I’ll preface this by saying this is the first film I have seen from the controversial Danish film maker Lars von Trier. I’m aware of his work and had an idea what to expect. I’ve got Antichrist queued up to watch but haven’t dared to sit through it yet.

Melancholia tells the story of two sisters and is in two parts. Part 1 focuses on Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and her wedding day. To begin with she seems like any normal newly wed – deliriously happy and truly in love. It isn’t long, however, until we learn that something is not quote right with Justine. She suffers from depression, maybe she’s bi-polar, it isn’t spelt out. As the night progresses the demons inside her take hold and self-destruction begins.

The second half focuses on her sister – Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and her anxiety caused by the impending event.

I should mention at this point that the impending event is the potential end of the world. I’m not giving anything away here as the end of the world takes place in the first 5 minutes of the movie. A completely bizarre opening which features slow-motion images of scenes from throughout the film set to the haunting strings of Wagner, culminating in a planet, which we later learn is called Melancholia, approaching and colliding with Earth.

I can’t say I particularly enjoyed this film. The first half was fairly interesting, albeit flawed. The second half was simply boring. How can the impending end of the world be so boring? The film seemed to just drag on and on and on.

Melancholia is not a mainstream movie. It’s an art piece which was nominated for the Palm d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. It has been nominated for a number of different awards and has received a lot of good reviews from film critics.

When I read reviews of art pieces such as this it makes me wonder whether the 5 star rating is due to the critic generally thinking it is a great movie, or, because they want to be part of the pretentious intelligentsia club and don’t want people to think they don’t understand the underlying meanings of the film.

I got that Melancholia is a film that explores mental illness. I could see that the anxiety that increased within Claire as Melancholia came ever closer to Earth was used as a metaphor for how depression works; the growing feeling of despair that builds up even though you know there’s no logical reason for it. I get all that and I’m sure that people who have suffered with depression will find Melancholia painfully familiar. That doesn’t make it a great film though.

I’m not averse to arty independent films, and I don’t necessarily mind strange films, but even strange films should have their own internal logic. The actions of some of the characters in Melancholia just didn’t seem plausible. For example, the idea that Justin’s boss would set her a work task on her own wedding night, and her mother acting the way she does at her own daughters wedding reception, just didn’t ring true. There are some callous people out there but does anyone seriously know anybody that would behave in that way?

Another aspect of the film that grated was the camera work. Yet another film using the annoying ‘shaky’ hand-held camera technique.

On the positive there is a good supporting cast, including Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt and Stellan Skarsgård. It’s hard to watch Kiefer Sutherland though and not think of Jack Bauer. When Justine’s mother pissed him off at the wedding reception I was half expecting him to do some arse kicking!

Talking about Jack Bauer, a lot of the camera angles used in Melancholia seemed to be copied directly from the later seasons of 24, such as filming conversations as if observed from half-hidden behind a corner. Those type of techniques could work in horror or spy films but it’s really unnecessary for what’s basically a drama.

Also on the positive side is the cinematography. The setting of the film is never mentioned and it’s made hard to discern by the mixed nationality of the characters – there’s no explanation why Justine has got an American accent, whereas her sister and parents are English. It looked to me like the film was shot in Scotland but I now know the exterior shots were largely shot around Tjolöholm Castle in Sweden, and it does look stunning.

This is the second film of 2011 that I’ve watched about another planet approaching Earth, the other being Another Earth, and in both films the other planet is used mainly as a plot device. Neither film is worth a second viewing.

Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is an expert in his trade. We learn throughout the film how good he is and how well regarded he is by his peers. When he goes to the trade shows he doesn’t need to fall for the patter of the sales guys – he makes all his own equipment, perfectly tuned to his needs.

Like many of the great films of the 70’s, The Conversation requires a little patience. It’s a tad slow in the first half but it’s not for nothing. The slow pace helps to give us a sense of who Harry Caul is.

We learn that he’s a surveillance expert now working in New York after an assignment on the West Coast resulted in the death of three people. He likes to see himself as the ultimate professional and tells himself he’s not personally responsible – he was simply hired to do a job. Yet we can clearly see that he’s riddled with guilt, and determined not to get personally affected by any jobs in the future.

He sees himself as the consummate professional. His job is to record the conversations, not to wonder why his clients want the conversations to be recorded in the first place. The less he knows the better – he can’t feel responsible if he has no clue about the potential consequences.

He takes the same principles into this latest job. He’s paid to covertly record a conversation between two people in a public park, no easy job when you consider it’s lunch-time in Manhattan so the park is very busy and the subjects are constantly moving – suspicious that they may be being watched

After successfully making the recordings he needs to deliver a finished product to his client. The initial raw recordings are not much use; the conversation is distorted and comes in and out as the subjects are constantly moving. We see how Harry fine-tunes and mixes separate sources together, filtering out background interference so that the target conversation slowly but surely becomes audible.

This is where Harry’s problems begin. The more he listens to the tapes in a repeated effort to capture the full conversation, the more he becomes absorbed by the substance of the conversation taking place. He can’t help but become concerned when he realises the two people being recorded appear to be in grave danger.

Unfortunately, like many security guys, Harry doesn’t ‘eat his own dog food’. Later in the movie the tapes of the recordings are stolen because he fails to secure his workplace properly. He also allows himself to be tricked by a competitor when his private conversation is recorded using a ball-point pen – a gift from the competitor who is so desperate to go into business with him. These lapses from an otherwise diligent professional ends up putting himself in as much danger as he believes the subjects of his recordings are.

I loved the attention that The Conversation paid to Harry’s tradecraft. As a security professional myself it was wonderful to see that tools and methods that Harry uses. It’s also interesting to see how little has changed. The technology may have moved on but everything else seemed very familiar. For example the trade show that Harry attends seems just like any modern-day security conference, just without the Plasma screens; and with vendors trying to get the attendees on their mailing lists instead of email lists as they do today.

You can’t watch The Conversation now and not think of Enemy of the State
, in which Gene Hackman plays a very similar role. I wonder if Gene Hackman chose the role in Enemy of the State because he loved playing Harry Caul, or the producers of Enemy of the State chose Gene Hackman because he was so great in The Conversation?

The Conversation came out two years after the Watergate scandal and the influence is clear to see; exploring the themes of paranoia, invasion of privacy and its consequences. The Conversation is not an action-paced thriller like Enemy of the State, it’s more mysterious and cerebral.

As the pieces come together, The Conversation culminates with a shocking twist – a twist which I’m glad I didn’t see coming. Even after the film had finished it took a couple of hours for me to fully appreciate all the intricacies of the plot.

I’ve had the second Transformers movie for quite a while but it has been fairly low down on my to-watch list. With the third movie in the franchise now out I thought I’d give it a go to see if it’s as bad as the reviews suggest. It is.

The first Transformers movie was passable, just. But once you’ve seen cars turn into robots the novelty soon wears off. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is basically Transformers 1, just louder and with even more robots hitting each other. Thirty minutes in and I was already forcing myself to stay awake.

When there were actual human beings on screen having a conversation, it wasn’t too bad, but as soon as it switched again to yet another action scene it quickly lost me.

The problem with the big spectacle action set pieces is that they’re 90% CG. Yes, CG has come a long way in the last few years but it’s still not anywhere near realistic. Go back and look at a spectacular action scene shot before CG, such as the train crash near the beginning of The Fugitive. A lot of money way spent on that scene and it really is breathtaking and realistic – because it uses real, tangible objects. CG just doesn’t have the depth. It’s like watching a computer game.

Michael Bay publicly admitted that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was below even his own poor par (his exact words were “When I look back at it, that was crap”). Apparently that was after Shia LaBeouf declared that he “wasn’t impressed with what we did”.

I really don’t know if I can be bothered to watch the next one.

Contagion is about the terrifying prospect of a pandemic deadly disease outbreak, with an impact similar in scale to the 1918 Spanish Flu which killed at least 3% of the global population.

There’s some fine performances from a stellar cast, including Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, and Marion Cotillard.

So with such a great cast, a global setting, and a fascinating subject, why was Contagion so underwhelming?

For me, it was this – for a story portraying a catastrophic global event it felt somewhat under-dramatised (for a change). The outbreaks of rioting and general lawlessness as desperation took hold came a little too late in the timeline. I may be being pessimistic about our fellow mankind, but I’d expect society to start to break down much earlier than it does in Contagion.

There’s far too many self-centred people in this world. Gone are the days when people would pull together as a community like during the blitz in the East End of London. It seems like today it would only take a shortage of Plasma TV’s for cities to resemble Beirut circa 1978.

Look what happens each Black Friday in the US, or when there’s the rumours of fuel shortages in the UK, or simply during Christmas shopping. Imagine then, what it would be like if there were shortages of something really important, such as food or medical supplies. It would be every man for himself. Furthermore, imagine what it would be like in the US, with 35% of households possessing a gun. It would be like scenes from Escape from New York.

All of this is portrayed in Contagion but it felt somewhat flat. It’s certainly not a thriller. Contagion is a slow, meticulous drama which focuses on the technicalities faced by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the US and the World Health Organisation (WHO). At times it felt more like a documentary than an exciting edge-of-the-seat thriller about the fight to save mankind.

Contagion is good enough as 106 mins of though-provoking entertainment, but it could have been so much better. In fact, I reckon Outbreak is a better movie.

I knew very little about Remember Me before watching it so the end came as a complete shock, despite the fact that in retrospect I can see there were clear clues to the final event throughout the film. Sometimes I’m attuned to these things, not this time.

Robert Pattinson plays Tyler Hawkins, a young New Yorker who is grieving for the loss of his brother.

Tyler doesn’t handle the grief very well. He’s rebellious. He drinks and smokes too much and generally has a bad attitude. He’s clearly got anger issues; the main cause of that anger being his father. He doesn’t explicitly say it, but we can see that he holds his father responsible for the death of his brother.

Through a twist of fate he meets Ally (Emilie de Ravin). And it is a twist of fate. In a city of 8 million people you have to wonder at the odds that they would meet in the way they do.

Ally has also been affected by tragedy, and their shared experience and grief helps bring them together.

At this point you may think this is just another soppy love story. In a way it is, but I found this movie deeply affecting. The characters are engaging. The blossoming relationship between Tyler and Ally is well handled.

The relationship between Tyler and his father, played by Pierce Brosnan, is probably the most interesting aspect of the film. Pierce Brosnan puts in a great performance, in spite of the slightly dodgy caricature New Jersey accent.

The plot is like a Shakespearean tragedy. Maybe a bit overdone. After the coincidences that led to Tyler and Ally meeting, we are expected to suspend disbelief again for another set of coincidences that leads to the climactic finale. In an inferior film this would be a problem. In the case of Remember Me I wasn’t bothered by it at all. It was a fitting ending to a powerful and thought-provoking film.

The Company Men attempts to portray the human impact of corporate downsizing as a result of the global financial crisis.

You may think this is going to be something akin to the The Pursuit of Happyness, where an average joe has some bad luck and ends up losing everything. Not so. Instead, this film tries to make us feel sorry for the rich guy – Bobby Walker – a sales executive who loses his extremely cushy job, with a great salary and benefits, and, shock-horror, even loses his Porsche.

The definition of poverty is relative. To much of the world, poverty may mean living on $1 a day, not having running water or proper sanitisation. To us in the western world the benchmark for poverty is entirely different. As was reported during the UK riots this year, the benchmark for poverty in the UK is not having a second car or Sky +. Surely that can’t be true?

The story is interesting enough and there’s a great cast, including Ben Affleck (playing Bobby Walker) and Tommy Lee Jones (playing Gene McLary), but if the Director’s aim was for us to empathise with Bobby Walker then he has surely failed.

There is something extremely unsettling about this film. I felt uncomfortable watching it. Oh look, rich people have problems too. Look at this poor guy, he can no longer afford his country club fees!

If you’re expecting to see the main character go through a lazarus moment where he comes back from the pits of despair and is transformed by the experience, think again.

Even at the end, when he finds work in a job where his salary is only half what it was before, there’s no real evidence that he has reformed his thinking in any way. The film ends before we can find out if he repeats the same capitalist excesses. For all we know, he may be just as much of an arrogant, wasteful arsehole as he was before.

By the way, do you think Ben Affleck’s agent has been instructed to only look at scripts that are set in Boston?

Another Earth is one of those slow-paced, arty, independent films, that looks like it’s been developed specifically for a film festival.

The story has two main threads. Rhoda Williams is a high school student who has just been accepted to MIT. She has a promising future but her world falls apart one night when, after a night of drinking, she drives and crashes into the Burroughs family, killing the wife and son, and leaving the husband in a coma.

The second thread, and the event that causes her to lose concentration that night ultimately resulting in the tragic event, is the news on the radio that scientists have discovered a planet moving towards Earth which seems to be an exact replica of our own planet. This planet is quickly dubbed Earth 2.

The main character, Rhoda Williams, is played by Brit Marling, who also co-wrote the film’s script with first-time director Mike Cahill.

The husband and father that Rhoda has left in a coma, John Burroughs (William Mapother), is a successful composer and professor.

Both Rhoda’s and John’s lives are devastated by the crash, but four years later, events transpire to bring them together, in what becomes the focus of the film.

I love the ideas presented in this film. The plot focuses on the human relationships and the tragedy. The sci-fi element is a back-drop, which becomes more intertwined towards the end. Ultimately, however, it is the lack of focus on the world-changing event that lets Another Earth down. It’s hard to care about the characters and relationships when in the background they’re playing news footage of what could potentially be mankind’s first contact with other lifeforms; the big idea is far more interesting and engaging than the human tragedy.

Another Earth has a tremendously slow pace. It plods along as if it’s purposefully trying to tell you it’s a film that you must take seriously. I don’t mind slow-paced, independent films built around tragedy. One of my favourites of this type is In My Father’s Den starring Matthew Macfadyen, but Another Earth is not even in the same league as In My Father’s Den.

The idea of another planet Earth is compelling and brings up many interesting questions. Also, the background scenes of Earth 2 in the night sky along with the moon look really good, but to go along with this film you need to suspend logic and ignore the laws of physics. There are some serious holes in the science. For a start, forget all you know about gravity.

In general, it’s worth a watch but the concept is far better than the delivery.

Barney’s Version tell the story of Barney Panofsky, a balding, overweight American Jew who drinks too much, smokes too much, and yet manages to find beautiful women who agree to marry him.

The movie plays out largely in flashback. We first learn that Barney has a suspect past when he is confronted by a Detective in a bar – a Detective who is clearly frustrated that Barney is still a free man in spite of his attempts to get him convicted for murder. This is the trigger for a flashback to the story that leads Barney to that point – beginning just before his first marriage; a marriage featuring a wedding ceremony that probably qualifies as the most un-romantic in history.

The detective is played by the superb Mark Addy – the Yorkshireman who has managed to carve for himself a career in Hollywood on the back of The Full Monty.

Barney is played with great effect by Paul Giamatti, an actor who divides opinion in the Haines household. I think Paul Giamatti is outstanding whereas Rachelle finds him annoying. But maybe that’s because I, unlike Rachelle, saw and loved Sideways and the incredible HBO series – John Adams. It was great performances in these that have led to him, with justification, getting lead parts where previously he would only get supporting ones.

Barney is likeable as a character, yet it feels wrong to like him. After all, this is someone who leaves his own wedding reception to pursue a woman he’s just met at said wedding reception. What is it that gets three women to agree to marry him? Maybe it’s the same charm that makes you like him despite his considerable flaws. This is a man who seems to have no filter for his words or actions; he acts impulsively, seemingly without thought of the consequences to those close to him.

Barney’s third wife, Miriam, is played by Rosamund Pike – the posh British ‘totty’ who most notably, for Bond fans such as myself, played Miranda Frost in Die Another Day.  She also had key roles in An Education and Made in Dagenham, both remarkable movies fully deserving of the positive critical reviews they received.

Miriam is mesmerising, Far too good for Barney.  When she finally succumbs to his charm you’re left wondering whether she actually likes him or has just given in to his persistence. The question is quickly put to rest as you see their life together progress in the final stages of the film. You’re also left wondering why she puts up with him. Barney has supposedly found the love of his life yet this doesn’t manage to halt his course of self-destruction.

There’s some great supporting characters too. Dustin Hoffman can be credited with a lot of the movie’s laughs. He plays Barney’s father – a loveable rogue and serial philanderer, who leaves no doubt as to the lineage of Barney.

To complete the package, Barney’s Version has a great soundtrack, featuring Jazz classics from the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Leonard Cohen, as well as 70’s music befitting the first half of the film.

I loved Barney’s Version. The story is funny, moving at times, and thoroughly engaging. What’s more, there’s a ring of truth to the scenes; where even the most innocuous moment seems recognisable. Anyone who has had an argument, lied, or been lied to, will recognise the body language and eye movement; the sub-conscious human traits that mark the performance of great actors.

My Rating: 

About my rating system

Judi Dench plays Barbara Covett, a battle-axe teacher nearing retirement in a London inner-city school, who befriends the new teacher, Sheba Hart (played by Cate Blanchet). When Barbara accidentally discovers that Sheba is having an affair with one of the students, she decides to take advantage of Sheba’s situation to get close to her.

As the plot unfolded I wasn’t quite sure where it was going. It seemed to me that there was more to Barbara’s motives than appeared. Was it just a case of a lonely old Lesbian wanting to take advantage of the situation to get some action, or could it be something else?

Unfortunately, what started as a highly intriguing story tapered off towards the end leaving me feeling that it should have been so much more. At least the superb writing and acting by the two former Queens and Bill Nighy compensated slightly for the underwhelming plot.

I found the most engaging aspect of the film to be Barbara Covett’s first-person narration. It reminded me a lot of the narration by Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) in American Psycho. Not to say that Barbara is a serial killer.

In some movies narration is essentially a cop-out by the Director who doesn’t know how to properly tell the story. In Notes on A Scandal the narration is crucial. It immediately allows us access to Barbara’s bitter, twisted personality; the mask of a lonely old spinster hiding her contempt for ‘modern’ families, the education system, and the superficiality of today’s Britain.

The narration also gives us some of the best lines. Barbara is clearly a frustrated writer. When she’s not writing in her diary her thoughts are expressed to us as if she’s writing fine literature. An example of this is when she’s sitting on the stairs listening to the argument between Sheba and her husband – “I sat in the gods while the aria unfolded before me”. Sheba sums this up towards the end of the film with a put-down to Barbara “you think you’re fucking Virginia Woolf!”.

Another problem for me was the relationship between Sheba and the 15 year-old student. It seems slightly implausible, as does her marriage to the older husband. But of course, these things happen. Women marry older men, even older men that aren’t rich. Affairs between teachers and schoolboys do occur. Although I’m sure not as often as your average 15 year old schoolboys might purport.

In summary, an interesting enough story, above average writing and acting, but let down by an unfulfilling finale.