Reviews

Rarely seen (though that's soon to change we're told thanks to a BFI DVD release in June) Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? is a fun, breezy comedy which sees some cracking performances delivered with a palpable energy.

Admittedly seen 50 plus years on what was no doubt a very funny entertainment for its week (this was my parents childhood time when, as they delight in telling me, only one or two people on the street had a TV and they went to the cinema every week) but today it does seem slight. There's little to the story with any sense of reality going out the window early on. Not that you don't expect a farce to be ridiculous, that's the point, but when done really well they can tread the fine line between the credible and the ridiculous. I think this one goes past it by the end. It says something that probably 10-20 minutes before the end i was starting to think "this is going on a bit" - when it's only an 80 minute film.

Okay, so it's no classic but there's lots to enjoy here. Although David Tomlinson (probably best known to modern audiences as the father in Mary Poppins and for other Disney roles in films like Bedknobs & Broomsticks and The Love Bug) and Diana Dors get top billing the film belongs to the frantic antics (and shameless mugging) of Bonar Colleano. He's a hoot as the American serviceman who finds he may inadvertently be a bigamist and has to juggle both wives in adjacent rooms of a hotel suite. I didn't know Colleano before this movie but as he died in a car accident at the early age of 34 he was perhaps cut off too early to have made the lasting impression on film that his performance here makes me think he could have.

Diana Dors is dynamite on screen and the comparisons to Marilyn stand up. The camera loves her and she knows how to use it, but while many would be distracted by the image if you pay attention you can really see a talented performer beyond it. I know a lot of people that peg Marilyn as just a pretty face (and dynamite body of course) but you watch her in films like Seven Year Itch, Don't Bother To Knock (a fascinating performance) etc and you see a genuinely talented performer. I haven't seen enough Dors to qualify it but the way she uses her persona and profile here suggest more than just the image she's remembered for.

Tomlinson plays the befuddled, bumbling British gentleman with aplomb as usual - though you never really believe the relationship angle to his storyline. Sid James takes some getting used to as an American serviceman for those of us used to his Carrying On but he is great and very funny, especially in his scenes with the delightful Audrey Freeman.

Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? may not stand up as a classic but it doesn't need to. It does stand up as a fun, playful little story with a good cast giving it their all. Well worth a watch.

Like so many of Terry Gilliam's films The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus is one that is going to need multiple viewings to truly form an opinion on. Like Brazil, Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, Fisher King, Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas and Tideland (even Time Bandits really) there is so much going on here that expectations or reputations get in the way and make it hard to digest and appreciate on a single viewing. No bad thing necessarily.

Of course Parnassus has the particularly insurmountable problem of being the late Heath Ledger's final performance and following on from his superb, Oscar-winning turn in The Dark Knight. It is impossible to see the film through eyes that don't see it as the film he died making. Some parts of the film may perhaps work even better than they may of done had he lived – some of the best films are triumphs over adversity and adverse conditions don't come much greater than your star dying mid-shoot. But whatever works and doesn't in the film it is hard – impossible on a first viewing – to divorce yourself from the knowledge you bring into the theatre.

On first feeling Parnassus seems patchy, and curiously it feels like a film that may not have worked as well as it does had nothing happened to Ledger. Don't get me wrong I'd rather have a Gilliam failure and Ledger still alive to put it behind him and move on than a wonderful film that is largely the result of his tragic death. But we don't have that so I'm just looking at what's there.

The fact is the film is at it's best when galloping around the fantastical worlds of the Imaginarium, with Ledger's character Tony now played by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Depp and Farrell are particularly good and imbue the film with an energy lacking in much of it.

The casting generally is good. Christopher Plummer is steadfast excellence as always. Lily Cole is a surprisingly strong choice. I've never understood the viewpoint of Cole as "sooooooo beautiful" that the gossip sheets and magazines espouse but she has a quirky intrigue that works wonders in a Gilliam world and proves herself as an actress amongst a proved group of impressive performers. Hers is probably the best debut performance I can recall of a model or singer turning to acting. She puts a lot of professional actresses (no Keiras named!) to shame.

Andrew Garfield is that intriguing mix of annoying and brilliant. Like DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? I started out thinking he was terrible and then grew to realise it was just that I hated him, his character. He annoyed the hell out of me. In another words he had inhabited the character so fully, so convincingly that my negative feelings toward him where directed at the fictional character. A superb performance.

Tom Waits steals moments constantly. Waits hasn't been given such a juicy role that fit him better since Renfield in Coppola's Dracula and he revels as Dr Nick (the devil) here.

Oddly the performance that, again I specify on first viewing, leaves you a bit underwhelmed is Ledgers. It is not a bad performance but the expectations as you go in, knowing it was his last performance, means you expect something special. Brokeback Mountain/Dark Knight special. But of course not every role is as powerful as his in Brokeback or as scene-stealing as the Joker. I mean he didn't know it was his last performance for crying out loud. Therefore it cannot possibly live up to expectations and is destined to underwhelm until multiple viewings and some distance allow it to be judged fairly. That there was such a fully formed character there that three other actors could step in to play alternate universe versions of it entirely convincingly is arguably a testament to how strong a performance Ledger did give. It is not a likable character or a flashy character (it doesn't even really seem the main character until the alternate worlds with the alternate Tonys come in) and so Ledger's understated subtleties are easy to miss.

When you watch Fisher King the first time you remember Robin Williams, not Jeff Bridges. In Twelve Monkeys it's Brad Pitt that comes away with you not Bruce Willis. And yet on further viewings Bridges' performance seems superb, Willis' perhaps the best of his career. I suspect on repeated viewings I'm going to see the strength of Ledger's performance better. I hope so.

And of course this is a problem much of the film has. Gilliam doesn't make simple, overly explained films for the masses – thank Gilliam – you have to work with them. The problem here is that with your mind distracted with thoughts of Ledger and expectations built on that promise of Gilliam at his creative best, three step-in performances and Ledger's final performance it's hard to get your mind around the story and enjoy it as a piece of work.

Sometimes Gilliam films work, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they get better and better on repeat viewings (Brazil); sometimes they work instantly (Twelve Monkeys); sometimes they seem to work but the more you see them or think about them they crumble and ultimately don't (Brothers Grimm). Sometimes they just seem to be a mix of great ideas, wonderful performances and ingenious set pieces but hampered by an overabundance of theatricality and almost too much going on for its own good (Baron Munchausen). On a first viewing Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus feels like this latter. Bits work, bits don't. It's enjoyable in places but perplexing ultimately.

I will definitely revisit it though to see if changes on repeat viewings. I feel sure it will, but whether that's a good or bad thing, well, I'll have to wait and see.

There was a great line in Edward Porter's review of the new Fame in the UK Sunday Times newspaper that said something along the lines of "Remember their names? I can barely remember their faces!" This essential sums up all that is wrong with the new Fame movie. There is nothing memorable about it.

You would think that when making a film about a group of dramatic arts and music students you would seek out the most talented unknowns out their. There must be dozens of them surely. Which makes you wonder how on Earth they finished up with this bunch of no-hopers! There is only one kid with any discernible talent, the pianist-turned-singer who has a teen Jennifer Hudson vibe, amongst the young cast. The rest is filled with lousy singers, uninspired dancers and wooden actors.

It does serve to make the underused teaching staff (Kelsey Grammar, Megan Mullahy, Bebe Neuwirth, Charles S Dutton) stand out more but I doubt that was an intention. In fact the script and direction goes out of its way to underserve these actors. Mullahy is given a terrible song to sing at a karaoke bar which does nothing to serve her natural singing talent, serving instead to make her sound shrill. It does perhaps show why her character did not make it as a successful singer and is just a teacher but that would be giving the director far too much credit I suspect and, besides, just not explain the awed gawping of the students. Grammar crops up in this scene out of nowhere making you think he was maybe just shoved in to give him more screen time. While Dutton has an hilarious storyline where one "troubled" student is telling a story and, in the timeline of the movie, it takes Dutton 2 years to ask the logical response question. What have these guys been doing for 2 years?! And that brings me to the script which has two huge problems. The first is the timeline. The film follows the students over 3 years at the school, but does so so swiftly that it allows no time for growth. Most of the scenes follow in an ordered logic that would work just as well in a film that spanned a single week as 3 whole years. There is no growth. From one year to the next none of the characters appear to have developed, to have learnt a single thing. Those that are morose and troubled in year one are the same in year three. Naïve on day one? Yup, naïve on graduation. And this equally serves to kill any possible chance of rooting for a character to succeed. You don't see characters getting better. Suddenly you are just jumped to another year and lo and behold someone quitting because they have an acting or dancing gig and you not only wonder "how did that happen?" but "who is that anyway?" The script does such a poor job of setting the characters up that often a characters "big moment" seems to be their only moment, leaving the audience shrugging and looking at their watches.

The other problem is the phenomenal lack of tension and drama. There seriously is none. It appears to be a phenomenon in Hollywood films I'm noticing more and more that they are so determined to hit all bases and offend absolutely no one that there is an almost comical lack of drama. The recent "thriller" Obsessed was this way. It had zero thrills. Fame is the same and hint as possible drama through unhappy parents or disappointments is so instantly resolved that no tension had built. A scene with one character possibly suicidal I was audibly rooting for the guy to kill himself just to give the film some sort of drama, an element of edge, a moment of guts, but no. Nothing. The closest thing you get to anticipation watching Fame (2009) is hoping it may at some point actually have something to anticipate! This is probably partly the problem with hiring a choreographer to direct the movie. A good director (like the original film's Alan Parker) can hire a good choreographer to help him but I guess a choreographer can't exactly hire another director for advice. This films screams "I have no sense of story and drama" and while much of the blame can clearly be assigned to the script and the awful casting a good director would have seen those problems and, at least casting wise, probably helped avoid or overcome them. The director here is massively out of his depth.

Fame's worst offence though is the truly unrealistic view of the world it portrays. The original went some way to at least suggest the work that such students have to put in, though perhaps in this age of reality TV where any moron can become an instant star this would be an unteachable, untenable lesson. Here any success any of the students have comes seemingly by luck and "right-place right-time" factors or from outside help. The school doesn't seem to have helped them at all. And on top of that none of these students would make it because they are so phenomenally devoid of talent. A cast of talented unknowns with a choreographer director proved what can be done in Disney's High School Musical. Given the potential for revisiting Fame in a modern day setting everyone involved should be ashamed of what they've turned out here.

Oh dear! I had high hopes for this Ricky Gervais comedy. He's never proved himself on film, but here he was writing, directing, producing. He had come up with a great, funny concept. This was his chance to shine.

Unfortunately the light at the end of this tunnel is the train coming to run us down.

Like so many "high concept" comedies this is a concept in desperate, futile search of a plot... and some funnier lines.

It's no disaster. There are some funny bits. It starts well (or at least does after a hideously misguided voice-over explanation of the basic plot set-up) but the joke that everyone not only can't lie (lying doesn't exist you see, hence the title - obvious, right? So why the voice over explanation Ricky, why, oh, why!) but volunteers the truth, no matter how harsh, at every occasion quickly wears thin. He gets about 20 minutes out of it and some people handle it better than others. Curiously it is often the straight actors (like Jennifer Garner) that play it better and the comedians (like Tina Fey) who sound too much like they are delivering calculated lines to get a laugh - and therefore don't. I love Fey but every line of hers fell flat for me here while Garner sold the hell out of it. Perhaps it's the less comedic actors lose themselves more in the character and world and aren't trying for the gag, the laugh, just trusting in the script, etc. I don't know but it's noticeable time and again here.

A risky (for some American audiences) plot element involving his inadvertent creation of religion and the spiralling outcome of this is also amusing, but again it's funnier as an idea than in execution. Out-staying its welcome.

There are also some dynamite cameos, including two that had my laughing simply by their presence. A bar tender that joins Gervais and the excellent Louis C.K. in a scene is both funny by presence and in his dynamite delivery. I'm not going to say who plays it because if you're going to watch the film it was one of the highlights for me.

As was another cameo by a usually fairly serious actor (although he has shown a comedic side on occasion) as a traffic cop. Again just his presence is funny from the moment he walks on screen and the voice (cause you won't instantly recognise him) gives him away.

A scene with two Extras regulars is fun but feels out of place in the film, almost playing like an afterthought put in for faithful fans.

Amongst the other leads Garner triumphs, giving it her all and Louis C.K. is very funny, but Jonah Hill is underused and never hits the high notes he achieved in Funny People, while Tina Fey doesn't bring it (and i so wanted her to) and Rob Lowe really fails in an update of his Wayne's World character.

But ultimately this descends into sentiment and lacks resolve or real drama. It often feels like a string of stand-up one-liners extended into plot devices (as there is no lying movies are a guy -nice touch cameo from Christopher Guest as one such - reading a book on camera) that work once but then are repeated over and over, beating the gag into submission. Ideas like the use of lying to make people feel better are similarly used once to affecting and comedic effect but then overplayed.

And before you know it you're bogged down in a film about perception of others and looking beyond the surface that could have been reached by any number of devices, making the lying thing irrelevant!

Like Bruce Almighty the concept can only get the film so far before you notice you have almost no interest in the characters, there is no discernible plot and we're going to descend into sentimentality without passing through palpable drama or achieving any resolve.

Disappointing is the only appropriate word.

Orson Welles is alive and well and residing in the body of British actor Christian McKay! McKay is simply stunning here as Welles - the look, the eye-brow, the mannerisms, the bounce, the voice - never have i seen Welles, as a character, better done. Many have tried few have succeeded (although i have a soft spot for Vincent D'Onofrio's Welles-cameo in Ed Wood.

The same can be said in general for Richard Linklater's film in terms of featuring Welles and using the whole "putting on a show" theatrical device. I didn't like Oliver Parker's Fade To Black with Danny Huston hamming Welles. RKO 281 was solid and Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock was a noble, if unsatisfyingly drear effort. Aided by McKay's towering achievement, a (mostly) superb supporting cast and a deft lightness Linklater has delivered his best film in years.

To my mind he can be hit (Dazed & Confused, Before Sunrise) and miss (A Scanner Darkly, Fast Food Nation), but this is firmly in the hit category.

Other non-Welles films, such as Kenneth Branagh's In The Bleak Mid-Winter, have failed in their attempts to have fun at "putting on a show" format because they are too in love with moments that have that "you just had to be there" element. Christopher Guest made a go of it in Waiting For Guffman, but then he was mocking the pretensions so many others embrace as part of the scene. Somehow McKay's (as Welles) enormous personality and Linklater's breezy "makes it look so easy" style make you feel like you are there in Me & Orson Welles and it works to great effect - tantalising the viewer with moments and flashes of the play to come without giving it to you until the right time. The 'Me' of the title really becomes the viewer. You are swept along me both filmmaker and Orson (and it really does feel like Orson. After a few moments i never doubted the Linklater had somehow resurrected Welles and saddled him with Zac Efron!) And this brings me the film's one real problem (and surely a marketing nightmare for the distributors!) Now i'm no Efron hater, i haven't seen any of the HSM movies, but he was fine in both Hairspray and 17 Again but here he has to register in a fantastic ensemble of actors and he simply doesn't. Admittedly he is hamstrung a little by the role. Since the story and Linklater's direction make the viewer feel like 'Me' observing Welles as he creates his legendary production of Julius Caesar and the Mercury theatre company it is easy to kind of forget about Efron's Richard, or at least to dismiss him as Welles so often does. He just makes no impression at all. He's not bad he's just not really significant.

This leads to the inevitable problem that as we reach the films final act, once the play is done and Welles is off screen you feel like the movie is over. You've seen everything there is to see here, it is time to move along. But no, because Efron's story is unresolved so we get another 10 minutes of him and his ending. But you simply don't care. Once McKay/Welles had gone off with his supporting cast the movie was over, it just didn't know it! Amongst the supporting cast Claire Danes continues in display as easy charm, effortlessly likable and curiously beautiful in her quirky angular way. Zoe Kazan (last seen in Revolutionary Road) is a delight as the underused other woman in Efron's life (although if she'd been used more it would have meant more Efron, less Welles so maybe that's a blessing in disguise). James Tupper is excellent as Joseph Cotten, a great match for McKay's Welles. If they ever (God forbid) remake The Third Man they have the cast! Ben Chaplin is also marvellous as George Couloris. I'm constantly impressed by Chaplin and have no idea why he isn't a bigger name. Kelly Reilly doesn't have much to do but look gorgeous, which, naturally, she does with ease. Eddie Marsan seems miscast as John Houseman. I like Marsan but he didn't fit the bill for me here.

Ultimately this is McKay's show. He gives an electrifying performance at the center of a movie that while it is about Welles efforts to put on Julius Caesar is a charming, funny and swift-paced joy; but unfortunately it also has to make space for Zac Efron and his own storyline and there-in lie the flaws.

How you market this i don't know! I can't imagine Efron fans getting excited about a film set in the 1930s about the creation of an historic theatrical production staged by a man who's been dead for 25 years! And on the flipside i nearly didn't see it because i dismissed it, on first awareness, as a Zac Efron movie and so not for me. Only on a second invitation did i notice it was directed by Linklater (always interesting, if not always successful) which charged my want to see it.

Ultimately though if you want to see it because you're an Efron fan, well go see it because your guy's in it and because you'll get to see something a bit different from what you're used it. And maybe you'll like it. If you're not an Efron fan, never fear, you can all but forget he's there and just enjoy Linklater at his breezy best and the best performance of Welles on screen since the great man departed this earth (and took possession of McKay!)

It just goes to show how wrong you can be. I had not expected to like this film. I was disappointed by both the Kill Bill films (although i preferred the second) and Death Proof (although it was better in the shorter cut of the double-bill release). I love Reservoir Dogs, admire Pulp Fiction and think that Jackie Brown is Tarantino's most mature piece of film-making - technically his most superior - including the last great performance elicited from Robert De Niro. Since then it seems to me while his films have been okay (i haven't hated them) he has been treading water in referential, reverential, self-indulgent juvenilia.

Then i read the script last year for Inglourious Basterds - and i hated it! Sure it had some typical QT flourishes and the opening scene was undeniably powerful. There were a couple of great characters. But on page it was more juvenile rubbish, largely ruined by the largess of the uninteresting Basterds of the title. It made me seriously contemplate not seeing the film. The trailers did nothing to convince me. I only changed by mind when i had the opportunity to see the film with a Tarantino Q&A following in London. I figured it would be worth enduring to hear him in Q&A as i know from interviews how entertaining he can be in person.

So little was i prepared for the sheer exuberant fun and brilliance of Inglourious Basterds.

Easily Mr Tarantino's best work since Jackie Brown it is a triumph.

Yes the references are there but they do not interfere with the story, they are not the driving force. Yes Eli Roth is stunt casting but he works fine, with little to do but look aggressive, and does nothing to hurt the film as i had feared. While i admired Mr Tarantino for using stuntwoman Zoe Bell as herself in Death Proof in order to amp-up the exhilaration of the major stunt scene her lack of any acting ability in a key role was a problem for the film. The same could be said of Tarantino's own appearances in several films, especially Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn, which Tarantino wrote.

What really makes this work is how BIG it is. The spaghetti western vibe to much of the style, dialogue and performances is wonderfully over the top without descending too far into the cartoon quality of Kill Bill. The violence is so big. The audacity so big. Brad Pitt is so big! In the trailers the Hitler moment and Pitt's performance bothered me but in the context of the film they are hilarious. Pitt is actually brilliant here, exactly what he needs to be. He is Mifune's blustering samurai in Yojimbo, he is Robards Cheyenne from Once Upon a Time in the West, there is a very James Coburn vibe to him, and of course a suitably Lee Marvin edge.

Christoph Waltz (who i did not previously known) and Melanie Laurent (who i first noticed in a brilliant French-language British short film by Sean Ellis) are sensational and i expect to see both used a lot more in the future. Tarantino has clearly not lost his eye for casting, which seemed to desert him in Death Proof. Waltz is equally large in his performance. Chilling, yet theatrical. He is Fonda from OUATITW, Van Cleef from Good, The Bad & the Ugly. And Laurent is suitably Cardinale innocence but tough, a fighter. They both dazzle here.

That every member of the cast gets the fun to be had from what they are doing while not indulging themselves in just having fun and trying to get laughs helps tremendously. The laughs - and there are loads - come organically. Only Mike Myers comes close to tipping the wink and pushing it too far but his scene is reigned in just enough - with the help of a fantastic Michael Fassbender who seems pulled directly from the mold of Attenborough's Great Escape leader.

All the actors shine and Tarantino throws in wonderful flourishes, but ones that work with the story. The introduction of Schweiger's Hugo Stiglitz is a riot. After a sensational slow-burn opening and a glorious intro to those inglourious Basterds the pace never lets up and over two and half hours flies by.

It also looks beautiful, marking this as a return to real film-making rather than just self-indulgent silliness. The musical choices, as always, are inspired from Morricone on.

The film is audacious and hilarious. After a summer when nearly every film has disappointed me it came as a huge surprise that the real fun and entertaining, but also involving and impressive film should be this one, when i would never have believed it from script form. Welcome back QT.

Never Weaken came a year after the brilliant Haunted Spooks and touches on some of the same ideas but plays in a very different ways, including featuring an extended sequence of the stunning stunt-work best associated with Lloyd.

Where Keaton had his dour expression and acrobatics and Chaplin had the pathos and funny walk of the tramp Lloyd is best remembered for his effervescence and his stunts. The stunts are never better represented than here which sees a protracted, thrilling and funny scene when Harold finds himself stranded on the beams of a building under construction. One gag in this sequence involving a ladder is as good as they come but the whole sequence is a delight.

It might surprise people that a key theme here involves attempted suicide, something Keaton often tackled, but is less associated with the happy-go-lucky Lloyd, but it was something he visited on multiple occasions. Perfectly demonstrating what a fine line exists between comedy and tragedy this scene here explores the banalities that intrude and the difficulties of going through with such an act that when dwelt on are extremely astute but while watched are hilarious. The suicidal scenes of Haunted Spooks have bigger, and funnier gags and this is one extended scene here instead of a series of vignettes but still inspired as Harold figures out how to do it, dismissing various ways for funny, but oddly real reasons. The sequence is at it's best though when he delays the act because he gets caught up in the triviality of a miss-spelling in his suicide note! Lloyd regular (and later his wife) Mildred Davis again appears as the love interest, though has little to do here compared to some.

The film is intriguingly split into three distinct segments, the slapstick laughs of the first section where Harold is trying to get patients for the doctor Mildred works for so she won't be fired; the smart wit of the suicidal second section; and then the thrilling stunts of the final section. Whichever part of Lloyd's art you like best Never Weaken can offer it to you, however as a whole it does feel a little like 3 10 minute shorts playing one after the other.

Typically the title cards remain the most inspired and beautiful of any US silent comedian.

Well worth catching. If you don't know Lloyd you couldn't get a better introduction to his talents.

I in the process of watching or revisiting all of Lloyd's short and feature work and the first few shorts i've watched that i had not previous seen, most notably Number, Please?, have not seemed to have the inspired genius of his features, relying more on the tired run-fall down-slapstick violence and chases of the over-rated Keystone films and Roscoe Arbuckle. They certainly had good moments but were did not offer the Harold of the features.

In Haunted Spooks though we have a film that is ingenious, hilarious and inspired.

From a wonderful introduction to Harold (he's in frame a good 30 seconds before you see him, a truly brilliant reveal) the invention never lets up. The film could easily have sustained 4 reels or more, there is so much going on.

The highlight is a hilarious sequence where Harold, left suicidal by yet another rejection, tries to find ways to do the deed. The result of one attempt involving drowning is priceless and as funny a gag as Lloyd ever produced. Another involving the typical self-absorbed nature of people as a man pauses him in another attempt to ask for a light and then the time while failing to notice the circumstances is equally riotous. It is a gloriously dark vein of comedy for Lloyd, and one he would revisit, that brings to mind Keaton - who often got great fun out of the subject, perfectly demonstrating the fine line between tragedy and comedy.

Here Lloyd does the same perfectly. To so generally happy a character as Lloyd generally portrayed (in contrast to Keaton's more dour screen persona) is ought to be a sad moment (and is one Chaplin would have milked for sentiment) but the triumph of humour over the tragedy is his genius. I know some over-serious types find the subject distasteful but that is to miss the comment which is the fine line between tragedy and comedy, a subject all the finest of the silent comedians (Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton) understood well and exploited to wonderful effect.

Thankfully the overt ugly and lazy slapstick of violence and chases is largely missing here in favour of genuine laughs and ingenious devices. Bizarrely in the haunted house section of the film there is even a moment that evokes thoughts of FW Murnau's Nosferatu despite the fact that Lloyd's film pre-dates the German masterpiece by 2 years (and it's US premiere by 9).

Mildred Davis, Harold's future wife, is as delightful as always but it is Harold's maturing in comedic styles here that marks this out as a special piece. The only vague marring of the film is a racial stereotyping of the servants in the house - an unfortunate byproduct of the time that seen through modern eyes gains a more negative aspect - but we must remember the time in which the film was made and not judge too harshly for that - in fact Lloyd gives the moment of triumphant discovery to the butler, ably demonstrating his generosity in not always taking centre-stage (in fact Lloyd is missing from probably a quarter of the film entirely).

It is also interesting to note that the accident with a prop bomb which claimed index finger and thumb from his right hand and nearly killed him happened during production of Haunted Spooks, halting production for some months, and the prosthetic glove by wore to disguise this is first evident here. Indeed there are scenes clearly showing his real hand and others with the much lighter in colour prosthetic.

A must see for anyone who not only wants a good laugh but wants to see the mastery of Lloyd at his best in his shorts.

What makes The Electric House such a must-see Keaton short is curiously not the showcasing of the great man himself but that of the technical prowess of his technical director Fred Gabourie. Gabourie had built The Boat and worked with Keaton since 1920's One Week, which was the one with the ingenious portable house, and he would progress with Keaton from the shorts to the features. But never were the technical gadgets Keaton used and Gabourie had to make work practically better displayed than in The Electric House. Keaton really lets Gabourie's gadgets take centre stage here and it is a chance to marvel at a master at work.

In a strange way it's almost too brilliant because the laughs don't really play as well. Whereas in One Week or The Boat the gadgets and physical comedy worked in perfect harmony in The Electric House Keaton lets the film get a bit bogged down in watching the gadgets at work.

Nevertheless in these days of CGI and visual cheats it is stunning to see these practical effects in full flow. Gabourie was clearly a genius, one whose name deserves to be held in the same light as practical effects masters like Willis O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen and Stan Winston.

There is one word for this film: Weak. If you think you're going to get Shaun Of The Dead with vampires as one comment suggests you will be massively disappointed.

This film is not without it's laughs, but sadly they are few and far between and mostly in the trailer (the werewolf line is still the best in the whole film so work out how much that made you laugh in the trailer, figure that's the best you're getting and decide from there).

It is only 87 minutes but it still manages to get dull, something Shaun avoided. It does not have the deft lightness, charm and flow of Shaun and this is largely due to sub-Carry On writing that thinks it's funny when you are rolling eyes and groaning. The direction is lazy and feels more like one of the standard rubbish 'Brit comedian(s) comedy' like Sex Lives Of The Potato Men or Parole Officer. It's better than Potato Men of course - on a sort of level with Parole Officer I suppose or the Oz comedy Black Sheep.

Perhaps if Horne and Corden had written it, as Pegg and Wright did for Shaun, it would have worked for them better. But this is a weak film that only comes off as the pair trying (and failing) to do their own Shaun. Avoid unless a die-hard Horne and Corden fan, and even then you'll have to talk yourself into enjoying it if you're sober!

Out West marks a distinct departure for Arbuckle as a director in that compared to what had come before it had a much stronger, more thought out and developed style and story. It has more genuinely clever and funny ideas than the preceding shorts with Al St John and Buster Keaton put together - the high concept of the western theme clearly releasing the creative genius that Fatty could display.

Keaton and St John also have stronger parts than their usual nameless knockabout side characters that had come before. Visually the sepia rounded-corner 19th century photograph look of it is a stylish stylistic directorial choice from Arbuckle, showing the talent he could display (and would again) rather than simply allowing the action to be the film. You feel the story here from the outset. Excellent.

It is a testament to Peter Morgan's humility and skill as a writer and Ron Howard's ability to take a based on real events story to which the outcome is widely known and create a compelling "what will happen" drama (as he did with Apollo 13) that Frost/Nixon succeeds as a film.

This is a film based on a play that neither felt trapped in staginess nor weakly expanded with just the stage dialogue delivered exactly but in a variety of outdoor locales. I have to give Peter Morgan a lot of credit here. I saw the play in London and wondered throughout production of the film how they would escape its theatricality. Many recent films from plays like Proof, Closer, The Producers, have failed to throw off the shackles of stage feel. Not that all bad films, many served as a good way to see the play if you hadn't had the chance, but they weren't necessarily compelling films in their own right. What is so impressive about Morgan's work here is that in adapting his own play he has not been precious, he has not tried to enforce his already successful stage-play onto a film director – he has wholly reworked it from beginning to end and yet retained all the gravity and drama that the play elicited. If you saw the play everything key is here and yet you can feel the difference – the pacing is changed, the power achieved in different ways.

For this Howard also deserves credit. To have filmed the play as it was would have been disastrous on film – one long two-hander scene after another, duelling narrators. And given the reverence the play has enjoyed a less experienced director could have fallen into this trap or that of simply changing the settings, but Howard knows when we need quick cuts, when a long drawn out piece that worked on stage needs to be reduced to a couple of lines and a post-scene reaction, and when he needs to hold with a scene and let it play between the two leads. This happens in several impressive moments in the latter half of the film.

For some this might constitute the films biggest flaw however. Morgan and Howard can't escape the fact that in the final stages of the film it is the head-to-head scenes of Frost and Nixon that are key and they must stay with them more. This is necessary, but it sadly means that the supporting players, so well established and broadened out to expand the scope in the first half, fall be the wayside. A superb Toby Jones as Irving 'Swifty' Lazar, Matthew Macfadyen as John Birt and always reliable Oliver Platt as Bob Zelnick all but disappear and only Kevin Bacon and Sam Rockwell play any significant role beyond the two leads in the final stages. This is a shame. It may best serve the story creating the sense of claustrophobia necessary to keep you gripped but it does feel like a film of two halves because of it and it noticeable.

Frank Langella and Michael Sheen are superb, as they were on stage, and Langella will take a lot of beating for the Oscar this year. There are many moments here when I was so involved I forgot I wasn't watching the real Nixon. It's not that he looks that like Nixon but he is so real you believe it completely and have to remind yourself you're watching an actor.

Platt is reliably Platt. Bacon is also his typically understated solid presence doing a lot with little. Toby Jones is fantastic in a small role – instantly memorable; and Rebecca Hall builds on a series of strong performances. But in the supporting cast it is Rockwell that stands out. Sure, he has the most to do but he is completely in this role, he manages to sink into the role which is something he rarely does. He matches the skill he showed in Lawn Dogs and Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind here and it is great to see him back at his best.

I thoroughly recommend this film.

I'd heard some good things about this film but not from trusted sources and having seen it i can't agree. Man in the Chair is a very average film. It is not terrible compelling to watch and is very obvious in its plotting. The dialogue is also often laughably bad and the awful caricature performance it features representing Orson Welles is insulting both to Mr Welles and to the viewer's intelligence.

It sets the tone for narrative drag immediately with an extended clip (first heard off screen and then shown) clip from Howard Hawks' superb comedy His Girl Friday, which serves no real purpose in the story other than to establish 'Flash' Madden goes to see old movies! Great insight! A piece of info that is perfectly well introduced with a later seen at the same theatre showing Touch Of Evil which serves a narrative purpose both in its introduction of the two lead characters to each other; their similar tastes; and the link to Welles whom 'Flash' has worked with on Citizen Kane. The use of His Girl Friday however is entirely unnecessary and too lengthy; and as with most of the other films it references, only highlights the fact that the writer can recognise a variety of well-written great films - making it the more perplexing that he has no ear for how staged and hammy his dialogue is.

Plummer is solid as 'Flash' but loses his way here and there in stereotype and overplaying - a fault of the script not his, but an actor of his skill should have been able to instruct the director/writer better on how to play it. Given how extraordinary Plummer can be - just watch his Mike Wallace in The Insider - i expected better. Michael Angarano is fine but is again saddled with a poorly written role that makes him a rebel that he never seems and then connects him to 'Flash' in the most tenuous way.

M Emmet Walsh however is marvellous in a supporting role and while i'm sure the average standard of the film and the grandstanding of Plummer in the lead will cause him to be overlooked it would be wonderful and justified if this great character actor saw a supporting actor nod at the Oscars.

Overall the film is inoffensive and has a noble heart and message but the script is lacking in substance and drive. A Sunday afternoon on the TV type of watch.

I went in cynical about this, especially after the travesty that was the Narnia film, but i was quickly converted: it's great fun. A really entertaining and immersive film that intelligently builds a fantastical world that the uninitiated can marvel and thrill in. I have to say i haven't read the books so can't comment on a book to film comparison.

On the cast, I don't know how it works in the book but the adults are barely in this. Nicole has the most significant work and Sam Elliott, while a late arrival, is a great presence once he's around. However Daniel Craig and Eva Green are barely in it and Christopher Lee has one blink-and-you'll miss him scene. That said the casting is excellent. Green is suitably witchy and Craig makes an impact in his one/two dialogue scenes early on which, along with a couple of wordless inserts of his storyline, put him enough into your mind to wonder about him. He feels set up for a more significant role in future instalments. Elliott is great. That sonorous voice sneaking out from underneath that bushy moustache feels exactly right for Lee Scorsby.

Kidman is perfect. There's something indelibly creepy about her rigid manner that works for the elegant but sinister Mrs Coulter. Meanwhile Simon McBurney is magnificently slimy and loathsome as the magisterium main face. You know he's a villain from the moment he enters frame.

Dakota Blue Richards is a great find as Lara. While the first two Potter films and Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe were significantly hampered by the incredibly mannered, unrealistic, wooden acting of the young leads (most of the Potter cast got better, time will tell on Narnia) Richards is a winner from the outset. Precocious and feisty without seeming too forced she is generally believable whether is her rebellion or her loyalty. This is just as well as the film is really entirely on her shoulders. It will work or not for people based on whether you like her. She's in virtually every scene and has a lot of different emotions to get across as well as having to have significant interaction with CGI creations like her spirit animal Pan (the ubiquitous Freddie Highmore) and the polar bear played by Ian McKellen. She has a couple of slightly actorly moments but does incredibly well for a first timer under this kind of pressure.

Of the voice-only cast McKellen is a perfect choice for the honourable polar bear while Highmore is either getting less annoying or it's just beneficial not being able to see him, as he is nicely understated as Pan. My only note on this casting would be once or twice I couldn't tell is Lyra or Pan was speaking in their interaction as in quiet moments Highmore and Richards' voices are remarkably similar!

The effects are good but not great. I had worried they'd be as weak as Narnia and they aren't. The world is beautifully created and always feels real, whether Scorsby's flying ship or the blimp thing from the trailer, or stunning Arctic landscapes and big cities. The smaller creatures are also brilliantly rendered, Pan in particular. Some of the bigger creatures are less perfect. The polar bears have a cartoony unreal feel but in a fantasy setting with battle armour and stuff they work well enough. Certainly better than Aslan in Narnia. However the leopard creature with Daniel Craig doesn't look right at all.

As for the film itself it really zips along quickly. The uninitiated (like me) may occasionally lose track of what's going on early on as strange terms and names are thrown back and forth but it soon settles down and makes sense. Rather than frustrating me that I might be missing key elements of what this world was about I felt happy going with it and was left thinking I'll watch it again when it's released just to be sure I didn't miss anything. It's a relief to see a fantasy film that brings it in at almost exactly two hours and has a cracking momentum, as opposed to the seemingly endless drag of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Narnia. Don't get me wrong taking time can work. I really liked Fellowship of the Ring but the pace of the Potters really tests my patience. Golden Compass moves so fast before you know it it's over and it leaves you wanting more. Indeed at the end of this film I could say it had succeeded in doing something the Potter franchise has never done: it left me desperate to see the next one.

However what really made me like this film more than those others is the tone and some of the things they do in it. There are moments in this, that i won't spoil for those like me who didn't know the plot, that really surprised me that they'd do in a family film.

A big fight scene between polar bears and the end battle are suitably exciting and i found myself really invested. I cared about the characters. Whereas in Narnia they hadn't done enough to make you care about Aslan's fate (criminal given how effectively the book and the 80s BBC TV serial managed it) this really has you on the edge of your seat for the good guys.

Overall I really liked Golden Compass and would give it an 8/10 – compared to LOTR 10/10, 9/10, 7/10 for the series, Potter 5/10, 6/10, 8/10, 7/10, 7/10 for the series and Narnia 4/10. I will be watching this again when it comes out (something I never did for Potter or Narnia) and am looking forward to the next instalment. I hope Daniel Craig and Eva Green get bigger roles in the next film, but all round a great start to a potential franchise that I had middling hopes for.

I just saw this on rental last night and I was massively and pleasantly surprised that I loved it. I like Sixth Sense (loved it on first viewing but it doesn't hold up), love Unbreakable (with gets better with every viewing, like Tarantino's undervalued Jackie Brown), but Signs was only okay and I hated The Village, dull, obvious. Only redeeming feature was Bryce Dallas Howard who was very good.

So after the BVI blow-up and all the critical drubbing I didn't bother to even go see Lady in the Water, and as someone who averages 150-200 films per year in the cinema you have to be pretty poor to be left out. But i just thought, why bother? But you know what I don't regret it for a moment because i think that lowering of expectations and time removal from both studio hype and critical vitriol helped.

Lady in the Water is a beautiful, lyrical movie. Badly, but not surprising, miss-sold by the studio as a usual Night twisty thriller this is a fairy-tale, like a serious Princess Bride. It easily sweeps you along as a group of mythological archetype characters build a sweet, emotional story. Chris Doyle's haunting cinematography, James Newton Howard's melodic score and pitch perfect performances from a completed invested cast make for a delightful movie.

I can't help but think that this movie made exactly the same but by someone else without Shyamalan's pre-existing reputation would not have been attacked to the same degree. Critics didn't like that he made himself a key actor and that he had a movie critic character in there obviously but more than that I think it's just not a movie you can see with any expectations.

I had none. I had all but forgotten about it but I saw Spider-Man 3 the day before which rekindled my Bryce Dallas love and I thought oh, i'll give Lady a go.

And the performances in this? Howard gets exactly the right mix of strange and intriguing with power and purpose. Jeffrey Wright is wonderful in an understated role. All the ensemble is strong. But Paul Giamatti, wow! He has this one sensational emotional scene in the final act (I won't give spoilers about why, how or what) that is extraordinary. He's heartbreaking. I haven't cried in a movie without an animal getting hurt since I was a child but his power genuinely moved me to tears, I was so invested in the man.

Give it a chance. It won't be for everyone. It's really a very indie sensibility movie hiding in the guise of a studio thriller. It's a fairy-tale, literally as it says "a bedtime story" and should be approached in that manner. Try and forget its Shyamalan, that's the only way.

After being disappointed by the admirable, functional but surprisingly uninspiring Flags Of Our Fathers I didn't know whether its companion piece would be for me. But I like Clint Eastwood as a filmmaker. Ever since I saw Play Misty For Me I've considered him one of the truly gifted director/actors so I knew i'd give Letters From Iwo Jima a chance.

And wow! Am I glad I did. Like Flags it has stunning cinematography, unobtrusive special effects, a strong ensemble and a beautiful, yet understated score but Letters From Iwo Jima is more than just the sum of its flawless parts. Capturing the emotion, the heartache, the hardship, the friendships, the innocence, the anger, the horror and the futility of war like no other American-made war film i can recall it is, quite simply, Eastwood's first true masterpiece since Unforgiven.

Now, I love A Perfect World, Bridges Of Madison County, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, I even enjoy Absolute Power and Midnight In the Garden of Good & Evil, but no matter how good or bad any of these films are none are masterpieces. I believe sincerely that with Letters From Iwo Jima Eastwood has delivered for the war film what he did for the western in Unforgiven - a believable, emotional, beautiful piece of art that is also entertainment. Where Flags seemed overlong Letters drifts expertly through its running time, drawing you into the lives of the characters, investing the audience. It gives a sense of what it must have been like, not just for those on the other side of a conflict where we usually only see our side, but just the general impression of being in a war.

It also doesn't fall into the trap of trying too hard to make us see the other side. The beauty of this film is it's not about sides, it's about war and people.

Expertly played, smartly produced, beautiful and heartrending to watch. I only wish I could shake Mr Eastwood by the hand, I have finally seen a movie this decade that I know will stay with me through my lifetime.

Deep Sea is the latest joy to be released in IMAX but part of its excellence comes, as so often, from being presented in IMAX 3D. All films should be released in this format, it's the true way forward for cinema. Even The Polar Express was good in IMAX!

Deep Sea is a 40 minute documentary feature that makes the most of its 3D. From the opening shot of a wave headed straight out of the screen to jellyfish fields, giant sea turtles and octopus and a legion of fish varieties and stunning underwater seascapes it does present the world it shows in rarely seen way.

It is only let down by the talking down, over-humanisation of the narration aimed at the kids in the audience, especially from Kate Winslet. Johnny Deppp works better but Winslet sounds like a school-marm talking to a class of four year olds. And the narration has an annoying habit, ala March Of The Penguins, of endowing the animals with human traits to make them easier to associate with for childish minds.

David Attenborough and the BBC make better documentaries as a whole production but you can't fault Deep Sea 3D's visuals and the immersion experience the IMAX format provides. See it for the experience. It is like nothing you've experienced before, the narration really is only a minor annoyance.

I had fearful reservations about this one. I loved Tim Burton's Batman - 12 years old when it came out I was the perfect age for it and I also enjoyed Batman Returns. The franchise went so wrong under Joel Schumacher that I wasn't sure I wanted it resurrected. Not least because Batman was one of the few comics I read and enjoyed as a kid and was always my favourite superhero. I grew up reading the comics, watching reruns of the Adam West TV show and then getting Burton's celluloid vision. I was spoilt for choice as a kid but as an adult now I was concerned revisiting the franchise, especially given Warner's record over the last decade of screwing up summer blockbusters with potential all over the place (dare I bring up the Matrix sequels?)

However, I am pleased to report I could not have been more wrong about how great Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins is. This is better than Burton. Sacrilege, you say?! Well Burton was still cartoony in many elements, he wasn't churning out the bilge of Schumacher but Burton's Batman was still over the top. As a kid this was ideal but Nolan's Batman is real. Everything in this world seems plausible and it is therefore a world that draws you in. Characters' vulnerability is that much more present. Every bruise, every scare, every concern, every emotion seems real.

Part of this is that Nolan has assembled an exemplary cast. Again, this concerned me prior to seeing the film. I wasn't sure a cast of big name legends like Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman and well known names like Liam Neeson and Katie Holmes wouldn't detract and distract from Batman. I was always sure Christian Bale could be the great moody Batman he's been waiting his career to be but the others I wasn't so sure about.

That said Bale is not just good, he's superb. I never thought I'd really be able to envision anyone other than Michael Keaton as the definitive Batman for me but since seeing Batman Begins a couple of days ago Bale has cemented himself in the position. Perhaps Keaton will now be able to escape the spectre of Batman he hasn't truly shaken off for 13 years.

The rest of the cast is also pitch perfect. Cillian Murphy is creepy as hell, Liam Neeson is authoritative and imposing, Katie Holmes is strong and sexy (I particularly thought she'd be insipid, she should jettison Tom Cruise and let her talent - which she does have naysayers just watch Pieces Of April - speak for itself) and Michael Caine is an Alfred you've never seen but in fact far more likely as a butler than the aristocratic pomp with which he is usually portrayed. Gary Oldman is also superb in a rare wholly decent character for him as Lieutenant Jim Gordon who gets far more to so here than Gordon has ever had to do before. Only Tom Wilkinson is a little off with a slightly comedic wise-guy American accent that never really convinces.

The emotional bond between Bruce Wayne and Alfred is actually a wonderful human heart to the film than Nolan and Goyer have written perfectly.

Don't let that make you think the action is not front and centre though. From Wayne's training through the early stages of the film to his early missions as Batman at about the half way point to a thrillingly choreographed chase sequence and an edge of your seat finale this film delivers the cool quotient in bucket loads.

Great villains (especially Murphy), great story, great cast, great action... put simply, great film. Probably the best comic-book movie ever made (that's excluding the genius Sin City which I consider a moving comic-book rather than a comic-book movie, that will never be bettered but Batman is a different beast and the best of its kind).

Sin City is a truly extraordinary piece of film-making that astounds you with its visual flair, its tone-perfect cast and utter uniqueness.

Robert Rodriguez has once again, more so than ever, shown himself as a true visionary, not just in his realisation of this complex story but in his pioneering digital work.

It is a film that should rightly hold a place forever in history as the first that truly demonstrated what could be achieved with digital technology.

Like a living comic book (it really brings the comic to life in an exact translation that no comic-book film has ever captured before) with this film he has rewritten the possibilities of film-making.

Mickey Rourke and Benicio Del Toro stood out in an exceptional cast that was faultless. They handled the extreme delivery of very comic-book dialogue (unlike anything most directors would be brave enough to let on screen for fear of critical ridicule from the uninitiated or just those unwilling to let go of all they know about film and witness the birth of a new phenomenon) in their stride neither hamming it up nor toning it down. Even actors I am normally a little wary of like Josh Hartnett and Clive Owen put in strong performances while Elijah Wood is positively freaky.

The film as a whole truly infested my mind and made it impossible firstly for me to put into words how blown away by it I was but also to think about anything other than the film for several hours afterwards (I still can't shake lines and visuals from my mind a day later).

It's also fun to contemplate which scene Quentin Tarantino directed.

The use of the early, more jumping scenes was ingenious ahead of three longer narratives for initiating the style for people so that certain visuals, cartoonish laws of gravity, glorious costumery, etc didn't distract you in the main sections.

It is also one of those that begs to be seen over and over. It grabs you and doesn't let go almost making it impossible to take everything in. I can't wait to see it again, and own the DVD.

I think it is a film once seen never forgotten and even those who don't appreciate the style I am sure will see its place in history as  groundbreaking new artistry.

I applaud all involved and hope Rodriguez continues to make films this visceral and exciting in the future.

Going in I wasn't sure about Camp - a musical comedy about a performing arts summer camp - but I am happy to admit that this is an easily enjoyable and funny film.

It is shot in a sort of mockumentary way - not in the direct to camera awareness of Best In Show or father of the genre This Is Spinal Tap but with an intimacy with the characters that makes you believe these are real people and not actors.

Part of writer/director Graff's (known best to me as the guy with the rat from The Abyss) genius in this is casting completely unknowns who have never been on film before. Each brings a freshness and enthusiasm to the role adds to the 'realism'. Even those who don't seem to be particularly good actors work because at this sort of camp there would presumably by those people who are less talented but convinced of their own abilities. This may even be a deliberate portrayal of this type of person, in which case their acting is even more impressive.

While all the young cast are superb singers it is the vindictive Fritzi (Anna Kendrick) that impresses most from the support cast. She is not only an excellent singer but has a glorious ability to play black humour that should see her continue to work solidly, if largely in supporting roles. If she doesn't end up as the sort of caustic supporting character on a sitcom that Megan Mullally plays in Will & Grace I'll be very surprised.

The three leads also do well. Robin de Jesus seems to be having a wail of a time as Michael - a misunderstood transvestite teen - while Daniel Letterie does well in the least flashy role. Best of the lot though is Joanna Chilcoat. She's a keeper, believe me.

Don Dixon as washed up one-hit wonder broadway director Bert Hanley gets all best moments and lines - one bit when he tells Fritzi he's been watching her is brilliantly delivered. I did not recognise Dixon but this film should bag him a lot more work in ensemble comedies and other films. I look forward to seeing him in other things.

Overall Camp is witty and amusing. It is undeniably slight and is unlikely to stay with you long after you've seen it unless you have a more first hand experience of this sort of world which I do not, but as a piece of entertainment it works and is well worth trying to see.