Pretty good. Pretty pretty good.

I don’t know what I was expecting really but.. sitting in front of the Imax screen (so big as to exert gravity), hearing the staff member welcome us to this presentation of Superman and then hearing that classic theme tune… well… it just sent shivers up my spine.

But I’m a sucker for things like that.

Which is why I liked this movie. With the slew of superhero films recently released and more on the horizon, this have its own distinct style and muth and it succeeded admirably. This was not a confused teenager coping with great power, a group of young outsiders pleged to save a world that fears them, nor a beaten blind man using just his fists to stem the flow of crime in his neighbourhood; this was an alien with enough power to seize authority over the earth but paralysed by his own morality. This was Superman.

Okay, so Katie Holmes is waaaaay to young to have a pullitzer and the son thing is a bit hokey and unnessecary and Lex Luthors weird plan to sell real estate on a remarkably undesirable plot of land is … well… it’s just odd… but the audience is granted glimpses into the world of a man who can never stop hearing cries for help and muttered prayers stretching across the planet, who can see every child starving and who has the raw power to stop it. To force everything to be good, but who choose to show the world an example of goodness instead. That’s just great.

This is perhaps not the movie it could have been. A sterner editing would have improved it greatly. The familial ties and Superman’s intrusion into a content and secure family was distracting and belaboured the theme of isolation that was already well formed. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s a pretty good one and well worth a view.

Okay, so the premise is a bit hokey. In an asylum straight out of some Cuckooâ™s Nest fantasy a doctor is conducting wildly unorthodox and cruel experimental therapy on supposedly incurable inmates. So far this sounds like a poor â˜80â™s slasher flic. But wait, by placing them in a rather Dickensian straightjacket, pumping them full of LSD and putting them in a corpse tray of a morgue for an hour or so, they are transported through time into the futureâ¦. Like I said, itâ™s a bit hokey.

But, surprisingly, put Adrien Brody (who still has my seal of approval for Joker in the new Batman; why oh why can no one else see that????) in the lead role. Give it solid dialogue and make absolutely no effort to explain why this is happening and youâ™re got a bloody good drama.

Now, answer honestly, when you saw the image for this did you really notice that it wasn’t Keanu? ... Really?

I had a few problems with this movie.

I think including such a stellar cast in a film that’s essentially a tale of everymen; of nobodies is a mistake. Plain and simple.

I also think that the rotorscoping techniques are used here (much as in Linklater’s Waking Life) just for the sake of using it. Its removal from reality simply serves to detract from the point of the story; which is a gradual move away from sanity. When the central characterâ™s hallucinations begin to wind their way across the screen, they fail to contrast significantly with animation that preceded them.

Rotorscoping (as Linklater uses it) also fails to focus the eye. In a camera there is a depth of field which carries the audience about the screen and tells the story. This is also true of computer animation and its virtual array of cameras and lenses and of classic animation where different painterly techniques are used for the background and the characters. Here with every part in sharp focus; they eye wanders about and the audience, ultimately, grows bored.

I had an inkling halfway through the film that there was some profundity to be found there; that, if I concentrated hard enough and scraped away the layers of mediocrity I might find something of worth. But, after a while I concluded that I’d probably be better off reading the book.

Controversial; a movie with a sympathetic child abuser as the focus of the story.

It’s a brilliant film. Kevin Bacon excels as Walter, the child abuser recently released from prison and trying so hard not to fail again. His barely restrained rage and confusion are expertly portrayed through body language and a limited vocabulary. Eve (a one word name; perhaps a Cher fan) is superbly cast as the girlfriend who “sees the good in him, even if he can’t see it himself”. Hannah Pilkes and Mos Def also add such depth to the accusations and shame that fill Walter’s life.

I found the pacing brilliant. The use of colour superb. Finally, that the movie’s climactic moments of painful catharsis are realised entirely through dialogue is incredible.

While Kevin Bacon’s comments that he did not consider a moral in the story but simply chose a good script is noteworthy; this is a thought-provoking and challenging story that is definitely worth making time for.

Back when Winona Ryder was young and not yet typecast, Jim Jarmusch made a rather charming movie called Night on Earth.

It’s got something of an ensemble cast; Béatrice Dalle (of Betty Blue Fame), Roberto Benigni (of La Vita è bella) and a few other faces you’d recognise.

It’s just a very nice movie; a witty and charming tour around the Earth told through the vehicle (if you’ll forgive the pun) of four taxi drivers in contrasting cities. They tell their stories and we hear the stories of their fares. Not a classic; but worth a watch certainly.

I went in with some friends to see Cabaret last night in an open-air cinema.

It really does drive home how Liza Minnelli became such a star. She is, much like her character Sally, phenomenally talented. She has an engaging charisma onscreen. Her voice is astoundingly joyful and she raises laughs with just a quiver of an eyebrow or a wrinkle of her nose.

The venue, of course, accentuated the theatrics on screen. Scoop are running a series of open air events by Tower Bridge and, with the setting sun tinting the dramatic London skyline with pinks and golds, itâ™s a rather wonderful stage.

The crowd were very appreciative; singing along to the increasingly grotesque cabaret performances, but knowing just when the movie had finally turned that corner and was no longer suitable for camp karaoke. A slow uneasy silence settled over the initially rambunctious audience perfectly in step with the growing Nazi presence in the movie. Of course, the final number brought that lustful singing back from the crowd.

Go and rent it, itâ™s a wonderfully tragic film.

I was set to write about how disappointed I was but, considering how low my expectations were, that’s not entirely true. They employed a journeyman at the helm and he made exactly what was expected of him. It’s a competently produced, well paced, unoriginal rather bland work with none of the spark of its predecessors.

Extraneous characters are quickly knocked off to make way for the crowd pleasers (removing one of the finest actors in the process). The plot meanders about; never feeling any need to resolve the ommission of sense or purpose.

There has been some talk of how this movie is just what the fans want; that critics simply don’t ‘get’ the X-Men. This is simply untrue or… perhaps I’d instead say that if what you, as a comics fan, expect is an attempt to dazzle with cgi and little else, that might explain the difficulty the comics industry has faced in recent years.

We expect more. Hopefully Superman Returns will provide it.

Christ, what paff. The characters are ludicrous. The plot… well… if you find it, phone the scriptwriter; it’s clearly been misplaced. They’ve probably offered a reward for anyone who finds the point.

I’ve left more profundity in a toilet bowl. There is no message here; no statement, no matter how hard it strives to propose one. This is the kind of adolescent drivel I knew was poor by the time I was twelve. This is pants. Pants. Pants. Pants. Pants.

It could only happen in Germany; both the premise and the movie.

It’s not bad, not great, but not bad. The influence of Run Lola Run is clearly evident and, while this does lend for a wonderful sincerity, its potent desire to break out into chase scenes and a pounding techno soundtrack can only be held in check for so long.

Which, I think, is the movies downfall. It all happens too fast to be believable with no time to contrast the people before the eponymous Experiment begins.

Worth seeing in any case.

I can’t really say too much about this movie, as, for the first time in a long long time, I found myself with no idea what was about to happen, what the characters were actually referring to, and what may have happened in their past.

What I will say is this; the acting is superlative, it has one of the most arresting opening scenes I’ve seen and the plot and the characterisation is arresting and original. One point though; the instant the credits start to run, press the stop button. Having the influence of Ian McEwan upon it, it just can’t resist the little touch of knowing post-modernism at the end, which is a tremendous shame.

A good solid piece of work. You can’t really go wrong when you put Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman up on the screen. A good drama, that doesn’t take the easy option and, if you’ll forgive the pun, doesn’t pull any punches.

It’s such a good bloody film. Superb actors from some of Hollywood’s finest, one of the greatest directors on the last century, wonderfully shot in black and white shot through with poignant flashes of colour and subtle sfx. A beautiful haunting soundtrack accentuating the slow dreadful buildup to the inevitable climax. Go and see this.

Okay, so it’s not on the list and I won’t edit the list as this is not a movie I would have planned on seeing. But… It’s rather good. Witty, sharp satire with a few brilliant lines from the US president: “The situation in the Middle East is never going to be solved. Never Never Never Never Never NEVER Never Never Never ….. And I’m real sorry about that” as he shrugs to a global audience.

Lady Vengance is rather rather good. It’s a surprisingly different take on the theme to Old Boy. Where ‘hero’ of Old Boy was desperate and impulsive; the heroine here is deliberate and considered in her revenge. A terribly sad film and well worth seeing.

Capturing the Friedmans = great documentary.

It doesn’t give any answers. How can it? The memories of those involved are so contradictory and their testimonies so sincere and certain. It assumes enough intelligence on the part of the audience to be able to search for their own conclusions and opinions.

If possible, make time for the extras dvd; it added a great deal to the experience for me at least. Especially the Q&A at the premiere; where the people involved spoke about their perceptions of the movie and their own experiences.

Excellent piece of work.