Up (2009)

Carl, an elderly loner, having grown old with and then lost his wife, decides to head off on the adventure they had always planned but never embarked upon - a trip to South America to visit Paradise Falls. He takes his house, care of thousands of helium balloons and, unwittingly, a stowaway in the shape of young Russell, a Wilderness Explorer keen to complete his set of badges with one for helping the elderly.

*****

I came to Up knowing quite a lot about it. It was supposed to be for the most part a little inferior to more recent Pixar high water marks as Wall-E and Ratatouille and apparently contained an opening montage as heart-breaking and affecting as anything in modern cinema. What I found with Up was what I feel to be an almost peerless achievement in modern animation. Rarely have I enjoyed a film as moving, involving and, yes, heart-breaking as this one. For sure, some of the pacing once Carl and Russell arrive in Venezuela is a little off and although the concluding airship/biplane set piece is exciting enough, it falls sort of the spectacle and adrenaline wallop of the finales of Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo and Toy Story to name a few. But that is entirely beside the point. Firstly, the protagonist for the final showdown is in his 70's, making it unlikely that he is going to be sprightly enough for terribly physical confrontation. The physical exertions and slips, falls and fights are entirely in keeping with the characters, which is part of what makes it so compelling. Rather than a hero of limitless strength and ability, we have a relatively frail man, straining every sinew to prevail. Secondly, the film is not intended to be a set-piece showcase. It is intended to be about a man enjoying a long-postponed adventure and giving a young boy a sense of belonging and being needed. On these points it emphatically succeeds.

That opening montage, as we see Carl and his wife Ellie meet, fall in love, marry, find they cannot have children, settle into domestic life, decorate their house, constantly postpone their trip to Venezuela and culminating in Ellie's death is indeed moving in the extreme. Not a word is spoken, yet everything is so effortlessly portrayed. It is not sentimental or saccharine, rather deeply and enduringly affecting. It is quite simply one of the finest sequences of animation ever committed to the screen.

Beyond the montage the film is packed full of great ideas - dogs with collars that translate their thoughts into speech ("squirrel!", "point!"), moving house by helium balloon, a crazy, chocolate-loving bird called Kevin, the "collar of shame", on and on we go and yet there is no sense of showing off, no halting of the flow of the story to wink and show us how funny and creative they all are. It is seamlessly woven into the fabric of the film, making you smile the whole way through until at the end, as Russell receives his one missing badge and looks around in vain for his always-travelling father, Carl steps up behind him and says "I'm here for him". Your hearts breaks and melts at the same time, you cry and smile in equal measure. A truly incredible achievement from an already peerless studio.

Monsters (2010)

A photo-journalist is tasked by his boss with escorting the boss's daughter back to safety in the US, a journey which involves traversing the infected zone, an area of the southern USA and northern Mexico inhabited by aliens who have begun to breed and spread following a crash-landing NASA probe. As they travel, they connect, encounter aliens, witness devastation and come face to face with death.

*****

Debut feature director Gareth Edwards handles scripting duties, cinematography, direction, production and SFX and considering all that he has taken on it is remarkable that any film at all emerges, let alone one with much to commend it. It is well-known that the budget was minuscule, that Edwards and his two (count them) cast actors filmed on the hoof with whatever backgrounds and locals they could find to play along and that the two principals were (and still are) a real life couple. The relationship that plays out between them is well played and develops with admirable naturalness, given the extraordinary back-drop. They connect over an evening's eating and drinking, share a night at the home of kind-hearted Mexicans, travel by boat together into the heart of the infected zone and spend a night atop an ancient pyramid. As they come to love one another, it feels organic, unforced and authentic.

The sights they see as they travel are extraordinary - a large boat half way up a tree, a rusting fighter jet lifted out of the water than dragged down by dark tentacles, bloody hand prints on the side of a stricken ship, pulsating electro-luminescent egg-sacks on the trunks of trees and then finally what is perceived to be an alien attack on a convoy of vehicles that shows just how powerful and dangerous these strange tentacled creatures really are. Edwards uses his money shots sparingly and this is surely of necessity, lacking the budget for War of the Worlds style set pieces. Nonetheless the film never feels cheap and he deliberately makes the film a road trip about a growing relationship in the context of an alien invasion, rather than an alien invasion film with a romantic sub-plot. There is not much to criticize about the acting, script or Edwards' ambitions - these are all relatively accomplished. What seems to be missing is a greater sense of pace - of propulsion for their journey. Despite the apparent danger posed to them by travelling through the infected zone, they rarely seem to feel any sense of peril. To an extent that may be Edwards' point, that the creatures are more benign than the US authorities would have them believe, but it does at times feel that the creatures could benefit from being foregrounded a little more. As convincingly rendered as the central relationship is, the film itself is at times sluggish and the emotional heft of some of what are clearly meant to be key scenes remain less affecting than intended. An abrupt conclusion is more frustrating than anything else and left me a little disengaged.

*****

Nowhere near the masterpiece many have hailed it as, but impressive in scale given the budget Edwards worked under. The core relationship is well played but excessively foregrounded amidst pacing issues. A promising debut by multi-tasker Edwards, but no without its flaws.

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a successful theatre director. After an acclaimed production of Death of a Salesman, he receives a seemingly limitless bursary, which he puts towards a lavish production in an endless warehouse facility in New York. The production? His life, including life-size sets. As he puts it, "something true, something tough". As time goes by, he casts himself, his now estranged wife and daughter, his production assistant, who then go on to cast further versions of themselves. The sets grow bigger and the lines between life, performance and dreams become blurred.

*****

It is impossible to categorise or pigeon-hole this film, other than to say it is from the mind of Charlie Kaufman, acclaimed writer of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and directing here for the first time. As always, Kaufman has no interest in cliche, predictability or convention, crafting instead a genuinely unique piece of work that is confusing, rewarding, moving, affecting and human. In different hands, we might have subtitles or subtle colour-coding to mark the passing of the years or the shift between "real life" and "performance". Instead, we have nothing more to go on than our own concentration and the gradual receding of Cotard's hairline. We find ourselves watching a scene, suddenly realising that we must be a decade or more on from the last scene and yet the experience is not frustrating or disconcerting. As you immerse yourself in the film, you simply lose yourself in the experience of overlapping realities and subjectivity.

As mentioned in the synopsis, Cotard casts someone as him in the play of his life, but that person then starts to play the role of a director, casting someone else for him to direct. Cotard's wife leaves him, taking their daughter to Germany and all of a sudden the daughter is grown up. Cotard's new partner, who goes from manning the box office to being his production and casting assistant, buys a house that is on fire, though we are never told why. Cotard begins a romance with the actress cast as his production assistant, although she also has eyes for the actor cast as Cotard. If this all sounds hopelessly confusing (and I have probably got some of it wrong, which won't help) then it is and it isn't. It can at times be difficult to keep track, but that is sort of the point. We are supposed to be unsure as to what is real and what is not, as Cotard himself takes a role in the play, as a cleaning lady.

In the end, this is a film to be seen and experienced rather than explained. Just as it is hard to explain the effect of watching Nolan's back to front Memento, so is it hard to explain the effect of Synecdoche, New York. It is like dreaming, but also like experiencing the harshness of real life. It is melancholy, but so touching and affecting. Hoffman's performance, like every other performance in the film, is beyond over-praise. He is simply sensational. After breath-taking performances in Happiness, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Hoffman has exceeded even his own peerless standards. How he did not even get nominated for an Oscar is beyond me. He should have scooped up every award going.

I have only seen the film once and will need to see it again, perhaps a few times. It is superb, one of the best of the last few years. As Cotard himself says, Kauffman has crafted "something tough, something true".

Burke & Hare

Burke & Hare are from Northern Ireland and find themselves in Edinburgh in the early-ish 1800's, trying to eke out a living. Edinburgh physicians are beginning to make great progress in the study of anatomy and fresh corpses therefore become very valuable to them. Hare (Andy Serkis)'s wife runs a guest house and when one of the residents dies in the night, he and Burke (Simon Pegg) make a quick £5 from Tom Wilkinson's Dr Knox for the body. Although they manage to come across a few opportunely dead bodies for further revenue, Burke has fallen for Isla Fisher's Ginny and wants to finance her ambition of putting on an all-female version of The Scottish Play, requiring considerably more income than the odd dead body hear and there. Burke & Hare therefore embark on a scheme of mass-murder in order to keep food on the table and increase Burke's chances of wooing Ginny.

*****

Critical opinion has been divided on John Landis' return to the realms of black comedy. Some have lambasted it as witless, some have enjoyed its jaunty tone and the easy rapport of the principal actors. Whilst it undoubtedly cannot compare to either the comedic quality of Landis' Trading Places, Coming To America and Animal House, or the horror/comedy blend of An American Werewolf in London, it is unfair to write it off simply because it is inferior to some genuine masterpieces. It goes without saying that black comedies are exceedingly tough nuts to crack. Plenty have succeeded (Dr Strangelove, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Shaun of the Dead, Bad Santa, Slither and Fargo to name but a few), but that still leaves films like Observe & Report, Very Bad Things and Nurse Betty that are either pitched wrongly, or cannot work out how to see their premise through. Burke & Hare in no way belongs in the exalted company of the former category, however it does at least keep the tone even throughout, maintaining laughs, plenty of gore and bone-crunching and even raising a smile during the final exchange, which follows a public hanging.

These are not easy balances to maintain and that Landis manages it at all is commendable. Where he perhaps fails is in not grabbing our attention, our interest or our sympathies. It becomes difficult to care one way or another about their enterprise, aside from generally frowning on mass murder as a money-making scheme. Pegg is endearing and genuinely funny, but I found it difficult to get past indifference as to whether he won Ginny or not. Hare, who by all accounts was a genuinely unpleasant man (this is after all a true story) is well played by Andy Serkis, who always has a glint of the devil in his eye when he smiles, but there needs to be sense of the tension within them, that as good as it is to be making money, there is something innately wrong in what they are doing.

In the end, Landis clearly isn't interested in making a judgement call on Burke & Hare, which is fair enough, but with historic characters rather than a fictitious one (like, say Tyler Durden) something more than simply "this was them, this is what they did" is needed. Even in a film intended to be a fairly slapstick comedy, we need something a little less superficial.

In the end though, this is good, entertaining stuff. Not a classic by any stretch, but not a turkey either. You will laugh and occasionally wince, but probably forget why you did a few days later.

Red (2010)

Bruce Willis is Frank Moses, a retired CIA black-ops agent who livens up his week by ringing up pensions administration, pretending not to have received his cheque and then casually flirting with the clerk on the other end of the line. One day, some fairly intimidating men in black jump suits come to his house intent on killing him, setting Frank on the run to find out who wants him dead and how to stop them succeeding. He hooks up with Mary-Louise Parker, the afore-mentioned clerk, as well as several of his also-retired CIA buddies, including sniper Helen Mirren, lunatic John Malkovich and cancer-ridden Morgan Freeman. They track a cover-up leading to the highest levels of government and a conspiracy of silence best completed by killing them all.

*****

Red is (either as or despite what you have heard) a lot of fun. It's not going to make history, it doesn't have anything sensationally new to offer, but what it does, it does well. The plot is pretty conventional stuff and although some of the action sequences go for relatively unfurrowed ground (shooting an incoming missile, stepping out of a car as it spins out of control), it is mostly a lot of what we have often seen before. But that is no bad thing in this case. The film has a relaxed ease about it, with the main actors interacting effortlessly, performing well within their considerable acting expertise. There's a terrific punch-up between Willis and Karl Urban's rising CIA star, a very funny face-off between the retirees and Richard Dreyfuss' corrupt defence contractor and Ernest Borgnine almost walks off with the whole film as a mild-mannered CIA record keeper.

It wasn't a film that left me checking my watch, wondering when it was all going to end, it was well-paced, well-acted, well-executed and kept me entertained throughout. Of course anyone could name several similarly-themed films that are much better, but that is beside the point. Red (Retired: Extremely Dangerous) is a great watch for a Friday night, fairly forgettable in the long run and gives us Malkovich shouting, "Old man, my ass" after blowing up a rocket-launcher wielding middle-aged woman. Which is a good thing.

Indiana Jones

Okay, so this will have to be concise. We are talking here about four films, two of which are among my very favourite of all time and all of which warrant considered and detailed analysis. Having said that, no-one is going to read a 3,000-word treatise on the man with the hat, so let's get straight to it:-
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
We meet Indiana Jones, college professor, archaeologist, finder of rare antiquities and peerless fedora-wearer. He is in Latin America, negotiating perilous booby traps, hunting a gold statuette and trying to avoid poison-dart shooting natives. He makes it out alive, but only just. Back in the US, he is approached with a mission to the middle east to find the Well of Souls, rumoured to be a possible resting place for the Lost Ark, the Ark of the Covenant in which Moses laid the original 10 Commandments, etched in stone by the finger of God himself.
What follows is a film of breath-taking pace, action and adventure. It is easy to forget that Steven Spielberg was still very much in his early years here and all that Harrison Ford really had under his belt was Star Wars. The two combined effortlessly, Ford playing weary, grumpy, heroic and fearless, Spielberg driving the action forward at a searing, but entirely comprehensible pace. We have feisty females, duplicitous servants, Nazis, truck chases and one of the most iconic closing shots since Rosebud was thrown into a furnace.
It is genuinely difficult to fault this film in any way. The cast, including Karen Allen, Denholm Elliot, John Rhys-Davies and a very young Alfred Molina are all spot on, the script is crackling, the special effects, stunts and booby traps are thrilling and on top of all of that, it is the sort of film you could watch every day for a month and not grow tired of. Watch it (again) now.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
This is, so to speak, "the dark one". Scenes of child slavery and sacrifice, along with removing one man's heart while he is still alive pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable within the certificating system at that time, leading to the PG-13 category being created in the US (it would take five more years for the UK to launch its own "12" certificate).
As for the film itself, it is in fact a prequel, set a year before the events of the first film. If the first film seemed fast-paced, this set down a new marker. We initially find Jones at Club Obi-Wan (hoho) in Shanghai, trying to obtain some sort of Maguffin from the Chinese. He winds up being poisoned, fights to get the antidote, escapes with a dancer to the airport, gets on a plane from which they then have to eject and finds himself in a remote village in India. There he agrees to help the villagers try to retrieve their children from a nearby temple, where they have been taken by the Thugee cult as slave-labour in the caves beneath the titular temple.
Jones and the dancer (Spielberg's then wife Kate Capshaw) encounter all manner of booby traps (what else?) at the temple, along with horrific human sacrifice practices and highly unpleasant dining habits (live snakes and jellied monkey brains anyone?), before eventually an escape plan is hatched and attempted.
Many dislike this entry in the franchise, finding it too dark after the relatively light and breezy tone of the first film. Certainly it is a darker film and deliberately so, but it has many set pieces that represent realisations of fundamental staples of the genre (mining cart chase = rollercoaster ride, rope bridge finale = literal cliffhanger) and the relentless pace is hugely enjoyable. It is by no means as good as Raiders, but a film need not scale those heights in order to be excellent in its own right. It's not one for younger children by any stretch of the imagination and suffers by comparison to the franchise entries either side of it but is still well worth a watch.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Putting the word "last" in the title always made this feel like it was closing the book on Indiana Jones and the more time that went past, the more that seemed destined to be the case. In the end, as we now know, Crystal Skull was finally made (more on that below) but until then, we had a trilogy that pretty much matched Star Wars stroke for stroke, at least tonally. After the crowd-pleasing action adventure of the first film, we had the darker second entry, before lightening up again for the "final" part.
Last Crusade was in fact the first of the films that I saw, at the cinema with my brother and some of our friends. I absolutely loved it and still do. The film opens with Jones as a teenager, getting caught up with some gentlemen who are trying to steal a relic that belongs in a museum. We discover how his fear of snakes began, where that scar on his chin came from and how the whip, jacket and hat all became part of his ensemble. We then leap forward to the quest - locating the Holy Grail, the cup from which Jesus and his disciples drank at the Last Supper and into which his blood ran when he was crucified. Jones finds that his father initially set off on the quest but had disappeared without a trace.
As with Raiders, this is a globe-trotting adventure, starting in the US and taking in Venice, Berlin and Alexandria, as Jones and those fiendish Nazis close in on the final resting place of the cup and its ancient guardians. The booby traps don't quite measure up to the opening sequence of Raiders but they are fiendishly inventive none the less and loaded with subtext in terms of how Jones must overcome his fears and achieve victory. We even get a death scene to rival the face-melting from the climax of Raiders!
Sean Connery was inspired casting as Jones Snr, with Lucas and Spielberg having originally conceived of Indiana Jones as being their stab at James Bond-style action/adventure. As always, the pacing is perfect, the script zings again and we even get the heroes literally riding off into the sunset as the curtain drops. Perfect.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Having loved Indiana Jones for close on two decades, I faced this latest entry with some trepidation. I didn't like the sound of the title and the plot/concept/mcguffin sounded a little too "sci-fi" for what is essentially a series revolving around ancient artefacts. But then, I reasoned, this is Spielberg. He is on a roll. His last dozen or so films had been stone-cold classics and he wouldn't sign on to a mediocre, or half-baked project.
Hmm. I still don't know what to think. For the first 95 minutes I was grinning like a Cheshire cat, enjoying ace stunts, ridiculous fist fights, car chases and Jones, back in his hat and reflecting on his declining strength. "This won't be easy", says Ray Winstone's Mac, "not as easy as it used to be," replies Jones. Ford is clearly so comfortable in Jones' skin, picking up where he left off without any apparent shift in performance - more than any other character he has played, this seems to be the one that fits him like a well-tailored suit. The flying fridge sequence was, of course, patently ridiculous, but this was a film, or at least a franchise that already had so much goodwill from me built in, it was going to take great deal to spoil it for me.
But they managed it. In the space of an asonishingly mis-judged final 10 minutes, all of that goodwill was undone as the film lurched off into Area 51-style flying saucers and alien visiters. John Hurt wittering about "the space between space" and "inter-dimensional beings" left my jaw on the floor and nothing Jones said about them being intergalactic archaeologists was going to help matters.
It was so frustrating. 95% of the film was fantastic. The initial raid on the warehouse wherein the Ark was stored in Raiders, the truck chase in the Amazonian forest, the motorbike chase, even the punchup with the evil Russkies (no Nazis no more) were all thoroughly worthy entries in a franchise that pretty much wrote the book on exciting action-adventure set pieces, but then that was all trashed by a betrayal of the fundamental ethos of the films. It just is not a sci-fi franchise and I cannot believe that of all the ideas being bounced around after Last Crusade, this was the only one deemed suitable. I blame George Lucas personally.

Jarhead (2005)

I must confess to not having read the memoirs of Anthony "Swoff" Swofford, on which this intriguing, striking but ultimately frustrating film is based.
Swoff, played here by the effective and talented Jake Gyllenhaal, "fought" in the first Iraq war and the film tells for the most part the story of his boredom and frustration as he sat in the Kuwaiti desert with increasing numbers of US soldiers, waiting for the all clear to proceed with an invasion that in the end lasted all of four days.
We find Swoff first of all at boot camp, getting yelled at by a drill sergeant in a manner not remotely dissimilar to the first half of the superior Full Metal Jacket. So far, so predictable. Soon though, orders come through to ship out to the Middle East as part of Operation Desert Shield, the precursor to Desert Storm. Those orders arrive halfway through unabashed hollering and cheering during a troop screening of the chopper attack from Apocalypse Now. Rather than being a generation of grunts raised on the harsh realities of Platoon and The Deer Hunter, aware of the brutality and ultimate futility of much of modern warfare, we instead have a room full of jarheads, yelling along to "Ride of the Valkyries" and crying "get some", like there's no tomorrow. These are boys and men entirely consumed by their love for battle, unaware in any sense of what really awaits them.
What turns out to await them is spirit-sapping, soul-destroying boredom. They arrive, they drill, they practice shooting, the play football in their chemical warfare suits, they pretend to dry-hump each other in front of a visiting news crew, they set off a truckload of flares while frying sausages and they rib each other with merciless vulgarity and enthusiasm. On screen titles regularly update us as to how many troops have arrived from the US and how long Swoff has been there until finally, mercifully, they set off into Iraq to drive out the Iraq Republican Army and reclaim Kuwait for the Kuwaitis. The invasion winds up being over before it has even started and there is a hugely affecting and effective scene when Swoff and his target man, the excellent Peter Sarsgaard, are camped out, ready to take out an Iraqi officer by sniper rifle, when a major steps in and tells them to stop so that he can carpet bomb the building they have scouted. Sarsgaard is desperate to contribute something, anything to the war effort and begs and pleads the Major for the chance to take their shot before the bombing commences, only to be refused. Sarsgaard goes off the deep end, screaming and crying, before collapsing in the corner, destroyed by the frustration and futility of the entire situation.
It is moments like these that ultimately make the film worthwhile, but it is worthwhile rather than essential. Director Sam Mendes seems to have an uncanny grasp of the tone and style of essentially American films, despite his background in English theatre. American Beauty and Road to Perdition got under the skin of white picket fence Americana and the Prohibition-era gangster film respectively and Mendes successfully grapples with the US war film genre as well. We feel Swoff's weariness, his exasperation, his despair and the cinematography is breathtaking too. Endless shimmering deserts eventually give way to burning oil wells, the sky thick with black smoke and raining oil. "The earth is bleeding", says Swoff.
The difficulty ultimately is not with the performances or the cinematography. Fundamentally, the film seems to a lack a sense of its place in history. Set during the first Iraqi war, but released during the second, the film seems uninterested in saying anything about the current invasion and war, or modern warfare in general. The boredom of the wait in the desert is effectively presented but that leaves the overall message as "waiting in the desert is really boring and frustrating when you are keen to get on and invade", which is really no message at all. Does every film have to be loaded with meaning? Of course not, but for a film set and released in the historical and political climates of 1991 and 2005 respectively, it represents something of a missed opportunity. Worth watching, but once will be enough.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World (2010)

Scott Pilgrim is out of his depth. He is dating a 17 year old school girl called Knives Chau, he is in a struggling band called Sex Bob-omb that is going nowhere and he has now met Ramona Flowers, fallen in love with her and decided to try to win her.
What he does not realise is that if he is going to date Ramona, he will have to defeat her seven evil ex's. He decides it is worth it, but he does not really have the faintest idea what he is doing or how he is going to do it.
For a film such as Scott Pilgrim, the above plot summary helps very little, as it is so much more about the film's style than its content. Edgar Wright, who got this gig off the back of his barn-storming work on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz has taken a comic book and adapted it with an endless and endlessly breath-taking barrage of stylistic flourishes. There are comic book style panels on screen, a retro gaming graphics-tweaked Universal logo at the outset, Tekken / Street Fighter style "vs" square-offs before each fight, on-screen score cards for each character when they are introduced, even a "pee bar" that goes down as Scott empties his bladder.
This is a genuinely excellent film, wittily scripted, with a truly touching romance between Scott and Ramona developing in a surprisingly natural manner, given the wealth of fantastical elements on display. Perhaps that is Wright's great victory, to anchor the film with an engaging central paring and a relationship that feels real, so that we are invested in and care about what becomes of them as they whirl off into fights that involve giant hammers, CGI dragons, super-powered vegans, flaming swords, kung fu and Bollywood dance routines. It should not be underestimated how difficult it is to hold such disparate elements in tension, while still keeping the film's tone even. Having said that, it should come as no surprise that Edgar Wright manages it, given (for example) his handling of the death of Shaun's mother in Shaun of the Dead in the midst of an entirely preposterous Crouch End zombie holocaust. This clearly the work of a supremely talented and self-assured director and it will be intriguing to see where he goes from here.
As for the cast, they are great. Michael Cera as Scott is similar to Michael Cera in Superbad or Juno, although he is perhaps a little more clueless and helpless here, baffled by much of what is going on. He plays it to perfection. Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona is also spot on, managing to be alluring but not annoying, desirable but tangible. The supporting work is great too. Anna Kendrick follows up her sterling work in "Up in the Air" as Scott's younger sister, Ellen Wong as "Knives Chau" is adorable and makes the pain of being passed over by Scott in favour of Ramona truly moving and Kieren Culkin plays a slightly predatory gay flatmate who is hilarious without ever being cliched or patronising.
Best of all are the evil ex's. Special kudos to Chris Evans as a vain, skateboarding action star and Brandon Routh as a vegan bassist with big muscles and a tiny brain. It is a film that scoops you up, carries you along and then throws you out at the end with a big smile on your face and a long list of lines that you keep dropping into conversations for weeks afterwards. I said lesbians.

Jerry Maguire (1996)

Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) is a sports agent, handling contract negotiations, merchandising deals and press duties for a variety of the best sportsmen and women in the US. Then, one night, he gets a moment of clarity and writes a memo to his colleagues about his vision for a different way of being sports agents - fewer clients, more personal attention, more support.
Jerry's firm, rather than being inspired, are appalled and fire him. He tries to take his best clients with him, but is only able to persuade Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr), a wide receiver for the Cardinals, to come with him, before his firm snatch everyone else. Dorothy Boyd (Renee Zellweger) loves Jerry and is inspired by his memo and agrees to come with him as well.
What then follows is Jerry's journey to try to secure a new contract for Tidwell, run his new company according to the values laid out in his memo and work out what he really wants from the relationship with Dorothy that quickly develops.
The film is very well known and much of it has entered the general consciousness, ("show me the money!", "you had me at hello", "you complete me") but what is interesting in watching it again recently is how fresh it all seems, how full of life rather than cliche. Jerry's initial romancing of Dorothy is a product of his own desperation to avoid loneliness, her desire to find a husband for herself and a father for her son, but its' ups and downs are handled with real honesty. Likewise, Jerry's professional relationship and then developing friendship with Rod has unusual shades for a Hollywood film. Lines such as, "how's your marriage, Jerry?" and "a real man wouldn't shoplift the pooty from a single mum" demonstrate a depth of friendship between them where they are able to ask the difficult questions that men these days are not supposed to ever bring up with each other.
It all builds up to a climax where lives are changed, epiphanies are experienced and tears are cried. It is a genuinely great film, full of winning performances, beautifully written characters, excellent scripting and none of those involved have been better, before or since, with the possible exception of Cruise in Magnolia. It's that good.

In Bruges (2007)

This is a genuinely odd film, but that is not necessarily a bad thing, it just makes it hard to pigeon-hole. It has elements of the cockney, gangster film popularised by Guy Ritchie, a bit of the fish-out-of-water style of Sexy Beast and then lurches wildly from comedy, to fairly bloody violence, to tragedy and pathos. At times it can be very hard to work out whether we are supposed to just sit back and laugh, identify with the characters, be horrified, or something else.
Colin Farrell plays Ray, a strange puppy-dog of a man, dispatched with fellow hitman Ken (Brendan Gleeson) to Bruges after a hit on a Catholic priest goes tragically wrong. Ray finds Bruges dull and pathetic, ("If I grew up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't") but Ken finds himself enjoying it. Harry (played by Ralph Fiennes), their boss back in England eventually finds his way to Bruges to confront the two of them, where Ray has begun to enjoy some time with a local drug dealer named Chloe. There is also a dwarf actor, a Canadian tourist and some overweight Americans caught up in the mix.
The violence, when it comes, is genuinely affecting and realistic and you really feel like it hurts (as opposed to many of the Ritchie capers and their kin, where it all starts to feel like a bit of a laugh). A burnt face from a cap gun, a destroyed leg from a gun shot and a serious arterial neck wound all feel very real.
The pacing and plot are a bit of a liability, as not an awful lot happens and it takes quite a long time to not happen, but there is a lot of fun to be had in sharing Ray's genuine misery at being stuck in what he considers to be a nothing town. There is also utter joy in watching Ralph Fiennes destroy an otherwise perfectly useful telephone before yelling completely unwarranted verbal abuse at his wife, in front of their young children. It's not how we would all necessarily run our homes, but it is pretty funny. The swearing count is pretty much up there with Goodfellas, with pretty much all of the worst words you could imagine cropping up fairly regularly. It's not intended to shock though, it is simply a reflection on how casually these words find their way into the regular speech of these characters. They think nothing of it.
I really enjoyed the couple of house spent in this film's company and although I feel no great need to watch it again and again, it was time well spent.

Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and The Sentinel (2006)

Two films separated by 10 years in terms of release date and as much thematic clear water as you could imagine. I'm not trying to launch a ground-breaking thesis on their tonal connections, it is simply that I watched them back to back last night, so I thought I would review them together.
ST:FC is undoubtedly the finest of the now concluded Next Gen cycle of feature films and right up there with the best of the season-finale two-parters from the TV series. The Enterprise finds itself once again up against the Borg, a part-organic, part-cybernetic race intent on assimilating all they meet into their hive-like collective. By way of a convenient plot-device, the Enterprise finds itself orbiting earth in 2063, with some of the crew on earth helping a pioneering scientist perfect the first ever warp drive and the remainder on the ship, fighting a losing battle with the Borg drones who are intent on taking over the ship, before assimilating Earth.
Given how "by the numbers" many of the other Next Gen feature films were, this has a surprisingly fresh, engaging quality to it. Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard has vengeance on his mind and refuses to back down from the Borg, even if there seems no hope of victory and Data faces a conflict of his own when faced with a tempting opportunity to accelerate his progress towards experiencing human sensations. The earth-bound elements feel a little perfunctory, as if the screenwriter realised there was not enough happening on the ship to warrant a full-length feature and therefore needed to broaden the scope a little, but the Enterprise-based elements are exciting, well-filmed and paced and in the case of a space-walk sequence on the outside of the hull, genuinely tense.
All of which makes The Sentinel only seem more derivative and hackneyed by comparison. It has some good ideas (assassination plot, veteran Secret Service agent vs protege, an adulterous first lady) but it all gets lost a bit among some of the more preposterous elements. Michael Douglas looks far too old to be giving Jack Bauer the run around, the President himself, on whom the whole plot hinges, is bland and unaffecting and the assassins are barely given identities, much less motivations, or defined characters. The film begins with an almost Se7en-esque montage of death-threat sound-bites and letter excerpts, but these do not ever appear in the film, or indeed have any connection to the plot and so feel like a stylised bolt-on to try to grab some much-needed attention from the viewer who might otherwise disengage. The script does not help much, Kiefer Sutherland looking genuinely uncomfortable at the of a scene where he has managed to work out exactly what happened to the murder victim and then has to finish by referring to the "rate of speed" of a bullet. At times it is incredibly difficult to understand what is happening, especially at the climax when everyone is being rushed out amidst the key assassination attempt. Must try harder.
Obviously, a film featuring time travel, aliens that assimilate humanity, warp speed and androids is skating on thin ice when being contrasted with the lack of realism in a film about an assassination attempt on the President, but it is all a question of your fidelity to the world your film inhabits. It is no reach for sci-fi fans and Trekkers in particular to accept all of the elements listed in the previous sentence, however in this age of 24, Bourne and their kin, viewers expect a little more nous and expertise from their thrillers. If your film makes no sense or stretches credulity, then you either need to take the Con Air approach, stick your tongue in your cheek and go for it or rein the screenplay back in, get it under control and try again. Sadly, the prospect of Gordon Gecko squaring off against Jack Bauer isn't enough on its own.

Midnight Run (1988)

It is difficult to understand why Robert De Niro did not try his hand at more films like this, given how effective he is within it. He plays Jack Walsh, a bounty hunter asked by his boss to retrieve a mob accountant, Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin), who has gone on the run after having agreed with the FBI to testify against his boss, Jimmy Serrano (played by Dennis Farina). Walsh has five days to find The Duke and get him to Los Angeles, otherwise his boss will have to stump up the £450,000.00 bail bond. The FBI want the Duke back and the mob want him dead, making Walsh's journey with his reluctant companion all the more problematic, especially with a rival bounty hunter on his tail, looking for a slice of the bumper payday Walsh has been promised.
The Duke feigns aviaphobia, leaving Walsh trying to make his way from New York to LA by train, bus, truck and car. The Duke quickly starts to get on Walsh's already frayed nerves and when the rival bounty hunter manages to cancel his credit card, things get really complicated...
The film is directed by Martin Brest, who previously made Beverly Hills Cop and in many ways it is similar in tone to that Eddie Murphy vehicle - profane, quick-paced, funny but not quite as violent or action-packed. Robert De Niro is on excellent form, conveying all of the desperation, frustration and cynicism of his character, yet still managing to keep the performance light and entertaining. Showing long before the Fockers came along that he is an adept comedian, De Niro handles his banter with the Feds with ease and immaculate comic timing and although The Duke could easily have become irritating, Grodin succeeds in making him both sympathetic and endearing.
Coming across as a sort of companion piece to Planes, Trains and Automobiles, this is a hugely enjoyable, perfectly paced film and although the incredible calibre of De Niro's work before and since leaves Midnight Run outside a list of his very best work, Grodin and Brest have come nowhere near being this good since. Indeed, were it not for Beverly Hills Cop, Brest could easily have been dismissed after this as a one-hit wonder. Enjoy.

LA Confidential (1997)

One of the greatest achievements of this sensational modern noir was to take James Elroy's labyrinthine, decade-spanning novel and pare it down to a manageable screenplay. What we are left with is a gripping tale of corrupt and incorruptible LA cops, drugs, exotic call-girls, sleazy tabloid hacks, hoodlums and murder.
Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is a young police officer, the son of a celebrated LA officer, out to make a name for himself and carve out his own career. Another officer, Bud White (Russell Crowe) spends his time meting out summary justice to wife-beaters, having watched helplessly as his mother suffered at the hands of his cruel father. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is supposed to work in vice, but has two lucrative sidelines - technical advisor to TV series "Badge of Honor" and a cash-in-hand deal with tabloid hack Sid Hudgens (Danny Devito) where he sets up celebrities to get busted on drug-possession charges, Hudgens grabbing the exclusive photos while Vincennes carts them off for charging and booking.
A late night bust up at the police station where a couple of men arrested for attacking police officers are set upon by half of the station results in Bud White's partner, Dick Stensland, being forced into early retirement. Exley testifies against Stensland in return for cynical career progression, but that night, Stensland gets caught up in a shooting at the Midnight Owl coffee shop, where he and several other customers lose their lives.
What follows defies concise explanation, but it involves cosmetically altered call girls, organised crime, the police and control of the LA drug trade. Trying to follow who is connected to who and how is just one of the many pleasures of this rich, detailed, engrossing film.
Directed by Curtis Hanson from Brian Helgeland's screenplay (and neither of them have come anywhere close to being this good before or since) and cruelly beaten to a whole raft of Oscars by the more Academy-friendly Titanic, the film is a triumph in every conceivable way. The story is involved and requires concentration throughout, but it is not incomprehensible. Revelations and surprises abound and each of the main characters have their moment to shine. Spacey, Crowe, Devito and Pearce are all perfectly cast, embodying all of the nuances and flaws of their characters with effortless precision. The atmosphere, feel and set design are immaculate, perfectly encapsulating the 1950's era with suits, cars and locations all spot on.
There have been very few decent films in this genre since its heyday in the 40's and 50's and it is difficult to think of one of anywhere near this quality since Chinatown. You can get a two-disc Special Edition now with the usual plethora of making-of's, commentaries and even the pilot episode of the spin-off TV series. Sadly the critical acclaim garnered by the film did not lead to a revival of quality private-eye, femme fatale genre films, but LA Confidential remains a towering achievement in cinema and one of the finest of its or any other type. See it as soon as you can.

Some Like It Hot

Chicago, 1929. Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are struggling musicians who accidentally stumble on the St Valentine's Day Massacre, as Spatz and his boys kill Toothpick Charlie for giving their speakeasy up to the cops.
In a desperate act of self-preservation, Joe and Jerry disguise themselves as women (Josephine and Daphne) and join a band travelling to Florida for a musical tour. Both of them fall for Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe) but once they reach Florida Jerry attracts the unwanted attentions of a wealthy divorced playboy, leaving Joe to disguise himself as Junior, the millionaire heir to the Shell Oil fortune, in an effort to woo Sugar Kane. Soon, the mob catch up with them as an organised crime conference descends on their Florida resort and they are trying to evade Spatz and his men, maintain their disguises, woo the girl and avoid the lecherous advances of Osgood Fielding III.
This film is an ageless delight. Made over half a century ago and set another thirty years before that, it is hilarious, exciting and sexy. Monroe first appears walking along a train station platform, admired from behind by Jerry as "jello on springs". Although seemingly a cliched dumb-blonde, Monroe portrays her as much more charming, vulnerable and damaged than that. When she sings "I'm through with love", it's heart-breaking. Curtis is just effortless in switching between three very different roles. His performance as Junior is basically an elaborate impersonation of Cary Grant and his constant pouting as Josephine is continuously laugh-out loud funny.
Lemmon pretty much steals the show, though. Whether not noticing that he's playing the back of his double-bass because he is admiring Monroe's shimmying, or dancing the tango with Osgood, or shaking his maracas whilst announcing his engagement to him, or simply expressing endless exasperation at how unfair it is that he gets seduced by a man while Joe gets Monroe, he is immense. He makes such a bright-eyed woman and yet such a grumpy man. It all comes together into a perfect climax, never slipping into cliche or laziness. A genuine classic.

Inception (2010) review (no spoilers!)

Christopher Nolan seems to be determined to test our concentration. Memento required us to remember not what happened before, but what had happened afterwards, The Prestige gave precious few indicators of when you were jumping forwards and back and so all you could do was focus and hope you kept up. Batman Begins helped us out with a few well-timed changes of hair-cut. Inception drops us into dreams, dreams within dreams and dreams within dreams within dreams and insists that we watch closely, pay attention and remember all of the little details.
It is an effort that is rewarded in spades with one of the more intelligent, exhilarating and thought-provoking action-thrillers of recent years. Debate will no doubt rage for years as to what is really going on, what the film is about and where dreams and reality end and begin. For the moment though, this is the plot into which we are propelled:-
Cobb (Di Caprio) works as a thief of ideas. He has mastered the technology required to enter someone's dreams and steal their secrets from their sub-conscious. He is approached by a Japanese businessman (Saito)who asks him to carry out the reverse, an inception, the planting of an idea into someone's sub-conscious. Saito cannot compete with the owner of an enormous energy company (Fischer) and so wants to implant in the mind of Fischer's son and heir the idea of breaking the company up.
Cobb remains convinced it can be done, despite his partner's insistence that the sub-conscious always recognises that an idea is not its own and when Cobb is promised that if he can complete the assignment he will able to return home to his children from whom he has been exiled, he gathers together a team to assist him in this most audacious of projects.
The gathering of that team helps us to understand the rules of entering dreams, what can and cannot be done, how dreams can be created (apparently you need an architect), how you can be sure you are no longer in a dream and most crucially, how to wake up. Tom Hardy joins as Eames, a forger, an impersonator of other characters within a dream. Ellen Page is an architecture student, new to dreams, but a fast learner and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Cobb's assistant/sidekick/right-hand man, managing to be endearing, funny, tough as nails and ambiguous all at the same time.
The team have to enter Fischer's dream, then go down two further levels (the aforementioned dream within a dream within a dream), both to trick his subconscious and also to persuade his mind that the idea is something he thought of and not something planted from outside. All the while they must fend off "security operatives", elements of Fischer's sub-conscious trained to identify and destroy invaders, much like white blood cells attacking infection.
This all sounds fiendishly complicated and although it is, it is not as difficult to follow as it sounds. The different layers of dreaming are so different in colour, location and design that it is easy to identify where and when the action is taking place. And don't be mistaken, action is indeed taking place. Despite a certain amount of exposition being necessary to help us understand what is happening and how this all is supposed to work, much of it is done on the move, much like The Bourne Ultimatum. The action is narratively propulsive, rather than just being a set-piece to showcase special effects (I'm talking to you, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen). Whether it is a machine-gun sound-tracked car chase, a foot race, snow-mobiles and skiers, or a zero-gravity punch-up in a spinning hotel corridor, it is always compelling, always logical, always thrilling.
Rarely has such a long film felt so short and rarely such a cerebral film made for such perfect Friday night entertainment. The pacing is perfect, moving from dream layer to dream layer with faith in the audiences ability to keep up and with Di Caprio and Page (as the architecture student) on hand both to help explain what is happening, but also anchoring the film with superb performances. The more fantastical plot elements never feel ludicrous, the developments never contrived. We believe in all of the characters, perhaps these two more than any as they both try to successfully navigate what becomes an increasingly complicated and dangerous dream world. Di Caprio plays a role of increasing desperation and determination and conveys brilliantly his profound sadness at the mistakes of his past.
A backlash has already begun against Inception, accusing it of being cold and clinical, a story constructed rather than shared. Some have also resented its seemingly unnecessary complexity, however within its own terms it makes perfect sense. It is a film I cannot recommend highly enough and although its moments of wit and warmth are few and far between, they are there. It is exciting, challenging, absorbing and ultimately baffling, but for once that is a good thing. See it.

The Host

Okay, so it came out a few years ago, but for the time being that is going to be the trend with this blog. I started it a few days ago and films have been around for 114 years, so I have a bit of a backlog to navigate.
The Host is a Korean film, set around the Han river in Seoul. It opens with a scene fresh out of the hackneyed school of creature features - dumping dangerous chemicals into the sewers. Immediately afterwards we meet the Park family. Patriarch, two sons, a daughter and a grand-daughter. Hee-Bong runs a small snack kiosk on the banks of the Han with his eldest son Kang Du, who's wife deserted him and their daughter soon after childbirth. Kang Du is trying to raise his daughter (Hyun Seo), who is now in her early teens, as best he can. Hee Bong loves Kang Du and understands his weaknesses and so is constantly reminding his other son and daughter to go easy on him, even as incredible events unfold around them.
All of this back-story and context unfolds with breath-taking leanness and efficiency. No clumsy exposition, no unnecessary flab or sentimentality, just what we need to go and then off we go. Off we go. Suddenly a mutant fish/amphibian/creature/thing appears out of the river and attacks. Everyone panics, everyone scatters, many get eaten. Despite what can only be presumed to be a rock-bottom budget, a genuinely unique creature has been crafted. We've got no idea what it is, but we're pretty sure it means to do harm and we want to be out of its way. It would not be over-stating the position to say that the attack scene goes toe to toe with the opening attack of Spielberg's War of the Worlds for impact. It's that effective, that terrifying.
In the melee, Kang Du accidentally lets go of his daughter's hand and she is taken by the creature. The rest of the film therefore consists, after Kang Du receives a desperate call from his daughter on her mobile, of the rest of the family joining forces to find the creature's lair and rescue Hyun Seo. They have no tracking skills, no plot-device convenient background in the marines. Hee Bong's daughter has archery skills that inevitably come to the fore in the climactic show-down, but the rest of the family are refreshingly, almost disconcertingly inept. Heck, Kang Du cannot even keep count of how many bullets are in his shotgun and his brother fails to throw a Molotov cocktail properly for no other reason than because sometime normal people mess up straight forward tasks.
The film has effective, well-aimed digs at government bureaucracy, cover-ups and incompetence and the inability of ordinary people to get the attention of those supposedly in charge. The family rally together but they still bicker, still get cross with each other, still end the film with the same emotional problems and character flaws they had at the beginning. The pacing and narrative drive lag noticeably in the middle when the film seems to lose a sense of where it is supposed to be going. Then all of a sudden it snaps out of it and hurtles towards a petrol bomb/agent yellow / flaming arrow / mutant newt conclusion that manages to be crowd-pleasing and stirring without being predictable or cloying.
As with all well made foreign films it will no doubt be ruined in the obvious Hollywood remake. See it first then you can tell everyone how much better the original is.

Star Trek (2009)

I have just seen the new Star Trek film and it was well worth my time and money. I have never really got into the later series (Voyager, DS9, Enterprise), but love the original series and TNG. JJ Abrams clearly has great affection for the Star Trek universe and brought on board writers who knew how to balance freshness with enough reference points to satisfy established fans. It was all just so lively and energetic. Not a spoof, not self-referential, just fast-paced, action-packed, character-establishing stuff. Trying to make space in a screenplay for characters who have been developed over decades of TV series and films without either reducing them to two-dimensional caricatures, bogging down the narrative, or stretching the running time is an unenviable task, but it is handled excellently. Chekhov suddenly knows how to transport a moving target, Sulu leaves the handbrake on but knows kung-fu, Bones confirms that he is indeed a doctor, despite spending more time on the bridge than in sickbay, Scotty succeeds in giving the Enterprise more power, Spock finds time for a mind-meld and a nerve-pinch, Uhuru actually can translate all manner of interstellar communication and Kirk snogs the green alien, shouts, fights and takes his place in the Captain's chair.
Breathtaking special effects, space battle scenes more akin to Serenity or Jedi than the sluggish chess games of previous Star Trek outings, excellent pacing, a coherent narrative (even with red matter, black holes and time travel) and well-performed main roles. Hell, they even find time to fry the guy in the red uniform.

What's in a name?

So here is the beginning of my new film blog. I have a blog already, but I felt that compared to other blogs out there it was a bit trite. I therefore re-launched it as something a little more serious and focused on weightier issues that were on my mind.
That's not to say that films cannot constitute a weightier issue. I've already posted reviews of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Casablanca, which deal with the horrendous treatment of the mentally unwell and Nazism respectively - hardly trite subject matter. However, I aspire to be a film critic or journalist and so wanted to have an outlet where I can post my reviews of and musings on films, somewhere to collect my thoughts and comments. I don't flatter myself that my observations are hugely novel or insightful, but I want to get them out there, so to speak.
The blog is called silver screen, because my first and greatest love in the world of films will always be the cinema. DVD's are fine, watching films on a widescreen TV is okay, but nothing compares to the big screen, nothing comes close. The more astute of you will have noticed the subtitle of this blog. BTTF is far from my favourite film, but that line represents everything that is exciting, energising and transporting about films. At their best, they can exhilarate, just like the final line of that film.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

No matter the passage of years and similar subject matter having been attempted in Girl, Interrupted and Changeling, this remains an astonishingly affecting piece of film-making.
Jack Nicholson plays Randall P McMurphy, a criminal who thinks it is a smart move to try to avoid harder prison time by pleading insanity and taking what he expects to be a pleasant vacation at a mental institution.
Once there, he comes under the authority of Nurse Ratched, who takes an immediate dislike to him and seems to make it her personal mission to get the better of him.
Louise Fletcher’s performance is incredible and thoroughly deserving of the Academy Award with which she was rewarded. She is a picture of icy calm, composed but clearly dangerous when crossed and the absolute counterpoint of McMurphy. Nicholson is like a whirling dervish at times, not least when trying to secure enough votes to turn the television over to the baseball and then acting out the entire game when Ratched thwarts his attempts.
The film is very much a product of the counter-cultural era in which it was made. McMurphy is the rebel, the anti-authoritarian, railing against the institutionalism of Ratched, all of which makes it so much more devastating when McMurphy ultimately fails to overcome his nemesis.
The revelation of how mental institutions were run at the time and the fearful power that was wielded by those who ran them caused something of a public outcry. Now, some 35 years on, we are left with the shocking scenes of McMurphy getting ECT, we share his rage at Ratched’s triumphant punishment of Brad Dourif and we stare in disbelief at the shell of a man after a successful lobotomy. The Chief’s escape from the asylum is uplifting, but ultimately the film is a downbeat experience, mercifully leavened by scenes of laughter and camaraderie among the patients. It remains a hugely influential film, with performances, screenwriting and direction of the very highest order, however it is very much a film to watch, appreciate and be affected by rather than one to enjoy.

Casablanca (1942)

This really is as good as it gets. Humphrey Bogart, playing himself as well as he ever did, runs Rick’s Café Americaine, a bar and casino in Casablanca, during the early stages of the Second World War. He used to be a freedom fighter, but now insists those days are behind him (“I stick my neck out for no man”, he opines).
Although Morocco is still unoccupied, the French are there, as are the Nazis. A brief prologue explains the importance of Casablanca to those fleeing the war. As Nazi Germany has tightened its grip on Europe, a circuitous route of escape has arisen, from southern Europe across the Mediterranean, to Casablanca. Those refugees in Casablanca then try to obtain transit papers to Portugal and from there, escape to the USA.
A somewhat slippery gentleman by the name of Ugarte comes to Rick with letters of transit that he has obtained and which he hopes to sell on to some suitably desperate refugees. Ugarte is killed, leaving Rick to decide what to do with the letters, which he now holds.
At this point, a long-lost love of Rick’s arrives at his bar, now on the arm of a hero of the resistance against the Nazis. This hero, Victor Laszlo, has heard of the letters of transit and is hoping to persuade Rick to hand them over, while the Nazis hope to close in on Laszlo and return him to their concentration camps.
This is a beautiful film in every way. It is written impeccably, full of well known (but often mis-quoted) lines yet it still feels as fresh as this week. Each of the principal actors is perfectly cast, from the stoic, principled Laszlo, through weasel-like Ugarte, fragile but beautiful Ilsa and the wry, pragmatic but ultimately heroic Rick. Every supporting actor plays his part to perfection and the denouement, as Rick rediscovers his idealism is wrapped up by the second-finest final line in film history (see “Some Like it Hot”). It has been my favourite film since I first saw it and nothing has come close since. It is incredibly romantic, but with a rugged man’s man as the lead, it is funny yet underpinned by the most serious of historical contexts and just leaves you as the viewer as satisfied as by a five course meal. Perfect in every way.