to someone like me lacking any frame of reference) but it is badly filmed. Perhaps the moment wasn't supported by the obvious and cheesy writing that preceded it, which had already dented my enthusiasm for the movie by that point. "You're going to be lonely" a former girlfriend flat-out tells the climber in a flashback (no need to think about what you're seeing for yourself). In another scene the same love interest lays a hand on Franco's chest and asks all-too earnestly "how do I get in here? What is the combination?" "If I told you I'd have to kill you" he replies predictably. Through those scenes I was left saying under my breath "go on: lop off the arm already and end this film."



'127 Hours' is at its most watchable and alive when Franco "does a Gollum" and videos himself playing both sides of a question and answer session. James Franco is a good choice to play this role and is rapidly establishing himself as one of the more courageous and interesting male leads around. He just about holds your attention during most of this one-man show with a performance that combines playful humour with despair and anguish. He is also a convincing physical performer as he scales the canyons before he is involuntarily indisposed. It is to the film's detriment that Boyle's busy audio-visual style prevents any moments of sincere and quiet introspection for Franco's character.

It is at least refreshing to see that Franco's Ralston doesn't start off the film with any sort of major personality defect - unless you take ignoring one answer phone message (left as he's preparing to leave the house) as shorthand that he's not nice enough to his dear old mum. He seems a likable if slightly cocky guy, described by two girls he meets before the accident as "fun". And he is fun: showing the lost pair which way to go and taking them to a a beautiful subterranean swimming pool where they all lark about for a bit. He is charismatic and he seems driven by a love of the outdoors rather than a selfish (and self-destructive) desire to be left alone. The character change he undergoes is more the organic and relatable response to a near death experience (to cherish your loved ones and take nothing for granted) than the contrivance of the needs of film structure as explained so well by Brian Cox in 'Adaptation'.



I will say that Ralston's real-life experience is genuinely incredible. No matter what was at stake, I'm not sure I could saw though my arm without anesthetic and with only a crummy little penknife and a makeshift tourniquet at my disposal. It is a testament to the guy that he managed to do that rather than passing out and dying of dehydration alone in that deserted rock face. It was never something I needed to see on film however and Boyle's loud, chaotic telling of it has failed to convince me otherwise. Maybe a smaller, more intimate and disciplined film would have worked better for me, though I can see that many will find Boyle's more excitable approach compliments its thrill-seeking central character.

One small caveat to end this review would be that in a fairly empty screening there were two or three people who applauded as the credits rolled. I also saw that many people were more effected by the amputation scene than I was, covering their eyes and so on. I haven't enjoyed any of Danny Boyle's films of the last ten years either. So if you found 'Slumdog Millionaire' to be as brilliant as many film critics (and indeed the Oscar voters) did, then maybe there is something for you in '127 Hours'. There just wasn't anything in it for me besides a winning central performance and a couple of breathtaking shots of the Utah landscape.

'127 Hours' is out now in the UK and is rated '15' by the BBFC.

Calling all martial arts film fans PLUS Jurassic Park!!!

Back in Venice I saw the exciting new Andrew Lau directed sequel to the 1972 Bruce Lee film 'Fist of Fury' (my favourite Lee feature) 'Legend of the Fist: the Return of Chen Zhen'. Brilliantly, Brighton's Duke of York's Picturehouse is playing the film as late night feature tomorrow (Friday 7th January) at 23.30.

In September my review said (with an uncharacteristic blood lust): "The first ten minutes equals anything in recent memory in terms of adrenaline pumping action. We begin in France during WW1, where a group of Chinese allied to the French are under fire from a German position. Few films tackle The Great War over it’s deadlier sequel and this is probably the most exciting take I’ve seen, as scores of biplanes bomb our heroes and Yen outruns machine guns and scales buildings, gleefully hacking away German soldiers."

Indeed the first 10-15 minutes are outstanding. I recommend Brighton based fans of Bruce Lee movies or martial arts stuff in general check this out tomorrow.



You can buy tickets for tomorrow's showing at Brighton's Duke of York's Picturehouse here.

Also, I have to mention that one of my most cherished films, 'Jurassic Park', is coming to the Duke's on Saturday 15th at 23.30. You can pre-book tickets for that here.



Mr. Toby King and myself have hassled the manager non-stop for a year to get this on the big screen, so please come and pay your respects to "the greatest film of all time".*

*my opinion aged 8.

The Worst of 2010?

After the unbridled positivity of my Top 30 Films of 2010 list it is now time to take a look at the reverse. What were the worst films of 2010?

The likes of 'Inception' and 'Toy Story 3' may not have lived up to my very high expectations, but neither are bad. 'Inception' was the year's most over-hyped, exposition-laden behemoth and 'Toy Story 3' was the film that most disappointed me (being a huge Pixar fan) - but they are both well made films and far from terrible. There were also (by definition) a lot of quite average films over the summer, such as 'Knight and day' and 'The A-Team'. Some were more fun than others but most were nevertheless passable. This list, a "top 10" (if you can call it that), is reserved strictly for the year's most risible wastes of celluloid.

10) Monsters, dir Gareth Edwards, UK

What I said: 'Monsters' is suffocated by constant exposition with people saying things like "so let me get this straight: we have 48 hours to get to the coast" and when we aren't having things we have just seen and heard simplified for us we are forced to spend our time in the company of a couple of morons. Andrew has, he tells us, seen the corpses of the aliens before on several occasions. The creatures are also on the television news or caricatured by informative children's cartoons whenever we see a television. The duo are aware they are heading through the infected zone, as a great many sign posts tell them so. They see the destruction of areas affected by the so-called monsters. Yet when confronted by them they are forever shouting (and I mean shouting) "what the hell is that thing", over and over and over again... The shouting doesn't stop even when their armed guards - who by the way are asked several times "why have you guys got guns?" (gee, I wonder why) - tell them to be quiet during one attack sequence. The pair just can't shut up... When they pass through a destroyed town they ask aloud "all these people's homes. But where are all the people?"




"Argh! So infuriating!" is the expression that best characterises my experience of watching Gareth Edwards' roundly lauded road movie 'Monsters'. The endless stupid questions and the pseudo-mumblecore intensity of its boring lead actors as they meander on an "emotional journey" that feels horribly contrived. We know that they have been profoundly effected by their trudge across alien-infested Mexico because they tell us so, but what they are supposed to have learned is not exactly clear. That humans are the real monsters? Yawn. The film was dubbed "Film of the Month" in the January issue of Sight and Sound, but it seems to me that a great deal of the attention it has received (in the UK press especially) has been owing to its director being British and operating on a very low budget (doing his own computer effects from home). The latter is laudable and exciting, but the film itself is boring, as are the hordes of dullards who cack on enthusiastically: "it's good because it's not about the monsters." Whatever that means.

9) La solitudine dei numeri primi, dir Saverio Costanzo, ITA

What I said: "I found the film extremely uninvolving for most of its 118 minute running length. It was greeted with a chorus of boos when it ended [in competition in Venice], and I may have been tempted to lend my voice to them had I not been lulled into a dazed stupor by that point... La solitudine was boring and its characters irritating. The first few moments of tension are interesting, but they come to nothing and you quickly realise that they never will. And with nothing to keep you involved, this unhappy jaunt through the world of two young depressives, becomes a chore."



I have managed to almost entirely erase having watched this from my mind. Whilst in Venice I saw over 30 films in a two week period and so some of them have become a bit of a blur. What I can remember is that it was beautifully lit, but uninvolving and it seemed to go on forever. I didn't really understand the characters or care for them and I was tempted to walk out (which I never do). There may be something here that I'm missing. After all, Nick James wrote in Sight and Sound magazine that it was "the one Italian film [he] saw with imagination" (I found 'La pecora nera' to be much more imaginative, personally). Likewise, one reader at Obsessed With Film commented on my review that "It was a beautiful, sensible film. Alice and Mattia are intrinsec [sic] characters, not to be tagged by social stereotypes like you do so lightly" and made light of the film's robust running time and slow pace saying that "it takes time and thought to truly say something about anyone." Fair point well made, but it didn't resonate with me at all.

8) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, dir Michael Apted, USA

What I said: "Michael Apted has stepped in for the third film [in the 'Narnia' series] and made something much blander. He isn't aided by the fact that a lot of this story takes place at sea and not amidst sweeping vistas, but even when action does take place on terra firma, many of the locations are much more obviously the result of CGI than in the other two films. The result is that even though the set pieces are on a grander scale - with a dragon battling a huge sea serpent around an elaborate galleon on a tempestuous sea at the film's finale - they actually feel smaller and less tangible... The film's pacing is also amiss, as the characters are each presented with moral trials which are overcome far too quickly and easily, the film just jumping from event to event without conveying any feeling of significance or genuine peril along the way... Narnia, as a concept and as a literary world, isn't a place I want to take my imagination... [But] even if you are one of the 468,916 people that "like" God on Facebook (correct at the time of writing) and worship the Narnia stories, 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' is a tedious telling of this story."



The tedious dogma of the Christ-lion saga reached its nadir in 2010 with 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'. Uninvolving and with ropey visual effects, it has exactly nothing to recommend it other than the fact that it's not one of the following seven films. I don't like this series of films, but even so 'Prince Caspian' was much better in every way.

7) Robin Hood, dir Ridley Scott, USA/UK

What I said: "[Russell] Crowe has less charisma than a hellish lovechild of Gerard Butler and Shia LaBeouf. He grunts and mumbles his way through the film, never really raising a smile, flattening any line which might be humorous as he marauds the English country side looking like a huge, bearded potato on horseback. Flynn might not have played a Hood mired in psychological concerns (“who was my father!?” etc etc), but he was watchable and charming, bringing the character to life in your imagination. Children could (and did) aspire to be Flynn’s Robin Hood, swinging on chandeliers and besting his enemies with his wit as well as his arrows. I can not conceivably imagine anybody growing up wanting to mumble there way through Sherwood Forest as Russell Crowe... Ok, so maybe that’s the point here: this Robin Hood is not for kids. It’s an adult version, with a tough, wilful Maid Marian played by Cate Blanchett (far from the courtly and mannered presence of, say, Olivia de Havilland) and a rugged “manly” hero in Crowe. Yes, I can see that Crowe is more convincingly a man who could have fought in the Crusades than Flynn or Costner or Elwes ever were. But is that an excuse for boring me with his mumbling presence? To paraphrase Benjmin Franklin: those who would give up essential entertainment to purchase a little temporary realism, deserve neither entertainment or realism."



Ridley Scott's 'Robin Hood' was a cynical attempt to do for Mr."of Locksley" what Christopher Nolan did for Batman. It's a re-boot and, with it ending at the point where Hood becomes the vigilante woodsman of folklore, a tentpole for a series of these "gritty" and "realistic" movies. However, the differences between 'Batman Begins' and 'Robin Hood' are many. For one thing Russell Crowe is here at his mumbling worst and Scott is at his most flashy cheesiest (with lots of silly slow-motion action). It's the heart-rending story of a bunch of affable lords angry with the high taxation they are being levied (the world's biggest evil). Hood is their champion rather than that of the poor in this telling of the story. It's also full of allusions to the American Dream and the American Constitution, despite its setting in medieval England. Boring, self-important nonsense.

6) The Ghost, dir Roman Polanski, FRA/GER/UK

What I said: "Perhaps ‘The Ghost’ will age quite well as audiences grow more distant from the recent political past. Then the Blair references will seem more obscure and may add colour to the picture in giving it an interesting historical context. But as a film for this political moment (the upcoming 2010 UK election) the film’s cynicism about politics and its practitioners is at best unhelpful and at worst irresponsible. Many will say that artists have no responsibility other than to their own creative whims and they would probably be correct. But I still find ‘The Ghost’ a little distasteful all the same."



My distaste for Roman Polanski's "political" thriller - fancied by many as a possible nomination for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards - operates on many levels. Firstly and perhaps most importantly, I didn't find it thrilling or involving and I found the performances to be woeful (with the possible exception of Olivia Williams). It is slickly made, but totally conventional and not the sort of film you'd associate with one of the world's most highly rated auteurs. My other (more passionate) objection is ideological and possibly hypocritical (given my love of disputed biopic, 'The Social Network'). I hated the way it perpetuated received wisdom about former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, working as an elaborate, thinly veiled, character assassination. Pierce Brosnan played a sleazy, sinister Blair analogue who (last minute plot twist aside) is a puppet of the American government. I am not much of a fan of Blair, but this all seemed in bad taste to me. I am all for a serious film tackling the Blair years, but the use of the popular perception of the man within a fiction framework seemed at best cowardly as a way of making criticism. Worse still, in an election year it felt like a propaganda film seeking to discredit the Labour Party in general. I don't mind polemical films - in fact I quite like them - but making this attack with innuendo and half-baked conspiracy theories really bothered me. Especially as all dialogue relating to politics was so simplistic and unnatural.

5) Alice in Wonderland, dir Tim Burton, USA

What I said: "None of Carroll’s trademark wit and wordplay is evident in Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, which is an especially great shame, as that is clearly the highlight of the original stories. It seems that when Burton starts re-imaging older properties, such as Wonka, ‘Planet of the Apes’ and this ‘Alice’ film, he invariably diminishes them. I very much hope his next film is smaller in scale and harkens back to his earlier days, when he seemed like a relevant (possibly even great) filmmaker. For now we can only sit back and mourn his artistic decline, whilst he and Disney laugh all the way to the bank."



The above video demonstrates everything you need to know. Tellingly it features two CGI enhanced Matt Lucases (Lucasai?) and they aren't the worst thing on screen. It was a moment (like the mid-battle wedding in 'Pirates 3') that literally made my jaw drop as it followed my thinking "this film can't get any worse can it?". Oh yes it could and it did, with Johnny Depp's embarrassing Mad Hatter celebration dance. Congratulations Johnny Depp and Tim Burton: you are now totally rubbish. One of the most interesting American directors of the early 90s and one of the best actors of his generation have well and truly hit an all-time low. First 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and now this? Jesus wept.

4) The Millenium Trilogy, dir Niels Arden Oplev ('Dragon Tattoo')/Daniel Alfredson ('Played With Fire' and 'Hornet's Nest', SWE

What I said: On 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest': "Lisbeth Salander has been through some truly horrible events: beaten up by gangs of armed men; repeatedly raped by her legal guardian; and incarcerated in a mental institution at the age of twelve as the result of a shady government conspiracy. Yet she is still a manifestly unlikeable creation. She is a charmless psychopath and when she is forced to defend herself against charges that she is mentally unstable it is hard not to feel like her despicable, paedophile assailants at least have a bit of a point - although their reasons for making it are obviously not on the level. Again, like [Uma] Thurman's Bride character [from 'Kill Bill'], Lisbeth is hellbent on bloody, callous revenge in a film which thinks old testament "eye for an eye" justice is for wishy-washy Guardian readers. It is true that the film always totally convinces you that these balding, sinister Vince Cable-alikes deserve every bit of what Lisbeth gives them, but therein is the reason I hate these films so much."



I am so glad to see the back of this whole wretched, hateful trilogy - if only for a year before David Fincher's own adaptation of Stieg Larsson's bestselling books is realised. They are black-hearted, right-wing, vengence fantasies of the worst kind, with horrible acts of sexual violence inflicted upon the central character so as to make us even angrier with the film's villains for whom anything goes. But aside from that, these three films are blandly made by a Swedish television unit and look like gritty ITV detective serials rather than films. Noomi Rapace is good as Lisbeth Salander, but that isn't enough to stop the whole enterprise from feeling so horid.

3) Miral, dir Julian Schnabel, ISR/FRA

What I said: "It’s hard to argue with in terms of politics and sentiment: Israelis and Palestinians should live side-by-side peacefully and atrocities have been committed by both sides (though the film, perhaps reasonably, shows rather more perpetrated by the Israelis). But the thing is, Miral is just so contrived, so false, so cravenly seeking out approval, that it lacks impact and says nothing that isn’t either obvious or trite. The fact that the majority of the cast are speaking (at least what sounds like) their second language, only makes things worse. It is a far cry from the Wire-esque likes of 'Ajami', with a complete lack of authenticity. The sets look cheap, the make-up used to age actors – as the film spans the decades – is wholly unconvincing and the non-Arabic actors speak with hammy accents, reducing their parts to caricature."



I never want to see this again. Ever. It is well-meaning in its sympathetic depiction of the life of Palestinian people living in Israel, but it is far too simplistic and manipulative an account. The dialogue often feels as though it has been written for an educational programme for schools rather than for a feature film, as characters tell each other very basic things that they should probably be expected to know already. The acting is hammy and the film looks cheap. Schnabel's last film, 2007's 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly', saw him nominated for a Best Director Academy Award. He can be certain of no such honour this year.

2) Sex & the City 2, dir Michael Patrick King, USA

What I said: "Carrie is a relationship columnist of international renown and acts as a sort of female version of the James Bond wish fulfilment fantasy. At one point she walks into a “wardrobe” bigger than most people’s bedrooms (and full of expensive designer clothes) and I distinctly heard two disparate ladies in the audience say “cool!” ‘Sex & the City’ is to women what ‘XXX’, ‘Fast and Furious’ and Danny Dyer movies are to men, in that they are not really for women at all: just for stupid people. If Samantha is deluded and slightly nauseating, then Carrie is just downright hateful. She makes her husband go out with her to a party, ditches him for her friends and then drags him home when she sees that he is starting to have fun (talking to Penelope “why am I here?” Cruz). For their anniversary her husband buys them both a flat screen television for the bedroom (getting a derisive chuckle from the ladies in the audience) but his intentions are decent and even romantic: he wants to lie with her and watch “old black and white films” in bed. She is indignant and, in the manner of an ungrateful child, says “a piece of jewellery would have been nice”. What a horrible person (but then Bond isn’t much better as a role model for male behaviour). Carrie and her friends feel like the subjects of an MTV reality show."



If you've seen the above clip you'll know that "culturally insensitive" isn't really an adequate description of 'Sex & the City 2'. Neither is "bad taste". But that is not why it's so high up this list. It's on this list because it promotes a hateful set of stereotypes about relationships, both sexual and Platonic. The "girls" are materialistic and bitchy to the extreme and the film itself is tacky and garish. The only reason it isn't number one is because there are times when I wondered whether or not the whole thing was intended as a satire of itself. I'm fairly sure it isn't and that we are supposed to love these characters and their antics, but the thought kept me entertained regardless. There is little left to say about 'Sex & the City 2' that isn't said by the above clip or my earlier review, so I'll leave it at that.

1) The Expendables, dir Sylvester Stallone, USA

What I said: “Take it off!” bellow Sylvester Stallone and Mickey Rourke, pleading with Jason Statham to remove his shirt. Earlier, in the same scene, Rourke tells a topless Stallone he has a body of steel. “Why don’t we both just stop jerking off?” Bruce Willis suggests to Stallone a few scenes later before testosterone levels reach their peak as Arnold Schwarzenegger enters the room and begins eyeing up his one-time rival. They trade flirtatious manly banter for a few minutes before Willis takes exception, saying “you guys aren’t going to start sucking each other’s dicks are you?” Welcome to The Expendables, a faintly homoerotic ode to all things macho and a poignant elegy to the 80’s action picture: a time when a man was measured by the size of his biceps and where… well, as Rourke asks one girlfriend, “what’s your name again sweetheart?”



The delicate blend of homoerotic knob-gags, manly punching and heart-rending pathos seen in the above clip typifies 'The Expendables'. It is the male version of 'Sex & the City 2' as it plays to the very worst, basest elements of humanity and to the grossest of cultural, racial and gender stereotypes. My original review earned me a lot of angry comments earlier this year (being called a "human cancer" is still my favourite) which lead me to write an article explaining the tone of my review for those bereft of a sense of humour. But whether or not it's right to insult a film's potential audience as I did in my review, 'The Expendables' remains a film for hardened dunces everywhere.

Dishonorable mentions go to the following films: 'The Way Back', 'Round Ireland With a Fridge', 'Showtime'. 'Clash of the Titans' (which was guest reviewed by David Bierton) and 'Le Concert'.

'On Tour' review:

There are no less than two movies about burlesque entertainers doing the rounds in UK cinemas at the time of writing. The more heavily promoted and starrier of the two is 'Burlesque' which features Cher and Christina Aguilera in what looks like a brassy and tongue-in-cheek hybrid of Bob Fosse with 'Moulin Rouge' via 'Coyote Ugly'. The other is the self-consciously high-brow 'On Tour' (or 'Tournée') which snared its director and star Mathieu Amalric the best director prize at the most recent Cannes Film Festival. It is unquestionably the more authentic film, with its cast comprised of a real-life troupe of American burlesque performers who play themselves and perform to real audiences as they tour the coast of France with their fictional manager (a former French TV producer played by Amalric).

The scenes of performance are the film's strongest. There is an energy behind them and the women stage routines of real wit, the highlights being a routine which sees a dancer pantomime with a disembodied hand and another which sees a lady inflate and then climb inside a huge balloon. Whereas 'Burlesque' looks to define the form as "pop songs performed in lingerie" (up market stripping for the "Dirty" generation), the burlesque of 'On Tour' is every bit as knowingly parodic and grotesque as it ought to be. And whilst Aguilera and Cher are more traditional examples of female beauty (the latter arguably now defined by her eternal quest for physical perfection), the ladies of 'On Tour' are proper burlesque performers: brazen, unapologetic and unconventional as they confidently work against the idea of what the mainstream considers femininity.



The women tell a journalist that they are practitioners of the "New Burlesque" with the dances choreographed by the women themselves and not tailored specifically to titillate men. It is telling that Amalric has the most typically attractive woman picked out to do a television show despite the fact that she is regarded by the rest of the troupe as the least spectacular (or even competent) performer. The real burlesque, he is telling us, isn't shown in the mainstream media. It's curvier, racier and more vivacious than all that. The ladies are highly likable too. Especially Mimi Le Meaux (real name Miranda Colclasure) who seems vulnerable and a little sad beneath her vibrant and confident stage persona. When Amalric's producer has her remove her false eyelashes and make-up, all light and colour seems to leave her entirely.

Colclasure is the heart of the film and the most interesting character. It is a shame then that the film centres on Amalric's character and not the world of burlesque for most of its running time. Amalric is a really interesting actor and a charismatic presence, but the energy of the live performances, and the high spirited fun that characterises every scene involving the performers off-stage, gives way to a more introspective and melancholic atmosphere whenever we follow his character, as he attempts to reconcile with his two young sons. There is little to fault these scenes, which rival anything in 'The Father of My Children' in terms of pathos, other than the fact that you feel they are getting in the way of the fun and slightly tacky film you wanted to watch.



It is ultimately the tale of an isolated tour manager: a person who is surrounded by sex and drinking and laughter but is not involved in any of it. He constantly, somewhat desperately, insists that he is closest to these girls and that they are his real family, though this sentiment is not really convincingly reciprocated by the women themselves who seem to resent him entirely, bemoaning their poorly run tour which does not even include a gig in Paris.

Like 'Up in the Air', 'On Tour' is a film about a man on the road running away from making meaningful connections, and if approached on those terms it is successful and even insightful filmmaking. When the film ends, with a solitary Amalric miming an energetic howl to a soaring rock and roll number, there is no question that it is ironic. The problem with 'On Tour' is that Amalric intermittently opens a window onto something more fascinating and exciting than all that, yet never long enough for us to get a proper look, making it feel like a missed opportunity.

'On Tour' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is out now on a limited release.

Felicity is back for January's Flick's Flicks

I had a great time hosting the last six months of Flick's Flicks, the online film preview show for Picturehouse cinemas. However the show's rightful (and superior) host Felicity "Flick" Ventom is back in the hot seat for this first episode of the new year. Here are the films to look out for in January 2011 (well, almost... 'True Grit' has been put back until February).

Welcome back Flick! And kudos to James Marcus Tucker for the show's classy new look.

'The Way Back' review:

'The Way Back', director Peter Weir's first feature since 2003's naval epic 'Master and Commander', is inspired by disputed memoir The Long Walk which recounts the dangerous journey of a Polish man who escaped from a Siberian gulag in 1940 and walked all the way to India, across the Gobi Desert and over the Himalayas. Weir dedicates the film to three unknown men who are supposed to have survived the ordeal, but says that his film - which he co-wrote - is fictionalised. In Weir's version Jim Sturgess stars as Janusz a young Polish inmate imprisoned by the Soviets after being labelled an anti-communist agent thanks to the testimony of his tortured wife. Once in the bleak and perilously cold surroundings of Northern Siberia he is pressed into harsh manual labour alongside undesirables from all over Eastern Europe as well as an enigmatic American known only as "Mr. Smith" (played by Ed Harris).

Realising that he and his fellow inmates won't survive long working in such conditions, Janusz decides to escape during a blizzard, taking with him a number of his friends along with Smith and one of the prison's most violent criminals Valka (Colin Farrell). Not long into the journey the men encounter Irena, a Polish orphan girl who is herself on the run and who is played by the rising star of 'Atonement' and 'The Lovely Bones' Saoirse Ronan. Amidst the walking we hear the sad tales of how each of these people came to end up in this situation. After the films pre-credits dedication to three survivors, you are immediately aware that many of the party will die in the course of the 4,000 mile walk, most likely as victims of the extremes of temperature and lack of provisions. The central question is "who will make it?"



Weir's ponderous, boring trudge of a film has the misfortune of coming out whilst two far superior works with similar subject matter linger in my recent memory. In Venice I saw Wang Bing's 'The Ditch' which depicted the bleak existence of ideological prisoners held in a work camp in Maoist China. Like much of 'The Way Back', 'The Ditch' is also set in the Gobi Desert but it feels far more real in its depiction of human beings rather than broad national caricatures (there is little to separate Farrell's Russian accent and broken English from that of a certain car insurance hawking meerkat) and with the reality of starvation and the desolation of the landscape much more visceral.

'The Way Back' is by contrast a sanitised account in which starving, thirsty people who have walked for several weeks in horrible cold and extreme heat show very little physical evidence of their ordeal beside chapped lips and dirty clothes. When people drop dead it is only foreshadowed by their character suddenly wearing a pained expression and talking in a softer voice. Furthermore, 'The Ditch' - though uneventful and slow moving - creates a much more coherent sense of the passing of time than Weir's film where we only learn how much time has passed from scene to scene when we are told ("it's been two weeks"). This has the effect of making what should be an epic journey feel at times like it has taken no time at all (paradoxically over an interminable two hour-plus running length).



The other film with which it compares unfavourably is Andrzej Wajda's 2007 film about the Katyn massacre, 'Katyn'. That harrowing Polish drama showed the brutal reality of what lay in store for young Polish servicemen captured by the Soviets during the Second World War. Again, it is a less clean, more emotional picture than anything painted in 'The Way Back'. French film critic Michel Ciment once asked Stanley Kubrick why he didn't consider 'Schindler's List' a great film about the Nazi holocaust, and the director is supposed to have replied that the holocaust was about ten million people being killed whilst Spielberg's film was about a small number of people being saved. That sums up 'The Way Back'.

It is the gulag/Soviet purges equivalent of 'Schindler's List' in that it is ultimately an uplifting human story of survival and not a questioning or difficult film about the complicated, sometimes frightening, reality of the human condition. Again here, the bad things we are all capable of are dismissed as the work of cruel, even evil, individuals - the human experience told with all the moral complexity of a Saturday morning cartoon. Of course, both 'Schindler's List' and 'The Way Back' are based on "true" events, but it is telling which true events filmmakers are drawn to tell stories about and how they choose to tell them.



'The Way Back' is blandly made and generic fare, with cliché-ridden dialogue and insincere performances worthy of an ITV melodrama. People say all the things you'd expect them to say in such a story and little else, spouting hackneyed phrases like "go on without me" and "what are you going to do when you're free?" There are slow-zooming shots on weeping actors as the film strains for poignancy amidst the hammy accents and romanticised vistas. Mark Strong turns up on Janusz's first day at the camp and gives him the obligatory guided tour. Peel back the pretense of real dialogue and what he tells Janusz boils down to him informing us: "don't trust Colin Farell" and "Ed Harris is a wilfully enigmatic American". The reality of life at the camp is peculiar too, as Janusz and Smith are assigned to work in "the mines" where they do very little but sit around chatting, without the guards seeming at all put out.

'The Way Back', with its simplistic grasp of history, politics and the human condition, is just another uplifting story about the overused buzzwords of "hope" and "freedom" that again fill in for anything genuinely profound or inspirational in the telling of the story or in the filmmaking itself.

'The Way Back' is out in cinemas across the UK now and is rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Catfish' review:

Chances are if you asked somebody if they'd seen "the film about Facebook" they'd probably think you were referring to David Fincher's 'The Social Network', a film about the site's founder Mark Zuckerberg and the litigation surrounding the origins of his now omnipresent creation. Yet for Fincher's thriller that is perhaps a misleading moniker, with the film actually more of a Shakespearean tragedy about power and betrayal. Really the film about Facebook itself is the documentary 'Catfish', directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman.

'Catfish' follows photographer and brother of one of the film's co-directors, Yaniv "Nev" Schulman, as he receives a painting of one of his photographs done by a talented eight year-old girl named Abby. Nev befriends Abby's mother Angela on Facebook and soon "friends" the entire family on the social networking site. He is particularly taken with Abby's older sister Megan, a model, dancer, photographer and musician, and begins an intimate long-distance relationship with her. However, when Megan sends Nev some of her music he becomes suspicious of the whole family after finding that the clips had been taken off YouTube. Then the documentary turns from taking an innocent look at Nev's relationship with this multi-talented family to trying to uncover the truth behind who these people are.



The reason I suggest 'Catfish' is about Facebook (at least in part) is that, as immediately evident from the Universal logo at the start redone in the style of Google Earth, the film is overtly interested in the mechanics of how we interact online and why. It looks at social isolation and depression as one of the causes of using the web as a tool for escapist fantasy. It looks at the pitfalls of considering the internet as a place to meet people and make real, lasting connections. Also, it showcases the relative ease and sophistication with which people can now fashion convincing, fully realised fiction about themselves - something which 'Catfish' manages to take to its creepy (though not unexpected) conclusion.

The film is not only actually about the phenomenon of social networking and online dating, but it is also interestingly told using the websites themselves. We witness Facebook correspondence, are introduced to people via their "tagged" Facebook photos, whilst Google Earth and Street View are used extensively to establish locations. As the investigation into the truth behind Megan and her family gathers steam, we watch the filmmakers using search engines to research the family, at one point surfing real estate websites in the family's area to verify elements of their story. As much as this is Nev's story, it is also the story of what the internet has become in our lifetime: with the original novelty value of online shopping and news now just a matter-of-fact part of our existence (do-able even on most mobile phones) the internet is morphing into something more voyeuristic and even Orwellian.



Part of the joy of 'Catfish' is the uncertainty surrounding the "truth", so I won't write too much more about it here. Except to say that it is a highly compelling, dramatic and at times sinister film with as many laughs as awkward moments. Some have questioned its authenticity as a documentary, though I was pretty convinced by it. But even if it emerges that it was faked to some degree, I think there is still truth in it as a story that is probably playing out around the world (even if not to this extreme). In the end the film felt a bit like a Louis Theroux film about strange people. Though whereas Theroux is a little insincere and smirky with his subjects, the filmmakers here are actually refreshingly sensitive to the situation as the quest comes to a head. Whatever confrontations occur in the end are reasonable and handled sympathetically. This is where the film is at its best, as it packs a surprisingly emotional punch and tells an ultimately quite tragic story when it could have simply mined the situation for laughs and freakdom.

I never thought 'The Social Network' was the "film about Facebook" its detractors (or quite often those who didn't take time to watch it) tried to paint it as. But now that a film about Facebook is here, and is also very good, that line of argument seems all the more redundant.

'Catfish' has been rated '12A' by the BBFC and can be found playing in select cinemas across the UK. The film is also due out on DVD from January 10th.