Reviews

Director Stephen Knight has crafted something quite special and different in Locke, and it is in no small part due to support from Tom Hardy as the titular Ivan Locke, cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos and composer Dickon Hinchcliffe. The premise is interesting and its execution is as engaging as a film played out in a single space could possibly hope to be.

However, for me Knight has overlooked a major point of cinema; it is a visual medium, and no amount of sweeping out-of-focus car headlights can hide the fact that 85 minutes of Tom Hardy on the phone is pretty much unsustainable as a piece of cinema.

Tom Hardy is engaging and succeeds in making us believe in Ivan as a character, however, the disembodied voices of the other characters reveals Locke to be nothing more than a radio play, none of the other actors manage to get beyond the voice acting that is a mainstay of BBC Radio 4 plays.

However, it's good to see a British director and his team trying something different and kudos to Hardy for putting his name to something so non Hollywood. Locke is definitely worth watching, particularly on the big screen, but for me it doesn't quite cut the mustard.

There are many problems with this movie not least the presence of Dustin Hoffman in the lead role. Hoffman completely out-acts this cast of British TV actors from the 1970s, he's almost in another movie completely. The film would have benefited from a more low key British actor, as the fact that he is an American has very little to do with the plot, any "outsider" would have serviced the narrative.

The next problem, unsurprisingly, is Peckinpah's treatment of women, particularly the character of Amy, played by Susan George. I know it was the '70s, but Peckinpah is once again obsessed with violence against women but not in cinematic way, purely as a way to titillate. The lack of female characters only goes to underline Peckinpah's total lack of interest in women as fully developed people in his movies. As far as he is concerned they are whores there to service the other male characters

The story is merely a set up for the last twenty minutes of poorly executed violence by a group of mentally challenged Cornish locals. Peckinpah's execution of the climatic scenes is woefully inadequate even for the early 1970s.

I know Peckinpah bought some great innovations to the movies and even after this would make a couple of worthy efforts, but for me Straw Dogs doesn't work as a credible narrative, or a worthwhile cinematic experience.

Anderson attempts a rather heavy handed allegorical tale, his vision of a dysfunctional Albion. The working class flexing its muscle through organised labour, a pragmatic middle class, kow-towing to labour and the aristocracy, a ruling class oblivious to the chaos surrounding it, and a prying, amoral media. Anderson seems to have gone beyond his critique of capitalist imperialism and found himself buffeted from all sides by the chaos that was Britain in the early 1980s. His major coup is seeing the future of humankind as merely a pawn in the oncoming information industry.

The film was made towards the end of the first Thatcher government's electoral victory, when Britain was still in the grip of industrial conflict, and the there was still a debate about the possibilities of socialism. Nowadays this seems very dated and almost obscene, and its hard to imagine that the ongoing conflict betweenmanagement and labour was very real back then. However, because of Andersons obsession with class conflict, the story gets completely lost, and I found it hard to maintain interest in a story that had very little to empathise with. UK Films such as Gregory's Girl, Chariots of Fire and Ghandi were the big hitters, British directors like Ridley Scott were making Blade Runner. Anderson, like many others, was on the wrong side of the fence culturally and politically by the 1980s. People wanted something more than sledgehammer politics.

However, this is a loveletter to some of the great TV actors of the 1970s and 1980s. Leonard Rossitor is great, Robin Asquith more than holds his own. There's Joan Plowwright, Dandy Nichols, and Richard Griffiths. Alan Bates makes an appearance as does Arthur Lowe. Mark Hamill and Malcolm McDowell. The list is endless. So, a poor movie, but worth a watch just to catch the best of British acting from the era.

A French Italian co-production; here we have Losey attempting to create a Felliniesque European Art House movie with hints of Nouveau Vague. Losey uses Jeanne Moreau to sell what is a concoction of 1950s and 60s art house clichés where character and story development are virtually non-existent. Nothing made me want to engage with the movie, and after an hour I just had to give up.

Stanley Baker is appallingly cast as the leading man, the script is dreadfully wooden, and the unremitting jazz score does not hide the fact that this series of clichés just does not work as a film. If this is interesting only for film studies students, then maybe the people writing the courses should seriously ask themselves why - Losey made many better movies and the European Art House scene of the 50s and 60s has far better examples of ground breaking cinema.

A great big pretentious yawn of a film that should have been strangled at birth.

Not being a great fan of the documentary feature I was rather ambivalent about this David and Goliath tale. However, after its screening at the Shetland Film Festival UK film critic Mark Kermode recommended it partly as righteous exposition of the power of money over local communities and also as a real life twist on the Local Hero (1983) story - a feelgood film from Scottish film maker Bill Forsyth. Clips of Forsyth's movie are included in You've Been Trumped to underpin the message and Forsyth watched the film at the Shetland Film Festival giving his full support to the documentary maker, Anthony Baxter.

What we get is a film that not only angered me because of the insidious support of the UK and Scottish governments for this outrageous project but the bullying and illegal activities of the local policeforce, who should be charged with assault, illegal arrest and detention of the film maker. We are aware of the arrogance, lying and bullying of Trump who uses his money to get what ever he wants with impunity, but for the small people - the local constabulary, to be in on this is beyond reproach.

The treatment of the local farmers and residents by Trump is astoundingly arrogant and without precedent. This is a foreign national riding roughshod over a local community, with the support of local, and national governments, and it is the colour of his money and promise of jobs that it was clear wouldn't appear that sold it to the politicians.

Baxter's film making is quietly confident as he shows us Trump's lies and his vitriol towards the local people. Trump treats Baxter, as he does the local people, with contempt, yet Baxter shows the local residents as people, initially confused by what's happening to their homes, evolving into a mutually supportive network.

Baxter's ending evokes moments from Forsyth's film, and reminds us that perhaps there will be a happy ending. It would be nice to think that a film as powerful as this can make a difference, but I feel that unfortunately there are many Americans like Trump who see the UK as just another country to be colonised by their big money regardless of the wishes of local communities.

What would it be like if your dad was Jason Bourne and you were an American teen with a step-father with money to burn. Well you'd go to Europe, get kidnapped by evil Eastern Europeans intent on pumping you full of heroin and prostituting you to rich Asians. However, luckily your dad has been spending much of his career training for just such an event, and since he's now "retired" and he's got time on his hands he'll fly over to Europe and using his network of intelligence operatives and ninja skills, he'll bludgeon his way through the opposition, killing everyone in his path until he eventually finds you, and returns you to an everso grateful mom and stepdad. And they all live happily ever after.

Firstly, Neeson is a terrible choice for an action hero. The part was obviously made for Bruce Willis, and you can almost hear the dialogue being delivered in a Willisesque tone. Besson's writing has covered many bases, but this is a generic, paint-by-numbers action thriller with hints of torture porn. The basic story lacks any depth and the narrative is predictable. The Dialogue is dull and the cinematography is uninspiring. The film just clunks through the motions expected of a high octane action film, it pushes all those buttons, which is probably why it receives such a high rating on IMDb, but it brings nothing new to the table.

Dull, predictable and lacking any real depth. Just what the doctor ordered for those who like their films shallow and brainless.

An interesting, entertaining, but not wholly satisfying movie.

Anderson offers his take on what seems a very English postwar style of children's literature. With a supporting soundtrack that includes Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and a plot that includes the inclusion of Britten's Noye's Fludde, Anderson manages to reflect a very middle class English sensibility of the 1950s and 1960s. A quirky prepubescent love story, Moonrise Kingdom has some fine acting from its two lead actors, particularly the deadpan Kara Haywood as Suzy, who has no doubt kick started a a great future in the movies. The support cast is faultless; Willis, underrated as ever, is fantastic as the police captain, Norton takes on the role of Scoutmaster Ward with gusto, reminding us of his comedic abilities, and there's a great cameo from the wonderful Harvey Keitel.

And Andersons realisation of the story is underpinned by the efforts of his regular cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman and art director Gerald Sullivan. We get the studied formal directing we have become used to from Anderson, and it works. Its a lovely movie to look at. Its big problem is that it's not as funny as Anderson obviously believes it is, quirky surrealism is not enough to carry a film. If its meant to be funny then the audience need to laugh. Its other problem is, as with all of Anderson's films that I have seen, that it it is stuck in a safe white middle class milieu, that reflects a world that perhaps Anderson wished existed and perhaps does for a significant wealthy, white, middle class group of people who can separate themselves from the uncomfortable realities of modern America.

Entertaining and fun but hardly a classic of modern American cinema. Anderson ploughs his own furrow, one that is curiously annoying and rather unsatisfying.

For me Schrader is a second-rate director, and Light Sleeper is a poor attempt at a modern day film noir. Its attempt at angst-ridden existentialism renders the movie ponderous and dull whilst the dialogue is often unengaging and vacuous. Considering this film was released in the same year as Reservoir Dogs, one can see how writers such as Schrader were being seen as part of the Old Hollywood. I know these days there has been a volt face as far as this movie and Tarantino's debut are concerned with Tarantino laughed at as a fan boy director and Schrader now lauded as the master director he never was. But this effort is rather under-whelming. It feels like an average TV movie with a terrible soundtrack and unconvincing sets. Like someone has tried to remake Taxi Driver on a micro-budget.

For me Schrader, with all his screen writing kudos, is an ineffective director, and Light Sleeper is a perfect example of his overrated directorial abilities.

Lantana is an excellent drama that is executed with style and authority by the director Ray Lawrence, screen writer Andrew Bovell, DP Mandy Walker and a cast of superb actors. Lawrence directs Bovell's screenplay and the cast with confidence, and this is complemented by Walker's excellent photographic style using washed out colours and interesting lighting.

Bovell's screenplay has the main characters interacting with each other through circumstance but the central story is that of La Paglia's police detective. Seeking solace from his marriage and potential heart problems, his affair with fellow salsa student is the springboard for the convoluted relationships within the story. The crime drama is merely a framework to hang the various stories of fractured relationships upon. Dr Somers, the counsellor played by Hershey, is so screwed up by the murder of her daughter she is unbalanced and paranoid. Thinking the gay client she interviews is having a relationship with her estranged husband played by Rush, she eventually ends up stranded in an isolated backwater after a car crash and when she is picked up by Nic, the neighbour of Detective Zat's lover, she believes he is about to rape her and throws herself from the car. When she fails to return home, and Nic is seen disposing of one of her shoes by Jane, Zat's lover, a full-blown murder investigation is soon underway.

But this really just gives the viewer an insight to Nic's relationship with his wife, Hannah. A relationship built on trust and mutual respect. When Hannah tells Jane, her neighbour and Zat's lover, that he didn't commit the murder, Jane asks how she knows. Her reply is central to the theme of the movie, she tells Jane she knows because Nic told her he didn't do it. Their love for each other and belief in each other is very different to that experienced by the other three couples.

Zat and his wife are just going through the motions, and as Sonja, Zat's wife, tells her counsellor, who happens to be Dr Somers, she wants much more from life. Detective Zat is going through his midlife crisis, unable to communicate with his wife and it is his youngest son who, by fabricating his father's response in a phone call, allows his mother to see that she still has strong feelings for her husband. And Zat's lover, Jane, eventually sees the good in her own estranged husband.

So really a story about couples' relationships and the inability to be honest and share innermost feelings, but filmed through the backdrop of a crime drama. Brilliantly executed by a fantastic team of technicians and actors.

This film is one of the Powell and Pressburger films that have received less attention than many of their more well-known works, and it is a real beauty of a film.

With some excellent acting from Jennifer Jones, Cyril Cusack and David Farrer (Farrer rarely reached this level of believability in any other Archers film) Powell's direction is ahead of the game, and with the photography of Christopher Challis the film evokes the early New Hollywood style of the mid sixties, with many more long shots of groups of people and a far more mobile use of camera than Powell had previous used. The colouring is sumptuous, with many close-up head shots surrounded by the rich colours of sky and countryside.

The story of a naive country girl courted by two suiters; a country priest and a local squire is very reminiscent of post-war westerns, and Powell shows the relationships between the three as a battle between the order and probity of the priest's lifestyle and beliefs and the squire's passion and unrestrained desires, a Hardyesque reflection of British society in the 19th century, a view found in the Archer's other films such as A Canterbuty Tale and I Know Where I'm Going. It is a look back to what might be considered a more genteel Englishness, but does it with far more style than the contemporary Ealing Studio films.

Beautiful to look at, forward-looking cinematography and some cracking music by Brian Easdale who had already worked on The Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes, this is classic Powell and Pressburger. It can be seen as the pinnacle of their 1940s work, bringing together the technicolour beauty of films like The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death and the rural idealism of A Canterbury Tale.

Watching this film recently I was struck by how things haven't really changed. Men are still defined by their (un)employment and their communities, and use the military as a means of escape, often in the belief that it is a worthy and romantic course of action. But what is touching about The Deer Hunter is how we see a naive immigrant community feel the need to give something back to their adopted country. Young men join the army unaware of the horrors that await them, and the film essentially shows us how the lives of the whole community are irreversibly changed by the horror of war.

The hour long set up lets us into the heart of the community, the love and friendships, the closeness of the people. This is essential and is what makes the rest of the film so powerful. The second and third acts of the film then reveal the horrors that befall the three men, and the devastating consequences of their time in Vietnam. The end is one of the saddest I have seen on film, with the remaining friends ironically singing God Bless America around the table after the funeral.

The film at times felt like it had been edited down from an even longer running time with jumps from their home town to the violence of combat. From the meeting of the three to suddenly them as prisoners of the Vietcong. The film relies on its story for effect, so there is no great cinematography or snappy dialogue, but there are some great acting performances from De Niro and Walken, but for me George Dzundza is outstanding as John, the bar owner and musician.

A sad indictment of war and its effect on working class people and their communities. As relevant now as it was in 1978.

This is a pretty good thriller created by the great Robert Wise, featuring excellent performances from Harry Belafonte and the great Robert Ryan.

A comment on the state of race relations in America at the time, Ryan plays an ex-con bought in to do a bank job with debt-ridden jazz musician Belafonte. Ryan's Earle Slater is the clichéd backward southern racist, whilst Belafonte's Johnny Ingram is a sophisticated northern African American. The movie plays out the tensions between the two, concluding in a downbeat ending. The score by MJQ pianist John Lewis is excellent, and Wise's use of locations and studio shots gives the film an independent film making feel to it.

Watching the film I could see the potential influence on later film makers such as Scorcese and De Palma on their heist/gangster movies, but more specifically I felt an influence on the early work of Tarantino. An excellent little film that is high on my list of Wise's best work.

How can a film starring Robert De Niro, Robert Mitchum, Tony Curtis, Jean Moreau, Donald Pleasance, Ray Milland, Dana Andrews, and Jack Nicholson. adapted by Harold Pinter from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and directed by Elia Kazan not be good? Well watch this and you will see a perfect example of how not to make a film.

As hard as the actors work, they could never overcome such an achingly dull and banal script. Add to that Kazan's flat and uninspiring, pedestrian direction and a dreadful score from Maurice Jarre you have possibly one of the worst "quality" movies I have ever watched.

I just had to ask the question "why", and I think you can perhaps argue that Kazan hadn't really done much since the early sixties, and the movie business had changed. The New Hollwood of Coppola, Scorcese, Polanski, Spielberg et al was making inroads; Movies like Chinatown, The Godfather, Taxi Driver and Jaws were taking movie making in a new direction. The story, script, direction and soundtrack of The Last Tychoon were old Hollywood.

Definitely one to miss. Even though, as I read somewhere, this is a mess of a movie with a classic struggling to get out, it really isn't worth investing the time to find out where that classic has gone.

McQueen goes to places other creators of film rarely go, and it's difficult to compare him to any other director past or present. Maybe his closest comparison is Tom Ford, the fashion designer, whose film A Single Man reflects a similar nihilistic sexuality of its protagonist. both have an artist's eye for the possibilities of film, but whereas Ford focuses on beauty, McQueen takes us into the grimy uncomfortable world of isolation and self-loathing.

Shame relies on what you see on screen, and the dialogue is sparse and remote. The character of Brandon is dull and inarticulate, his sister Sissy is a train wreck, his boss Fischer is an egotist. Their neurosis, and troubled relationships are played out on the screen but as we discover, Brandon does not connect. He has sex. McQueen offers a thin narrative in which the slight story unfolds and it is through his cinematic compositions, Sean Bobbit's clean digital cinematography and Harry Escott' excellent score that we follow Brandon from successful clean cut executive to self-destructive sociopath.

Unfortunately, Mcqueen's focus on the achingly dull lifestyle of Brandon, his lack of social skills, and faltering relationships does not make a great film. It might look good, but it doesn't feel good, and maybe Mcqueen needs to inject some humour and irony into his work. Give it some kind of subtext. As cinema moves into the 21st century, it is still the story that matters, and as beautiful as Mcqueen's work looks he still doesn't have the cinematic language of David Lynch or Martin Scorcese.

However, the possibility of McQueen and Fassbender being the 21st century equivalent of Scorcese and De Niro might offer the prospect of greater work to come.

Gattaca has emerged as a definite contender in the movie sci-fi canon. Niccols sharp script and excellent direction make this a very watchable film. The art direction is excellent, using what look like contemporary modernist architecture and interiors to create a natural futurist look which is obviously taking us not too far into the future, and the costume design is straight out of 1950s noir, Haeke and Law in large lapel double-breasted suits and kipper ties, the police in long trench coats and trilbies. The story is classically simple - a small guy pretending to be someone else falls foul of a random murder and becomes embroiled in hiding his identity during the police investigation. He eventually overcomes all the odds and achieves his goal.

Niccol mixes sci-fi and film noir, not in the way Dark City (1998) did a year later in its use of time shifts, surrealism and aliens, but as a straight-forward police / crime movie using genetics as the point around which the story revolves rather than say race or class. The three leads - Hawke, Thurman and Law are believable as the imperfects all striving to achieve their goals in their own way, and for me it is Jude Law who, in one of his early big screen outings, is really at the centre of the film. Nice to see Gore Vidal making an appearance as the weary director of space operations and Alan Arkin is excellent as the police detective, and there is also a cameo from Ernest Borgnine as a cleaner. A Excellent movie.

This is a truly risible movie. A cross somewhere between a Hammer Horror and a Carry On movie, Schrader has crafted a truly awful piece of cinema. My first thoughts after about three quarters of an hour were that it looked like a cheap made-for-TV movie, and the dreadful CGI effects merely compound this. The art direction is woeful, everything looks brand-spanking new, and the sets are so clichéd. Schrader's direction is clunky and uninspired, but worst of all is the acting from Skarsgard and Mann. Skarsgard chews the scenery for two hours whilst Mann seems to think he's in some Merchant Ivory epic.

Two hours of my life wasted. This film should not be thought of as anything to do with Friedkin's masterpiece. It is a travesty that quite rightly the studio attempted to shelve. If people think this is better than Exorcist: The Beginning I'm just glad I haven't seen it.

An old fashioned espionage thriller, beautifully shot by Van Hoytema and intelligently directed by Alfredson, the art direction is faultless and everything about the film screams 1970s, even the grainy feel to the movie's image. Gary Oldman is intense and brooding as Smiley, around whom the film revolves and support comes from a stellar cast including John Hurt, Colin Firth and Toby Jones. The narrative flits around, flash backs and complex plots mean a good deal of concentration is required to keep up.

However, for me it never really moves beyond what it always has been - a John Le Carre spy novel, albeit a great novel. It is a period piece, and shows a world that we barely recognise or even care about any longer. This is the kind of stuff UK TV supplies for its older viewers on a Sunday evening, recollections of a bygone age, when the British still thought they ruled the world. These days, I expect a little more from a movie than reminiscing about the "good old days". This is the 21st century. Where were the strong roles for women? where were the black faces? OK, so a little bit of homosexuality is hinted at, and extra martial affairs are an important part of the story, but you can't escape the fact that this is an old-fashioned story littered with characters from the British public school system who still saw the value of Empire.

Oh and Tom Hardy was seriously miscast as Ricki Tarr, his wide boy swagger really wasn't believable and Kathy Burke's Connie was equally unbelievable. However, it is worth watching.

Having watched this movie when it was first released, liked other reviewers I felt I needed to revisit it find out whether it was as influential and affecting as I remember. Well, the short answer is yes. It is very well realised, Uli Edel created an enthralling film from the book of the same name. He doesn't rely on improbable drama to move the story forward, just a matter-of-fact story that sees the young Christiane first drift into the world of discos and soft drugs and gradually become involved in the Berling heroin scene. And it relies on a certain amount of realism for the film to work, however, we don't get the contemporary film maker's penchant for hand-held wobbly camera work, we get Edel creating a claustrophobic world of late night teenage hedonism, from which Christiane and Detlev's relationship evolves from one of mutual attraction to one of mutual addiction.

This kind of movie had been made before, most obviously by Jerry Shatzberg eight years previously with Panic In Needle Park, but the film (distributed by 20th Century Fox) was still fairly mainstream. Christiane F / Zoo was raw and street-wise, plus it had a European sensibility that made it more relevant to a generation of Western European teenagers. We had been warned of the dangers of heroin, but now we could see it played out before our eyes on the movie screen.

So, it is definitely a movie of its time. The drugs available then were limited, and the movie reflects the limitations of choice not only in drugs, but in music, entertainment, and life. The film has that 1970s washed out look, the acting is pretty below average, the dialogue stilted, but Edel focuses on the grim reality of Berlin, its social housing, the places people meet, the things they do. This was pretty much the same for all European cities in the 1970s and this realism is what ultimately makes the film worth watching. Its a snapshot of 1970s European youth culture; grim, boring, apathetic and economically challenged. What made their life more interesting? Bowie and drugs.

Pretty dreadful adaptation of Faulks' novel.

Gillian Armstrong presents a sanitised version of the book, with much of the meat of Charlotte Gray's relationships removed. Unfortunately the story hangs off the intensity of these relationships she has - with Cannerly and Lavade in particular who are never really given screen time to develop. The acting is pretty dull, and the actors are not really helped by the witheringly dull script. Gambon does his best with what little he is given in the role of Lavade, as does Ron Cook as Mirabel, but Crudup and Blanchett are just not firing on all cylinders. Maybe this is because the story has been so acutely edited, paring away all the extraneous parts of the story but in the end offering a sequence of events that create no tension either as a thriller or a romance.

My other gripe is the art direction. This looks like a made-for-TV drama, with the costumes and mis-en-scene looking fresh, clean and unused. This drama is based in the 1940s during a war, life was dirty and shabby. Armstrong and her production designer give us an unrealistic picture of wartime France and Britain.

Unfortunately this is really just an average British Television Period Drama.

Ah... the 1970s. We were easily pleased. The furore this movie caused on its release is laughable now. This low budget shocker is quite watchable as a period piece, and its good to see large doses of humour lacing the largely non-existent storyline. The dialogue by Thom and Griffith is dreadful, and as someone else points out it is merely a series of one-liners interspersing cars driving very fast, and there is no tension created in the story, which is pretty unbelievable considering its premise.Its also quite something when some of the "best" acting comes from Sylvester Stallone!

However, considering its only 76 minutes long its worth a watch...just.

This is truly a woeful film. Terence Young's days as a director who was at the top of his game with the iconic Bond films of the 60s had long gone, and this film not only reflects his lack of innovation as a director but also how low the British film industry had sunk by the mid eighties. The subject matter was way past its sell-by-date even in the mid-eighties, and the UK film industry would look to the likes of Neil Jordan and Stephen Wooley to inspire a new generation of film makers.

I can't imagine anyone paying good money to see this in the theatres, it probably didn't even make money as a video release. It is pure 3rd rate TV drama of the worst order. The cinematography and art direction are turgidly ininspiring, it is only interesting in that one wonders how such a stella British cast was employed.

Caine and George try their hardest, true professionals carrying out their responsibilities as the ship slowly sinks. Robert Powell is actually rather charismatic, probably because he was as used to working on the small screen as in feature films. But Lord Olivier is dreadful, he just shouts his way through the film wearing a rather poorly attached full beard. His kind of acting had really had its day and he really shouldn't have bothered. A small shout out does go to Charles Grey, who as always make s every scene his in worth watching.

All in all a quite dreadful film and its only saving grace is that it reminds us of how far British film making has improved in the last 30 years. Avoid like the plague.

Anyone with any sense would not go to this movie expecting Talking Heads. Byrne hasn't been a TH for twenty years and has I expect tried to move on, branch out and create new works of art. Unfortunately, as he accepted in the Q&A broadcast with Paul Morley, Stop Making Sense has proved to be an albatross around his neck for the past 30 years. And this documentary has him clutching at musical straws. The inclusion of interpretive dancers, is perhaps his greatest faux pas. Although put together by ground-breaking choreographers the result is amateur. The aim to get the backing singers and dancers to cross boundaries and become what they are not makes for some particularly painful results, especially when one of the dancers is allowed not only to hold a guitar (which is gruesome itself when the dancers perform holding electric guitars), but is allowed to play on one of Byrne's newer tracks, Holy Moly! And dancing like geriatrics on office chairs good god, what was he thinking? The musical parts of the documentary are lacklustre, the band feel like they are going through the motions, and the revamped Head's track's do little except show how fantastic Stop Making Sense was, and the newer Byrne and Eno tracks just drift. Making music via email may sound modern and exciting but the results are uninspiring and dull, if not a little cringeworthy. This perhaps the first time I have seen Brian Eno and thought he's lost the plot.

As Paul Morley delicately suggested during the Q&A, the energy a pop musician has when they are young results in magnificent works of art but maybe as the artist becomes older, is more comfortable and less energised, their work fails to live up to the promise of their early years. Nothing could be truer if this documentary is anything to go by. The film making unfortunately does nothing to improve the cinematic experience, either. The talky parts are in black and white, the music in colour...wow! As a piece of concert footage Curtis shows he is no Demme, the editing is pedestrian, the choice of shots uninspiring, and the talky parts of the film were not very interesting.

A truly, truly dull film.

Apparently, Malle had little time for the French Nouveaux Vague, and we get a passing barbed aside early on in the film. Although not up there with his best, Malle manages some ground breaking film making here. Hints at Richard Lester's work (Hard Days Night, The Knack), early Gilliam (particularly Python), and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, mixed in with Tex Avery and the musicals of Vincente Minnelli. Malle apparently attempted to get as many styles of film making as possible into the piece and he and Rappeneau attempted to style the film so as to reflect Queneau's style of prose. The film sags a bit in the middle but finishes with a flourish. This is worth a watch just to see how ahead of the game Malle was, and could turn his hand to just about any style. From watching this and many other early Malle films he comes across as a cinematic classicist, as opposed to the more radical JLG, and the decidedly average talents of Monsieur Truffaut.