SandyCameron

An enjoyable if ultimately unsatisfying story, relying too much on music for its climax that most in a general audience will not be familiar with. Unlike the finale of The Kings Speech, where Beethoven's 7th helps create a moving climax, Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius seems to drain it. Curiously, the official trailer prompted tears more readily than the film itself. Of course, it had to be Elgar, as the whole story turns on the anti-German sentiment prevailing at the time. For me, it lost its way with the overdone cameo by Simon Russell-Beale as Elgar, at first sympathetic, but then raging and disapproving. After that, the actual performance of the oratorio seemed flat, and the anti-climax, as we see three of our young singers board a troop train bound for the front, fails to move. But the ensemble is excellent, and the script often witty, and there was just enough bite in the characters and their situations to leaven the tale.

Berger's deliberate, close-up, formal style lifts a political thriller - ostensibly about the Catholic Church's election of a new pope - into something simultaneously and paradoxically ordinary and yet universal. It is, of course, not a documentary, though some critics dismissed it for not being a lurid exposé of its adherents corruption, while others saw it as an attempt to bash the Church. It aimed at being neither, and successfully presented a situation that might as easily have been set in the world of politics or business. Like it or not, the Catholic Church plays a substantial role in the lives of millions of people around the world and the election of a new pope is indeed a fascinating process of great significance. What Berger does is show how the cardinals are ordinary people, flawed, human, ambitious and yet fully aware of the potential for power they each wield. To show the hypocrisy of holy men grasping at the corruption of power is easy and obvious, and is just as relevant to the election of any powerful individual (the recent election for the leadership of the Tory party springs to mind). What Conclave does is to set that to one side, though it is constantly in plain sight, and presents us centrally with Ralph Fiennes' doubting Thomas Lawrence (geddit?) and his management of a very human popularity contest. The revelation at the film's climax - clearly misread by a number of user critics here - poses both a challenge for the Church, but also a spark of optimism for humanity. If it had a flaw - for me - it was that I wasn't quite sure how much this gripping thriller would turn out to resemble a better quality Angels and Demons, more a whodunnit than a whydunnit. My appreciation of Lawrence's dilemma was slightly undermined by this suspicion. Nevertheless, the former evil Voldemort carries off a performance of a holy man with the same elan as he did the concierge at the Grand Budapest Hotel. And Berger's use of wrinkles and liver spots, bird song, turtles, spectacles, umbrellas, art and architecture brought an artistic dimension that pleased the eye, while Bertelmann's score unsettled at every turn of the plot, though this was occasionally rather heavy-handed.

One of the dullest films I've seen in a long time. It made Madame Web seem like War and Peace. Haley Bennett's mostly placid face undermined any emotion that the film might have carried. The storyline was muddled, hopping back and forth in time and doing justice to neither component. For a film about growing vines and blending wine, there was precious little of the outdoors on show. I came away none the wiser, so when I asked my wife what I had missed - and realised I had missed very little, I conclude that there was next to noting in the tale to merit the film in the first place.

When I saw this on first release, I disliked it. Watching it again today, seven years later, I don't know why. I thought I had long ago stopped worrying about whether each new film would be "true" to the original conception. Not even Lucas himself could resist both tinkering with and comprehensively enlarging the SW universe. Whatever he had in mind back in the mid-'70s, and whatever he wanted to create as he worked through the six episodes we have come to love (or not), we can really only consider what ended upon screen and whether it satisfied our individual expectations. As a fan (not an obsessive fan: fans come in different flavours) in my late teens in 1978, I was staggered and gripped by A New Hope. I paid to see it six times. By the end of TESB, I had already begun to lose a little enthusiasm. The soap opera element ("I am your father") didn't belong in a sci-fi saga. Nor did the Ewoks in ROTJ. But there was enough space and adventure and excitement and special effects - and Harrison Ford - to keep me interested. I took my sons to see the revised versions and then the prequels, and didn't baulk at the three sequels either. With each new film, the arguments about who "owned" the story (and I'm not referring to Disney and Lucasfilm) grew louder and louder. It was inevitable that a saga that spanned more than one generation of fans was never going to satisfy everyone, and certainly not anyone who believed they had a right to dictate their version of the myths. Seven years later, while the huge disparity in the fans' and critics' Metascores still testifies to the gulf in opinion, the furore has died down. I was able to just watch again, without hesitation or expectation, and enjoy the entertainment. It was exciting (most of the action set pieces), funny (the caretakers' cart swept away by rocks smashed by Rey's practising with the lightsabre), with some interesting new characters (DJ) and enough decent acting from the leads to carry me over the longueurs (the obvious repetitions of Snoke/Emperor v Ren/Vader for example). I liked the irony of "lifting rocks" dismissed by Luke and yet critical to Rey later on. And despite my resistance to the soap operatics, there were moments of genuine emotion, including the idea that maybe no parent gets over the loss of their children as they grow up and become their own people. You don't have to lose your offspring to the Dark Side to regret their finding their own paths, for good or ill.

Glazer’s Zone of Interest, a story about the domestic life of Rudolf Höss, Auschwitz commandant, and his family who live immediately next door to the death camp, is a disturbing and thought-provoking movie. In treating the Holocaust as something happening off-screen, he puts the audience in the same position as the Höss family: we already know exactly what is going on on the other side of the garden wall, and we can choose how to respond to it. It should be noted that Glazer makes two assumptions about the audience for this film. First, a fairly safe bet, is that they already know the key facts about the Holocaust and what took place in Auschwitz and other camps like it (though doubtless there will be some who don’t); second, that they will use their imaginations “correctly” to fill in what is unseen and, in some ways, unimaginable. This is the greater gamble. Whilst I have read books on the subject, seen other movies and watched dramas and documentaries, (very recently, Schindler’s List) and have developed both a broad understanding of the events of that time, I have also built a degree of resistance to the emotional distress of the horror, which I would regard as a natural defence mechanism. One cannot be filled with bottomless despair every time one encounters it. Glazer may expect me to reimagine and to respond appropriately; to fill in the gaps in the narrative and give the film an emotional resonance that otherwise would be missing. But to attempt to recreate scenes in my imagination which can only pale in comparison to the real thing is futile. Glazer must know this, so is he instead aiming at something else? This is not a story about what is happening inside the camp, which is why he doesn’t want to show us. Instead of trying to elicit a sense of horror at what is happening over the garden wall, we must deal with what we do see, only filling in with the fact of the Holocaust and not its details. And what we see and hear (in the dialogue) gives us more than enough evidence that the adult characters portrayed are pathologically incapable of empathy and their children psychologically damaged by their upbringing in such bizarre circumstances. Their daily lives are full of the ordinary – eating, dressing, sleeping, playing, swimming, dreaming, chatting – and that makes them just like us. But the circumstances in which they act out their ordinary lives are extraordinary, and we who are distanced both by history and, most likely, lives and circumstances that cannot compare with theirs, surely must judge them inhuman without having to manufacture an emotional response. The expression, “the banality of evil” is often used to help us recognise that unspeakably evil acts can be carried out by people who otherwise lead ordinary lives; they are not the monsters and demons of myths and legends, but maybe the next-door-neighbours, the shopkeepers, the policemen and teachers, the gardeners and labourers, the secretaries and hairdressers. Perhaps Glazer wants us to become more perceptive in our judging of people. We don’t need to look over the garden wall into the abyss. In fact, if we choose to, we’re already too late. One reading of a scene of banality near the end confirms this. We see the cleaners busy at the Auschwitz museum, sweeping the floors trodden by so many doomed people, polishing the machinery of extermination, and the glass behind which we see the piles of discarded shoes for which Auschwitz is so gruesomely notorious. The question is posed, are we seeing a scene of the memorialising of the dead? Or, since the cleaners can carry on such mundane tasks in the constant presence of horror, are we becoming so inured to the lessons we should be learning from the Holocaust that we will fail…are already failing…to prevent similar horrors? The objection to “equivalence” (it is deemed by some unacceptable to draw parallels between the Holocaust and present-day conflict, murder, torture, slavery) is that it diminishes the enormity of the genocide of the Jews. But while we must never forget not just the fact of the Holocaust, but the details, we must be alert to the similar capacity for evil that we can see in the horrors of the present day. For us, the “zone of interest” is what we must pay attention to outside the history of the Holocaust, in the here and now.

This was an utterly fabulous cinematic and spiritual experience. I was drawn into Villeneuve's world by the enormous scale of the design, the undeniable pull of a religious fable, the conviction of the lead players and the power of the sound and visual design. It's strange how often critics (pro or amateur) that sound and visuals are somehow a mere adjunct to the story; that celebrity actors must all have something worthy to do (cameos are derided); that the politics of casting must be taken into account; that all old stories must have a modern take to make them relevant. Cinema IS moving pictures, and whilst sound is not a requirement, even "silent" era classics made good use of music and effects. Story is important, but cinema's unique power is its capacity to move an audience by engaging two of our senses in a most primeval way. Story alone cannot do this. Admittedly, one's hearing does feel at risk at times, but without the awesome sound design, Dune: Part Two would be diminished. I was emotionally overwhelmed by the power of the movie's visceral delivery. This was not some sentimental response to the tale, but a gut reaction to the physical transmission of the themes of power, corruption, revenge, faith, identity - the spiritual battle of Good and Evil. These were, for me, of greater significance than the mere political struggle between the two Houses and the Emperor., which is, in any case, subordinate to the power wielded by the Benegesserit which the Reverend Mothers themselves recognise is not supreme. However, if you want to see parallels with contemporary issues such as the problems of living in a post-imperial world, they are still very visible, and the "romance" between Paul and Chani is not a romance at all, burdened as it is with the visions and portents of a Messianic future. I should add that I am neither a fan of the books, having read barely 100 pages of the first, nor, as an atheist, do I adhere to any religious faith. I am, however, a believer in the power of cinema.

Knives Out was a well-told whodunnit, suspenseful, amusing, just this side (the right side) of clever. The characters were interesting, and in the case of Daniel Craig, cast against type to great effect. Glass Onion was none of these things.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Not sure what all the hoop-la was about. This movie was almost as disappointing as Lady Bird's first time sex. None of the characters was likeable, except Julie and Danny (Dad, in the background for so long, barely registered.) It earned a '7' because some of the domestic notes rang uncomfortably true (for this parent at any rate) and if much of what the movie was about has been covered before, perhaps superficially, in so many other 'high-school/coming-of-age' movies, this had the virtue of plain-speaking.

This was an excellent film, almost pure cinema. It's time some critics checked in their preconceived notions about what a film is as they pass the box-office. This was not a "war is hell" movie. The so-called "single take" was not a gimmick. In fact, this was less a war movie than an allegory about life itself. Slow to start, the first person perspective draws in the viewer,so we share the unfolding events and incidents alongside the two Tommies charged with their mission. It bears many similarities with Dunkirk (which was also more than just "a war film" and certainly not just a recount of a historical event). I was gripped, moved, drained, not just during the movie, but afterwards as well. It was not an easy watch (as Little Women was, also excellent, but for different reasons) , but I will want to see it again.

Warm, gorgeous, funny, moving. This male was thoroughly enchanted by Little Women - and not just by the stars, though let's not pretend that cinema hasn't often been about the luminosity of beautiful actors on the silver screen. I had no difficulty following the 'back and forth' of the split times, and this helped maintain a more balanced tone throughout (instead of the potential for twee/saccharine early years moving to sober later years with consequent regret dominant) and an uplifting conclusion.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Saw this on TV. I'd had a long day and was tired, so maybe it wasn't the movie to **** I nodded off. Some good gags, dazzling visuals, but too dazzling. It seemed all speed and no pace - I needed more time to catch my breath. I thought Kingpin looked stylistically out of place; the plot was uninvolving; Miles seemed to "know he was ready" barely seconds after PP had told him he wasn't, compressing the ending of the story as if the writers knew they had already gone on too long. Not just another Spidey movie, but not quite as inventive a take as critics claim.

It just didn't click for me, partly because of the sickly green design (how so many critics loved the look is beyond me) and partly because of the moments of brutality, the fleeting glimpses of beauty (when Elisa signs to Giles that she's in love with the creature) are undermined. The multiple references to other tales and genres may make it "clever", but they don't add meaning. In the end I found Elisa's smile rather forced as one improbability piles on another and she doesn't notice. The reality and fantasy sat uneasily alongside each other.