'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' review:

After years spent playing campy villains in Luc Besson movies and focus-stealing support characters in blockbusters, the great Gary Oldman stars in one of this year's most interesting and entertaining films: the 70s set Cold War thriller 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'. Here the animated and charismatic actor is cast as an older man, giving a restrained and nuanced performance as retired British senior intelligence officer George Smiley - a man charged with investigating his former colleagues to find a Soviet mole at the top of "the circus" (the film's name for MI6). An impressive ensemble cast also includes John Hurt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, Kathy Burke, Ciarán Hinds, Toby Jones as well as recent Academy Award winner Colin Firth.

Based on a best-selling novel by John le Carré, which was also subject to a fondly remembered 1979 BBC TV series staring Alec Guinness as Smiley, this adaptation has been helmed by the Swedish Tomas Alfredson, feted director of 2008 horror hit 'Let the Right One In'. Both films share Dutch cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and along with him an austere, cold colour palette as well as the director's uncanny eye for period detail. On the way to uncovering the enemy informant, Smiley is shown sucking on Trebor mints and dining at a decidedly retro branch of Wimpy. But aside from being charming reminders of a time and place, these banal, slightly drab references also highlight one of this film's primary delights.



This is not a glossy, establishment picture of Britain we're being sold. It's a world very alien from that James Bond inhabits, as our spies juggle with mundane concerns and petty office politics as well as the very real risk of death at the hands of enemy agents. It's a film where our heroes spend most of the movie secretly investigating their friends and, in effect, battling their own government whilst (ironically) trying to catch out one charged with doing the same. Seldom have the words "we're not so very different you and I" seemed less like hollow cliche as they do here, as Smiley - not an idealist or ardent anti-communist by any standard - ponders on the moral equivalence of it all.

As with 'Let the Right One In', 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' has brief, brutal moments of bloody, visceral violence, but it's more concerned with characters and mood than it is about revelling in the pleasures of its given genre. Spy thrillers tend to place plot above all else, but this one is less about the Cold War, and the search for the traitor within the ranks of the circus, as it is about personal feelings of betrayal and isolation. Homosexuals forced to love in secret, shambolic marriages and private regrets are the real focus of this contemplative and moody slice of espionage intrigue.

'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' is out in the UK from Friday (16th September)and is rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Post Mortem' review:

Chilean director Pablo Larrain's latest movie, 'Post Mortem', gets a limited UK release from today. This year's Venice Film Festival might be drawing to a close but this is one of those I saw last September on the Lido and reviewed it then for Obsessed with Film (now What Culture). I also sort of reviewed his first film 'Tony Manero' after seeing on TV last year. I highly recommend them both.

Report on New Epson Projectors from IFA

As I mentioned on Tuesday, I spent the tail end of last week in Berlin for the annual IFA technology show at the invitation of Epson. The famed printer company were keen to show off their new range of home cinema projectors and I've written up a report on the very same for What Culture.

I'm not really a technology journalist so I'm not sure if what I've written is of any use/interest to anybody, but hopefully some of you out there are interested in how you watch movies as well as the movies themselves. Having said that, I'd certainly be up for going to IFA again next year because there was a lot of interesting stuff to see even for someone with relatively little interest in consumer electronics.

Sony showed off their Playstation TV, which is a pretty ingenious entry level 3D LCD that enables gamers to play multiplayer games against mates on the same telly with each retaining the full screen. Basically (and I find this difficult to explain) 3D TVs send out two signals, usually broadcasting slightly different versions of the same image. Sony's TV uses the same principle, but sends two completely different images out (one for each players game screen), in effect: player one is playing on the left eye channel and player two on the right eye, with glasses configured to only see one image or the other. It's an amazing idea that I found really exciting, not least because it opens up the possibility for sharing the TV for other activities (e.g. one person playing a game and the other watching a movie).

On the gaming front, I also got to go hands-on with Sony's new handheld - and successor to the PSP - Playstation Vita. I'd not been at all interested before having a go on 'Uncharted: Golden Abyss' (see below) which blew me away. Almost PS3 quality graphics and gameplay which, for a fan of the series, makes this console a must-buy.

If They Made 'Star Wars' Today...

As you've probably heard, all six 'Star Wars' movies are headed for Blu-ray this month, with the sort of controversial changes and additions that have endeared George Lucas to so many millions are the world (see above video). And to cash in on that resurgence of interest in the saga, I've just posted an odd fantasy article at What Culture in which I re-cast the first movie with today's actors.

To be fair to Lucas, changing the Yoda in 'Phantom Menace' from a puppet to CGI was not a terrible idea:


And I don't mind the Ewoks having CGI eyes either actually:


The complete saga is released on Blu-ray on Monday (12th) and I'll probably end up re-buying the films for the fifth time. Sigh.

General chatter...

Aside from the previously reviewed 'Kill List' and 'Attenberg', I've not yet seen any of this week's theatrical releases, which include the poorly received 'Apollo 18' and the only slightly less shat-upon remake of 'Fright Night', so in lieu of any new movies to opine upon I just thought I'd post links to what I've published so far this week.

I've had another DVD review in The Daily Telegraph, this time casting my eye upon Denzel Washington's 'The Great Debaters' and yesterday saw me looking over the new Blu-ray release of Sergio Leone's seminal 'Once Upon a Time in the West' for What Culture.

At the moment I'm writing up transcriptions of my interviews with people from last week's IFA technology show in Berlin, and there's a two-month old interview with 'Warrior' actors Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton that needs to be readied soon for that film's release later this month. There are also articles about two of my great childhood loves, 'Star Wars' and 'Jurassic Park', to coincide with the upcoming Blu-ray releases.

Finally, I hosted a Q+A with 'Kill List' director Ben Wheatley and the film's DP Laurie Rose at the Duke of York's Picturehouse on Sunday night. It was a good turnout (just under 200 people) and a lot of them stayed at the end to ask their questions. They were a pleasure to interview and the whole thing was so relaxed (Ben is especially down to Earth and unflappable) that any stage fright I had quickly subsided once it was underway. The director's refusal to explain the film's ending frustrated some audience members, but there was still a lot of interesting stuff. For more of Mr. Wheatley, check out one of the most recent Splendor Cinema Podcasts where the director joined Jon and I to discuss everything from the rubbish marketing for his first movie 'Down Terrace' to our shared disbelief at the cheapness of 'The Planet of the Apes' Blu-ray box set.

'Kill List' review:

Ben Wheatley's superior British horror 'Kill List' came out today and I've a review of it up on What Culture. If you want to hear what the 'Down Terrace' director had to say about the film, check out the recently recorded 64th Splendor Cinema Podcast.

I've just returned home to Brighton after two hype-filled days at one of the world's biggest consumer electronics shows - Berlin's IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin). I was there to look at Epson's freshly unveiled new line of home cinema projectors - which were very impressive indeed - and I'll be writing a full report on those for What Culture in the week. A splendid city, some exciting tech (including Sony's new handheld gaming console Vita and the affordable 3D PlayStation TV) and superior company made for an amazing last couple of days. It almost compensates for not being in Venice this time around!

'The Salt of Life' review:

A follow-up to the delightful Italian 2008 comedy 'Mid-August Lunch', 'The Salt of Life' finds middle-aged Gianni - played by writer-director Gianni Di Gregorio - again struggling to juggle his own life with caring for his demanding 95 year-old mother (Valeria De Franciscis). Di Gregorio again populates his cast with a mix of professionals and non-actors, whilst Gian Enrico Bianchi continues to capture Rome as the eternally sunny and effortlessly charming place of Mediterranean idyll.

But whilst last time Gianni was unmarried, living in a Rome apartment with his mother, this semi-sequel sees the elderly scamp frittering away his inheritance in a gated mansion with hired help, whilst he resides with a wife and a moody teenage daughter, Teresa (played by his real-life daughter of the same name). And rather than revolving around his catering for a group of bickering old ladies, this equally gentle and bittersweet comedy takes a look at mid-life crisis as Gianni ponders his fading relevance in the eyes of the opposite sex and increasing feeling of disconnect from the younger generation - as typified by Teresa's aimless live in boyfriend Michi (Michelangelo Ciminale).



Determined not to become one of the weird old characters he sees discussing football sitting out on the pavement or walking their dog alone in the park, Gianni pursues a number of the beautiful women in his life: among then an affectionate, spirited neighbour; a former flame; and a recently divorced opera singer. Being an Italian film, whether or not Gianni succeeds in having an extra-marital affair with one of these gorgeous, buxom women is not a pressing moral concern (his daughter even jokes about it), instead it forms the basis of a touching and, in the true sense of the word, pathetic portrayal of desperation, mortality and our common need to be desired.

With its star a screenwriter by trade - the scribe of no less than the hard-hitting modern mafia classic 'Gamorrah' - and with his adoption of a loose autobiographical persona, Di Gregorio's movies to date feel something like an Italian version of Larry David's 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'. Which is not to say they revolve around the comedy of social awkwardness and pedantry, but that on show is a low-key, mundane sort of humour with Gianni very much the butt of life's joke. Yet for all it's poignancy it shares with its predecessor a breezy and joyful spirit that can't help but put a smile on your face.


'The Salt of Life' is on limited release in the UK and is rated '12A' by the BBFC.