Film Reviews by Strovey

Melancholic is an odd film, even within the pantheon of odd Japanese films, the subject matter would seem to point to a dire, violent, depressing story, and in all honesty it should be. Somehow it is not, the violence is there, bloody and visceral but not an unnecessary gore-fest, and the death is very real but Melancholic is definitely infused with a sense of humour and a slow, soft, calmness as much as any film covering this type of topic could be.

Yoji Minagawa as Kazuhiko plays his role in perhaps a slight too much over-the-top way a bit to ‘on the nose’ making me think throughout that no one would really shine to him and particularly not a vivacious and fun young girl, Yuri, his mood is more ‘permamiserable’ which for me skewed the whole story without necessarily detracting from it. Therein lies the problem with the film, the tone is hard to decipher, as the director, and the dialogue, seems to point to fun and light-heartedness but the topic, much like Kazuhiko, is not that.

The change that is needed in Kazuhiko’s life is brought about by outside influences and his acceptance of circumstances, this seems to be the message, although due to the characters and how they behave it seems to get lost. The meekness of our lead somehow translates that he will accept anything that happens stoically and just get on with it. A social comment of some sort but a little heavy-handed?

The events at the bathhouse even after the late-night extras are revealed are not quite what they seem and the entire story, message relies on how much you buy into our hero just drifting into some fairly unusual and absurd situations.

Whilst we are given a good outline of Kazuhiko’s character and background, he’s not fully fleshed out, this seems to have little in development for some important supporting characters other than what their role in the story is.

All in all the story builds up well and the cinematography and filming locations give off a realistic vibe and you can enjoy yourself as the story builds up and whips along. The ending is a little pat and does not follow the film's playbook to my mind, but it does not detract hugely.

I could not help feeling that some elements of Melancholic were rushed, particularly the ending and that with more budget and some fine polishing this could have been a proper gem. It is a fun and interesting story and theme, but not quite ‘there’.

Seiji Tanaka’s future output is definitely something worth looking out for.

Set after the conclusion of the last film, when Godzilla battered the living daylights out of Ghidorah we have another King Kong, Godzilla blockbuster. The whole point of this film, regardless of plot, or actors, is to see these two CGI behemoths pummelling the tar out of each other. So, for all intents and purposes this film completely fulfils its purpose. Godzilla and Kong do batter, punch, kick, fire breath and ram things into each other’s heads all over the place, out at sea, and Hong Kong, which they flatten with some aplomb, in garish, confusing mishmash of roaring, punching, kicking and deafening roaring action.

The actors do not far so well. The story is a bare sketch the sole purpose to get the monsters to fight. For a film, that I guess must really be trying to appeal to younger children at the most the child actors are at the forefront the human action. They do not beat the monsters on screen, but they do beat the adult actors into the background. With preposterous silliness to play with the three main youngsters acquit themselves very well. Millie Bobby Brown is already an established and fine actor so we know that any scenes are going to be fun and believable, equally Julian Dennison since his breakout role in Hunt for the Wilderpeople carries the role of comedy sidekick skilfully and with the ease that some much older and more experienced actors could learn from. Entirely deaf Kaylee Hottle is the newbie and is quite enchanting. The children are the resourceful heroes of the day and should at least get their contemporaries in the audience whooping with joy as unbelievable as their shenanigans are.

This leaves us with the adults, good actors too, but they are very much trailing behind 300-foot monsters, super-kids, explosions and collapsing building. Lumbered with not much characterisation, nails on blackboard dialogue they do their best and leap and jump and look concerned through the running time.

The CGI and effects are good, you can see where the money has been spent although it is for me, once again, noise and light salad, much less than the sum of its parts.

All in all, as a monsters fighting film this is good. Anything else and the weaknesses show. I know that Godzilla vs Kong has many fans old and young alike but purely from my point of view once again we are taking a trip to the continent of Non-Plussed-Land. As my grand daughter said after Skull Island why did they CGI Kong to look like a man in a suit and here we are clearly following the original series and not King Kong, either 1930s or Peter Jackson variants. I just prefer my giant apes not 300 feet tall and to resemble a real ape but that is just me.

Some points to note.

1. Kong was constantly called a monkey throughout the film. Is this a deliberate wind-up by the filmmakers, if it is, not funny, if not that’s probably worse, ignorance.

2. The exceptionally beautiful Eiza González gets killed again, the last film I saw her in was Baby Driver.

3. Over the course of these three films in this monster universe how many people are killed? Honestly it must be millions and the cost or rebuilding would bankrupt the world.

I know it is a silly monster film, I know we are not supposed to take it seriously, but these are the things that just get into under my skin and stay there. I think about them when I am watching the film.

If you like monsters lathering the bejesuses out of each other this is the film for you, if you like some sort of logical storyline to go with this battle, maybe not so much.

On the face of it Rabies looks like just another film where a group of good-looking teenagers wandering around the woods for some reason, or another end up getting murdered by a serial killer for no obvious reason. And initially we do start off with a rather unpleasant killer but from that point onwards the directors, Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, make a good effort of, if not subverting at least bending an old, cliched, and often times, boring genre.

Firstly, the directors set up the main characters giving them each and distinct character type that are based in realism and make you begin to empathise, or not, with them. Rather pleasingly most scenes are shot in broad daylight. It is no spoiler to say we are greeted to some early unpleasant serial killer action but from then on, the story collapses in on itself until you are left with bodies and blood but not in the way you are expecting to get it.

This is the film’s great strength and also weakness because, I can imagine, for some viewers, those that love the full horror of serial killer, kids in peril stories will feel let down by Rabies, likewise those expecting a film about rabies might also be disappointed, but those that like something a bit different with characters that are a little more interesting than cardboard cut-out victims, think more like early darker Coen Brothers, than Rabies might be for them.

The directors have gone for more of an exaggerated view on human nature itself, mistakes and mishaps, a very dark take on confusion and anger. Nothing that happens needs to have happened and could easily have been avoided but instead down on this roller coaster we go and who will make it to the end is anyone’s guess.

The humour is dark and seriously deadpan so do not expect to be laughing out loud from beginning to end but nevertheless there is small vein running through the mine of this film. The gore effects work but are not over the top and excessive. The easy way to judge this is the grue did not bother me but some people I know will be hugely disappointed. The acting is from a group of unknowns (to me anyway) is all good and fairly realistic, I found the bickering amongst the tennis playing teens entertaining and for a change not annoying like some similar set ups. Danny Geva is particularly memorable as the horrible cop Yuval as he channels Matt Damon from Crash, and I also note that Yael Grobglas has now popped up in the Supergirl TV series. Ania Bukstein is an extremely attractive actor so if nothing else I liked looking at her face throughout and I am pleased to report that her looks clearly have no bearing on her casting as she is a great actor. Everyone acquits themselves well though, were not talking Oscar bait but it was all believable and fun, the main idea was to get you to route for a character that you liked, and all the cast do enough for this to be possible.

The directing and pacing are good as the film slowly builds to its climax but not so slowly you get bored or distracted, nothing is perfect, and the film has faults but considering this is Keshales and Papushado’s first film they have made a particularly good effort. There are some interesting shots and set ups including the usual racing tracking shots through the scary woods that is a staple of this type of story. The temptation to go down the usual slaughtering teenagers’ line would have been easier but here at least we get something different. Not entirely different, there are riffs from many films to be found, particularly if you like your horror slashers and dark comedies but it is all done well, the acting is good, and the suspense is fun. You never really know who is going to get ‘it’ and who is not. Afterall the film already tells you that the violence is senseless and has no reason, so characters surviving or not surviving also have the same rules attached.

I will recommend Rabies for the fun and entertainment. Not fully original it is fully fun.

This early effort by Mick Jackson, he of The Bodyguard. LA Story and errr, Volcano, fame is a more battered, scratchy, affair made on a budget with an edgy kitchen sink realism about it. The story and point being made are all the better for it.

We are treated to a washed-out aesthetic as everyone in 1984 Sheffield go about their lives. Drinking down the pub, shopping, going to work. All the time in the background, through the realistic medium of newspaper headlines, Lesley Judd of Blue Peter reading the news and radio announcements the creeping disaster that is the whole point of the story edges forward. It is clever and works well. The realistic drama style is somewhat counterpointed by a documentary feel with on-screen text telling us where we are in the timeline. I am not sure whether this works or clashes with the fictional tale and days after viewing I still cannot make my mind up.

Probably due to budget restraints, but I think also for realism, Jackson used a cast of relative unknowns, and all involved give great showings as ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Great writing gives all the main characters little knowledge or interest in the event unfolding, until things start to get out of hand. To balance this, we are shown the leader of the council who is designated the emergency manager being told to be ‘be ready’ to run the local area in the event of a war. It is this strand of the narrative that arguably gives us the weakest part of the film when later on we do get treated to some very stagey histrionics in the ‘bunker’ under the town hall, it is not ‘11’ but it could have dialed down a bit methinks.

Part of the morbid interest is to see what happens once the war starts, who survives, who makes errors, who is wiped out. If there is any criticism, I think Jackson and the writer, Barry Hines, who wrote A Kestrel for a Knave, so definitely knew about the northern working-class realism, were too optimistic, allowing more than a few characters to survive the initial blast. The events prior to the strike are mundane and ordinary to the point of the opening set-ups perhaps starting to drag. The unfolding news flashed about Iraq and the oilfields are both realistically made and very slowly rack up the tension.

The events of the nuclear strikes and the results no doubt were horrifying to audiences at the time but once again I cannot help feeling that the real circumstance would be more terrifying and apocalyptic and of course Jackson was certainly hamstrung by costs.

If I have any major criticism the tale of Ruth carries on way too long after the events and we are projected too far into the future and so are greeted with pure fiction and speculation. It is as if the story was pivoting around nuclear strikes on the UK but once that has occurred, the devastation is framed, highlighted, then air gets let of the tyres and we trundle to the end.

Nevertheless, is this a small complaint and if you are lucky enough to view this, not only do you get to see Reece Dinsdale in an exceedingly early role but probably the best ‘realistic’ film made about a nuclear war out of the small crop of films the popped up around and after it came out. Even today, outdated as it is, it still packs a punch.

A film that should, but never will be shown to older school children and all MPs every year. It never will because no one in power wants to people to know they are going to burst into flames or die from radiation sickness after a war that no one wins, and certainly can you imagine

Zombies, again, in a way and very much as George Romero predicted but they have taken over the world, they are ubiquitous. In Zombie for Sale, we have the South Korean type seeming more akin to tottering about and biting people, but never eating them. Lee Min-jae has treated the undead, infected, whatever you choose to call them in the only way that they should be now – comedic.

Truth be told there is a rich vein of previous zombie films that Lee Min-jae has mined here, Land of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Warm Bodies, and every serious and not so serious undead film between Night of the Living Dead and now. Zombie for Sale is not on the gruesome gory side of the equation at all. What the film really pins its flag to is the odd-ball family, outsiders, in peril. Family is the most important component throughout, and making money, surviving, outweighs everything, even a zombie apocalypse. The film starts off slowly, and very much says to the audience, ‘comedy’ and then after stumbling a bit, tilts into chaotic and never returns from that point.

The Park family are dishonest and disorderly and whilst these characters could be dislikeable because of their family dynamic and charisma they are the likable centre of the film. All the actors acquit themselves well, with Korean ‘everyman’ actor Jae-yeong Jeong pitching the dishonest, cowardly eldest son, Joon-Gul perfectly, the two main female characters, played by Jae-yeong Jeong and Soo-kyung Lee are easily equal and most ways superior to the main male leads as characters, which is nice to see. For the style of film and situations we are placed in all the acting fits well. Ga-ram Jung in a non-speaking zombie role does very well in what must have been a thankless task at the time. Finally, the whole reason for the direction of the story the matriarch of the Parks is played by elder statesmen actor Park In-hwan and cadre of older men, this is the comedy heart of the film, purely there for laughs. Perhaps over-the-top and bit vaudeville, end-of-the-pier style but it holds together within the context of the film.

The directing and cinematography are good. Fast paced and frenetic, the story is linear, and each scene and act follow into the next and makes sense. Sounds odd to say that but how often does this fundamental method of telling a story does not occur and leaves you frustrated or worse confused when watching a film. With plenty of wide tracking shots to show off the lush greenery of the South Korean countryside and the set piece action, several well set-up and more reminiscent of more serious horror.

Comedy, like every tome in film-world, is in the eye of the beholder so to speak. Zombie for Sale probably had a Korean flavour to the comedy, it is painted in extremely broad strokes and will seem a bit ‘stagey’ for some, so it is entirely understandable why some will not like the film. I am not qualified or have enough knowledge of the South Korean film industry and acting style to know if this is how their broader comedy tastes are in general but for me, the topic of the film makes the style of the comedy perfect.

The film has faults like every film and just to fit in with the universal complaint about films it probably outstays its welcome and some judicial trimming who have made the whole slicker and in keeping with the bish-bash-bosh aesthetic. Having said this I particularly liked the ending which was very funny and upbeat and one particular plot point, not that important, but glaring enough for most regular filmgoers to say, ‘Hang on, what about?....’ is quickly and neatly cleared up. I liked that, it was if Lee Min-jae said, ‘You know what they will say when they see this? Let’s head them off at the pass’.

Zombie for Sale, or Odd Family: Zombie on Sale or Gimyohan gajok is frantic, chaotic, perilous, daft, silly, over-the-top, entertainment and let us be honest that is what it set out to be.

On the surface, this simple Japanese story is another of a slew of recent films where working and making food is the story. Although the title is An or Sweet Bean and the main focus of the early part of the film is making a delicious ‘an’ and the specific way you make it, but this is only a small part of the tale. In fact, I would say there is a deception at work here, to get you comfortable with Tokue and how the sweet bean sauce is made that turns around the fortunes of Sentaro’s little food outlet, you would be justified in thinking this is the thrust of the film.

It is not.

What we are treated to is a tale of friendship, positivity, intolerance, and love. It is in its small way wonderful.

Essentially it is a three-hander at most, with one or two simple locations that could basically be any city in the world, except for the beauty of cherry blossoms. What is focussed on is the three very different characters, Sentaro is lonely, unhappy and carrying a burden that means he works at the dorayaki shop no matter what, Wakana lives with her single mother who seems not to concern herself too much with her and having little to no money she cannot carry on in school, Tokue is an old lady who needs human interaction, to be free to work, and make the perfect ‘an’. What we get is the interactions between the three, nothing major or overly dramatic and as we move on their lives do too. It is subtly done, in a gently smiling amusing way and masterfully acted.

Kirin Kiki, an eccentric lady all is so, sweet, and natural as Tokue, so much so that it is easy to forget she is acting. I cannot pay any actor a great compliment than that. Masatoshi Nagase has the tougher task as he must portray someone who is broken from his debt, clearly unhappy, he is underneath it all a friendly, kind, soul, but it is buried. To play this with just hints, all the while growing towards what you suspected all along, with the help of Tokue and Wakana. This brings us to Kyara Uchida who has the less well-drawn character, but she works well with what she has and is entirely believable as that shy schoolchild who does not have the funds and means available to her as her classmates do. Seemingly they represent the present, the past, and the future without smacking you about the head shouting at you.

I would have to say that the three actors are very good and help drive the story forward well. This is particularly helpful when the film does sag slightly near the end as the denouement is dragged out a little bit longer than it needs to be but nevertheless it does not detract from the film.

The screenplay, by director Naomi Kawase, is beautifully written and generally economic and lean with no unnecessary padding. The directing gets along to where we need to be but gets a bit bogged down near the end although considering the way the story ends this is understandable,

Both at once uplifting and terrifically sad the film ties up neatly at the end and leaves you with a wistful smile after it has shown you the darker side of human nature and a great cultural shame of Japan. I cannot tell you the road Kawase et al takes us down to get to this bittersweet ending but it is worth it, even if the path does tend to meander a bit too much at times.

Adrift in Tokyo is a simple idea and certainly not an original story, think of Midnight Run and few other tales where two completely different characters are forced to share extended time together and from an initial beginning of fear or loathing their time together ends up with them respecting or even liking each other. If it is male/female, they often end up lovers. Opposites attract. All nonsense of course and in truth a weak premise. So, if you tell this oft-told tale you better have some strong glue to hold it all together.

It is the hairstyles folks; it is the hairstyles. Joe Odagiri sports a mad giant bedhead and Tomokazu Mirua a championship-winning mullet but in all seriousness these two are the glue that holds this simple story together. Fumiya is a shiftless loser, but he is much more that than an impression, Fukuhara is hired muscle, but he is more than that. This is the secret, make them one-dimensional and you are going to get bored very quickly, make them deliberately quirky and the viewer can get the feeling of being manipulated very quickly too. These two actors get the performances balanced right on the edge, for me it is perfect.

Dumped right in the middle of the story are three characters from Fukuhara’s wife’s place of work who spend scenes out of the main story concerned about her and looking for but get side-tracked. They are clearly the comic relief and although a little diverting, it does play into the story, although I am not saying why as this ruins the story for you. Ironically, they end up as extras in a film which is a reoccurring theme with some of the Japanese films I have watched recently. These little diversions could have ruined the story or been too jarring but here controlled by director, Satoshi Miki, they seem pitched well.

Throughout the trip points in each of the characters’ lives slowly revealed showing why they are as they are. Like all good road-trip, although this is a walking trip, we meet a collection of disparate and strange characters. Add all of these into the mix, some good acting, some fun, some sadness, and you have a great film. There must be some nuances or parts of the film that play to Japanese culture and being as ignorant as I am I would have missed them but overall if you a looking for – I hate this word in all honesty – a quirky, road trip, weird, sad and fun film which is greater than the sum of its parts I recommend Adrift in Tokyo. Of course, if you are never going to go to Tokyo, like me now unfortunately, this is a nice little trip around some real parts of that city.

Adrift in Tokyo is a film about a big city and the small things in the city. It is about regret, family, connecting with your emotions, the need for companionship and mayonnaise added to Japanese food that should not be added to Japanese food. Most of all though it is interesting and fun and that is no bad way to spend a few hours staring at a screen if you have to is it?

Placed in the wrong hands Monsieur Lazhar could easily have turned out to be a terrific treacly confection of heartstring-tugging manipulation. Considering what is on display, the themes, it is to the credit of the director, and screenplay writer Philippe Faraldeau it is not.

The tragic event that starts the story, whilst a bit unlikely, is not sugar-coated and from that, for me at least, fairly shocking opening all things grow. We are into adult themes here, that come crashing into the world of children, it is all about love, loss and the well-walked path ‘a stranger in a strange land’ but for a lovely change, you are not hit about the head with a baseball bat with these themes.

Without laying out the plot, and what happens and how the story concludes it is difficult to discuss what you see on the screen. It is best to say that we are treated to restrained naturalistic performances where possible and some of the least annoying child actors I have seen for quite some time. In particular, Sophie Nélisse was at the time clearly Canada’s child-Drew Barrymore. The adult actors also give great accounts in particular Mohamed Fellag who brings nuance and quiet air of dignity and sadness to Lazhar.

There is a real undercurrent of trauma throughout the story that runs through the lives of everyone adult and child alike but the real trick, the real heft of this well-crafted and acted story is that for a such a huge emotional hit in people’s lives there is no pay-off, no closure, you work your way around the roadblock, you try your best to make sense of it – sometimes it does not make sense. To my way of thinking this is a very adult way to show the audience a tough and emotive topic.

Plenty of comment throughout the story on the process of education in Canada, the restrictions of teaching methods, for good or bad, and how it can change a dynamic between teachers, pupils, and parents to such an extent where Lazhar’s simple observations on a child to her parents is immediately rebuked and he told to ‘teach not bring up’ but to the credit of the film it sides with no one, you make your own decisions. This is films strength it really does not try to push any agenda, Lazhar is a nice man, who is hiding more than one secret, not because he is an asylum seeking Algerian but because he is a nice man. The headteacher tells him how things must be done not because she is the ‘baddie’ (far from it) but because it is her job and that is how it must be done.

For me, this type of attitude to story with issues that can get people very emotive, as we know this is now a code-word for sweary and dementedly angry these days, was refreshing.

Based on a play by Evelyne de la Chenelière, who plays pupil Alice’s airline pilot mother, Monsieur Lazhar is simple tale, told subtly, on a topic that could have been mangled through the Call the Midwife sugar press. It was not.

Recommended unless you really hate asylum seekers and children.

In a very camp schlocky way Mom and Dad poses an interesting question. What if the unconditional love of your parents turns into unconditional murderous hatred? Where do children run to when there are huge problems? Home, their parents. Where is the deadliest danger in Mom and Dad? Home, their parents. It is a great premise and makes for something a little different for the fan of horror films.

The set-up is simple, something happens, and your parents want to kill you. The main characters have no idea, firstly, that this is happening, and secondly, why it is happening. In many ways we are in zombie apocalypse territory here. The main protagonist is menaced by the average, the normal, that in any other circumstance you would never expect to be a danger.

As the viewer we are never really told why this is happening but if you watch the action and how things pan out there are clues. The feelings of approaching dread, very much like the beginnings of a deadly pandemic of the undead film, are filmed beautifully and normal life slowly has the bizarre and horrific dripped into the mundane motions of life. The news item seen at the start of the film, parents glassy eyed at the school, we know what is going to happen but Carly, her friend and their friends do not. Children are called out of class one by one to the office. Parents stand menacingly outside the examination hall, nothing graphic happens, but peril is palpable.

The culmination of the school scenes is both blackly funny and horrifying simultaneously. From this point the film shifts to an Assault on Precinct 13 style. A completely different style of film but these gear changes are smooth enough for it to be barely noticeable. To my mind, putting aside the mad, horror and silliness of the film, there is a skilled filmmaker at work here.

Although when you see the cast, you expect to see Nicolas Cage in full on ‘Nic Cage’ mode I would argue that here he is playing this film with a straight bat mostly, he is the normal dad, maybe writ large when it comes to how he talks to his son, but he must be loopy for a great part of the film and he is suitable loopy. It must be remembered the victims of the mystery illness/plague are maddened, driven insane by the hatred, jealousy, for their offspring. Selma Blair is the perfect foil more stiletto to Cage’s sledgehammer. Blair here as a ‘mum’ and playing her age, looked the part perfectly and is probably the sort of friends’ mum you fancied as a teenager. Frustrated to sadness and anger by the youth that slipped away and then is kept away by younger women.

The younger actors acquit themselves well, facing off against two of the industry's better and more respected actors, on their day at least, and the supporting cast slot in perfectly being more cameos to the film's main five characters but also seemingly fleshed out – it is good stuff. Even Lance Henriksen turns up for an ‘oh yeah that is going to happen’ moment.

The dark theme of lost youth, the end of life for parents runs through the film like the wording in a stick of rock. I found it fascinating and one that most of us ‘oldies’ can relate to. The loss of youth, that youth being wasted on the young, the huge battleship chain hanging around your shoulders that bringing up children can bring, the crushing weight of responsibility and being sensible seemingly replacing your exuberance, fun, spontaneity. We all know whose fault that is.

Okay that is extreme and is balanced out by all the love, fulfillment and fun that the same situation brings, but the makers are not looking at balance, they are looking at an extreme and what happened if it tips over.

Edgar Wright is someone who I have liked since the first time I have seen his work with Spaced way back in the day. Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, all good stuff, all hugely influenced by other films and directors. Baby Driver is going to be that way – anyone who does not realise this has not been paying attention.

We are clearly and most unequivocally in a cinematic world here, nowhere else, so there is not much actual realism, no sense to be properly had, if you let it go, let the colours, sound and action take you in you will be fine. The car driving action is up there with any you have seen recently and probably in the past too, fast past, ridiculous and mainly in vehicles that would fall to pieces if you really did what you see on the screen. Music and pop-culture has played an important role in Wright’s artistic career so using music as the timing for the heists and action fits perfectly in the film. There is the conceit of tinnitus to power this plot point but in all honestly who cares, it is just an entertaining film and we are here for the colour, sound, action and cool characters.

If I have a quibble, and if you do read these typo-infested little works you know I always do, it would be the tone of the story seems a little inconsistent. For the most part we are looking a criminal caper movie with what is obviously a kind-hearted, good kid who is mixed up with some real ‘baddies’ who air menace and talk about death and mayhem but mainly seem to shout and scream but later we are get blood and death and menace and the most menacing character becomes kind-hearted, definitely to my little mind a bit off-kilter.

The music is eclectic and drives on the action’s scenes well, all good stuff if you are a music-head, unfortunately I am not but I do understand and see the artistry at work here.

Ansel Elgort is particularly good in the main role of Baby, perhaps a little too cool for my liking, but he was consistent and engaging throughout the film, clearly his supporting actors John Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Jon Bernthal, Eiza González and Kevin Spacey all flirted with parody as they turned the nasty up to 10 but it was just restrained enough not the pantomime although all rather familiar. None of them had any sort of story other than bad criminal and thus they appeared even more peripheral than normal in a film of this type.

The weakest part of the film was the love story shoe-horned in with Lily James seemingly playing a character from another film. I was not sure how she was told to play her role but for me it was over the top twee and cutesy and even within the world we were being shown it just seemed out of place. Chemistry was clearly lacking between the young actors and it showed on the screen. I cannot say it is minor gripe because it is a large part of the story but the whole film is just about strong enough to withstand it.

All in all, this is strong entry to Edgar Wright’s filmography and it shows what good directors and film makers can do if they are given a little more freedom than big studio blockbusters allow. It will not be for everyone and has no place in the pantheon of serious films about crime. It is bright, colourful and as noisy as any comic book with acting and characters to suit that look it probably is not the sort of film I would seek out to watch again but this does not make it a bad film.

If you like colourful action and cool characters mixed in with some classic music tracks and you are not averse to a bit of violence, then this is the film for you – if you are the right mood for it this is a fantastic film for that, I am sure.

Like a lot of Burton’s films this is based on children’s literature and like a lot of his interpretations you have to think, is this too dark, a little too scary for the younger audience it is aimed at? Afterall, we have some scary CGI lanky limbed monsters that people turn into that eat eyeballs and you see them eating eyeballs. Hmmmm, how is your 10-year-old’s sleep? Topped with a scary looking Samuel L Jackson hamming it up in full-on scare-mode and I am not 100% sure smaller children and some adults are going to be comfortable viewing this film. Quite often I feel this way about Burton’s films. I mean we know kids like being scared, Dr. Who when I was a kid, but I was not allowed to watch Dracula where people were being killed in full frontal blood mode.

It is fair to say Burton is uneven in his films and ‘Miss Peregrine’ is in this category. When it is fun and entertaining it is particularly good but when it is scary, drags or gets disjointed it is disappointing. Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children is exactly this.

We are led into the story a little slowly, with Jacob’s mum soon discarded and never seen again and although this can be a little annoying for modern audiences it does make the second half of the film more compelling as we meet up with the peculiar children caught in time-loop during the war. Words that should make most imaginative people sit upright and pay attention. The time loop is fun with everyone in the home stuck knowing what is going to happen at the exact time – so the same phone call, the same squirrel falling out of its nest and the same attack by a monster. Great concept and the ultimate boredom of some of the children are well realised. It is Groundhog Day but without the crescendo of resolution.

Near the end we get into an escape from evil things with tricks and subterfuge, each child character getting a little set piece with their powers – entertaining enough but so far, so familiar. As a grown man with reasonable cognitive-functioning aspects of the time-travelling and loops did get a little confusing but much like the aforementioned Dr. Who it seemed easy to watch, enjoy, and just let it drift.

With some of the effects you can see the budget but in general the overall look and feel of the film is good enough. All the adult actors are equally good enough without being outstanding, Eva Green is the lynch-pin adult and is great in her role although she is used sparingly, Chris O’Dowd seems to slip into any character easily enough but is also used sparingly and seems forgotten by the end of the story. Both Allison Janney, Rupert Everett and Judi Dench are fine actors but they do just seem like high-value window-dressing and Samuel L Jackson seems nowadays to just play the same character, he always has a least two sentences in every film that start ‘Did I not just say….’ regardless of the setting. Put him in a grey fright-wig and fetish doll teeth and he is still Samuel L Jackson from ‘that film we saw last week’, shame as he does have more to offer.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is an odd film, entertaining enough I watched it from start to finish without my mind or attention wandering, the acting, in general, was fine and everything was neat and seemed to fit in its place. But something was missing, dare I be so pretentious as to say the ‘soul’ of the story, I cannot really say but something was missing. Once again with so many films that I watch there is a good film in there, but it is stifled.

Overall, not really scary or mysterious enough for older children and adults and perhaps a little too scary for the younger viewers. No age group can understand the time-travelling though.

Neil Patrick Harris, I see your next Netflix project on the horizon sir.

Finding the Way Back, originally called The Way Back but changed probably to stop confusion with several films called The Way Back or the excellent The Way Way Back (it certainly has no similarities with that film) is a reasonably entertaining film but I cannot say it is enjoyable or made to be. You are not going to get many laughs in a film that superficially deals with a losing basketball team but is mainly about addiction and unrelenting grief and guilt. Heavy stuff and overall handled reasonably well although crammed conveniently into the running time.

Affleck gives a good turn as the heavy-set drunk even more poignant due to the fact he apparently had just come out of rehab again from his own problems with alcohol so you have to say at some level this was a brave move by him, and he must have known exactly how his character felt and behaved, so who am I criticise the veracity of any of the alcohol-infused set pieces?

As a sports film there is nothing particularly bad about it but there is also nothing original. The team does seem to go from hopeless losers to unbeatable behemoth rather too quickly and we get all the usual characters in the line-up, well played by the young actors, but they are all present and correct and apart from Brandon the quiet one, they are just sketches in the story of ‘Jack’. Al Madrigal turns in a subtle display as the mathematics teacher assistant coach and along with the team Chaplin, Father Whelan it would have been good to have a look into the effect Jack’s life had on them and how they behaved but this was very much surface skim for these characters.

There is no doubt that Finding the Way Back definitely tugs on your emotional strings maybe a bit too spot-on for my liking, but it does it well and skilfully. You are never asked to like Jack and never asked to forgive him for his destructive addiction, but you are asked to understand why he is a mere shell of the man he used to be.

Although the sporting cliches, including the dramatic last game finale play out with nothing new added the film does try to subvert the usual sugary endings and you are left with nothing particularly tied up in neat bows at the end.

All in all, Finding the Way Back is a perfectly good piece of cinematic entertainment, it is nothing new, and breaks no emotional tear-jerker rules but also what it does do it does competently well and better than many in the same lane as it. Affleck is a fine ruined man, he looks the part, only smiles and laughs when he is drunk and likes to chug when he is having a shower. Having known many high-functioning drunks in my life I can say the look is accurate including what was known around where I lived as ‘Wayne Douglas Jeans’ wherein the crutch of the jeans hangs around down by the wearers knees no matter how the jeans are actually worn, somehow being tidy and scruffy at the same time. The supporting cast do good work but is given little to nothing to do with the two main female roles Janina Gavankar (ex-wife) and Michaela Watkins (sister) acquitting themselves well in roles that offer nothing groundbreaking or different.

The director, writer and main actor have tried to make a story that gives us an insight to the desperate world of self-destructive addiction, life-crushing tragedy and redemption and in the main have succeeded it is just that as a sports-themed film and redemption show it offers little that is new, just some grittiness and showcasing that Affleck on his day is a top actor.

Recommended if you like these types of films, with no laughs, and not if you had your fill of them. The choice, as they say, is yours.

Phantom Thread in some way much like the topic of the film seems to be well-crafted, subtle and feels classy, if they can be applied to the overall feeling of a film. Certainly the cinematography, settings and custom work can be considered beautiful and should keep the viewer's interest as the film progresses. All of this of course is window-dressing (no pun intended) if the story and acting holds our interest less. I can easily see how many would be turned off by the slow-burning story of an uptight and picky man who is obsessed with making dresses but for others the whole premise of the story keeps you enthralled. What is going on? Who are these characters? Is that not the basis of any drama? Paul Thomas Anderson asks these questions, answers few and never drinks your milkshake, you see what you come up with when the film ends. This is no bad way to write a story or make a film.

Anderson likes his silences and characters who are not related in any way to Basil Exposition, and this is present in Phantom Thread. He also has a skill of making what are obviously not particularly nice characters somehow ‘okay’. Daniel Day Lewis, in his last film apparently, helps on this score showing why many consider him to be the greatest actor of his generation never showy but always on point with the character and how he behaves, subtle but superb and an exceedingly difficult skill to pull off.

The casting in the film helps its strong showing, Day Lewis is clearly not going drag anything down, but he is more than match by the Vicky Krieps who is truly enigmatic throughout to the point you are never really sure what is driving her throughout the running time. Both performances are shored up by the ever-reliable Lesley Manville showing her chameleon-like ability by playing an utterly different role than you have seen her in before to perfection. She gets the unsympathetic role as the cold, controlling, Cyril. Truth be told all three characters are equally enigmatic and will leave you scratching your head from time to time. Bizarre in this instance is good.

Possibly the most frustrating part of the film is just trying to figure out what you have seen and what the director/writer is trying to say. Is the title Phantom Thread referring to the love we all need that runs through us all? Is the love we need so strong it can override reason and the strongest will, is the need to control…. well, I could go on forever be told I do not know what I am talking about by Paul Thomas Anderson or any of the actors who took part or someone else who saw the film.

I am not sure what I really watched but this is the strength of the film not a weakness, I really liked the slow burn the strange characters, particularly of Reynolds, and what I got from the film.

This I believe is the secret of Anderson’s ambiguity in general, it is what I got from the film, I am sure my wife who watched it with me got something else and I am sure you get another meaning from the story.

This is a great thing, to be applauded.

Upstream Colour (or Color in the USA) is a difficult film to describe in many ways. It is very loosely plotted, slow and at times makes little sense from a linear story-telling point of view. The slow lazy progress and seemingly haphazard story will infuriate many people and I can imagine probably 50% of any random audience leaving way before the end.

The biggest problem with the film, aside from the glacial pace, is large swathes of the story are hard to understand and seemingly deliberately obscure. This can be immensely frustrating, for me the frustration came at the end of the film when a couple of end scenes did not wrap up anything up and just made me scratch my head. Whether the director, writer, and the actor playing Jeff, Shane Carruth, made it this way on purpose I do not know.

The film is very dreamlike in the imagery throughout giving it more of a Euro-Arthouse project and certainly the subject matter, what I believe the maker was trying to say, is more on a level with these more esoteric and sometimes impenetrable films. The acting, particularly by Amy Seimetz playing Kris, is beautifully realised and she certainly glues the film together when it could easily fall apart the seams from time to time but overall when thinking about the film, and after seeing it you do, the overriding question is more than likely ‘what was that about’.

There is a theme of a complete loss of identity and the breakdown of everything you are to start again – I think. The tasks given by The Thief that come back to Kris are making paperchains and reading a novel by Walden, a writer I have no experience of, other than some comments of it being dreary and almost torture to read, perhaps this is an in-joke. The connection of all living things seems to be in there somewhere although I cannot help feeling the pivotal character of the Pig Farmer/Sampler, played by Andrew Sensenig, maybe should have been a bit less obfuscating to make a little more sense of his part in the story. Was he the man who started it all or a benign presence?

If you ever find out tell me.

I did not dislike Upstream Colour but neither did I really like it. Definitely a curate’s egg of a movie and will divide opinion from all that witness it. I enjoyed it during my viewing but overall, I felt that Carruth should perhaps use joined-up writing just a little more so that the ideas he is trying to explore did appear through a fog of confusion.

Somewhere in Upstream Colour there is a really good, interesting and thoughtful story and indeed question but perhaps a lack of budget or good creative partner for Carruth muddied the waters. Having said this if the director/ writer carries on in this vein pushing ideas and themes such as this and in Primer he is going to make a fantastic film that you will not be able to forget.

Having never read the book or particularly being able to remember the previous film and television versions The Secret Garden comes to me with no baggage attached. I was not expecting something I had seen or read in a cherished past. So often with cherished classic adaptations this is the film’s biggest weakness, and some would say its strength.

The writer and director could have just made a straight down the middle modern version of any of the other versions or indeed the source novel but much to their credit they have put a spin on it that they hope will belong to them. Their vision if you like. Unfortunately, this will alienate probably a good half of the audience before Colin Firth reveals his ‘hunch back’. For anyone like me it does not hit us over the head with the hammer of outrage.

The story is fairly simple and not particularly original, if you boil off the outer coatings it is unlikable character learns that there is more to life than being spoiled and that she was always loved and becomes likeable, it is how we get there that makes the film.

To my eyes and admittedly simple mind we are hand-held throughout the story by Mary, very well played by Dixie Egerickx who should have a long career in entertainment ahead of her if she so chooses, and Mary is a 10-year-old child, an unreliable narrator to wear out a phrase that is in danger of falling to pieces. I assumed what you see on the screen is her recollection, even the dramatic finale, so the robin, enormous plants and foliage, the garden seemingly acres and acres in size and apparently somewhere around a twenty-mile walk from the manor all come from the rich imagination of a girl we are shown loves to tell anybody she meets stories. The events happened, but not in that way. I settled into this way of viewing the film early on and so I enjoyed what I viewed without fussing over the anomalies.

If you bookend the children with Colin Firth and Julie Walters you have sound, strong foundations but as mentioned before Egerickx is an extraordinarily talented young actor and unfortunately outshines her supporting youthful actors, Amir Wilson and Edan Hayhurst, they try their best but there is tiny acting colossus striding about in front of them. To be fair there is nothing wrong with either performance but their characters are not given a lot to do other than get the story to a point needed.

The CGI work of the colourful garden fits right in with the magical feel of the story that surprisingly is grounded in death and grief and points out not too subtly that only nurturing and caring causes anything to thrive. This is okay though as surely much of the audience will be parents and children I would think. So simplifying the original story making it bright with a strong and clear happy ending fits right in there.

The Secret Garden is a much-loved classic and this version is a more modern take with characters updated, removed, changed to fit in with the vision. It does not make it a bad version simply different. As it is this Secret Garden sits well as a family-orientated film that tries to show grief, loss, fear and redemption without making it terrifying or depressing for young viewers. Sometimes films are not made for those looking nostalgically over their shoulders and old cynical people like me.

The vision of the cinematography is colourful and evocative at the right times, dark and menacing when it needs to be, the score suits what is in front of you and the acting is good enough for any film and in some places superb.

The Secret Garden is not going to take your breath away and stay with you for the weeks and months to come but it does what it is meant to do and in general does it very well.