MIFF Day 9

I got to see my second most anticipated film today, and it didn't disappoint!

THE ILLUSIONIST

Sylvain Chomet made Belleville Rendezvous (aka The Triplettes of Belleville) roughly 7 years ago. It's one of my most beloved animated films. Now, he takes on a script by the great Jacques Tati and delivers another gem. The masterful storytelling, where words are irrelevant and infrequent, lets us into the lonely world of Tatischeff, a master magician in an era where rock bands and television have killed of vaudeville acts. Hired to work in a remote Scottish village, he enchants a local girl who believes his tricks are real. She stows away when he leaves and then expects him to provide for her with his magic. He obliges, adoring the attention he no longer receives from his audiences, but the expense sends him broke and he ends up leaving, giving up his trade for an uncertain future. It's a work of subtle gestures and complex emotions, encompassing loneliness, need, the death of wonder and the end of an age. A beautiful, funny and sad film with a light touch that's immediately my top pick for the festival thus far.

WELCOME TO THE RILEYS

Also known as the "Girl from Twilight stripper movie". This is all kinds of messed up. Doug and Lois Riley lost their daughter in a car accident, and have been slowly falling apart ever since. When Doug meets Mallory at a strip club, he strikes up a friendship and practically adopts her, though he really doesn't know what he wants. Lois joins them, and they form a very screwed up family that allows Doug and Lois to work through their issues, while Mallory remains as screwed up as ever, a victim of their kindness as much as her own circumstance as they re-enact the complexes that indirectly led to their daughter's death. It's blackly funny, with a mocking analysis of parental control. Unfortunately, the perfect ending is ruined by continuing with a coda to try and give an upbeat ending. Nothing changes, everyone is exactly in the same situation they were a few minutes earlier, but now we're meant to feel like there's hope. It leaves a slightly sour aftertaste to what is otherwise an incredibly assured and interesting work.

THE TREE

Dreck. Magic Realism is a very hard thing to get right, but this managed to get everything wrong. Bad acting, unsympathetic characters and pissweak scripting combine to make this the worst film I've seen all year.

ANIMATION SHORTS 1

A mixed bag of animated short films. The Lost Thing was the main attraction, a CG animated rendering of Shaun Tan's well-loved book. The design was good, but overall it wasn't that impressive, something in the animation just failed to engage, and Tim Minchin's voiceover lacks personality. Far more interesting was The Incident at Tower 37, much more expressive and engaging, if not as pretty to look at. Pivot was an exercise in kineticism, with style to match. Dreams from the Woods was my other favourite, a shadow puppet story with beautiful music and an excellent dreamlike quality.

MIFF Day 8

Today was a day for screwed up love stories...

PAJU

The first half of Paju really tries your patience. It jumps back and forward in time, characters blur into each other and a guy who initially seems really dodgy is treated like a saint for no apparent reason. Then things slowly coalesce into a very sad story of sibling jealousy and love. It reminded me in some ways of Atonement, but far more compassionate. A brother-in-law, grieving the death of his wife, refuses to tell his much younger sister-in-law how she died, lying about what happened. He does it all to protect her from the truth that a spiteful act by her caused it. But the sister discovers the lie, although not the truth, and turns him in to the police. This all plays out against a backdrop of corruption and resistance to the demolition of a set of apartment blocks. None of that story really gels, but main story of the family does resolve in a satisfying way. A confused ode to self-sacrificing love, jealousy and selfishness.

I LOVE YOU, PHILLIP MORRIS

John Requa and Glen Ficarra are two writers I really enjoy. From their work on the Angry Beavers animated series, to Cats & Dogs and Bad Santa, I've enjoyed everything they've done. And I enjoyed this a lot too. Based on a true story, this is a very funny story about two men in love, and the insane things one of them will do to keep them together. Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) narrates his life, as he moves from being a town cop with a wife and kid to being the campiest definition of gay possible. But as he observes, being gay is really expensive. So he commits fraud, gets jailed and meets Phillip Morris (Ewen McGregor). What follows is completely mad, apparently true, and a lot of fun. It's a comedy you'd expect from the writers of Bad Santa, but surprisingly there are moments where it's also an affecting love story. Great fun.

ENTER THE VOID

Gaspar Noe is the arthouse equivalent of a shock jock, at least that's how it seems on the basis of this undisciplined, overlong and overindulgent film. The reaction I had was "I see what you were going for, but..." The first half is stunning, a pov tale that places us inside the head of Oscar. We see him tripping on drugs, walking the streets and talking with his friends, then getting shot and killed. And still we remain with him, seeing through his eyes as his spirit wanders a strangely desolate Tokyo, flitting between memories of how he reached this point, and following his family and friends in the aftermath. It mixes lyrical and assaultive visuals with some genuinely interesting storytelling, but unfortunately it's an hour too long, and the visual gimmickry wears on you quickly. It's lame when you know exactly how a scene will play out and exactly where and how it will transition, but Noe's playbook is on repeat past the 90 minute mark (some would argue even earlier). There's only so many cg assisted tracking shots you can take before getting seriously bored. And as Noe escalates the graphic nature of the imagery, you sense desperation rather than inspiration. Given the audience was engrossed initially, but was laughing at, rather than with, Enter the Void by the end, I'd call it an admirable failure.

MIFF Day 7

Weird fake docos and an awesome serial killer film today.

THE JUCHE IDEA

Juche is the official ideology of North Korea, and in its service Kim Jong Il has written extensively on the art of cinema and its relationship to the socialist struggle. The Red Chapel quoted his work a bit as it felt its way around for a structure. This film goes one better and is an embodiment of his philosophies as well as a parody. Mind you, the ideas are worthy of ridicule anyhow, so even if it was completely in earnest it would still be a parody by necessity, at least to my western capitalist pig eyes. Ostensibly a doco about a South Korean who has moved to North Korea to participate in an arts internship, we sit through "lessons" in how a film should carry its ideological payload and deliver it. Extensive quotes from various edicts by Kim, along with examples from North Korean cinema are both funny and illustrative of the points. Then there are the exercises by the "student", as she attempts to implement Juche into her own short films. It's only an hour long, which is fortunate since it can labour the point at times, but the payoff at the end is worthwhile: A fully realised Juche film celebrating Kim Jong Il that is completely ridiculous and kinda fun too.

THE KILLER INSIDE ME

I can't call this the greatest serial killer / psychopath film of all time, since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer trumps it, but only barely. It's a ripper of a film, brilliantly realised with a palette that recalls pulp novel covers of the 50s and 60s, and an impressionistic editing flow that provides you with enough information to understand, but not enough to get inside Lou (Casey Affleck) Ford's head. Instead, he constantly surprises as he acts in ways that seem irrational at first, but are slowly revealed to have a sick logic to them. Short flashbacks give us some suggestion to how he's come to be this way, but the emotional distance the film plays at means compassion is absent, only slight understanding seems possible. The film has a dry and quiet demeanour to it, with a streak of black humour that leavens the tension. Affleck plays cool and creepy very well, but the surprises are Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson as his two lovers. Each is excellent and incredibly game, given the graphic nature of some of their scenes. The denouement is let down slightly by a few poor effects shots, but that's a minor quibble in what is a masterful film.

FIRST SQUAD: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

Incredibly silly, this is a fairly classic sort of anime tale. During World War 2, German mystics summon the spirit of an ancient warrior, Baron Von Wolff, who swore to destroy Russia. If he succeeds in crossing over to the land of the living, he will annihilate the Russian forces and Germany will rule all of Europe. The Russian counter-offensive involves the First Squad of the Sixth Division, an intelligence unit dedicated to psychic powers. Most of the First Squad were killed at the start of the war, so the only surviving member must journey to the land of the dead, contact her comrades and bring them back to defeat Von Wolff. The story is full of potential, but evidently there wasn't much money for the production. It's short, and peppered with live action interviews of actors portraying psychologists, war historians and veterans in an attempt to counterpoint the animated tale and inject some sense of realism to it all (and pad out the runtime to something vaguely respectable). It's not very successful. This could have been an epic tale of war, science and sorcery if someone had invested in a solid script and more money for animation. Instead, it's an interesting experiment.

MIFF Day 6

Narrative cinema swings back strong today, about time too.

BOY

Taika Waititi's followup to his loveable geekfest Eagle vs Shark, this is a coming of age story set in 1984. ET and Michael Jackson are the cultural touchstones, as Boy's father comes home from prison, looking for the money he hid before being arrested, and trying to spend some quality time with his two children. It's light and airy, with whimsical moments and genuine love on display for the very human and flawed characters. A real charmer. And be sure to stick around for the Thriller inspired haka at the end.

THE UNLOVED

Samantha Morton proves she's a talent behind as well as in front of the camera in this beautifully made film about her childhood as a ward of the state. The film opens with Lucy (Molly Windsor) getting beaten by her father (Robert Carlyle), then going into foster care. What unfolds from there is positively dreamlike, with a strange beauty to it. Much like Bibliotheque Pascal, this is a film where truly awful things happen, but visually they are executed with such beauty that you're torn between fear and awe. Morton has said she's diluted her experiences to prevent the film becoming a horror movie, which to be honest is what I expected. Instead there's no sense of threat, and though you fear it could be just around the corner it never comes. It's a beautiful and thought-provoking film meditating on how society fails its most vulnerable.

THE TROTSKY

Leon Bronstein thinks he's the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky. He tries to unionise his father's factory, and when that fails he decides to make his school's student union into a real union. Naturally with comic results. He has his whole life mapped out, and he's determined to play along with his destiny. This film owes more than a small debt to Rushmore, but it's clever in its examination of the death of radical politics in the modern age. Jay Baruchel's vulnerable yet obsessive performance is just right, and it's a very very funny film.

FOUR LIONS

Chris Morris is responsible for some of the most confronting comedy every to grace the screen. Black barely begins to describe it. He was behind Brasseye, a current affairs spoof that caused a major controversy in the UK when it aired a special named Paedogeddon, a faked expose of paedophiles that featured Simon Pegg as a child molester locked up in stocks saying he wouldn't have sex with Morris's (fake) son because "he's not my type". So going in, you know this film isn't going to pull any punches. We witness the misadventures of five incompetent wannabe suicide bombers as they screw up everything from blowing up a reconnaissance drone attacking their training camp, to blowing themselves up. (There's a reason it's called Four Lions...) The highlight is an evilly funny family moment as one of the men sits with his wife and son as they encourage him to carry through the plan, to follow his heart and blow up the kaffirs. The warm happy family moment turned on its head. They're all complete morons of course, but so are the police and everyone else in this insanely funny film. There's no reprieve, and it really does follow through on what it promises to show, but even then Morris finds a way to make some truly awful and horrible things incredibly funny. He's walked a fine line here, and once again proves he really is a comic genius.

BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO

A look at the Japanese obsession with insects, as people buy, sell, trap and breed them in what turns out to be a major industry. One of the subjects of the film drives a Ferrari bought with the money he's made selling bugs! The film wants to be an exploration of Japanese culture through the prism of one of its more unique pastimes, but it doesn't always click. Meditations on nature, life and change are intriguing but go nowhere, fortunately we also learn about the history of insects in Japanese literature and poetry. The stories of how Dragonflies were viewed as noble and Fireflies as symbols of fleeting love are great. It's a lovely little film despite its flaws, and the inventive ways the insect trappers go about gathering their merchandise are interesting to watch.

MIFF Day 5

Delusion and fantasy seemed to be the theme today, sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrific.

THE GENIUS AND THE BOYS

Daniel Carleton Gajdusek won the Nobel Prize in 1976 for his work on the Kuru disease affecting cannibal tribes in the highlands of New Guinea. His work proved the existence of Prions, a non-genetic means of disease transmission. He mentored young boys, some of whom went on to become world famous scientists. People such as Benoit Mandelbrot, the discoverer of fractal geometry. He was a genius, no doubt. He adopted many children from New Guinea and other places, taking them to America for their education. Many of them say that without him, they would not be the successes they are today. But then one of the children came forward and alleged that Gajdusek molested him. For much of the running time, you're wondering if he really did anything or not, many of his adopted children defend him, and his friends say he was affectionate to his kids, but not abusive. But then things get murkier, as some of his friends start talking about how adult/child sex was common where the children were from, so if anything untoward did happen, it was within a cultural context. As if that made it okay. And then it hits you with the sucker punch. A spittle-laden outburst by Gajdusek himself, proudly declaring his crimes and insisting that if everyone did it the world would be a better place. My one criticism of the film is that it didn't take this footage and capture the reaction of his peers to it, after all their defences of him. It's horrific to see the man defend himself in such a delusional manner, but it's even worse to see people state bluntly that they don't want to know if he was really that bad, because his contribution to society was so great. I'm not sure who's more deluded, him or his friends. It's left to his brother to state the obvious, he was a criminal who convinced himself that manipulating confused adolescents was loving. A solid portrait of both the achievements and the crimes of a complex and troubled man.

BIBLIOTHEQUE PASCAL

From the horror of denial to the denial of horror, this is a great film that sits alongside Tideland as a deeply uncomfortable experience. Depicting dark events with visual whimsy, it tells the story of Mona, a Hungarian woman who drifts through a miserable life but transforms it into wonderful tales. The first half of the film is a delight, the second half a descent into hell, but both are equally striking. The control of mise-en-scene is powerful and it's easily the most imaginative and visually striking film of the festival so far. The comparisons to Gilliam are well placed. With an end that is both uplifting and slightly sad, and I'll be very interested in seeing what director Szabolcs Hajdu does next.

HOMECOMING

The Masters of Horror anthology series has yet to really convince me the title is deserved. This is no exception. Joe Dante gives us a lame execution of a neat concept, dead soldiers rise from the dead to vote against George Bush Jnr in an attempt to end the war in Iraq. The acting is sub-standard, the camerawork is weak and only the presence of Robert Picardo does anything to make this worth your attention.

IT'S A GOOD LIFE

Another Dante made-for-tv episode. This time for The Twilight Zone. The end is a bit odd, but the rest of it is great fun. A live-action cartoon where people are trapped in a house by a boy who can make anything he wishes for appear. They live in fear of him, and he's too naive to realise he's being selfish. At least until the heroine arrives and starts behaving like a real mother to him. Some great visuals, but it doesn't amount to much.

LIGHTNING

Fortunately, the best was left until last in the Dante omnibus screening. A lovely tale of a wild west prospector and his horse Lightning, a horse with a talent for detecting trouble. Lightning's talents come in useful when two claim jumpers set out to rip off his owner. The central performance of Brian Keith is the highlight, a man who knows westerns like few other actors and sells us his grizzled prospector with ease. But the story has a few great twists and Ron Perlman is great as the villain too. The projection quality wasn't the greatest, it appears to be an old videotape copy, but it was a genuinely enjoyable half hour.

MIFF Day 4

Today began my Joe Dante kick, though I'm only managing to fit in the ones I haven't seen before.

MATINEE

I'm very glad I saw the William Castle doco before this loving tribute to the man. Dante's 1993 film features John Goodman playing Lawrence Woolsey, a Castle-like film producer who is premiering his new film Mant! in Key West. But then the Cuban Missile Crisis hits, and a crowded theatre of kids and a paranoid theatre owner combine for chaos when his stage gimmicks get confused for nuclear attack. It's very much a classic Dante flick, children, nostalgia, a sense of adventure and a bit of threat. Not exactly his greatest film mind you, but a solid bit of fun.

THE MESSENGER

Iraq war films are a genre unto themselves now. Most are pretty lousy too. This could easily have been one of them, but it's saved by the central performances of Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster. The idea is decent too, the two men are detailed to giving death notices to the next of kin of soldiers killed in Iraq. It shows a side of war that's often examined, but the device lets it look at it in a different way. There's a plot that runs through it all involving Foster's relationship to his ex (Jena Malone, unrecognisable in a bob cut) and his growing attachment to a widow (Samantha Morton) he notifies, but it's all fairly inconsequential. What's really on offer is two great performances, and they're worth the time.

SPACE TOURISTS

Based on a book of photographs documenting the Russian Space Program from a unique perspective, this film shows the process followed in training the space tourists who pay $20 million each to travel to the International Space Station. It also examines the fallout of the collapse of the Soviet Union on the program, and the weird ecology the rocket launches have created. From scrap metal hunters who chase the falling booster rockets to farmers who live in the trajectory of the debris, it paints an intriguing picture of how everyone struggles to make ends meet now that the money is harder to come by. It falters slightly, detouring to tell the story of some entrants in the X Prize who attempt to land a module on the moon, but the whole is held together by the fascination space holds, and the ambitions of so many to reach it. The photography from the portholes of the ISS alone make this worth watching, but the stories of the people in Kazakstan who live off these launches is what makes it truly interesting.

WORLD'S GREATEST DAD

I had no idea what this was about, other than that it was a father with a kid who's into seriously deviant porn. I wasn't expecting what it became. And because that was part of the joy of the film, I won't say too much about it. It's a wonderfully dark comedy, black as pitch and yet with a warmth running through it that's surprising. Bobcat Goldthwaite has made a really great film, though it's a niche audience that will love it. But the cinema I was in was roaring with laughter. It's out on DVD now, so watch it if you love your comedy dark, twisted and teetering on the nice side of cynical.

BLANK CITY

A retrospective on the No Wave movement of the 70s and early 80s in New York, where punk, cinema and art collided. You know the format, people speak fondly of the days before everyone became famous and they made films just for themselves and success was unimportant. John Lurie evens goes so far as to single out Basquiat for wrecking the whole thing by making having money cool. It's an interesting collection of memories, and manages to puncture romanticised nostalgia by closing with Jim Jarmusch saying the past is over, get on with making the future. Given the tendency for films like this to over-sentimentalise and lament the passing of a golden era, it's a bold way to close. For that reason, I love the film.

MIFF Day 3

It was a documentary day today, mostly depressing in a "this is the world we live in?" kind of way.

VIDEOCRACY

Promoted as an examination of Berlusconi's Italy, the abuse of power with a president owning 90% of the nation's media, this was a surprise. Namely because it's mostly fairly kind to the man, avoiding an in-depth look at how his media machine functions. There's no mention of a fairly infamous moment when he rang the network and cut short a program critical of him. Instead, this film investigates the complicity of everyone in the machine of celebrity. It paints a fairly despairing picture of vacuous citizens whose only dream is to be rich and famous television celebrities. The girls dream of marrying footballers and the guys dream of being on Big Brother or winning a singing contest. One hapless guy dreams of becoming a blend of Van Damme and Ricky Martin. It's savage in its criticisms, showing up so-called opponents of the culture of celebrity to be nothing more than jealous. Given a chance, everyone jumps on board, they're all desperate for the limelight. It offers little insight into the political implications of state media dominance, but it does paint an horrific image of a celebrity obsessed culture.

THE RED CHAPEL

Danish humour seems to be uniformly black, at least based on what I've seen. This documentary is no exception, with one person early on describing it as the worst thing he's ever done. The ruse is simple, two Danish-Korean comedians, one an 18-year old with cerebral palsy, will travel to North Korea to stage a show that subtly mocks and exposes the horrors of the North Korean dictatorship. It's an incredibly mean-spirited exercise, because they're unable to get anywhere near anyone where their antics would serve to lampoon the regime. Instead, they're stage-managed by people who know they'll be killed if anything goes awry. Director Mads and his two comedians struggle, and while Mads remains intent on mocking the regime somehow, his two comedians begin to sympathise and grieve for their minders. It does succeed in exposing the dark heart of the regime however. Everyone acts through fear, everyone is spying on everyone else, and nobody is safe. It's genuinely heartbreaking to see people who are obviously good and decent trapped in such a hell. In the end there are moments of laughter, but what you leave with is the horror of seeing such a dehumanising system at work.

PETITION

Withdrawn from last year's festival, allegedly in protest of the screening of The 10 Conditions of Love, but given the director was rumoured to have gone into hiding, more likely due to state censorship, this is heartbreaking stuff. The technique can be faulted easily, the film is overlong and poorly structured, but it's substance is shocking; a terrifying expose of the corruption that lies at the heart of the Chinese system of government. When people in towns and villages are denied justice, they can petition their case at the central courts in Beijing. Local governments are disciplined based on how many petitioners are received, so "Retrievers" are employed by those councils and cadres to hunt down Petitioners and force them back home, turn them away from the court, or kill them. And the film shows unflinchingly the grisly aftermath of one such incident, while the officials in Beijing turn a blind eye to the whole event. Their disinterest oversees the mental breakdown of some and the arrest and abuse of others. People who break the rules succeed, but those who believe in the laws of their country are driven to insanity by a system that denies basic rights unless you pay the right bribe. A horrifying account of a corrupt system destroying the lives of people whose only mistake was to put their trust in the system that claims to care for them.

WAR GAMES AND THE MAN WHO STOPPED THEM

The story of a Polish army officer, Ryszard Kuklinski, who managed to supply the CIA with roughly 40,000 top secret documents outlining the Warsaw Pact plans to take on NATO. With interviews with both the CIA and Warsaw Pact officers involved, it's an interesting story, though the logic of how his actions saved the world from WW3 isn't always clear. His CIA handlers insist this is the case, though how his information translated into action is never satisfactorily explored, which is disappointing. Interesting enough, but somehow lacking the weight that the presence of such heavyweight interviewees suggests the story should possess.

THE INVENTION OF DR NAKAMATS

Dr Nakamatsu invented the floppy disk. If for no other reason, that should cement his place in history. But he has over 3000 other patents to his name. He's an eccentric 80 year old, who plans to live until 144, sleeps only 4 hours a day, eats one meal a day and comes up with his best ideas when starving his brain of oxygen at the bottom of a swimming pool. Somewhat unfairly, we only get to see the whimsical and strange side of this remarkable man's life. A man responsible for the plastic hand pump you find at the hardware store, as well as a bike that features a water-powered electrical engine. I would have liked them to dwell a little on the science behind his achievements, since you don't invent major innovations in technology without serious intelligence. But the film is light in tone, and it's really more of a character sketch of an endearing but odd genius.

MIFF Day 2

Four films in and it's Documentary 2, Narrative 0. Disappointing, but hopefully not predictive... On to the movies.

THE BOYS: THE SHERMAN BROTHERS STORY

I'd never heard of these guys, but I've heard a mountain of their songs. Almost every song in "classic" Disney era films was by these two brothers. Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, the It's a Small World ride song, all the work of Robert and Richard Sherman. And they also wrote the songs for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, explaining why I keep mistaking it for a Disney film. But despite their prodigious output and roaring success, they couldn't really stand each other and would sit on opposite sides of a theatre at their premieres. The film documents their successful working relationship far better than their personal hostilities, but that's probably because even they can't explain why they don't get along. All in all a fascinating document of two immensely talented brothers who have had an incredible impact on the lives of children worldwide for generations.

THE HOUSEMAID

Im Sang Soo is a director of rare talent. A Good Lawyer's Wife remains one of the most impressive films of the new Korean cinema, a shocking yet tender tale of a family destroyed by infidelity. Technically he's on familiar ground in this disappointing attempt at an erotic thriller. It begins promisingly as an examination of power and class in modern day Korea. The husband's power proves an aphrodisiac to the new housemaid and they begin an affair of sorts. But their infidelity provokes the wife's mother to plot against the housemaid in a very Lady Macbeth scheme to maintain her daughter's privilege. The house becomes a microcosm for the struggles of the poor to achieve success, and the way the system conspires to corrupt everyone. The family's elderly housekeeper in particular stands out as a fascinating character torn between a desire to use her employer's power to advance her son's career, and the knowledge that she has sold her soul. Sadly, what starts out as intriguing becomes more and more on the nose, and the ridiculous finale and nonsensical coda undermine what could have been a solid film.

SPINE TINGLER! THE WILLIAM CASTLE STORY

William Castle was a legendary showman, he put buzzers under the seats for one of his films, and they went off at a crucial moment to set the audience shrieking. He paid actors to pretend to be so scared that they ran screaming from the theatre at a pre-determined moment. He came up with all kinds of gimmicks to sell his movies, and he made a fortune for himself and Columbia Pictures. He also produced Rosemary's Baby, his "A" film. This is an affectionate retrospective on his career, narrated in the main by his daughter who clearly loves her father, as does everyone else. It's no hagiography, and honestly examines the fears that drove his showmanship and need to be loved, but it's never petty or cruel. The second great doco for the day on an underacknowledged yet significant presence in the history of cinema.

MIFF Day 1

MIFF 2010 is on, and kicking off the festival for me was a film I had high hopes of...

RED HILL

The trailer for this had me excited, it looked gorgeous and suggested a modern day western set up in the hill country of Victoria. It starts promisingly, with stunning vistas and the hint of supernatural menace in the hills. But once news of a prison break hits the local television it quickly shifts into a revenge outlaw story, with our hero Shane (Ryan Kwanten) the hapless new cop (his first day no less) stuck between escaped murderer Jimmy (Tom E Lewis) and the men of Red Hill, led by the local police chief Bill (Steve Bisley). Director Patrick Hughes frames the action well, stages some impressive setpiece moments and kicks things along at a good clip. But the story is slight, and occasionally stupid. Why the hell a bunch of men with guns are so terrified of a man that they can't even shoot him in the back eludes me. There are moments so inane I was groaning in disbelief. Fortunately that's only about 20 minutes in the middle of the film, and the rest of the story rocks along a bit more steadily. Solid enough genre fare, good fun, and did I mention the cinematography is bloody awesome?

Inception

A flawed gem of a film, but the flaws make it sparkle. Read my review here.

Predators

Am I being too harsh, expecting a sequel with Robert Rodriguez's imprimatur to be more than a clever fanwank restyling of the original in a new setting? I'd like to think not. Good fun, but also disappointing, a conflicting film. Read the review here.