Burn After Reading

Year: 2008
Running time: 96 minutes

Certificate: 15

Language: English

Screenplay: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Starring: Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, John Malcovich, Richard Jenkins

Chad: not the brightest spark.

Written at the same time as, made before and released after No Country for Old Men, this is the other side of the Coen coin, as far from that dark moody piece as it's likely possible for the Coens to get. Burn After Reading is the two directors on zany form; elements in common with Raising Arizona, Intolerable Cruelty, Fargo and a fair few others all showing up in the mix. Somehow for me it doesn't reach the giddy heights of their best work, but I would still say it's worth a watch.

Osborne Cox (John Malcovich) is an analyst for the CIA. Resigning in a fit of pique after being demoted due to alcoholism, he decides to have his revenge by writing a tell-all memoir. Osborne's wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is using this latest crisis to make her decision to leave him, milking him for every penny he's got in the process. She is already cheating on him with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a man with a past in personal protection who is a serial philanderer.

A CD-ROM of Osborne's manuscript found in the changing room of a gym, where employees Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) find it and promptly decide to blackmail Osborne, kicks the plot off. This is primarily Linda's idea as she wants to pay for plastic surgery. This does not go according to plan and the farce proceeds to escalate to ludicrous levels, as it must with the 'screwball' genre, which, amongst other things, this most certainly is.

Linda contemplates, while a lovelorn Ted looks on.

There's a star-studded cast, all of which are playing characters dumber than a bag of hammers, to paraphrase another Coen brothers' film. I think the reason I don't like it as much as other films by them may be the lack of anyone to root for; everyone here is stupid, selfish or otherwise unpleasant, with the possible exception of Ted (Richard Jenkins), nursing an unrequited crush on Linda, but he's too much of a minor character to hang your hopes on, unlike The Dude, Marge Gunderson or Ulysses Everett McGill.

Very much in their wheelhouse, this is decent enough, but not top tier Coens.

Score: 6/10

Two reviews from the same publication take almost opposite viewpoints - see these reviews from Andrew and Peter at the Guardian. I find myself more or less in the middle of their perspectives.

Bill & Ted

Year: 1989 (Excellent Adventure), 1991 (Bogus Journey), 2020 (Face the Music)
Running time: 90 minutes (Excellent Adventure), 93 minutes (Bogus Journey), 91 minutes (Face the Music)

Certificate: PG

Language: English

Screenplay: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon

Director: Stephen Herek (Excellent Adventure), Peter Hewitt (Bogus Journey), Dean Parisot (Face the Music)

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, George Carlin, Terry Camilleri, Dan Shor, Tony Steedman, Rod Loomis, Al Leong, Jane Wiedlin, Robert V. Barron, Clifford David, Hal Landon Jr., Bernie Casey, Amy Stoch, J. Patrick McNamara, Diane Franklin, Kimberley Kates, Frazier Bain, William Sadler, Joss Ackland, Pam Grier, Annette Azcuy, Sarah Trigger, Chelcie Ross, Kristen Schaal, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Beck Bennett

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Pulling off comedy that is quite smart while appearing to be very dumb is a difficult thing indeed. It is their success in this most difficult of areas that makes the Bill & Ted movies so much fun even decades after they were first released. Bill S. Preston Esquire (Alex Winter) and Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves) are stupid. There are no two ways about it; these guys lack intelligence. Together, they are Wyld Stallions, a rock band who cannot play the guitar at all. And yet, it turns out that this pair of fools are supposed to end up ushering in a new age of peace, rock and water slides.

Despite not being the brightest (example: Teacher: "Who was Joan of Arc?" Ted: "Noah's wife?"), Bill and Ted are winning characters because they are eternally optimistic. You can't help but like them. As first movie Excellent Adventure gets underway, we soon find out that our intrepid pair are at risk of failing history class, the consequences of which will be Ted is moved away to attend military school, marking the end of Wyld Stallions. Enter: Rufus (George Carlin). Rufus is from the future, and he is here to offer Bill and Ted help with their history assignment. Help that comes in the shape of a telephone box time machine, allowing Bill and Ted to visit the past collecting famous historical figures from history to help with their report.

A fairly simple concept that allows for some out there comedic moments, from Napoleon discovering water parks, bowling and ice-cream, to Genghis Kahn discovering baseball bats and Joan of Arc discovering exercise classes. Jokes poking gentle fun at Bill and Ted's limited intellect when they meet Socrates frequently raise a chuckle; looking for him in the phone book under 'So-Crates' and connecting with his philosophical statements: "The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing." "That's us, dude!"

They even manage to find love, taking a couple of princesses out of medieval England back to San Dimas (no worrying about timelines here; Back to the Future this ain't). It all amounts to a fun time, with some great comedic moments, memorable characters and a large helping of positive vibes (sorry for using modern vernacular for which I am far too old).

Most non-triumphant.

The sequel is more of the same but also different. This time, in a bit of a Terminator nod, two evil lookalike robots are sent back in time to kill Bill and Ted and take their place, thereby ruining the utopian future. De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) can't stand this future (his present) you see. He is, frankly, a miserable old man, determined to make everything as miserable as he is. To begin with, his plan succeeds, and Bill and Ted are promptly dispatched. But this is just where we get started.

This time round, instead of a trip through history, we explore the afterlife, covering possession ("I totally possessed my dad!"), hell, heaven (where apparently the entertainment of choice is Charades) and the classic trope of playing death to win a second chance. Hearing a frustrated Death (William Sadler) growl "You sunk my battleship" is one of the movie's great joys.

It gets really trippy in the final third, where given help by the almighty himself (in spite of mugging three people to sneak into heaven), they head back to the land of the living and with the help of a weird alien named Station build good robots to take on the evil robots. Eventually, De Nomolos is defeated and the guys use the time machine to take an intensive guitar course and come back and actually play well to an international audience. And so the future is assured...or so we think.

29 years later, we arrive at Bill and Ted Face the Music. The intervening decades have not been kind to Bill and Ted. From that peak at the end of Bogus Journey, their musical career has declined steadily as they try to write the song that ushers in the future paradise they were told they would write, with increasing desperation. When we catch up with them, they are performing weird Theremin-based abstract musical pieces at Missy's (Amy Stoch) wedding to Ted's little brother Deacon (Beck Bennett) (which is a cracking end to a running joke).

It seems after all this time, the endless positivity is beginning to fade, especially with Ted, who is positively brimming with unhappiness and anger. It's a good decision to go this way - I think trying to recreate that dumb good humour that was such a strength in the first two films would have been a mistake. Instead, it is their kids Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Thea (Samara Weaving) that bring the positivity, albeit with smarts rather than idiocy, as well as an encyclopaedic knowledge and boundless enthusiasm for every type of music there is.

Chips off the old block.

The future is tired of waiting for Bill and Ted to bring it about, and faced with the fabric of reality falling apart, instead put in to action a plan based on a different theory; that Bill and Ted must die to bring about the future. And so, robot assassin Dennis Caleb McCoy (Anthony Carrigan) is despatched to destroy them. Dennis Caleb McCoy and his journey from killing machine to self aware repentant machine as he kills and sends to hell the wrong people by mistake is I think the flat out funniest part of Face the Music, and Bill and Ted travelling to the future to try to steal the elusive world-saving song from their future selves gives it some stiff competition. I think it's the bittersweet thing of Bill and Ted striving their whole lives for something that seems forever out of reach that makes their scenes a little tragi-comic rather than flat out funny.

In the more traditional Bill and Ted roles are Billie and Thea, as they try their best to help by recruiting some of the best musicians throughout history to help bring about the future utopia. The solution is quite sweet; it's actually Billie and Thea that create the song itself, but Bill and Ted still get their moment and the closure they'd been working for all those years. It's pretty joyous and a bit of a tonic for recent times. Watching the three together you can see how things are a little different nowadays; the brief moments of casual homophobia in the first two films are quite jarring, and it's pleasing (though not unexpected) to note it has not been continued for Face the Music. The same thing happens in the Lethal Weapon series; as that series progresses, you see Riggs's casual homophobia and racism fade as it becomes obvious how unpalatable it is. It's the kind of progress I'm here for.

It might not be everybody's cup of tea, but for me this trilogy is a sure fire mood lifter and I'm delighted that after years of trying, they managed to see the two lovable dudes off in style; the post credits old Bill and Ted jam session is exactly the ending I didn't know I needed.

Score:

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure: 8/10

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey: 8/10

Bill and Ted Face the Music: 8/10

All three films have some pretty mixed reviews, but there are some out there that align quite closely to my thoughts; this review of Excellent Adventure from Jim at ZekeFilm, this one of Bogus Journey from Roger Ebert and this one of Face the Music from Chris at GameSpot.

Black Swan

Year: 2010

Running time: 108 minutes

Certificate: 15

Language: English

Screenplay: Mark Heyman, Andrés Heinz, John McLaughlin

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, Benjamin Millepied

In pursuit of perfection.

Black Swan is beautiful, thrilling, incredible and horrifying, sometimes all at once, and is still the best both director Darren Aronofsky and star Natalie Portman have ever been. Nina Sayers (Portman) is a ballerina, and has spent some years obsessively perfecting her style at a ballet company in New York. Dance is everything in Nina's life; the only thing in Nina's life. No doubt some of Nina's obsessiveness can be attributed to her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), whom she still lives with. Erica also used to be a ballet dancer and is monstrous in her determination to push Nina to attend the heights she never did, obsessively controlling and focused on dance and only dance.

When the director of the company Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) announces the company are going to be putting on a new production of Swan Lake, Nina is given her chance as Leroy puts the company's prima ballerina Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder) into retirement and gives the lead to Nina. There is a problem, and that problem is that Nina can perfectly pull off the role of the White Swan, which requires grace and innocence, but she cannot embody the role of the Black Swan, full of sexual sensuality and deception. A newcomer to the company, Lily (Mila Kunis, also on career-best form) however, can. So if Nina cannot find it within herself to perform the dual roles equally well, she risks losing the chance she has been chasing.

What follows is a descent into darkness, obsession with perfection and a struggle not to lose one's mind. Nina and Lily become rivals, friends and lovers, but some of it is only in Nina's head. Nina's all-consuming obsession begins to blur the lines between feverish imagination and reality until she is not really able to tell the difference, and the second half of the film takes a rather dark turn in to a disturbing horror.

Is it real? Or all in your head?

Nina's single-minded determination to nail the part perfectly reminds me a little of Whiplash, although as good as Miles Teller is in that, Natalie Portman is just astonishing. While Teller convinces me of his character's determination to be the best as well as his arrogance, Portman takes it several steps further and delivers a striking portrayal of fraying sanity in the pursuit of a perfect performance and the toll it takes.

The climax is exhilarating and frightening, as Nina gives everything to her moment in the spotlight in an exceptionally crafted set piece of ballet that is made thrilling by the preceding time spent following Nina down this rabbit hole.

Inspired yet disturbing, this is top-tier filmmaking.

Score: 9/10

Black Swan is pretty well reviewed out there - see these write ups from Roger Ebert, who compared it to The Red Shoes, which is no small praise, and from Peter at Rolling Stone.

Blue is the Warmest Colour

Year: 2013

Running time: 180 minutes

Certificate: 18

Language: French

Screenplay: Abdellatif Kechiche, Ghalia Lacroix

Director: Abdellatif Kechiche

Starring: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux, Salim Kechiouche, Aurélien Recoing, Catherine Salée, Alma Jodorowsky, Benjamin Siksou, Jérémie Laheurte, Anne Loiret, Benoît Pilot

The joyous flush of new love.

It's hard to find the right words to talk about this film, because it caused me to have a very strong emotional reaction - I was wrung out by the end of it, for reasons I'll go into later. Then there was the interviews the two lead actresses started giving on the promotional tour, where they would talk about their discomfort filming some of the scenes, which appeared to surprise director Abdellatif Kechiche, who then proceeded to rant to all and sundry. Having had such a powerful, profound and personal reaction to it, to find there was some bad blood now between the actresses and their director has inevitably soured the experience a little for me, which is a real shame, because it is such an incredible piece of work.

To sum up, it's a about loving and losing for the first time, but to condense 3 hours of exquisite cinema to such a short line is to do the film a grave injustice. Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) is a teenage high-school student, with a fairly average home life. Like most people her age, she is trying to negotiate the rocky path to adulthood, which naturally involves love and sex. She is pretty underwhelmed with sex with her boyfriend Thomas (Jérémie Laheurte) and before long ends her relationship with him. Adèle is bowled over one day when she catches a glimpse of a beautiful blue-haired woman in the street, and when her friend takes her to a gay bar one night she meets her again. The woman with the blue hair is named Emma (Léa Seydoux) and as their meet-cute turns to friendship and then something more, Adèle falls, and falls hard, for Emma.

There is some friction between Adèle and her friends when her romantic involvement with another woman becomes impossible to hide, but this is not a film about the struggle for equality LGBT people face; it is about a young person falling in love for the first time. Adèle and Emma become lovers, and there are undeniably some very graphic sex scenes. To be honest, I don't think the film would've lost anything if they were a little shorter and a tad less graphic but, as explicit as they are, they have the affect of underlining the intense nature of their relationship. Emma is a little older and more experienced than Adèle and so it seems clear to me that while Emma is certainly committed to Adèle, she isn't quite as hopelessly infatuated. Emma is clearly a passionate person, but while it seems Adèle burns brightly for Emma and Emma alone (even as she leaves school and begins work as a teacher it seems clear that her heart and everything else is given over to Emma), Emma is an artist and finds joy and passion in other things as well as Adèle. When Emma starts spending a lot of time on a new project, it causes Adèle to feel like she's being left behind.

Adèle is broken.

Adèle, feeling lost without her lodestone, makes the mistake of beginning an affair with colleague Antoine (Benjamin Siksou). When Emma discovers what she has done, she breaks up the relationship and throws Adèle out, in an extended scene which is gut-wrenching. The final part of the film follows Adèle as she tries to come to terms with the break-up and face the prospect of life alone, or, at least, life without Emma, which for Adèle, amounts to pretty much the same thing.

I remember with crystal clarity the feelings that come with falling overwhelmingly in love with someone without enough life experience to really process it; I fell for the woman I would eventually marry when young and at college. At some point after graduating University, Rach had a work placement in Ringwood near Bournemouth. She loved it, and she felt joy and growth and new experiences and was enjoying every second while I sat around at home and missed her. It was almost like I could feel her slipping away and the thought of not being with her was more than I felt I could bear. I remembered these feelings intensely when watching Adèle, feeling like Emma was slipping away, make her mistake, and felt such empathy.

I watched Adèle go through the outcome that once scared me more than anything, and the pain feels genuine. She's adrift, alone, with nothing but a hole where she was once whole. It is hard to watch, and I wondered at one point if she was going to end her life. She doesn't, but I get the distinct impression she was considering just letting herself float out to sea and leaving it all behind. As the film ends, Adèle is still hurting.

Adèle just wants to drift away.

Of course, the reception the film got shows I'm not the only person to be affected by the film in such a way, but the fact that these feelings are commonplace makes them no less powerful, and this is not the first film to tackle such a subject. The difference is the way it is made. The camera is obsessively infatuated with Adèle; as in love with her as she is with Emma. The close ups are so close, and the camera lingers on her for so long, and the scenes are so intense, that you feel a part of the intimacy; it is potent. Adèle Exarchopoulos is so mesmerising to watch, so expressive that even when Adèle is heartbroken, the camera pours obsessively over the contours of her face. It's astonishing, but only because she's astonishing. She and Léa Seydoux are fully deserving of the rare exception of sharing the Palm d'Or with director Kechiche at Cannes 2013.

Prepare to have your heart broken, but it is so worth it.

Score: 9/10

The reviews out there, quite rightly, do tend to have reservations about the most controversial aspects of the film. This review from Kristin at Film Comment highlights problems with the way the film sometimes feels like an observance of a lesbian relationship from a straight male perspective, but does acknowledge its strengths as well, calling it 'memorable but flawed'. This one from Tim at the Telegraph is also positive, but based on his opinion on the second half, it didn't strike the chord with him that it did with me.

Belleville Rende-vouz

Year: 2003
Running time: 78 minutes
Certificate: 12
Language: French
Screenplay: Sylvain Chomet
Director: Sylvain Chomet
Starring (voices): Monica Viegas, Michèle Caucheteux, Michel Robin, Jean-Claude Donda

Champion, shortly before his run-in with mafia goons.

This is a film with a very distinct style that takes a bit of getting used to, but as the story develops it becomes a cracking little yarn with charming characters and a brilliantly outlandish plot. The look and the sound of it are really unique, and the animation has a beautiful, if unusual, look to it.

Champion is a young boy who lives with his grandma Madame Souza (Monica Viegas). When Champion shows an interest in cycling at a young age, Madame Souza takes it upon herself to become his personal trainer, encouraging him to practice and train with the help of her trusty whistle. As Champion grows up, his interest in cycling becomes all-consuming, with the landscape changing around him, Madame Souza, their dog and their home. The artistry on show used to depict this passing of time is spellbinding and is a splendid way to get us settled in the strangely-drawn world.

The adult Champion (Michel Robin) takes part in the Tour de France, being essentially what his life has been building to. At that moment the story takes a bit of a turn. Champion is abducted by the mafia during the race and forced to cycle constantly for the sake of a betting game run by his kidnappers. It's up to Madame Souza to track down poor Champion, and following the trail to Belleville, she finds the trail dried up and her alone in a strange and frightening city. And here the story takes another turn. The Triplets of Belleville, a famous music act from years ago (we saw them in their prime earlier on in the story), now three elderly women, look after Madame Souza, providing her with a place to stay and a spot on their musical shows, which they are still performing all these years later.

The Belleville triplets: still vital after all these years.

The climactic rescue of Champion by the triplets and Souza and ensuing car chase is superbly realised and is a wonderfully animated set-piece. The story of a man obsessed by cycling being kidnapped by the French mafia and rescued by his grandmother and three elderly sisters is a testament to the resilience and power of women. Champion is who he is because of Madame Souza, and she was only able to rescue Champion with the help of these three old women living on the poverty line. The triplets live life with a sparkle in their eyes, rather than dwelling on their fame-filled past, they are vivid and living very much in the moment. There is a wonderful little moment at the end when Champion, who has been a rather sombre presence throughout most of the film, acknowledges what he owes the women in his life.

Score: 7/10

Belleville Rende-vouz is well-reviewed out there - have a read of this one from Nik at Future Movies and this one from Nick at Screen Daily.

The Big Lebowski

Year: 1998
Running time: 117 minutes
Certificate: 18
Language: English
Screenplay: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, David Huddleston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, Peter Stormare, John Turturro, Sam Elliott

The Dude and his friends are unimpressed by their latest lane rival.

The Big Lebowski is possibly my favourite Coen brothers film (although Fargo and O Brother, Where Art Thou? do give it a run for its money). From the opening frame until the credits roll it is a joy to watch. The Dude (Jeff Bridges) is a spaced out bum and Walter (John Goodman) is ‘an asshole’, as the Dude reminds him on occasion. Along with Donnie (Steve Buscemi), Dude and Walter spend their days bowling and talking about nothing very much. That is until Dude gets a visit from a couple of thugs (Philip Moon and Mark Pellegrino) trying to recover money owed by, apparently, Dude's wife. The misunderstanding comes from the fact that The Dude's real surname is 'Lebowski', which is something he has in common with a very different Lebowski (David Huddleston), the 'Big Lebowski' of the title. It is the Big Lebowski's wife Bunny (Tara Reid) whom owes the money. When they realise their mistake, the two thugs leave, but not before one of them pisses on The Dude's rug, which he then spends the rest of the film trying to get compensated/replaced.

The plot is complex, filled with twists and turns, but it is also completely irrelevant. The Dude and Walter will always manage to make it more complex than it is. When Dude gets roped into to a plan to rescue the kidnapped Bunny, the throwaway comment that she probably kidnapped herself leads them down a path of bizarre assumptions and uniquely odd characters. This film is gold not because of its plot, but because of the interactions between The Dude and Walter and the ridiculous situations they find themselves in. In particular, I love the way the Dude will repeat words spoken to him back as a question – "coitus?" in a forever dazed and confused state. The story doesn't really start out that complicated, but when these two have finished with it, it feels mind-bendingly complex.

The supporting cast are as weird a menagerie as you might imagine - likable "Shut the fuck up" Donnie, artistic oddball Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore), bowling rival Jesus – not that one (John Tuturro), uptight assistant to The Big Lebowski Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and even Bunny Lebowski herself for the short time she's on screen as well as a slew of others, the Coens and their actors turn potentially forgettable and obnoxious characters into works of comedy art.

So long, Donnie.

The writing is sublime, tying the paths of the characters together in knots, stringing Dude and Walter along with it. In particular, there are two rather throwaway moments (although, as mentioned, most of the plot is made up of moments that feel rather throwaway) that I adore, being The Stranger (Sam Elliott) asking the Dude if he needs to use "so many cuss words", only for the Dude to reply: “What the fuck are you talking about?” and the perfect scene where, following Donnie's unfortunate demise, Walter releases his ashes on the top of a windy cliff (not a good idea). This moment is both hilarious and surprisingly moving as the two friends grieve for their lost buddy in their own odd way.

I don't think it's too much to sum up by saying The Big Lebowski is pretty simply comedy genius through and through.

Score: 9/10

The vast majority of reviews out there as full of praise as I am - Roger Ebert's review was just one example. More interesting however, is this review from Todd at Variety, which I think defines the phrase 'missing the point' more perfectly than anything I've ever seen.

Beetlejuice

Year: 1988

Running time: 92 minutes

Certificate: 15

Language: English

Screenplay: Michael McDowell, Warren Skaaren

Director: Tim Burton

Starring: Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Winona Ryder, Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O'Hara, Glenn Shadix, Sylvia Sidney

Betelgeuse, ready to bring the mayhem.

Beetlejuice is a bona-fide modern classic, bringing strangeness and black comedy in spades to a tale of an afterlife with as many frustrations and problems as the world of the living ever had.

Happy, sweet and boring couple Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) meet with a tragic accident thanks to a dog who likes walking in the middle of roads, and come to learn that death finds them stranded in their home with only an indecipherable guidebook for help. To make things worse, weird and dysfunctional family Charles (Jeffrey Jones) and Delia (Catherine O'Hara) Deetz and their daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder), whom the newly-ghostly Maitlands find incomprehensible, move in. Charles has moved out here for some relief from a stressful job, but Delia, an aspiring sculpture artist is aghast, and, with help of her friend Otho, proceeds to completely gut and redesign the house, in the name of modernisation.

Things just get weirder and weirder from here on in, as the Maitlands, looking for help from their book, find they’ve been assigned a caseworker in the afterlife, which appears to be run like the civil service. Juno (Sylvia Sidney) informs them that, basically, if they want the Deetz family out of their house, they will simply have to scare them away. Unfortunately, nobody can see their attempts to terrify. That is except Lydia, with whom they form a bond. After an inspired scene possessing the Deetz family and their dinner guests and making them dance to Harry Belafonte fails to scare them off and only makes them eager to meet them, they take desperate measures and ask for help from the title character, also known as Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton).

Adam and Barbara trying, unsuccessfully, to haunt their house.

Keaton's turn is a comedy whirlwind, full of manic energy, obliterating everything in its path. It moves the film up a gear, from merely great fun, to an unforgettable comedy that ranks up there with Ghostbusters and The Goonies. There is plenty to love about this film – from the bizarre cast of supporting characters to the superb Burtonesque afterlife, but it is Keaton’s turn that stays with you. He’s technically the bad guy, but you can’t help but love him.

Completely bizarre and brilliant because of it, Beetlejuice finds both director Tim Burton and star Michael Keaton on top form.

Score: 8/10

A surprisingly mixed bag of other reviews out there for Beetlejuice, from Roger Ebert, who was less than impressed (with the exception of the deliberately overly-whimsical opening - he's well wide of the mark here in my opinion) to Eric at Slant, who loved it.

A Bug's Life

Year: 1998
Running time: 95 minutes
Certificate: U
Language: English
Screenplay: Andrew Stanton, Don McEnery, Bob Shaw
Directors: John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton
Starring (voices): Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Hayden Panettiere, Phyllis Diller, Richard Kind, David Hyde Pierce, Joe Ranft, Denis Leary, Jonathan Harris, Madeline Kahn, Bonnie Hunt, Michael McShane, John Ratzenberger, Brad Garrett

Now that's the look of an ant that's done something stupid.

Along with Cars, its sequel and more recently The Good Dinosaur, A Bug’s Life is generally considered one of Pixar’s least impressive releases to date. Of course, it is Pixar, so that means little, and it still tells a quality story full of great characters brought to life by bright and beautiful animation and a superb cast of voices (particularly good are Dennis Leary as bad tempered ladybird Francis – “So, just because I’m a ladybug it automatically makes me a girl, is that it fly boy?” and David Hyde Pierce as posh stick insect Slim – “I’m the only stick with eyeballs!”).

Flik (Dave Foley) is an ant that doesn’t fit in with the rest of his colony. He likes to invent things to improve the way the ants do things, but his natural clumsiness thwarts him every time. The only person who likes him is Dot (Hayden Panettiere), a little princess eager to grow up as quickly as possible. Flik's colony is under the thumb of a bullying group of grasshoppers led by Kevin Spacey’s Hopper. Spacey's delivery is note-perfect as you might expect, with Hopper unpredictably switching from comedy to genuine menace on a dime. Hopper’s gang force the ants to provide them with an offering of food before they are allowed to collect for themselves.

Flik and his new friends on the look out.

When Flik’s well-meaning attempt to help accidentally deposits the offering in a nearby stream the colony leaders conspire to trick him into leaving the colony, on a mission to find some ‘tough bugs’ to protect them from Hopper and co. The others assume they’ve got rid of him on a wild goose chase, but Flik actually succeeds. Sort of. He employs a troop of circus bugs who mistake him for a talent scout. In the way these things tend to play out, challenges are faced and overcome, the day is saved, outsiders are accepted and lessons about being true to oneself and standing together in the face of adversity are learned. As is usual with Pixar, this rather clichéd resolution is accomplished in a delightfully funny and unorthodox manner.

Targeted at audiences a little younger than many of the better Pixar releases it may be, but it’s still great fun.

Score: 7/10

Despite being minor Pixar, A Bug's Life is pretty well reviewed out there - see this review from James at Reelviews and this one from Nathan at the A.V. Club.

Back to the Future

Year: 1985 (Part I), 1989 (Part II), 1990 (Part III)
Running time: 116 minutes (Part I), 108 minutes (Part II), 118 minutes (Part III)
Certificate: PG
Language: English
Screenplay: Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Micheal J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F. Wilson, Claudia Wells, Elisabeth Shue, James Tolkan, Marc McClure, Wendie Jo Sperber, Casey Siemaszko, Billy Zane, J. J. Cohen, Jeffrey Weissman, Mary Steenburgen, Matt Clark

Marty and Doc, having just seen some serious shit
when that baby hit 88 miles an hour.

There are many reasons why the 1980s should be forgotten – the fashion, the hair and a good deal of the music being just three. However, if the decade that taste forgot was ever wiped from our collective consciousness, there would be nothing to fill the gaping hole in my childhood left by the absence of Back to the Future. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is pretty much the most perfectly-realised typical 80s American movie teenager - obsessed with cars, plays guitar, has a girlfriend (Jennifer is played by Claudia Wells in the first film, and by Elisabeth Shue in the sequels), but has enough insecurities, geekiness and confidence issues to stop you losing any and all sympathy for him. Right from its initial set up, the film gets everything right. McFly is a great main character – the average (at least, average in a movie sense) school kid with a slightly bizarre family is something that many of us can relate to. Fox is just great; Marty is a guy we immediately want to spend time with, making him the ideal character to follow on this convoluted journey through time.

"Do you know what this means? It means that this
damn thing doesn't work at all!"

Just as we’ve got accustomed to Marty’s world and to his oddball family, including alcoholic mum Lorraine (Lea Thompson) and completely wet dad George (Crispin Glover), who lives his life very much under the domineering thumb of bully Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson), the film plays its trump cards – Christopher Lloyd’s portrayal of the slightly wired Dr Emmet Brown and the genius DeLorean / time machine unveiling. What follows is a jump through time to when Marty’s parents were at school, and following the mess he made of his parents original meeting, McFly has to get his mum and dad back together for the first time for the sake of his own existence.

The film is full of quotable dialogue (I still find myself barking “Slacker!” at people I don't think are pulling their weight), and, brilliantly, the three main characters all have their own catchphrases. This lends itself to a great drinking game – whenever Marty says ‘Heavy’, Doc says ‘Great Scot!’ or Biff calls someone ‘Butthead’, down a shot – if you can handle your drink as inefficiently as me, you will be plastered way before the end of the trilogy.

Roads? Where they're going, they don't need roads.

Because the film is so much fun, the Freudian twist of Marty being the object of his own teenage mum’s desire is not as creepy as it could have been, and instead adds to the comedy. When you meet George, Lorraine and Biff in the 1950s you realise just how effective the ageing make-up is on the three actors in the opening scenes; all three are extremely convincing as older versions of their characters. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for Fox's attempt to play Marty's teenage daughter Marlene in Part II (although admittedly, this was played for laughs and not realism).

Marty and Doc find themselves in the wrong 1985 in Part II.

The film builds great characterisation on great characterisation and leads up to two of the most memorable climactic scenes in movies - Marty finally gets to play to an audience in a hilariously over the top cover of Johnny B. Goode, which moves on to an incredibly tense sequence involving clock towers, vertigo, stalling cars and lightning. I find myself on the edge of my seat with my fists clenched even though I've seen it a hundred times.

The sequel is one of the biggest mind benders in film history, with Marty and Doc going back to the past to save the future, or the present, or both..? It is truly a masterstroke to retread the events in the first movie five years after it was made, and having two plots literally run side by side. In the first film Biff, while unpleasant, was a bit of a buffoon, but, given the keys to obscene wealth, we get to see just how ugly a person Biff could become.

As with many stories that involve time travel, it pays to not give the finer details too close a study, lest your brain turn to cheese, but the whole thing does hold up extremely well, with most of the inconsistencies so minor that you can only applaud the practically watertight writing.

The DeLorean heads to 1885 for Part III.

Despite a startling change of style, for the most part the third film shows the makers of Spider-Man, The Godfather, X-Men and Shrek among others how to get the third part of your series right. Shifting a good deal of the main focus from Marty to Doc is a good idea, with the good Dr. Brown falling in love with teacher Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen). There is some retreading of certain events from the first movie, for example the building of the model town for a demonstration of the climactic plan, and (of course) the Biff-equivalent Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen (Wilson again, obviously) clocking a face full of shit. One particularly reminiscent retread is the scene in which a female character turns up at an awkward moment with one of the pair trying to stay cool while the other flaps behind their back until they leave. What works is that this time, Marty and Doc’s roles are reversed from the relative scene in the first film. The trilogy climax is also a sort of retread of the original, it just happens to be on a bigger scale, with Marty and Doc hijacking a steam train and using it to push the DeLorean up to 88 mph in a fantastic sequence which is somehow even more suspenseful than the ending of the first movie.

Marty and Doc at the Shonash/Clayton/Eastwood Ravine.

A brilliant, brilliant trilogy that will endure in the movie going public’s hearts indefinitely.

Score:
Back to the Future: 9/10
Back to the Future Part II: 8/10
Back to the Future Part III: 8/10

My own scores follow the general feeling in that Back to the Future is an absolute bona fide classic, while the sequels are not quite on a par, but a great deal of fun nonetheless. See Matt at Total Film's review of the original, Roger Ebert's opinion on Part II and Empire's Kim Newman's take on Part III, as well as Jonathan's video review of the whole trilogy.

Bee Movie

Year: 2007
Running time: 91 minutes
Certificate: U
Language: English
Screenplay: Jerry Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, Andy Robin
Director: Steve Hickner, Simon J. Smith
Starring (voices): Jerry Seinfeld, Renée Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, Chris Rock, Kathy Bates, Barry Levinson

Barry revels in this glorious new world outside the hive.

Jerry Seinfeld provides the voice of Barry B. Benson, a young bee who is disillusioned about the thought of spending the rest of his life doing one job, be it a stirrer like dad Martin (Barry Levinson), or spending the day strapped to a revolving wheel with a spoon on his head to catch drops of honey before they are lost, like best friend Adam Flayman (Matthew Broderick). Feeling rebellious, he tags along with a group of 'pollen-jocks', who have the dangerous task of leaving the hive and collecting the nectar and pollinating the flowers.

Through a series of accidents, Barry gets separated from the others, and his life is saved by florist Vanessa Bloom (Renée Zellweger), and the two strike up an unlikely friendship. Never mind that humans aren't that surprised that bees can talk; it's just one of those things you have to go with. Barry notices one day that supermarket shelves are full of honey and that humans are forcing bees to live in custom-built hives and make honey that they steal for themselves. Outraged, Barry goes on a mission to sue humans, which leads to a court case to reclaim stolen honey. The major point of the story, however is to illustrate to those of us who may not realise it, just how important to our world the little black and yellow pollinators are. Barry wins the court case, and bees get all their honey back. With no need to work to create honey, the bees all stay in. Without the bees, pollination effectively stops and all the flowers die. So begins a race against time to bring the bees back.

Barry and Vanessa: An unlikely friendship.

There are a few funny moments - Vanessa's boyfriend Ken (Patrick Warburton) goes slowly insane as he is gradually replaced by a bee, and when Barry meets Mouseblood (Chris Rock) on a windscreen wiper. The animation is OK, the story is OK, and combined with the average sound, jokes and voice-acting makes for a whole that is, well, OK.

Score: 5/10

It seems I am in synch the majority, in that Bee Movie has its moments, but is generally nothing special; see these other reviews by Josh and A. O. Scott at the New York Times.

The Breakfast Club

Year: 1985
Running time: 97 minutes
Certificate: 15
Language: English
Screenplay: John Hughes
Director: John Hughes
Starring: Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Paul Gleason, John Kapelos

Stereotypes unite.

The Breakfast Club is my favourite movie of the late, great John Hughes, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Sixteen Candles notwithstanding. This probably has something to do with the age I was when I first saw it. Having had some experience of being unpopular among my teenage peers, the story of five mismatched kids - 'Rebel' John Bender (Judd Nelson), 'Jock' Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez), 'Nerd' Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall), 'Princess' Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald) and 'Basket Case' Alison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy) - sharing a Saturday with each other and bonding over their differences seemed tailor-made for me. John Hughes got me, in a way that no other person did. Of course, it transpires that I was not alone in this, and most of a generation felt the same.

Granted, with the hindsight of adulthood, the message is rather obvious and without much subtlety, but that's exactly the point; adults really don't get teenagers, and these five, so wrapped up in their own petty (for the most part) problems and suffering a range of abuses at the hands of oblivious parents clearly mystify Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason), the teacher tasked with monitoring the kids throughout their Saturday detention. As the day goes on, each of them begin to open up, and they each realise the others aren't the stereotypes they suspected. Together they tear round the school avoiding Vernon, argue, get high and pour their respective hearts out.

It’s clear that the cast have an easy chemistry with each other, and each of them acquit themselves rather well, with Estevez impressing in a scene where he relates the incident that got him detention; under pressure from an over-bearing father, a violent act meant to humiliate a friend of Brian's, his character is completely bewildered as to why he did it and is at a loss as to how to even begin to apologise. Anthony Michael Hall probably impresses the least, his Brian pouring his heart out in manner which seems slightly over the top and feels a little fake.

Vernon struggles to control his temper.

Inevitably the point comes where the five of them consider what might come Monday morning; whether they will acknowledge their shared experience or carry on just as they did before. You get the uncomfortable feeling that the three who are more invested in protecting their image in the eyes of others (John, Andrew and Claire) will change little, despite the two new couples leaving the school together, while Brian and Alison might have been glad to make some new friends. I guess the best they can probably hope for is to become friends with each other.

Lots of fun, this will always be a nostalgia trip for me, and might help my cynical adult self remember how it felt to be a teenager.

Score: 7/10

The Breakfast Club is pretty much universally loved, as seen in these reviews by Stevee at Cinematic Paradox and Matt at Cinemablend.

Battle Royale

Year: 2000
Running time: 114 minutes
Certificate: 18
Language: Japanese
Screenplay: Kenta Fukasaku
Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Starring: Beat Takeshi, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Tarô Yamamoto

Shuya and Noriko face the horrifying truth.

Nothing can prepare you for the first time you see this film. It is astonishing. In a future Japan where the economy is broken and kids run riot, a new piece of legislation, the Battle Royale Act, is passed and a randomly selected class of out of control school children get transported to a remote island and are given three days to kill each other off until there is only one survivor, or they all die. Unsurprisingly controversial, it is based on an equally controversial novel by Koushun Takami. The director Kinji Fukasaku was 70 at the time of making, and sadly died three years later, apparently one day into filming (the supposedly awful, although I've not seen it) Battle Royale II: Requiem, which was eventually directed by his son Kenta Fukasaku, who wrote the scripts of both films. Fukasaku claimed he made it in order to warn children not to trust grown-ups. It certainly manages that and then some, but there is more to it than that.

There is little time for character development or back story, but seeing as we've got to get through over forty kids in the running time, most of them would be dead before the back story could get started. Instead of being violence for the sake of violence, there is a fierce intelligence behind the film, which combines elements of love, friendship, paranoia and mistrust, bravery and fear as each classmate makes a decision to either kill themselves, fight for survival or work together. Much like Lord of the Flies (as adapted by Dario Argento), you find yourself wondering what you might do if you were ever forced into such a situation. Would you be the kid who flies into a panic and attempts to kill everyone for fear of dying yourself? Would you form or join a resistance and attempt to overthrow the architects of the game? Would you allow paranoia to cripple you and murder your best friend?

A tight-knit friendship ends badly.

We come to focus on two students in particular, Shuya (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Noriko (Aki Maeda), who attempt to work together to find some way to survive. While they try desperately to stay alive, classmates all around them die in horrific, twisted, shocking and sometimes uncomfortably funny ways. The only character to really get any kind of back story is teacher Kitano (played to wearied perfection by Beat Takeshi), and as we come to learn a little about his home life and his feelings for a particular student he becomes more than a one-dimensional bad guy, more than simply an unfeeling child murderer. He's more like a lonely man who has lost his faith in the system he works for. And a child murderer.

As we rattle towards the climax and the body count rises the viewer soon finds that they cannot tear their eyes from the screen, continuing to stare in disbelief and beginning to route for their favourite student. Spellbinding.

Score: 8/10

There is a lot of love out there for Battle Royale, including these reviews by Chris at Sound on Sight and on Shade.ca's website.